[POST-CEIT-facultycouncil] FW: CLC Summary June 17 2016

[Michele Dornisch]

Please see the summary below of today's Campus Leadership Council meeting.  I will forward any corrections from Nancy Frye or John Lutz as they come in.

Once again, I forward this to you as the Faculty Council representative in charge of communication to the CEIT, but I forward it on behalf of all of your faculty representatives (David Jank, Jeong-eun Rhee, Kathleen Feeley, Louisa Vida, and myself).

However, as you must note, Louisa will be unable to continue to serve on the Faculty Council.  In the fall, the elections committee will need to have a call for nominations to this committee.  Please consider sending me or your other representatives a note of interest if you would be willing to serve on this committee, so that we will have a place to start in the fall.

Go n-éiri an bóthar leat,
Michele M. Dornisch, Ph.D.
Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien. [The perfect is the enemy of the good.]- Voltaire

From: Michele Dornisch
Sent: Friday, June 17, 2016 6:09 PM
To: LIU Post Faculty Council
Subject: CLC Summary June 17 2016

Dear Colleagues,

Please find, below, the summary of the CLC meeting held today.  I ask that John Lutz and/or Nancy Frye provide any corrections to my memory of the meeting, as I am trying to write this summary from memory!!

If you are the "communication" person for your constituency (this means either school/college, or, if in the CLAS, division), please forward this summary to your constituencies.

Thanks.

Summary - Post Campus Leadership Council Meeting, June 17, 2016

Role of the Campus VPAA

Jeff Kane reported.  He indicated that the campus-based VPAA position has many purposes/goals, but some of those stated in today's meeting include: the need to have a campus-based academic administrator who is not beholden to any one college/school and therefore can work to develop communication between colleges/schools as well as organizational coherence at the campus level.  The campus-based VPAA will work on areas such as High School Scholars, Academic Standing, the Program for Academic Success, Interdisciplinary Centers, Implementation of the Strategic Plan/Master Plan at the campus level.

Dr. Kane's position will be relabeled to Senior Vice President.  His office will continue to supervise all academic deans, develop the overall strategy and direction of academic affairs, oversee the campus-based VPAAs, and will continue to do peer review.  All work related to academics (such as Academic Program Review, Outcomes Assessment, etc.) which require university-wide policies and procedures will continue to be housed under Jeff Kane's purview.

We brought up the concern that faculty have about the need for academic support "on the ground." The response was that one did not have anything to do with the other.  Further, the response was that with a campus-based VPAA, such needs could be reviewed more carefully and with a more objective voice.

Note: Three members of the faculty have been identified to serve on the search committee for the campus-based VPAA.  Michele Dornisch (CEIT, FC chair); Alex Henderson (CLAS); Terry O'Daly (CACD)

Status of Post Dean Searches
Interim/Acting Deans have been named for all three colleges who will be without deans between now and the end of the summer:

-          The acting dean for CACD is Christine Kerr

-          The acting dean for CEIT is Louisa Kramer-Vida

-          The acting dean for CLAS is Jeffrey Belnap
Search firms will be engaged for the CACD dean and the CLAS dean.  The CEIT search has already started with a search firm.  It is likely that the searches will be done by the same firm, and it is hoped that will be able to share a pool of candidates with the Brooklyn campus, as they also need to fill empty dean's positions.

High School Scholars
As you will likely find in your email boxes in the near future, there are some changes to the compensation/requirements for the HSS program (formerly SCALE).  Please see the email that has been/will be forwarded from your department chairperson or dean related to these changes.

Program for Academic Success
John Lutz presented a summary of the meeting related to PAS that took place in April.  The greatest concern of the faculty at that meeting was that students in the PAS programs would be moving from taking 13 credits in the first semester to 16 credits in the first semester (including the Post Foundations course).  Faculty were concerned that these students were already challenged with the 13 credits and that they might be more likely to fail if they were taking 16 credits.  John presented a variety of suggestions from the LIU Post faculty related to how we might support either a bridge program (similar to that of the HEOP program) or have a summer course following the second semester, to give these students a chance to ease into their college work.

