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Faculty Meeting Wednesday, March 18

Kelly McNeilis — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 15:03:00 GMT

Hey everyone,

It's the week before Spring Break and all through the halls, the faculty were stir crazy and the students missing in action. Hopefully you aren't nuts yet. We've got a faculty meeting this week. Here are a few highlights and things to prepare for:

1. Faculty Senate Elections: We need to nominate people at Instructor and Associate Professor rank to run for ranked senator positions. Each dept forwards one name for each rank and those are placed on a ballot for faculty (at that rank only) to elect a faculty senator to represent that rank.

2. Health Communication major revisions discussion. Attached Health Communication Major Proposal.doc are a few items for you to review before the meeting. Heather Carmack has headed up an ad hoc committee to discuss how the major can be revised to attract new students. Members of the committee are Heather, John, Lynn, Isabelle, Stephanie, and myself. Heather and I will review the proposal & discussion thus far by the committee. There is no vote planned at the meeting, only for you to provide initial input into the proposal so that the committee can continue to fine tune the proposal.

3. The main item is to provide a forum to discuss our strategies for responding to "low productivity" as described in the president's email. I will share a few comments about what those numbers mean. Also, I have met with the administrative team to brainstorm possible responses and I will share those as a starting point. I've attached a working RecruitmentPlanDraft09.doc document of those items here. I'd like you to review the list of action steps before Wednesday's meeting and provide your input at that time.

4. There will likely be a few miscellaneous items added by Wed. For example, we still have to discuss the writing test plan previously submitted, soI'll put that as old business. If time, we'll follow up on Wednesday, or push it to April. If you have something you'd like to add, please let me know.

SNOW DAY Updates

Kelly McNeilis — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 17:23:00 GMT

HAPPY SNOW DAY! This ice storm is initiation for Heather and Stephanie—Welcome to the winters in Missouri.

Congratulations to Sandra and Cliff House for 45 years of marital bliss! Happy 45th anniversary Sandra.

Budget Update: Dr. Nietzel spoke at dept heads meeting yesterday and echoed what Carey has put in his dean’s blog and emails: we are cautiously optimist about this and next year’s budget because of Governor Nixon’s deal with the state universities. In the meantime, we are not to go back to “business as usual” with our budgets. We are not going full tilt on faculty/staff searches at this point and Carey has yet to give his decision about current college searches. Further, Dr. Nietzel is continuing his policy to restrict international travel and unnecessary in-country travel. Carey has not put a limitation on requests for travel funds this semester, so I anticipate honoring the Central States and Sooners travel requests. There are a few of you with international travel requests and we should meet soon to review those.

I am in the process of reviewing our current budget and as long as we get our expected transfers IN to the budget, we should be fine. At this time we have spent half of our typical budget (allocated budget + carry forward from ‘08 online, course and honors payments). So we are on track to have small carry forward for next year…which, is what we planned on. The president indicated yesterday that he is not going to withhold a portion of each college’s carry forward monies, indicating that salary and other savings should remain in colleges. So, I feel positive that we won’t be “taxed” for carry forward money by the president. What is still unclear is if the dean will do this. I’ll keep you posted on Carey’s budget plans, as I know them. I am happy to report that thus far we have been able to honor most of our budget priorities this year (new faculty initiatives, travel requests, equipment funds, and part-time work for the graduate college and debate team).

Reminders
ADVISEMENT UPDATE: With fall registration we will be using the new Banner registration system. As such because all pre-reqs will be enforced at the time of registration for students, we want as many students who are in progress with their admission requirements not to be encumbered (registration block) due to not being admitted.

As you may recall from our last faculty meeting, we agreed to admit all students who were currently IN PROGRESS with a core course or completing 59 hours. At this time we are not including those who are below the 2.5 gpa and those who are on probation. I will consider exceptions for those who are very close to the gpa. Realize that if a student who is admitted now does not meet those requirements by the end of the semester, his/her registration will be dropped will require a registration override from the dept office in order to re-register for classes. We want to have as few of these as possible, but of course it’s up to the students to complete their requirements.

