HeadsUp

Faculty Meeting Wrap Up

Good Monday to you. I hope you have a great first week of the semester. Please check your classrooms for necessary equipment (instructor table, overhead, lectern, etc.) and let us know if something is missing or if the room is in disarray.

Faculty Meeting Overview

Thank you for a very productive meeting last Friday. I think we made some good headway in getting a number of issues developed for this year. Thanks to John we have a rough draft of a leadership minor. I am meeting with Dean Adams tomorrow and will have him review this proposal and we'll move forward from there. We also have some great ideas ruminating about a writing test for admission to the major (among other writing ideas). The catalog copy was reviewed and we have a number of clean up items to attend to this fall. And finally, the discussion of speech and theatre led to some movement on course rotations and staffing of new courses.  Thanks to each of your groups for the effort and enthusiasm put forward.  We will continue to work on each of these topics, among others, as the semester goes on. I'll be in touch with a couple of members from each group to follow up on the ideas fowarded.

We also completed a number of elections for various committees this year. 

Merit Committee:  Randy Dillon (1 more year), Janis King and Char Berquist (2 year term)

COAL Scholarship Committee:  Lynn Borich

COAL Student Success Committee:  Jerri Lynn Kyle

QUICK NOTES

Merit Report:  I will work on the annual merit report form in the next couple of weeks. As soon as I get it done, I'll send it out for your review. We should have a brief discussion at the next faculty meeting to confirm the changes from last year and have an opportunity to make further amendments.

Next Faculty Meeting:  Wednesday, September 24, 3:-4:30, Craig 337

Colloquium:  Monday, September 8, 12-1pm, Craig 337: "Is There a Doctor in the House?"  Stephanie Norander and Heather Carmack 

THANKS to Gloria and Noah for hosting the beginning of the year party at their house Friday.  Great place, good food, and good company!

Additional Agenda Items not covered Friday

A.  Current class enrollments and major numbers.  I will provide these at the next faculty meeting in September.

B.  Departmental commitments/activities this year:
i.    Your requests for travel and equipment.  Please submit your anticipated travel requests for this year. I've put the travel request forms in your mailboxes this morning and attached it here as well.  You may also submit a request for additional equipment and that form is provided here.  Please have both those submitted to me before our next faculty meeting in September. I have to submit a budget request to the dean immediately after that.

ii.    Space issues:  Depending on how you look at it, our temporarily cramped quarters in Craig this year is either a good thing or bad thing. The good news is that we moved all the Siceluff occupants into Craig hall.  Additionally, we have welcomed two new faculty members into Craig hall.  While Siceluff is being renovated this year...we are admittedly very cramped.  That a number of you are sharing offices, in some cases 3 of you, is not the optimal situation for meeting with students nor having privacy to do your work. That is the bad news part of it.  I ask that you be patient with one another as you share office space. It is temporary.  The plans are to have Siceluff remodeled for a fall 2009 move in for the Language and English departments.  When Languages moves out, we will reconfigure their offices across three departments (COM, Media, and Theatre). Those discussions are happening this year.  Suffice it to say that I anticipate everyone having their own offices sometime during the 2009-2010 academic year.

iii.    Banner changes affecting registration, class enrollments, and major admissions.  These issues will be at the forefront this year as we will need to develop strategies for enrolling our students for fall 2009 classes when they don't meet pre-reqs related to admission to the major.  The new banner system will NOT allow students to register if they don't have pre-reqs. This is a significant change from our current web reg system. I will continue to work with Nicole Rovig on solutions to our admission pre-req and share those ideas with you at faculty meeting. 

iv.    If you want to have a wireless account through the university, we can get that started for you this fall. Currently we pay $5 per month, per faculty, per wired port in offices.  If you want to go wireless, it is a $5 additional monthly charge as well. In order to save on these costs, if you want a wireless account, we will de-activate your wired port. We will do your wireless set up first and get it established before we de-activate your wired port. Let me know via email if you want to do this. BTW, this does not apply to those already set up on wireless, obviously.

v.    Bulletin boards. Thanks to Susan's offer to provide the department with a PR intern (1 or 2 credits probably)  for the year, I will work with that person revamp, upgrade and maintain two of our current departmental bulletin boards this year (one in the first floor lobby and then the board to the right of the dept office, which currently has grad school brochures on it).  We will then utilize Jerri Lynn's PR class to revise the "School" bookcase to the left of the dept office.  If you have ideas of one of these boards/bookcases, let me know.

vi.    COM Week, Sept 15-19.  The theme this  year is "Get your Reality Check:  Making it in the real world with your communication degree."  I've attached the current draft flyer here for you to review and then share with your classes to attend. I will be putting this information in the student InCommon blog this week too.  We're still fine tuning the master classes, but the general ideas apply across them. Eric and I are working with Tom Black (alum) to give a keynote address at the luncheon on Friday and as we get that finalized (hopefully) we'll include that in promotional materials. I will also follow up with folks on the other possible master class presenters (from Noble and Penmack).

vii.    Debate Watch Oct 15 at the Gilloiz Theatre. I mentioned this at the faculty meeting.  As more details are ironed out, we'll share them with you. 

viii.    Rhwanda documentary and forgiveness in Com 405. Deborah Craig is taking a focus on forgiveness in her class this fall.  She is planning to screen Patrick Mureithi's documentary in her class as well as  (hopefully) invite him to speak with her class about the film.  This is a great opportunity for the COM 405 students.  As this opportunity develops, I'll have Deborah share her experiences at a faculty meeting. You can view a trailer for the film on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IUZSBGe2G4.  You also can read Patrick’s blog at http://patrickmureithi.blogspot.com/.

ix.    Will continue to use Head’s Up and InCommon blogs this semester...as you can read right now. 

That's it for now.  As other issues come across my desk this well, I'll send out brief emails.  Have a good week.

Kelly

Mid-Summer Updates

Good June/July to you,

Hope your summer is going well and that June was productive.  We've still got July and part of August to make progress on all our summer projects.  I keep telling myself that "there is still time!" so that I don't keep "lamenting" that the summer is almost over.  In keeping with that notion that there is still time, I've got a couple of items for your consideration.

1. For full-time faculty, your 2008-2009 salary statements are here and have been placed in your mailboxes!

2. GOOD NEWS: Stephanie Norander has successfully defended her dissertation as of June 24.  If you get a chance, do drop her a congratulatory email: snnorander@yahoo.com or sd829494@ohio.edu
MORE GOOD NEWS:  Russ Keeling again scored among the highest honors teaching evaluations for COM 115 last spring, according to Art Spisak.  Congrats to Russ for posting some of the highest evaluations in all honors courses for fall 2007 and spring 2008! 
**Russ will be inducted in the PSU Wall of Fame this October. The entire 2008 class of inductees will be honored during a special ceremony at 3:30 October 10 in the Plaster Student Union's West Ballroom. The event will be open to the public.  We should show up en masse to support Russ in this recognition of his service to MSU. Russ joins Holt Spicer, a 2002 inductee.

