October Faculty Meeting Follow-Up
YOU MAKE IT HAPPEN! I really appreciate the time and effort you put into our faculty meetings. Your insightful comments and positive feedback lets me know that we are discussing important issues. Keep it up. Below I've provided summary comments of issues we discussed at Wednesday's meeting as well as some news and notes that I promised. Happy reading!
ACTION ITEMS
1) Char began the meeting with three proposals relative to certificates and MSAS options in conflict.
- A motion was made to consider a new MSAS option in conflict management. Discussion centered around making this option distinct from the applied com option, for students not to substitute from one to the other, and staffing of the two new conflict courses. Motion passed unanimously.
- A motion was made to consider changes to the graduate certificate in conflict and dispute resolution. Discussion centered around two key changes: 1) addition of 1 course COM 611 and 6 hours of electives and 2) an increase in the credit hours being tied to a change of 1 to 3 hours of COM 695: Internship. Those changes move the certificate from 16 to 18 hours. Char and Isabelle will coordinate the supervision of those placements. Motion passed unanimously.
- A motion was made to reconsider the undergraduate certificate in conflict and dispute resolution. Discussion centered around issues associated with advisement of students into the certificate, optimal number of students we should admit, and double counting courses in certificate and the major and accelerated MA in COM. This discussion prompted the need to develop an advisement sheet for the certificate and a small committee to review applications and advise students. Motion passed unanimously.
2) Next we moved to discussion of changes to the Merit Plan suggested by Dean Adams. I reviewed the minor changes he requested and handed out an updated copy of the plan with those changes in bold. The one item needing discussion and possible change was the point values associated with teaching the MO/London and China programs. After a brief discussion about the original intent of assigning 20 points to each item, the faculty agreed to leave the points as they are. The reasons revolve around getting due credit for the innovation and preparation for teaching internationally while still requiring points from another area to qualify for a 4 or 5 and providing assistance for additional points in teaching where service and research points may be disadvantaged during the time away from campus. I will forward the decision to Dr. Adams.
DISCUSSION ITEMS
1) I passed around a sign up sheet for COM 100 faculty visits. Thanks to those who signed up. I'll need Deborah and Janis to sign up, so they can come by the office and do that with me. Next I announced the formation of a COM 499 revision committee who's work will involve making recommendations for improvement to the current portfolio requirements. Next, I reviewed some advising issues relative to filing the degree plan (back side of the green admission to the major sheet). It's important that you develop the plan collaboratively with your advisee. You need to review it closely before submitting it for approval. You should be checking for number of hours, pre-requisites, and all relevant coursework.
2) Finally, we spent some good discussion time on responses to Jim Applegate's site visit report. I had asked everyone to compose a few comments to the report and we shared them as a group. My plan was to get initial reactions during the meeting, but to have a more focused discussion at a subsequent meeting to flesh out specific ways we will respond in writing to the report. Thus, I have called another faculty meeting for Wednesday, October 24 at 3:00 in Craig 337. Please put that on your calendars. I'll have some drinks and snacks to keep us going! Here are a few of the issues we discussed.
Best ideas: we need to strategically focus on what our priorities will be, need to increase our recruitment efforts, the Basic Course is doing fine as is, our major numbers are okay and we should look for ways to increase minority recruitment, liked the idea of the culture of commitment, we need to incorporate our students in our research more strategically, the valuable role our instructors play
Issues to address/concern: we need university support to continue the work we do specifically related to the CDR and online programs. One mention was made of needing assistance with donor relations to facilitate the CDR's work.
The overall sentiment was that we've got a lot going on now and we need to strategically prioritize those key areas of success, while balancing our service obligations on campus and requesting university support where necessary. There was concern for how to do that, while also being sure everyone's work is valued and supported.
**So, your assignment for next week's meeting is to consider the areas we discussed (and those that weren't and are important to you) in order to identify a priority YOU can get behind during the discussion. For instance, if you liked the issues associated with recruitment, I'd like you to develop some ideas for how frame that issue. If instead, you were interested in identifying what our research priorities will be, you might develop some ideas there, etc. I'm thinking that we might divide into interest groups to delve further into those areas listed above. At the same time, as a whole group, we'll work to identify 3-4-5 areas of priority we will focus on in our report. We won't deal with specific action steps next week, just the bigger ideas. **
COLLEGE NEWS and OTHER NOTES
- A couple of announcements:
- The LPH induction ceremony will likely be November 28 at 2:00 in the PSU. Most everyone indicated they could attend at this time. And it was suggested I bring the COM 100 class to participate. I'll speak with Janis about that.
- November 1 is the deadline for you to complete the online health assessment to reduce your monthly health premium by $15. Go to the my information page on the website for that link.
- Just a quick note about watching use of transparencies as they are expensive.
- I will begin to include a link to the InCommon student blog for you to review at your convenience. I will do that in the email I send notifying you of a HeadsUp blog post.
- I've submitted our travel requests to the Dean's office and you've received a memo with your yearly allocation.
- I forwarded 3 major equipment request to the Dean's office. Those requests for the college have been prioritized and submitted to the Provost. We won't likely hear anything on that until early November. I requested additional DVD cameras for 115, 1 DVD duplicator for COM 115 speeches, and 2 sets of digital recorders and transcription equipment to support faculty research. The departments are now required to cover 10% of our total request and for us that's about $310. Not bad.
- Last month Char, Isabelle, and others submitted a Future's Initiative Proposal to support their Common Ground project. I'm happy to report that among all the college proposals, it ranked among the top 2 and has been forwarded to the Provost. That means the dean really supports it. The futures committee is currently reviewing all proposals.
- The Provost's office is also working hard to find creative ways to support external grants funded research projects. For instance, if you attended the all faculty luncheon in August, you saw that the top grant getters on campus received cash incentives from the Provost/President to the tune of $3,000-9,000. She has asked each college to brainstorm ways to support and incentivize external grant applicants and funding. Dean Adams is supportive of using college funds to provide grant writing support, cash incentives, and the like to encourage us to apply for and win grants externally. If you have an idea of how the college research coordinator (Carol Anne) can develop such incentives, DO drop her a line.
- As of October 31, the News-Leader will no longer be available for free on campus. I guess the financial sponsor of the program is pulling out.
- Thanks to the Provost’s Research Incentive Program and the Asian Arts and Letters Initiative of the College of Arts and Letters, the Student Research Grants for Asian Studies are now available to students at Missouri State University. To support students’ travel and research in Asia, undergraduate and graduate students at any college are encouraged to apply. The deadline will be February 1, 2008. For more information, please contact Weirong Yan, Asian Arts and Letters Coordinator. Reference:
http://coal.missouristate.edu/resources/StudentResearchGrantApplication.pdf
Again, thanks for your participation and attention.
Kelly