What to do: Check your advisee list and identify those who are currently in progress with meeting admission requirements (unless they do not have the overall gpa met). Contact them and make an appointment to begin the admission paperwork as soon as possible, preferably in February. The sooner we get this done, the less hassle students will face when it comes time to register. Not only is this a student friendly policy, it also allows us to have as many eligible students as possible to register for our upper division courses this fall. As a reminder, ALL pre-reqs are now being enforced at the point of registration. So there is much at stake here in getting as many undergraduate students admitted as possible. Let me know if you have any questions.

May Commencement: Please plan to attend. You should have already received information about reserving regalia. Please submit this or if you have your own regalia then RSVP by March 13. Our students always enjoy having faculty at graduation to celebrate with them and in many cases they want to introduce you to their family. As before, the dean’s office will award the dept with the most faculty in attendance at commencement with money for food at a future departmental faculty meeting. COAL will walk at the 10:00am ceremony.

Faculty Meeting Agenda: 3:15 in Craig 337 (slight time and room change from previous semesters).

1. General announcements
2. Com 115 mass lecture discussion
3. COM Scholarships 2009-2010 update
3. Banner policy changes review
4. Handouts
    General Education revisions
    Digital Measures (electronic vita) update

Faculty Meeting Items:
COM 115 and large lecture sections. Discussion have been going on with myself, John and Carey about moving a number of Com 115 sections into a mass lecture format with break out sections for giving speeches. Initially we were concerned with some student satisfaction data that John received recently. One option that emerged was to have a full time faculty member give a lecture one or two days a week and then have graduate students grade speeches in smaller breakout sections. We need a 250 seat lecture hall and also discovered those are few and far between on campus.   We have been able to secure Carrington Auditorium and others are becoming more available as administration is working to release more space. Now we’re looking for faculty to provide their input. So, one main issue for discussion on Wednesday is to get your impressions of this format change and the implication of it for the basic course and instruction generally. We look forward to your input.

Other banner reminders/policies:
Beginning the fall 2009 semester, you must declare your grading policy in your syllabus. This deals with the new plus/minus grading option that will be available this fall. You need to inform you students in the syllabus what you grading scale is.
Beginning the spring 2010 semester, MWF classes will begin at 7:30, and have 15 minutes between classes.

A few changes have been discussed relative to the basic skills component of the general education program. IDS 110 has seen the most changes as it is being proposed to become a 2 credit hour course. Additionally, the CIS 101 course may go away for the majority of students who test out of it (likely during SOAR). And financial and information literacy components are being sought as additional elements of the basic skills. GEP 397 is still under review but currently it is unlikely to return to the program and instead replaced with the additional components noted above. I have this information in a table format from faculty senate, but it’s not here at home with me to attach. I will have it for tomorrow’s faculty meeting.

Have a great rest of the day, stay safe, and hopefully we’ll see you tomorrow for our faculty meeting.

Kelly

December 3, 2008 Faculty Meeting

Kelly McNeilis — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 03:43:00 GMT

Do you recognize this place?

Perhaps not. This is a picture from a few weeks back of one of the rooms in the house that Jay and I are remodeling...Yikes huh? Let me assure you, OUR DEPARTMENTAL HOUSE IS NOT IN THIS DISARRAY. In fact, with respect to our operational budget we are doing very well, so take a deep breath. However, as with any house, there are places to tidy up.

We have a scheduled faculty meeting this Wednesday at 3:00 in Craig 337. Please make every effort to attend—it is our last faculty meeting before break. And, with the news of budget cuts recently from Dr. Nietzel as well as discussions on UDIG and in the halls, we have a number of items to discuss. In particular I will be looking to you for feedback on a number of staffing, course planning, and budget issues. In advance of the faculty meeting, I am meeting with the administrative team to review these items to get some initial ideas floated. Once we’ve narrowed down some of the issues, I’ll email you with ideas to review before the meeting on Wednesday. At this time the faculty meeting agenda will revolve around adjustments to the spring 2009 schedule, planning for fall 2009 course offerings, and some possible curricular items. I’ll also share with you some updates on academic policy changes that are coming down the pike relative to Banner implementation. We also have a number of accomplishments of our faculty and former students to celebrate. My plan is that our meeting will be frank and realistic relative to budget planning and that it includes some enjoyable items too. The holidays are coming, you know.

Events of Note This Week

1) Departmental Colloquium: Noon-1pm, Craig 337. Graduate Student Seminar Paper Presentations.

2)Tuesday, December 02, 2008, 7:00 PM, Glass Hall 101. Leadership Speaker Series will present a lecture by Shawn Askinosie.

