SACS Update: Schneller stated that the university is getting ready to send in the Focused Report, which is our response to the off-site committee’s review. The on-site committee will be arriving on a Monday night [March 18th?]. They will be on campus on the 20th. They will be interviewing groups of faculty. Schneller said to mark this date and be ready. They will send a list to Academic Affairs and say they’d like to meet with the graduate faculty or the faculty of this department, etc. Academic Affairs will then be sending invites. The Co-op Extension Resource Room is the meeting place. Dr. Silver will be returning at the end of February to do a mock interview with members of the faculty and the campus community. The on-site review is like a combination of going to court and being cross examined and defending your dissertation – they are looking to verify that we are who we say we are. The other thing they want to know is what this place looks like in person.
the same as faculty would fill out for any other travel application. This is the fund that is developed for faculty, staff and students for travel reimbursement. Student travel is still under Dr. Bergin’s office. But this fund is for students traveling with faculty. Faculty will be notified when the process of forming the committee begins. - - Moffett asked how long the money ($100K) would be available. Schneller replied, one year, renewable. She added that the money is also for research travel, or artists teaching master classes. Moffett noted that the President is encouraging faculty to use these funds. Schneller reminded senators to notice that there are restrictions on funding and T3 eligibility. Christina Jones is the new director for T3, and she will be involved with the committee.
Graduate Applications Update: Schneller explained that her office has been working more with the graduate applications issues. Graduate Studies has been passed to Schneller. She is receiving test scores, applications, letters of application. On Friday mornings, she farms those out to the Deans. She directed Senators who are recruiting graduate students to send the prospective students to the Registrar, who will give the applicants what they need. We are looking at purchasing a software system for the processing of graduate applications. The process is now streamlined in a way that is consistent.
Curriculum Committee: Chair Leigh Whittinghill was absent. In her absence, Moffett reported on the Journalism/Mass Communications Action Items that he had received from her:
Question: do students go through Wired to submit a graduate application? Schneller responded that wherever the electronic application for a particular program is housed, the process begins there.
Question: in an email, you asked for rubrics and artifacts for General Education courses. What did you mean by artifacts? Schneller replied, actual student work – some examples of student work that we can map into our report, just one or two that we can incorporate as a representative sample at this time.
FSCC 18-19-17 New courses in Journalism: There are two new courses in Journalism: JOU 201 Media Literacy and JOU 202: multimedia journalism, which will be added to the Mass Com/JOU major. These two courses will be part of a new certificate in Digital Communication. Guest David Shabazz, Associate Chair of the School of Humanities and Performing Arts, explained that the department is making some changes to the major, starting with four new certificate programs, including one in Digital Communication. These two courses are instrumental to that certificate. He said that the faculty are trying to overhaul and modernize the major, as the curriculum in some classes is quite dated.
- Moffett asked if these revisions would happen this year. Shabazz replied, yes, after the SACS visit.
Vote: voice vote – unanimous yes, with no abstentions