3. As you work on your syllabi for fall classes, please be sure to include the required boilerplate info from the Provost.  Here is the link the that information: http://www.missouristate.edu/provost/syllabi.htm

Also remember that if you are using Turnitin (the plagiarism detection system), we recommend that you inform students via the syllabus.  Suggested wording is as follows, and this could be included in the section on academic dishonesty:
“Students’ papers may be submitted to Turnitin, plagiarism detection system.  Students will be allowed to submit their own papers, and the instructor may also submit a student’s paper.  Please visit the Turnitin website at http://turnitin.com.”

4.August 22 is the date for our beginning of the year faculty retreat. 
  The CDR is hosting us in their downtown space this year.  Some of you may remember the old Bank of America building. It’s now called the PCOB (Park Central Office building) and the CDR is now located there and has some great space there for training and other programs. We have three dedicated classrooms for COM 115 there as well.
We will meet in PCOB, 2nd floor room 209 for a continental breakfast and tour. So, please schedule 8:30-4:00 for our retreat. As the summer progresses I’ll send you draft agenda items.   

5. A couple of items for your calendars:
• The COAL all college faculty meeting is set for Thursday, August 21, 9-11 a.m., in Karls 101.
• NCA panel information has now been posted for your review.  You are advised to register immediately for the conference, if you plan to attend. I would also recommend that you reserve your hotel space and start checking on flights as soon as possible. Hotel space is at a premium this year, so reserve early. You may contact Karen to reserve your hotel room centrally on our departmental budget.  Please keep in mind that your travel allocation will be roughly $750 from the dean, and likely another $350 from the department for a total of $1000 for one major conference this year.  I will be asking for your travel requests again at the first faculty meeting.

6. Two Upcoming Issues for consideration this year:

• Plus/minus grading approved at June Board of Governors Meeting

The plus/minus grading proposal passed by Faculty Senate (VD BOG Resolution Plus Minus Grading System.pdf) was approved by the BOG in June, specifically:
   
• This new grading system will be slated for implementation in Fall 2009 and should be included in syllabi statements. 
• The grade C- is defined as “slightly below satisfactory work” and is assigned a point value of 1.7. 
Two very practical implications of this:
• Students with a cumulative “C-“ average fall below the 2.0 threshold of academic
 eligibility.
• A course grade of C- will not satisfy course and program requirements to earn “a C or
better.” This means we will have to discuss how this affects our core and overall gpa requirements for admission.

Also important to note: Faculty have the choice of whether to use pluses and minuses or not, but your choices must be explicitly noted in course syllabi.

• There will be an appeals process created for students whose eligibility for scholarship
renewal is adversely affected by plus/minus grades.
• There will be a study of the impact of plus/minus grades after two years to determine any
effects on GPAs and scholastic honors at graduation (cum laude, etc.), the results to be
shared with both Faculty Senate and SGA

• SB389
Senate Bill 389 requires that state colleges and universities publish certain “quality” information, ncluding information about their faculties and student evaluations. Based on the preference of Faculty Senate, MSU is attempting to comply with the student evaluation requirement by having students voluntarily answer online five global questions for each of their classes.  However, out of over 4000 sections offered this spring, fewer than 1% of those sections had at least 10 student responses.  ALC has asked Senate Chair Pauline Nugent to approach the Senate Executive Committee about endorsing the idea of administering these five standardized questions as part of the written, in-class evaluations that students already complete.

Take care and we'll be in touch soon,

Kelly

Salutations, Congratulations, Nice One!

Greetings everyone,

Hope you are enjoying the early part of your summer break. Things are rockin' and rollin' here in Craig Hall. As many of you know, Siceluff is being vacated for renovations and the big move day was today. This move included our Basic Course Staff.  Thanks to those of you who boxed up all your belongings and marked them accordingly. With John B's able assistance and direction, we got all the furniture, journals, and random items marked and boxed up yesterday for the move today.  John's also been working hard these last couple of days to get the GA office in Craig 394 ready for the grad students this fall.  I appreciate all your patience as we make this transition. I'm sure it will take a few months to get everything where we want it (including my office...what a pit!).  Thanks also go to Karen for her great work in getting all the phone transferred as well as data ports and name plates for the offices. I'll send out another update later this summer when things get more organized.

The real reason for this email is to make some exciting announcements.  Please be sure to congratulate these folks on a job well done!

Isabelle has been named the COAL Dean's fellow for graduate education and research. Isabelle will be working with the dean's office next year to coordinate research efforts and graduate program initiatives, all with a one course release.  We know Isabelle will represent us well.

Randy #1:  has graciously agreed to be acting director of graduate studies next year while Isabelle has her new appointment. "Second time around" Randy, as we like to refer to him, has been grad director before and so he knows the ropes quite well. He'll be teaching COM 601 this fall and working with all things graduate students.

Randy #2: was recently notified that his manuscript "How alumni narratives of intercultural competence can inform the scholarship of teaching and learning of intercultural communication" has been accepted for publication in the Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. Congrats Randy!

Robyn has been appointed Assistant Director of the Basic Course!  She will be assisting John with administration of the COM 115 program. A few things she'll sink her teeth into are graduate assistantship mentoring, weekly staff meetings, and other duties as assigned.  I'm sure everyone will give their support to Robyn as she embarks on this administrative journey.

Dr. Russell Keeling, Emeritus faculty member has recently been approved by the Board of Governors to be accepted to the Wall of Fame in the Plaster Student Union.  He will be officially inducted at a ceremony October 10, 2008 at 3:30 in the PSU ballroom. I hope you will join me in attending the ceremony to support Russ for his "too many to count" accomplishments while a member of this university for 34 years.

Char and the fine folks at the CDR have recently announced the start of Missouri's first ever adult victim offender mediation program with the Greene County Prosecutor's office. You received an email about this earlier in May, but it bears repeating that this is a cutting edge program in restorative justice and our hats go off to Char and Heather and the rest of the many volunteers with the CDR!  They want me to remind you that there are trainings coming soon for this program.

FREE VOLUNTEER TRAINING May 30 - June 1, 2008

The CDR is offering a two-and-a-half day victim-offender mediation training on May 30 - June 1. This training will prepare volunteers to mediate juvenile and/or adult victim-offender cases. Click here for more information. <http://www.missouristate.edu/cdr/VictimOffenderMediationTraining.htm>

Basic Juvenile Victim-Offender Mediation Training (Friday, May 30, 5:30 - 9:30 p.m.; Saturday, May 31,  9 a.m. - 5 p.m.; Sunday, June 1, 9 a.m. - noon)

FOR MORE INFORMATION OR TO REGISTER

Click here to read more about the training <http://www.missouristate.edu/cdr/VictimOffenderMediationTraining.htm>  or to register now! http://www.missouristate.edu/cdr/VictimOffenderRegisterNow.htm. You can also read more about our Victim-Offender Mediation Program at http://www.missouristate.edu/cdr/JuvenileVictimOffenderProgram.htm

If you have other exciting news you'd like to share, please do by posting a COMMENT here on the blog for others to see and appreciate!   Have a great summer!