3) Wednesday, December 03, 2008, 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM, PSU 313. Provost Research Forum
Art Spisak, Modern and Classical Languages, speaking on Leadership
Chad Stearman, Chemistry, speaking on Chemistry applications.

4) Thursday, December 4, 11am-1pm, COAL Holiday Open House, Craig Hall Lobby

5) Thursday, December 04, 2008, 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM, PSU 313. Advisor Forum: "Including the Public Affairs Mission in Advising Sessions." Madeleine Kernen, Dave Lutz and Rhonda Ridinger will serve as panelists on the topic.

6) Friday, December 05, 2008, 9:00 AM - 10:00 AM, PSU 313. Banner Informational Session:
Topics will include the registration and advisement time line, the new repeat policy, admission to degree program changes, the overload policy and the last date to drop or withdraw.

7) Friday, December 05, 2008, 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM, PSU 313. Academic Advisor Forum: Gloria Galanes and Susan Waters will meet with interested academic advisors to present information on generational issues.

8) Friday, December 5th from 5:30-7:00 at PCOB. The CDR is hosting an open house for Volunteers and COM faculty. This open house also coincides with first friday artwalk.

Draft Faculty Meeting Agenda

Budget Update
Scheduling and Course Offerings
   Spring 2009 schedule: Enrollments so far
   Course caps
   Fall 2009 schedule
   Summer 2009 (who wants to teach?)
Curricular items
   Brief review of Banner policy changes
   Tentative: Changing permissions in online courses
Others to be added?

Kelly

Catching up after faculty meeting, planning for next faculty meeting

Kelly McNeilis — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 21:40:00 GMT

Minutes from Sept 24 faculty meeting were attached to the email you received announcing the blog.

Reminder: Faculty meeting October 15, 3:00, Craig 337

Items for discussion to include: Banner policies and admission to the major, report of writing in the majors committee, Public Affairs in your courses list, NFL tournament participation, and others to be added.

UPCOMING EVENTS for your calendars:

• Debate Watch, Wednesday, Oct 15 at 7:00 at the Gilloiz Theatre. Liz’s 597 class is organizing the event. Consider extra credit to your students for attending! Panel discussion before debate and Q&A afterwards.

• Come to the COAL tailgate party, Saturday from 11:00 a.m. -- 1:00 p.m. FREE FOOD and games for the kids, visit with former students, and enjoy the great weather.

• Celebrating our retired faculty members!

• Russ Keeling to be inducted into the Wall of Fame on Friday, October 10 at 3:30 on the 3rd floor of the PSU near the elevators. PLEASE plan to attend so that we can support Russ’ accomplishments and contributions to the university for over 30 years.
• Don Stanton will receive the Homecoming Award of Recognition Friday, October 10 at the Homecoming Dinner.
• On Friday, October 24, we’ll have a reception for Don to congratulate him on this award. It will likely be at 3:00, location TBA. Please put this item on your calendar!

Let me know if there are other events you'd like to post on the blog.

Kelly

Mid-Summer Updates

Kelly McNeilis — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 14:06:00 GMT

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!

Kelly McNeilis — Wed, 28 May 2008 19:57:00 GMT

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

April 16 Faculty Meeting Agenda

Kelly McNeilis — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 01:15:00 GMT

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

Kelly McNeilis — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 16:16:00 GMT

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

Kelly McNeilis — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 13:40:00 GMT

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

Kelly McNeilis — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 19:17:00 GMT

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

Kelly McNeilis — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 21:19:00 GMT

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.

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.
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.
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.
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

Kelly McNeilis — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 16:13:00 GMT

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

Kelly McNeilis — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 15:45:00 GMT

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.

For now, reserve this date: Thursday, January 24 at 3:20 for Heather Carmack's presentation to the faculty (room TBA).

Debate Team:

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

USC: (Dec 29-31)
Cal State - Fullerton: (Jan 2-4)
U North Texas: (Jan 8-10)
UT-Dallas: (Jan 12-14)
UC Berkeley: (Jan 12-14)

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.

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)

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.
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)
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!
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.
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.

Have a great long weekend.

Welcome 2008!

Kelly McNeilis — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 19:45:00 GMT

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!

Kelly McNeilis — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 23:26:00 GMT

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