Based on today's conversation, the students will be taking 16 credits in their first semester.  This provides them with the possibility of dropping a course without losing all of their financial aid.  Also, there is a 15x8 initiative (federal) that focuses on the goal of having students complete their college careers in four years and therefore the administrators in charge of the PAS program indicated the need for students to complete 30 credits in the first academic year.  Whether we will be able to build a bridge program or something similar to help support these students was unclear, but it will very definitely not be in place before Fall 2016.

The faculty at the meeting pointed out, once again, that we need adequate support for these students and now even more so if they will be taking more credits. The newly formed PAS task force, staffed by faculty, administrators, and academic advisors, will continue to look into how to provide the support needed for these students moving forward.

Faculty Mentoring Program
The Faculty Council has connected with faculty on the Campus Faculty Personnel Committee (CFPC), the co-chairs of the Outcomes Assessment Steering Committee (OASC), the Learning Communities Director, and the chair of the Newton Award Committee to reach out to develop a faculty mentoring program.  There has been much support for this idea.  The primary purpose of this process is to provide mentoring for probationary faculty unrelated to and removed from ANY judgment related to personnel decisions.  That is, faculty mentors would observe teaching and provide verbal feedback focusing on ways to improve, areas to address, etc. in order to support faculty in developing their teaching expertise.  Additionally, mentors would help faculty consider the types of journals to target in their scholarship as well as the kind of service that will help build a comprehensive dossier.  Dossier development workshops might be given.  In conjunction with the OASC, assessment workshops might be offered; in conjunction with the learning communities and Newton Award committee, teaching workshops/pedagogical workshops might be offered.

Dr. Kane has indicated that he will provide funds for this initiative and has further suggested that once we identify some strong faculty mentoring programs at other institutions, he will bring someone in to help train mentors.

Admissions/Enrollment
The first item related to admissions was in response to our request for more information on the status of open positions in the admissions office.  Joe Schaeffer indicated that there are 27 positions within the admissions area.  Of these, four are currently vacant, and all four of these positions are currently being advertised.  You can see the position descriptions on the LIU Job Announcements website.

In addition to these four positions being vacant, there is one person who is out on a leave of absence who is likely to return.  As a result, there are currently 22 people working in the admissions office.
While we do not have a list of all of the admissions staff, we do have a list of the folks that faculty should contact about admissions issues related to:

-          Freshman Admissions: Marcelle Hicks

-          Transfer Admissions: Rita Langdon

-          Graduate Admissions: Carol Zerah

-          International Admissions and Admissions Operations: Anne Marie Caradonna.
The second item on the agenda was the Fall 2016 Outlook.

-          Continuing enrollment is down (not surprisingly, since the numbers are compared with numbers from previous years, and the downward trend in enrollments began in Fall 2013)

-          Freshmen enrollments are up slightly from last year.

-          Transfer enrollments are steady - no downward or upward shift

-          Graduate enrollments are down by about 25 students from last year at this time
Note: If you are a department chairperson or program director, you should have access to the dashboard and should be able to monitor these numbers. If you do not, contact your chairperson if you are program director or your dean if you are chair to make sure you have access to these data.

Status of Open Administrative Positions

-          There is currently a search for a director of study abroad programs who will also be the coordinator for academic standing committee.  While in the past this person has devoted 50% of the time to each of these items, the likelihood is that because of the university's study abroad initiative, more time will be devoted to this part of the role.  To make this possible, the registrar will be looking into ways to streamline reports for the academic standing committee.  Please see the LIU Job Opportunities website for a description of the position.

-          There is also a search for a Senior Director of Accreditation Management and Assessment.  This is to replace Kathy Gill, who recently resigned her position.  The person who takes on this position will be responsible for helping to manage the accreditation process for all disciplinary accreditations, for working with the faculty on assessment of student learning (outcomes assessment), and for Academic Program Review. Please see the LIU Job Opportunities website for a description of the position.
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