Kelly

Last Faculty Meeting Wrap-Up

We had a faculty meeting Wednesday, April 30. At the end of it we realized it was the last one of the year. Can you believe it...we've completed an entire academic year together.  So many accomplishments to recognize, so little time.  Here are a few highlights:

• Isabelle was promoted to Associate Professor (and now bearer of the gnome)  
• Eric was granted tenure and completed a record breaking debate season and now the "grand poobah"  
• Debate Team finished finished 3rd in the NDT and received two top speaker awards from NDT and CEDA
• The CDR staff secured the adult victim offender program through the Springfield Prosecutor's office
• Our undergrad and grad students presented an impressive number of conference papers this year (it's probably a record)
• Faculty completed a successful year of conference papers and publications.
• We hired two new excellent faculty members (Heather and Stephanie)
• The BC staff and graduate assistants return to Craig Hall and the CDR gets great space downtown

Faculty Meeting Highlights

1. Faculty recommended promotion criteria for senior instructor.  Eric moved the document be accepted, and Randy seconded.  Based on the attached document, the guidelines were unanimously approved. Attached COM Dept senior instructor guidelines-revised.doc are the guidelines we approved (with revisions) and these have been forwarded to the personnel committee and Dean Adams.  Both he and the Provost will review these guidelines and provide feedback to the department. At that time, the personnel committee will revise and then submit approved criteria to be included in the departmental guidelines.

2.  We also approved a number of changes to the merit plan. These changes will apply to the 2008 calendar year for merit. These revised guidelines are provided COM Merit 04_30_08.doc (these weremoved by Gloria, and seconded by Isabelle). The vote to approve these changes was unanimous).  To summarize, here are the following changes:

• Serving as a mentor to probationary faculty (5 points), or other faculty (3 points).
• Points for a 4 in teaching now 20, and 30 points for a level 5
• Points for a 4 in service now 15, and 25 points for level 5.
• While not included in the document, faculty were open to instructors moving some items from level 3 in service to achieve a level 4 or 5 in points.

3. Elections: our numbers were dwindling when time to elect for various committees. The university committees needed nominations, so a couple of you self nominated. I will forward those to the Provost. We needed to elect two new members of the merit committee. Randy is the returning member.  I will submit a ballot to you of tenured faculty. Please choose two and the top getters will be elected for 2 year term (tenured faculty cannot refuse a nomination).  Members may be re-elected to consecutive terms, but not more than two without the lapse of an intervening term.  I also need a volunteer to serve on the COAL technology committee next year and I will be soliciting potential candidates if no one volunteers.

4. Updates

Banner changes are provided for reference COM Undergraduate Banner changes.doc. Please review them, they will go forward as is unless you have a concern.

All Siceluff occupants should have items boxed up and ready to be moved by Monday, May 26. Please identify boxes and furniture in one of three ways. 1) to Craig Hall, room XXX, 2) warehoused to keep 3) surplus.  #2 means you want to keep the item but want to have it stored.  #3 means you don't want it.  All items will be moved from Siceluff to Craig during that last week of May. 

If you want a wireless access account through the university, please let me know so that I can set it up for you. We will be adding an additional access point on the 3rd floor of Craig on the northeast corner for better signal.

The COM advisory council met last weekend. If you would like a summary of the meeting and other notes, let me know and I'll forward you the email minutes. I'm going to be asking you next fall for new member referrals.  The council would like to grow to 25 members, currently we have 12.

That's all for now. Have a great rest of the semester and summer.

Kelly

In attendance:  Galanes, Bauman, King, Waters, Craig, Kyle, Ireland, Walters, Morris (E), Bourhis, Dillon, Coltharp, Dudash.

April 16 meeting follow-up

Thanks everyone for a productive meeting Wednesday. I apologize for not getting this follow up sooner, Thursday filled up for me. 

Below is a brief summary of the discussion we had about program review, followed by the remaining faculty meeting agenda items. PLEASE review this entire post because there are items that were not discussed at the faculty meeting that I want everyone to be aware of. One particular item of note: the next Faculty Meeting has been rescheduled to Wednesday, April 30 at 2:00.

Program Review Discussion

We asked the dean and provost to visit with us at Wednesday to respond to our program review.  With respect to the dean's response, I'm attaching the written response Carey provided me right before the faculty meeting. It is his "formal" written responseDean_program_review_response_COM_2008.docx .   He has committed to funding the CDR  position fully next year, which means we are "relieved" of our 1/2 salary committment. However, as he indicated in the meeting, permanent funding is not yet a possibilty. He DID say that he is committed to funding it year to year until something does shake lose.   It's clear from him comments, to me at least, that he and I have yet to come to an agreement about how to proceed with the CDR position beyond next year. I thought that when we offered to leverage the 3 year salary savings that he would find a permanent position. So, I'll discuss this further with him next Tuesday. 

The Provost's comments were more general. She's not put herself in a position to attach any money to programs based on their reviews at this time. She has gone through a bit of a change with how she's approaching the process and outcomes of program review. She has said repeatedly that we put together a fine program review, and that we're one of the strongest departments in the college. And as we accumulate more years from this first program review and we continue to make progress towards our self-selected goals, we approach the dean for support of our initiatives.  The support for program reviews and their outcomes is now college bound.  She was also very direct in saying that while we have the "civic engagement" aspect of public affairs nailed down, she challenged us to look at ways to develop ethical leadership or cultural competence more fully. These are the three elements she has articulated as embodying public affairs. There are public affairs grants, curriculum grants, and other RFPs that we can tap into for resources to support any of these endeavors. In the end, she ended up agreeing to some extent with Carey that while there are more pressing needs of the college for overall staffing, and despite our priority being the CDR, we may have to live with the decision that "not this year, but maybe next year while we address more accute needs in the college."

After that Gloria asked a follow up question about the CDR position being not permanently funded and the problems associated with year to year funding. Other questions were posed relative to the link of merit to T&P, senior instructor rank, and overall impression of how merit plans and implementation went this year.  Regarding merit, Carey reported being relatively happy with how the process went in COAL. Belinda is less positive about the overall compensation plan, saying that it's the most complex process she's ever seen. She believes there are other simpler models that departments can explore and she's supportive of that flexibility as long as criteria are rigorous and justifiable.

I would appreciate any comments, questions or follow up concerns you have on the basis of the facuty meeting or anything I've outlined above.

Other Agenda Items from Faculty Meeting

• Heather Carmack successfully defended her dissertation on Monday!  It would be great if you emailed her a quick note of congratulations. Her email is hc200403@ohio.edu
• Allison Coltharp spoke about her trip to China. She indicated that any faculty member who wanted to do a teaching workshop from the MSU faculty they could be supported in their travel. Allison can get you in touch with those who plan such trips.  The current instructor there, Chuck Eastman, is leaving after this year and they are looking for a replacement. If you know of a recent MA grad who would do well teaching public speaking at the Dalian campus, let Allison know. She can pass that info along as well.
• Senior Instructor Criteria being developed. Thanks to our instructors, we are starting to develop criteria for the promotion to senior instructor. After the faculty meeting, we had an ad hoc college committee meeting to review criteria coming from the departments. There was an interesting issue that came up relative to whether a specific merit composite score (teaching + service) should be identified in order to apply for promotion. This was debated and it was agreed that individual depts should develop that criteria but that the college would not specify that.  Based on feedback we received on COM's plan (from dean, the personnel committee, and the dean), I will work with the instructors to fine tune our criteria. We will forward that to all faculty for your review prior to our final faculty meeting. It is expected that a set of criteria are in place in each dept by the end of the semester.
• I provided a call for applicants for an Assistant Basic Course Director. Applications are due by May 5. If you have any questions, check with John. We plan to have this position filled by the end of the semester. 

