Conversations about SSU's academic identity continue in many forums.  We had another drop-in lunch on October 12 at the Faculty Center (about 10 faculty members and President Armiñana attended), and a breakfast October 21 at North Light Books and Cafe (seven faculty members and Provost Rogerson).  In the last few weeks, I've had conversations with the Library faculty, the Science and Technology Council of Department Chairs, the Professional Development Subcommittee, the Academic Coordinating Team (which consists of the Academic Senate leadership and the Provost and Deans and AVPs), and probably others.  I've got more scheduled.

In these attempts to identify the significant distinguishing feature of an SSU education, I'm surprised by how quickly conversations seem to be converging around some ideas about close faculty/student interaction, faculty caring about their students' success, and student scholarship experiences.  One phrase that captures a lot of this is "collaborative education," which seems to be a good fit for lots of people in lots of departments.

I hope you'll join us for continuing conversations.
 

To:    SSU Faculty
From:    Ben Ford, Chair
Date:    11 October  2011
Re:    Fall 2011 Update #4

I am trying to keep a blog updated with Faculty governance happenings at the Senate web site:  www.sonoma.edu/senate/chair .  Go there for more details on what's below, and add comments by clicking on the entry title and then scrolling to the bottom.

Note the new breakfast conversations in #1 below

1)  Faculty conversations about SSU's academic story.  What should we be as an academic institution, beyond a collection of departments?  Or, what should it be that makes an SSU education distinctive?

Lunch conversations. A group of 14 faculty, Provost Rogerson, and President Armiñana met for lunch on September 28 and had a great conversation.  To continue, I invite you to join me at lunch on the following Wednesdays (drop-in, bring your own lunch).  Provost Rogerson will be joining us at most, and President  Armiñana will join us about once a month.  These will be in the new Faculty Center, 1125 Schulz.

• Oct 12, noon-1:00 (No Provost; with President Armiñana)

• Oct 26, noon-1:00

• Nov 9, noon-1:00 (with President Armiñana)

• Nov 30, noon-1:00

• Dec 14, noon-1:00 (with President Armiñana)

Breakfast conversation!  On Friday, October 21 at 8:00 a.m., Provost Rogerson and I will be having breakfast at North Light Books & Cafe (in the Oliver's shopping center, 550 E. Cotati Ave.), for another discussion along the lines above.  If the Wednesday lunch times haven't worked for you, please join us for breakfast!  If it's popular, we'll do more.  If it's just the two of us, we'll have a nice breakfast....

Department conversations.  I'm meeting with Schools' Councils of Department Chairs to try to bring this discussion to an even wider group.  As I promised at convocation, I hope to steal a bit of time on many of your departments' agendas to find out as much as I can about your ideas of SSU's academic story in its second fifty years.

3) Faculty Governance updates
Here I'll list brief updates of faculty governance happenings.  Talk with your faculty governance representatives if you have interest in any of these.  You can find your representatives here: www.sonoma.edu/senate/committees/meetings.html

• The Student Affairs Committee is working on the Student Election Code, to help resolve issues that arose during last year's Student Union Fee Referendum.  We are working on this task in partnership with the Associated Student government.  We will also be compiling a report on the history of the resources and services that have been available in Student Affairs and Enrollment Management over the last five years, with an eye toward documenting the ways in which these have diminished as well as comparing SSU's SAEM division with those in similarly sized CSUs.

• The Educational Policies Committee: EPC is reviewing a new major proposal in Early Childhood Studies, taking a final look at the Ukiah Liberal Studies 2008 Program Review, and working on revisions to the 1997 Memorandum of Understanding with the School of Extended Education.

• Faculty Subcommittee on Sponsored Programs:  We have been working with Academic Affairs in connection with the hiring of a new Director of Office of Research and Sponsored Programs. A hire seems likely in January 2012.  We reviewed and passed on to the Provost two NEH applications.  Also, we revised and are getting ready to issue a Request for Proposals for the Summer Stipend program. While there is no RSCAP money available for the coming year, the Provost has been fund the program.

• From the Senate Diversity Subcommittee:  SDS has been working on a Resolution "Regarding the Subsidization of the New CAPS Student Fee for Pell Grant Students," which goes to the Senate this week.  At the last meeting of SDS there was a discussion of the importance of providing Spanish language information to prospective students and their parents.  Gina Geck, Associate Director of Admissions and Recruitment, reported that they have a Spanish language web page http://www.sonoma.edu/admissions/espanol/ and they are working on reestablishing the link to it from the Office of Admissions home page.  Sharon Cabaniss, SDS Co-chair, reported that the Chancellor's Office also has a Spanish web page at http://www.calstate.edu/pa/espanol/, and she has requested that SSU put a link to it on the SSU homepage.  This request was forwarded to University Affairs.  The Campus Reengineering Committee is also discussing language options for the SSU phone system.