OF NOTE: I have scheduled a meeting of the COM departmental advisory committee for next weekend, April 24 and 25.  There is an informal dinner Friday night, hosted by Don and Vicki Stanton for the members and they've also invited the debate team to celebrate their spectacular season.  Saturday is the working meeting.  My goal is to develop membership criteria, discuss areas of the department in need of funding/support, identify ways to increase membership, and brainstorm strategies for encouraging more alums to be involved in the department. As soon as I get the agenda finalized this weekend, I will forward it to you as an FYI.  I want to thank Char, Heather, and Eric in advance for agreeing to visit with the council on Saturday. I am highlighting their programs basedon recent successes.  Current members of the council are John Ashford, Jim Anderson. Debbie Branson, Jackson Harrell, Lynn Harter, Melinda Arnold, Jill Pace, Matt Sellmeyer, Dayna Stock, and Scott Titsworth.

REMINDER: Next faculty meeting is Wednesday, April 30 at 2:00 in Craig hall 337. Items will include review of all banner changes agreed to so far, discussion of the merit system (tweaks we can make this year as well as envisioning other plans for 2009), a few committee elections, and summary of dept conditions survey discussion. I think there is something else, but I can't recall it now. I will email you as there are additional items.

CONGRATS 

• Congrats to Kelly Tenzek who finished 4th in the second round of oral presentations at last weekend's Graduate Interdisciplinary Forum. 
• Congrats to Katie Striley who won the Graduate Teaching Assistant award at the IDF.
• And, special recognition to Kristin Kirchoff and Lindsey Harness who were nominated for the teaching award as well!

That's all for now.

Kelly

April 16 Faculty Meeting Agenda

In preparation for Wednesday's faculty meeting, below is the agenda.  I want to stress a couple things about this meeting.  First, we've invited the Provost and Dean to meet with us to discuss their goals and plans relative to program review. We have recently committed one position in the department to fund the CDR associate director as our main priority. This is tied to our priorities that evolved out of program review.  Among other commitments we've made internally as a department (faculty research, debate, basic course), tomorrow is an opportunity to ask both the Provost and Dean to articulate their responses to our very positive program review. I will make a few introductory remarks at the beginning of our meeting in order to set the stage for them to respond. Beyond program review, this is our opportunity to ask questions of the Provost on other issues of interest to you. 
 
Second, we've got a couple of additional items to attend to after the Provost and Dean are done. If you have other items for discussion or questions to pose to the group, let me know before the meeting and we'll add them to the agenda.

1.  Welcome:
    Dr. Belinda McCarthy, Provost
    Dr. Carey Adams, Dean, COAL

2.  Allison Coltharp – Visit to China report

3.  Senior Instructor Criteria process

4.  Updates – Congratulations

    May 7 is Showcase, need to change faculty meeting date: 
        April 30 or May 14

    Kelly Tenzek – finished 4th in oral presentations at IDF
    Katie Striley – received Graduate Teaching Award at IDF
   
    Banner changes confirmation of changes
    Graduate faculty needs to meet and recommend all course changes

 

Kelly
 

Welcome Back Spring Breakers

Hope you had an enjoyable spring holiday break. I know a couple of you were in and out of the office, while others remained far away.  We are in the home stretch now for the end of the semester. I told the students in the InCommon blog that there's still time left in the semester to get things done.   Here we go:

Debate Squad SCORES BIG--and the hits just keep coming!

Our debate team is currently at the National Debate Tournament.  Here are some preliminary results:

Martin Osborn won top speaker at the 2008 NDT (and last week top speaker at CEDA)!  Applause lasted about 5 minutes. Congrats!  Michael Mapes 17th Speaker.

Octofinals began this morning and we await the results. Eric reports that this is the first time in as long as he can recall that we had TWO teams into the octifinals.  UPDATE: One team lost in octofinals and one is through to the quarter finals (like elite 8).

Faculty Meeting Wrap Up

Banner changes approved at the faculty meeting. There is still time for additional changes or modification, those need to be forwarded to Randy before May.

Faculty Senate elections were completed.

Department Conditions Survey discussion. I've attached a short summary of this discussion here Dept conditions summary.doc.  Please review it and provide comments. As I mentioned at the end of the faculty meeting, I want this to be a living document. Please provide your comments and I will include them.  By the end of the semester, I have to provide a summary document to the faculty senate outlining our discussion and the outcome thereof. 

Program Review Followup:  I have gotten some clarification from Dean Adams about how the program review response is to proceed next. He indicated that it's his responsibility to provide a written response to the department regarding the program review.  I have invited Dr. Belinda McCarthy to attend our April 16 faculty meeting at 2:00 and she has accepted.  As a result of our faculty meeting discussion it was decided that we should invite Dr. McCarthy in order to discuss program review.  Now that we know she won't be providing the written response, it is still an opportunity to ask her to comment on her thoughts of the process and how she imagines that resources will be provided to departments who receive positive reviews.

Getting ready for pre-registration

I have posted on the InCommon blog for students to make appointments for advising WELL in advance of their registration window.  Pre-registration begins April 4 for seniors and grad students.

Dr. Lynn Harter guest visit week of April 22

Details to come on this, but Lynn Harter is going to do a guest lecture while here part of that week as well as visit with a graduate class or two.  Please notify your graduate students about this visit, especially for those interested in qualitative methods and health com generally.  I think Lynn will arrive on Wednesday of that week and stay through the weekend. 

Advisory Council Meeting planned for April 25-26. 

Details on this to come later as well.  I am plannng it currently for Friday dinner and then Saturday business meeting beginning in the morning. 

Position Requests forwarded to the college. 

Each year the department heads submit position requests to the college in order to identify what positions and how many we can search for in any given year.  Based on program review and discussions with the administrative team, I forwarded the following position requests in order of priority.

1. Permanent funding for Associate Director of the Center for Dispute Resolution. 

2. A three year temporary Instructor to assist the Debate Team. This would involve teaching 3 sections of public speaking per semester, with 1 course reassigned to assist the debate squad.  This position will be using my faculty line (which I negotiated to keep during my three years as head).

At the department head's meeting last week, the Dean announced that he would support the 3 year Instructor position for the debate team. The Associate Director position is on hold for coming year and it will continue to be supported again with money from the department and college. I am meeting with Dean Adams to discuss his plans for this position for FY10.

Kelly

Before Spring Break--Faculty Meeting Prep and Important Announcements

I'm sure everyone is excited to get spring break going next week!  What fun and exciting activities do you have planned??  Before we head off in all different directions, we've got an important faculty meeting this coming Wednesday, March 19 at 2:00. I'm attaching the minutes from the last faculty meeting Minutes-doc022008.doc for your review. 

You have a memo in your box detailing these items 3_19_08 meeting memo.doc, but I've summarized them for you here:  At our faculty meeting, we’ve got three tasks. First, we will discuss the curriculum issues surrounding Banner implementation. You received an email from me with an attachment that outlines a number of the undergraduate changes we might implement.  Please review this list and provide feedback to Randy before the meeting.  We should know by next week how these changes will be implemented, and we will vote on recommended changes. Second, we will have a number of elections for positions and committees relating to faculty senate.

Third, we will be discussing the results of the department conditions survey that was completed last December. In your box is a copy of the actual survey results for our department (N=13 responses) by item, with themes noted. What you should notice first among the results is that the majority of our collective responses are at or above the MSU and College means! That is indicative of an overall positive climate within the department.  I’ve also provided a quick summary sheet Department Conditions Survey.doc of some items where we were far above the university and college means as well as items where there may be room for improvement.  Please review these documents in advance of the faculty meeting.

 
Other Announcements

1.  Please plan to attend and send your students to this year's Public Affairs Conference, April 15-18.  This year's theme is Seeking Solutions: Conflict, Violence and the Courage to Change.  Check out the website for specific panels, key note addresses, and attendees.  Dianne Strickland, Professor of Art has organized a fabulous conference this year with with panels and topics that have wide-ranging appeal.  Have you ever thought about how video games glorify violent behavior as the only viable course of action?  Is violence a part of human nature?   Why do we have monuments to wars?  These are some of the questions posed at this year's conference.

 
2.  Congratulations to Katie Striley who is the recipient of this year's CCSA Pamela Cooper Award!  The Cooper Award is named after former CSCA President Pamela J. Cooper and is presented to one M.A. level graduate teaching assistant and one Ph.D. level graduate teaching assistant. At the annual convention, the recipients receive a $50 cash award and a certificate.

In addition to a recognition dinner at the conference for the Cooper award, Katie is also receiving the award for the top rhetoric paper at the conference:
Striley, K. M. (2008).  Fear and loathing in the White House: A fantasy theme analysis of conservative web-based public relations.  Paper to be presented at the Central States Communication Association annual meeting.

In addition to these achievements, Katie is participating on three other panels!  CONGRATS Katie!
 

3.  Congrats to the group of graduate and undergraduate students who presented at Oklahoma Sooner's conference last weekend. Isabelle witnessed some great presentations by our students.  A couple of notables:  Mallory Nolan won a top undergraduate paper and Lindsey Harness won a top graduate paper award.  Congrats to everyone who presented!

 
4. Calendar Reminder:  Monday, April 14, 3:00, Communication Honors Ceremony, PSU 400.  We will award our COM scholarships, recognize the debate team results of NDT and have the LPH induction ceremony.

Have a great weekend.

Kelly
 

Congrats, Scholarships, and Updates

CONGRATULATIONS TO:

Russ Keeling is to be commended for his superior performance in teaching two sections of COM 115 last semester.  Russ' overall mean scores on the Faculty Evaluation administered through the Honors College were 1.05 and 1.08, which are in the top quartile for the fifty-eight Honors College professors who taught for us last Fall semester. Such a score is especially remarkable since Honors College professors are as a rule a highly capable group – e.g., the composite mean for the entire group was 1.33 (with 1 as the best and 5 as the lowest score).  We are honored to have Russ continue his excellent teaching career in our honors courses. Thanks Russ.

Ryan Childress has been chosen as the Student Governor of Missouri State’s Board of Governors. This is indeed an honor for Ryan and for the department of communication. Ryan is a Public Relations Major and has a double minor in Public Law and Technical Writing.  If you see him or have him in class, please pass along your congratulations.

Meredith Cantrell, for those of you who remember her,  she received her undergrad in 2003 and completed her MA in Health Communication at Purdue University in 2005.  She recently accepted at position with the Kansas regional office of the National Cancer Institutes, Cancer Information Service. This is a huge accomplishment for her, and it speaks to her training in health com both here and at Purdue. 

CALENDAR ITEMS

I just posted to the InCommon blog reminding our graduate and undergraduate students that scholarship applications are due in the office March 15.  I advised them to speak with you if they have questions about a scholarship, so I wanted to give you the head’s up about that. 

Relatedly, the Annual Honors Ceremony will be held this year Monday, April 14 at 2:30 in the PSU. We will announce scholarship recipients at this time as well as LPH having their induction ceremony. Please put this on your calendars!


COMING SOON

Faculty meeting, Wednesday, March 19 at 2:00.
 

February Faculty Meeting and other items of interest

So we had to cut short our faculty meeting today, I'm sure you were crushed. Actually, we were only about 10 minutes from being done anyhow.  For those of you following along in your hymnals, we got through the Agenda (2_20_08.doc) items 1, 2, and 3.  We discussed the impact of the new Banner registration system impact on our course pre-requisites and numbers. We will follow up on those in the graduate faculty and with Randy will help us manage the undergrad courses. I plan to have specific items for vote/discussion for us to address at the March faculty meeting. I asked for everyone to share with me any student awards, presentations, etc, that were made last year with me via email. Please consider both graduate and undergraduate students in this request so I can include them both in my department annual report.

So, I want to follow up on the remaining items.  I will also be posting minutes from the meeting later this week.

1. FOR YOUR PLANNING Campus Interview, Feb 27-29.
   •    Research Presentation, Thursday at 3:15.
   •    There are MANY opportunities to interact beyond the presentation, so please seek those out!
   •    Stephanie Norander Itinerary.docItinerary is attached and the candidate file should be in the office soon
   
   Ms. Stephanie Norander, ABD, Ohio University
   Research in two related areas:  organizing for social change across cultural, national and gendered boundaries, and organizational identitites. Dissertation title: Organizing for peace: Women’s cooperative networks in post-conflict regions. Teaching interest org com, conflict, intercultural, qualitative methods, and gender and communication.
    
2. Departmental Scholarships are now available for students to apply. Applications are due March 15.  Info was sent to all majors/minors in blog. Please encourage your students to apply!  This applies to graduate and undergraduate students.
3. I strongly encourage you to attend the Friday Provost Open Forum at 3:00 in PSU 400. This is "an open forum, to discuss issues of concern and ideas (big and small) about how we can all best lead and nurture our campus community."  You can ask questions about anything, including issues such as Banner or even concerns with Merit. 
4. Then next Tuesday is Dean Adams', Arts and Letters College-wide meeting. Tuesday, Feb 26 at 4:00 in Hill 002.  This is yet an opportunity to ask questions of the dean, and the Provost is making an appearance there as well.  They are very interested in getting feedback on the various initiatives college and university wide. I'll be here, and hope to see you as well.

OTHER ITEMS OF NOTE:

Advisor Forums

Thursday, February 21, “Advising for Student Success: Ideas and Strategies.”  Pat Juncos, Rebecca Woodard and Kathy Davis. The session will be in PSU 315 from 12 to 1 p.m.

Friday, February 29, Mike Frizell, George Connor and Jim Moyer will address “I’m having trouble in your class…How instructors can assist students who struggle.” This panel will be in PSU 313, the Traywick Parliamentary room.

Please, encourage your freshmen and senior students to complete the NSSE survey, if selected. NSSE stands for National Survey of Student Engagement. This self report survey collects levels of reported engagement by students at both the first and last years and these data are important in development student success initiatives as well as feeding back data to departments on how they are doing in engaging students academically. So, we want as many COM students as we can who have been selected to actually fill out the survey.   A random sample of these students has been selected (2500 of each class) with up to 5 emails sent inviting them to complete the survey.

Interested in Service-Learning scholarship? There is a luncheon and speaker event hosted by the CASL office, Thursday, Feb 28 at 12:30 in the PSU 308. Please RSVP at 836-5774.  For more information, contact their office.

Kelly
 

Playing Catch Up

Hey everyone, 

These last couple of weeks have been busy with candidate interviews and deadlines for just about everything.  This week's HeadsUp includes a number of catch up items, news you can use, and "to do" items for this week.

1. I'm going to be out of town this week.  John Bourhis will be covering for me while I'm gone, but don't ask him for money--although he'll want to give it to you.   Janis King will be reviewing all degree applications but not signing then. So, please instruct your students that any degree applications, waivers, substitutions, etc. will not be processed until next week.  I would recommend students get their minor approved this week while waiting for my signature next week.  Thanks to John and Janis for helping me out.

 2.  Reminder, you will need to set up an appointment with me starting the middle of next week for our annual meetings.  Please complete the form I provided last week with the memo. I'll be sending you individual forms with your information via email today. You can complete it and send it to me electronically before our meeting or you can provide me with your form handwritten when we meet.   Whatever method, please have that workload request form completed when we meet.

3. You should have received an email about the IDEA administrator's assessment survey last week (with reminders this week via email too). It's an electronic version administered through K-State's IDEA program. PLEASE complete the online survey by 2/15/2008.  You should have received two, one for evaluating the department head and one for the dean. Please complete both!

4. I've updated the Craig Lobby Dept Bulletin Board with a tip of the month regarding career preparation opportunities.  I would like you to nominate a student to highlight for this month. Please send me those nominations quickly so I can get a picture and put some information there.  If you'd like to nominate a faculty member or staff, please do that as well.

5. I'm attaching the minutes from last week's faculty meeting Minutes for January 23.doc. Thanks to Deborah Craig for succinctly capturing the events and decisions of the meeting.

6. At the faculty meeting, I put out a request for any additional conferences you'd like to attend this semester. Those requests were due Jan. 31. I will entertain any additional items until Feb 8.  Use the travel request form from Karen.

7.  We've made an offer to Heather Carmack, and she's unofficially accepted it (the contract is in process right now)! She's excited about joining us and even turned down other interviews in order to accept our offer! You might send her a quick email congratulating her.  Her email is hc200403@ohio.edu
Information about the second faculty position to come later. The search committee is reviewing feedback. Please submit any feedback you can from Andrew's interview last week. 

That's it for now.  See you next week. 

The Start of Another Spring Semester

Ahh, it's that time again; new students, new classes-old classes, new routines, new deadlines, and new resolutions. I usually don't make New Year's resolutions, but if I had to pick something I wanted to do new this year it would be that "to slow down" a bit--smell the roses.  Sometimes we get so wrapped up in our own schedules and routines that it is hard to take time out to have lunch with old friends, meet new people, and rejuvenate ourselves.  We should make time to visit with each other, find out what's going on, and be able to reconnect. I say that, and yet our calendars and deadlines suggest something different altogether.

To start off the semester, we should celebrate.  Liz completed her dissertation last year and we are having a small gathering for her next week (see my email from 1/16/08 about this).  Two of our instructors completed Master Advisor Training during the break and I'll reveal those at the faculty meeting.   Our debate teams placed well in California tournaments.  And, I'm sure a number of you attempted some writing over the break and met some personal goals with your research.  We'll start off our faculty meeting next week recognizing our accomplishments.

Lots to see here, so if you are pressed for time, skip to Preparation for Faculty Meeting. 

UPDATES:

• During the break, our updated departmental webpage went live.  Angela Barker moved our page format to webpress and its now inline with the university standard. While you may like that format, we now have a more reliable and fast way to get items added to the webpage than before. So I'd like you to visit the department webpage and provide me with feedback on what you like and what you'd recommend we change.  Go to: http://communication.missouristate.edu/

• The search committee for our two assistant professor positions has ranked all applicants and submitted a recommendation for interviews to the dean for approval. Look for on campus interviews beginning next week!.  As I get itineraries set, I'll send them out. 

• Debate Team:
  

Since the end of last semester, here's where they've been:

Big Picture (a la Eric's verbiage):
Martin Osborn / Clayton Webb are generally viewed as a “sure fire” 1st round bid based on quarters at Kentucky & Harvard (in the fall) and number head-to-head win.

Michael Mapes / Meggie Mapes are bubble teams for a 1st round. They haven’t gotten past octos, and don’t have enough head to head wins, but have cleared everywhere (and many bubble teams missed at Harvard).

Jessica Johnson / Jordan Foley are trying to be one of the top 6 “C” teams nationwide, as no more than 6 schools can qualify a 3rd team. We never have. Right now they are on the bubble, probably in the 5-8 range. They typically clear regionally, but haven’t done so nationally. Best national performance was 5-3 at Wake.
 

• Sign up for Lunch with the Dean:

Please sign up for one of the weekly FREE Lunches with the Dean.  Beginning January 23 and concluding on May 5 the dean be hosting a table at the Union Club once a week for informal conversation and ideas exchange.  To sign up, go to: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=nq3duOD8PXbhrYgFR2eVWw_3d_3d and indicate your preferred dates.  Soon after, the office will be in touch to confirm your lunch date.
 

• The Revolution that is IDS 110: 

Excerpted from the dean's blog: Be a Part of the "Freshman Experience"

"Some significant changes are afoot for the university's efforts with first-year students.  Among these changes is a redesign of the freshman course, IDS 110/UHC 110.  While a comprehensive review of the course is underway right now, intermediate plans for 2008-09 are to loosen many of the restrictions on how the course is taught and give instructors more flexibility in tailoring the course to their own expertise and interests.  The approach for IDS 110 will be more like what we have seen in UHC 110, where teachers identify a topic/theme for their class and the class has more of an academic discussion atmosphere.

I (Carey Adams) will be teaching IDS 110 this fall, and I hope many of you will join me.  I very much would like to involve as many COAL faculty and staff who are interested in discussions about how we might approach IDS 110 from the liberal arts perspective of our college.  Soon you will be seeing information about how to apply to teach IDS 110/UHC 110.  When you do I hope you will do two things: (1) give serious thought to signing up for the fall, and (2) drop me an email so that I can put you on my list of people to invite to our discussion.  Even if you don't want to teach IDS 110 this fall, but you are interested in how the college could shape a really fantastic freshman course, I would love to have your input."

FACULTY MEETING PREPARATION: Wednesday, January 23, 2:00*, Craig 337 (*remember a new time this semester)

1. I've asked Janis King to give us an update on the suggested changes to COM 499 that the committee worked on last semester. I've attached the memo here com499requirements.doc and will have copies for you on Wednesday.  Please review it in advance so that we can have a discussion about these revisions and possibly others that you might suggest.
2. I need faculty interest/bios from a few of you for updating the faculty/staff pages of the homepage. So, if you see your name below, I'd like you to work up a short paragraph description of your teaching/research interests and any other information you'd like to put out there on your page. Please have this emailed to me by the faculty meeting Wednesday. I'd like to get that to Angela to upload by Thursday.  Allison, Liz, Gloria, Jerri Lynn, Eric, Robyn, Heather, Susan (only need degree dates)
3.  I'd like us also to talk about some issues related to the budget. I'll share with you some opportunities for additional travel this semester and wireless access availability, as well as NCA membership options.  Ohhh, doesn't that sound interesting! 
4. We'll begin a discussion about some debate scholarship requirements and related COM minor questions.  Eric will help begin this discussion. No vote will be taken, but a conversation started.
5. Randy has agreed to take on internships for summer and fall this year. In advance of this, I'd like use to have a conversation about how we would like to revise or update the internship process.  This will be a starter discussion and we'll add on as we go this semester.

Welcome 2008!

What a great, long holiday break!  Even I had 10 days off!  Seems like the university was closed for an extra long time this year, but who's complaining, right? This HeadsUp is all about calendar items for you for this semester.   I've included faculty meeting dates, colloquium dates, and other FYI and update items of interest to you.  Get those calendars handy.

Faculty meetings will again be on Wednesdays this semester. However, please note that we'll be meeting an hour earlier, 2:00-3:30. We'll be in Craig 337.

Faculty Meetings, Spring 2008, 2-3:30pm

• Wed, January 23
• Wed, February 20
• Wed, March 19
• Wed, April 16
• Wed, May 7
  

Colloquium dates for Spring 2008, 12-1pm, Mondays, Craig 337

• February 11
• February 25 
• March 10
• March 31
• April 14
• April 28

Also, the search committee for the two assistant professor positions is in the process of narrowing down the field for interview finalists.  Plan for on campus interviews in late January and early February.

Updates

1.  The Modern and Classical Languages Department is offering a free introductory Chinese course to the MSU faculty and staff during the spring 2008.  This past semester for the first time we offered a free introductory Spanish course.  Due to the overwhelmingly positive response to this offering, we decided to make available a similarly formatted introductory Chinese course.  Beginning January 23, the course will meet each Wednesday at 5:00 p.m. for approximately one hour until the end of the semester. 

This course, which will be taught in a relaxed atmosphere, is open to anyone interested in learning the Chinese language.
Dates:    January 23 to May 7, 2008
Time:      5 to 6 p.m.
Place:     Craig Hall 321
Phone:   417-836-4896 to RSVP by 1/23/08
Email: miriamburlison@missouristate.edu  

2.  Lynn Borich continues to recover but I encourage you to email her and check in to say hi.  Here's an excerpt from an email from her last week:

"I am improved but not as improved as I would like.  Out of 24 hours a day, I still spend about 16 to 17 hours on my back.  The medical treatment here for orthopedic problems is probably where we were in th 1970s.  Imagine that I was told to stay in bed without any exercise, physical therapy, etc. for 12 weeks.  After less than 2 weeks I became so weak that I began to exercise in and out of bed as much as I could tolerate and began making some progress.  I still can't walk far or for long because my sacrum keeps shifting and moving like it goes in and out of place...not a pleasant feeling I must say.  I had some acupuncture today and will do that for three days consecutively (or every other day for 3 days as we have final exams this weekend to give)  I have contacted a couple doctors in Springfield and will send all my pictures(MRI, CT and X rays) as soon as I hear back from them. I've had to be proactive because the doctor I had at the hospital has been of little help and the language barrier -- even with translators is impossible to get through.
 
  I ended up having substitutes finish out my semester. I was able to have Michael take one of my classes ( so the university here would continue to pay me).  I will be helping administer their final exam (an oral) on Saturday am. as they will come to our apartment. Exams end January 17 here. 
 
  This has been a frustrating semester but that's okay because I have learned more than I knew before about this enigmatic country.  Just good stuff for my blog when I can sit a bit longer to write. "

3.  Alumni News - Pam Anderson '95

 NEWS RELEASE from 1/3/07:  Missouri State Alum, Pamela Anderson, receives CenturyTel’s top company award for outstanding service

Each year CenturyTel recognizes employees who go above and beyond to provide outstanding service to their customers. The company’s Outstanding Service Provider (OSP) awards were recently announced and Missouri State University alum, Pamela Anderson, was among the 35 recipients.

Public Relations Manager for South Missouri, Pamela Anderson, was selected from more than 550 nominations submitted by employees all over the country.

The OSP program is CenturyTel's Companywide internal recognition program. Each year employees are asked to identify co-workers who go above and beyond to provide superior service to the people they interact with. Though the company employs nearly 6,500 in 25 states, only 35 are selected for this prestigious award. Pamela received numerous nominations based on her commitment to serving her customers.

She joined the other recipients for a three-day visit to the company’s Corporate Headquarters in Monroe, La. where they enjoyed tours of the company’s facilities and got a chance to talk to CenturyTel’s executive team about issues they face while trying to provide the best service possible to their customers.

Pamela graduated from Missouri State University in 1995 with a bachelor’s in marketing, and in 1997 with a master’s in communications.

CenturyTel (NYSE:CTL) is a leading provider of communications, high speed Internet and entertainment services in small-to-mid-size cities through our broadband and fiber transport networks. Included in the S&P 500 Index, CenturyTel delivers advanced communications with a personal touch to customers in 25 states. Visit us at www.centurytel.com.

That's about it for now. I'm sure something else will come up and I'll need to send you updates.  Have a great semester and see you soon!
 
Kelly 

Our future is being created!

The word that comes to mind after our faculty meeting Wednesday is WOW. Your thoughtful contributions regarding our response to the external review speak volumes about what we value and want to spend our time doing in the next couple of years. You were honest in your comments and your concerns, while also being positive about what we're committing to. You amaze me every time we get together and talk about the future of our department. We craft the document further each time we  meet and have culled the critical elements that are most meaningful and reasonable to us as a department.  I'm excited about forwarding this document to the Dean and Provost. Thank you.

IMPORTANT NOTE: I want to be sure that everyone's voices are heard. Some of you weren't able to be at the meeting, some left early, and some may not have provided their comments at all for whatever reason.  So, please forward me any ideas you have to share and I will work to include those.  This is YOUR document, your department, and your future, so you need to have a say in what is being forwarded. You may email me those, post them on the blog, or provide them in writing to me in the document directly

Minutes from the faculty meeting were forwarded to you in an email on 12/7/07.

Next steps
I have received some feedback from Dean Adams on the draft you got in advance of the faculty meeting. He's provided most editorial and wording suggestions. I met with him Friday Dec. 7 and shared with him the changes we agreed to Wednesday.  We discussed some additional ways to craft the priority areas of change. I will incorporate those in the revision and highlight them for you to see.  He is willing to review the next version still in advance of our Dec 17 deadline.

Additional News

Merit Applications and Annual Meetings

I plan to have your merit forms delivered via email by early next week.  These are due January 9 via email back to me.  I will also be emailing you over break with information about our annual review/workload negotiation meeting.  These meetings between faculty and the dept head previously took place in May.  Among other changes, the Provost has moved these meetings to January-February.  At this meeting we will discuss the the work you will be doing in 2008 as well as what you intend to do in 2009.  At that time you will also submit your request for teaching assignments and reassigned time (as relevant).  ALL faculty will complete these meetings.  Reviews are now ANNUAL for all faculty, no matter what rank or tenure status. More information will be provided before you come back to campus.

From COALbin
As the colleges have assumed control of their per course, online, and intersession budgets, discussions are occurring about how to prioritize program completion needs along with faculty interests in offering certain courses. In particular, because intersession courses have the potential to pay faculty additional money beyond a percentage of base salary based on enrollment, these types of courses are fairly costly for the college. In addition, how much a particular course will cost is unpredictable because enrollments fluctuate up to the day the course begins.  In order to develop some criteria for how many and which courses to offer as a college, the dean has put a moratorium on new proposals for the August 2008 and the January 2009 intersessions. That means, no intersession proposals nor courses will be offered during those terms by the college. Other colleges may or may not take this action, so this affects only COAL courses. This is important in two ways: you need to know this for proposals you may have been considering AND you need to tell your advisees about this as they plan for fall 08 an spring 09.

Faculty Development Opportunities

The ADC (academic development center) has recently announced a number of upcoming development opportunity for faculty. 

• 19th Showcase on Teaching and Learning is Wednesday, January 9, 2008 beginning at 8:00 in the atrium of Strong Hall.  You should reserve your spot, especially for lunch by going to the reservation page:  http://adc.missouristate.edu  There are a number of very interesting session topics such as:

    Scholarship in the community, Graduate Student Recruitment, Integrating research and teaching, Best practices in online education...and many more

• Go to the ADC website for other opportunities in the spring semester. Seminar topics in the spring include teaching large lecture courses, peer review, doing the scholarship of teaching and learning, professional development, and more.

Search Update 

The search committee (Kelly, John, Char, Isabelle) have reviewed the applications for the two assistant professor positions and are completing the tiering process. We got a great pool from which to choose.  We plan to bring 4 candidates in late January, early February for interviews.  

That's it for now. Hope the rest of your semester wraps up smoothly.  Good health, good cheer, and happy holidays to everyone!

Kelly 

December 5 Faculty Meeting Notes

Hey everyone, it's crazy busy this time of the semester, I know. We've got department head interviews starting at the end of this coming week and through next week. We're reviewing files for the 2 asst professor positions right now as well. I realize it's overwhelming, but the end is near for this semester.

FACULTY MEETING 

In that spirit, I would like our faculty meeting Wednesday at 3:00 in Craig 337 to be productive and meaningful. So, I've included a number of announcements and information  in this Head'sUp for you to review in advance of the meeting. I'll have time at the beginning for questions about any of these items that you may have. Then, I would like to spend the bulk of our time in discussion about the status of our external review response. I have attached the latest draft Response to Program Review 12_07.doc here and as an attachment to the email you receive. PLEASE review it prior to the meeting so that we can use the meeting to clarify points in the report, edit it, and provide additional commentary that may be missing.   The deadline for this report is December 15 to the dean. He is currently reviewing this draft as well and I will share those comments with you Wednesday.

NOTES AND ANNOUNCEMENTS

• The Public Speaking Showcase final round will begin at 5:30 in the PSU Theatre, December 4th. Again, please make some time to join our COM 115 students and instructors in celebrating their accomplishments.  This is a very public face of our department and so let's show some support for it. I know there will also be a hospitality room earlier in the day on the 3rd floor--join in some food and fellowship. Look for a reminder email from Jerri Lynn with more details.
• The COM 210 final poster session will be held in Craig Hall Lobby, Monday December 10 at 8:45am. Please plan to walk through the posters during that 2 hour block and talk with our 210 students. These students are the ones you'll be seeing in upper division courses soon.
• Recommend an outstanding advisor for the annual Master Advisor Award of Excellence. The deadline for nominations (and that's all you have to do) is Wednesday, December 5 at 5:00 p.m. If you would like to nominate a faculty or staff advising colleague, please send a short email to kathydavis@missouristate.edu.
• Speaking of advising, COM 499 is currently undergoing some revisions to begin the Fall 2008 semester. Janis, Deborah and Liz are working on some changes. The key thingsyou need to be doing right now are a) every time you meet with advisees talk  about  keeing graded papers  b) as instructors, RETURN graded papers to students and c) if a student didn't keep the graded paper, be prepared for student to approach you with a clean copy of the paper and for you to write the grade it received on it with your signature. Sometimes that is hard to do after the semester is over, so KEEP all student papers accessible so that students can retrieve them.  The committee is also working on revising the advising informational sheet to include the new BS/BA options as well as including some additional course options within paper categoires to make it easier for students to identify papers.  The committee will make a brief report early in the spring semester on the suggested changes for us to discuss.
• A summer classes interest survey has been given to all majors and minors via in the InCommon blog. I'm getting some feedback now and will have a short report to you at the faculty meeting. I will just reiterate what I indicated in the memo I gave you this week--if you want to teach a course this summer, plan to teach a 115 section or a course required within a particular major for graduation with a proven track record of enrollment.  I am seeing more interest reported for online graduate classes as well.  Except for online courses, we are seeing as steady decline in summer enrollments for undergrads.  So, rememeber to submit your summer teaching requests to me by the faculty meeting Wednesday. 
• Karen and I are working on a draft schedule for Fall 2008. This will be based on the suggestions for courses you provided Carey in your annual meeting with him last May.  As she and I get this firmed up, I'll get you a draft of the schedule to review by the end of the semester. If you think you might like to teach something different than you  normally do, please forward me your ideas.  We will need to cover COM 300, and some other sections previously taught per course, so think creatively. I'm also hoping that with two new faculty members on board next fall, the schedule will fill out nicely.
• Spring 2008 update please let your advisees know that we will NOT be opening up COM 300 for the spring 2008 semester. We will offer it Fall 2008, but I cannot staff it this spring, so we have to leave it closed. Sorry about that, but I had to let this one go.
• Relatedly, the university wide merit/compensation committee has made recommendations for all departments to re-evaluate how instructors are included in merit criteria and faculty review of merit applications. I believe that our instructors were included in the development of our merit criteria, but I want to be get some additional input from them. Thus, I will be sending out an email to all instructors asking them for their thoughts about the process so far and provide some background on this push from the compensation committee.

MISC

• Good News for our department!  All three student governor applicants for the next appointment are COM majors!  That's great news for us. I know 2 of the 3, but don't know the third one; Ashley Hoyer and Ryan Childress, along with a 3rd, have made the short list. That means that as long as this slate of applicants is accepted, we WILL have a COM major as a student governor on our board!  I think the last one was Craig Halsey, back in the late 90s, so this is great news for us. If you see these students or know them, please take the time to congratulate them on their accomplishment so far. They will be heading up to Jeff City in the next week or so to interview with the governor's office. 
• Craig 337 thermostat has been repaired. There should be a noticable difference in that room on cooler days. However, on warmer days, the room won't stay as cool. So, just be prepared on warmer days during the winter  that the room will be warmer. There's little we can do to remedy that issue. If you notice that even on cold days it's very warm in there, do let me or Karen know so we can have it checked again.
• There was some discussion last month about the creation of a new Instructor rank called Senior Instructor. While there are plans to develop this rank and salary issues associated with it, but currently those discussion have slowed down considerably. There was a push to get it ready for fall 2008, with an application process in the spring. That plan however has been dropped for the moment due to the large number of initiatives and based on discussion with the handbook revision committee. That's about all I know at this time.

I appreciate your patience in my providing all this information. I appreciate all your support and look forward to seeing  you at Wednesday's meeting.

Kelly