Welcome back!
Spring is a time of spiritual and earthly renewal and spring semester each year marks the beginning of renewed efforts to provide the highest quality teaching and learning environment for our Nevada State Students. We find ourselves in a liminal space of both planning and doing, being both strategic about the future and pragmatic about the present moment. My New Year’s wish for all of you is peace in your decisions and joy in your efforts!
Office hours
One of the activities I enjoy most is getting out into the Schools to hold open office hours. I will be holding office hours in each of the Schools again in spring semester to listen to what is on the minds of faculty and staff and continue to get to know you better. The following dates and times have been scheduled for spring semester:
- LAS: Monday, March 4, 11-1
- SON: Tuesday, April 9, 9-11
- SOE: Monday, May 6, 11-1
Strategic planning continued. . .
Jeff Stafford will make a consulting visit in early February to help us conceptualize the final stretch of our strategic planning efforts. Jeff will work with the Provost’s team on February 5th and 6th to examine and categorize the initiatives and projects submitted by the working groups. On the morning of February 7th, he will meet with the Sponsors and leaders of each working team to discuss the initiatives across all five themes and help us decide on the best structure for the initial written plan. In the afternoon Jeff will meet with the Strategic Planning Council. The writing group for the strategic plan is headed by Gregory Robinson.
NPR Pub Trivia Bowl
Nevada State’s champion pub trivia team, Overthinkers Anonymous, hot off a pre-Christmas victory at Badbeat Brewery in Henderson, tried their hand at the big times on January 16th at KNPR's Pub Trivia Night at Brooklyn Bowl. Hosted by Sam Sanders, host of the podcast
It’s Been a Minute, the KNPR pub trivia night proved a bit too much for the team, although they did get a 7th place mention in round two of three. The overall assessment by this reporter is that the trivia questions were stacked heavily in favor of in-depth knowledge of Sanders’ home state of Texas and the unreasonable expectation that the participants would know a lot about other people with the last name of Sanders.
SAVE the DATE(s)
Board of Regents meeting, hosted at Nevada State College, February 28 - March 1, 2019.
Provost Lecture Series, Dr. Henry Jenkins, Provost Professor of Communication, Journalism, Cinematic Arts and Education at the University of Southern California. "Popular Culture as Politics, Politics as Popular Culture." February 14th, 4-6 pm, NSE Auditorium.
- This talk will address the increasing blurring of categories between popular culture and political communication. Our shared literacy in popular culture provides resources we can use to foster the civic imagination and communicate our visions of a better world to each other via networked communication. More and more young people are turning to popular culture for the myths and metaphors with which to communicate their fights for social justice and political participation. And at the same time, President Donald Trump has gained power in part by his own ability to speak the languages of popular culture. What kinds of media literacies do we need to navigate this increasingly complex set of borrowings and remixing of mass media content?
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The newsletter is back, and so are our students, which thankfully counterbalances the awfulness of something else that is back (it rhymes with “Pew England Natriots”).
NSHE Student Success Summit
Last Thursday I attended the Board of Regents’ Student Success Summit, which, under the charge of Chancellor Reilly, fostered a dialogue among all NSHE institutions about practices that promote better student outcomes. The summit gave NSC an opportunity to discuss several efforts that have yielded encouraging gains in student retention and/or completion, including Nepantla, TRiO-SSS, the Writing and Academic Success Centers, the Course Assistant program, and several gateway course initiatives (including big changes to foundational math).
As requested by the Chancellor, we also looked forward to new initiatives that can further increase student success, but we noted that many of these ideas will not crystallize until we complete the ongoing strategic planning process. Consequently, much of the focus was on the expansion of existing efforts and the addition of new initiatives that appear to be warranted by the data, including the development of a proper peer mentorship program for students. Finally, we were treated to panel discussions and presentations on “external” models of student success, including the Game Changers promoted by Complete College America – which we have worked on – and the powerful impact of Georgia State’s intrusive advising model.
Road Show: Campus Office Hours
The newsletter has been a helpful way of communicating with the campus (I hope), but I want to take this idea to the next step, which means stealing an idea from Vickie and holding periodic office hours around campus. I’m hoping to do it once a month; topics of conversation can range from items in the newsletter (e.g., want to know more about the Success Summit?), to pretty much anything I happen to be working on. More info will follow as I settle on days, times, and locations.
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Human Subjects Research/IRB Changes
On January 21, 2019, the federal Revised Common Rule regulating human subjects research went into effect. I updated the Institutional Review Board (IRB) handbook, the
IRB Canvas page, and all forms and templates. The biggest changes were to the categories for Exempt review and the requirements for informed consent documents. These apply to
new projects; if your project was already approved, you don't have to change anything.
The updated
IRB policy was also added to the website. In addition, I developed a confidentiality form for coders or transcribers working on research projects; it was added to the Application Forms page on the Canvas site.
Finally, I developed a self-paced
online course that NSC students, faculty, and staff can take for the required human subjects protections training. Your certification is effective for three years. If you've already completed training through the NIH, CITI, or another training program, that certification is still good for three years from the date you received it.
Grant Submission Resources
If you're interested in applying for grant funding, contact Christine González, Grants Specialist, for grant proposal submission (Pre-Award) support. Pre-Award services include: assistance navigating our internal grant submission process; resource sharing; help interpreting proposal solicitation guidelines and institutional policies and procedures; budget development support; and proposal preparation, review, and submission. Requests for Pre-Award support should be made as early as possible to secure appropriate resources. For more information, visit the Grants & Sponsored Projects
Canvas page or email Christine at
Christine.Gonzalez@nsc.edu.
Spring Convocation
Our Spring 2019 campus professional development day is February 8, 2019. Please
RSVP by Monday, January 28th.
GradFIT Applications
UNR is accepting applications for GradFIT, which takes place May 20-24 (with May 19 as a travel day). Students from any major are eligible for this program, which introduces them to graduate school (including workshops on preparing to apply) and allows them to interact with faculty and grad students on the UNR campus. All expenses are paid.
Applications are due March 1st (with priority given to those who apply by February 1st). Students must have a GPA of 3.0 or higher, have completed at least 30 college credits, and be first-generation or historically underrepresented.
Changes to Disability Resource Center
Sandi Patton, Director of the DRC, will retire this summer. Sandi has been an amazing resource for our students and has helped us greatly improve our awareness of accessibility issues both inside and outside the classroom.We have posted the DRC Director job and will conduct a search for her replacement this spring.
The DRC is transitioning to AIM, a fully online system; faculty, students, and the DRC will use AIM to request accommodations, arrange testing, and conduct other tasks related to disability services. The DRC staff worked hard since last summer to get the system ready. Thank you to Sandi, Jessica Camacho, and Juan Guzman for all their efforts on this project.
Undergraduate Research and Creative Works Conference Accepting Abstracts
The URCWC is
accepting proposals for research posters, papers, and creative works (photography, poetry, or films). The deadline to submit a proposal is March 8th. Students from NSC, CSN, and UNLV are encouraged to apply. They can submit work from a previous semester or that is in progress.
The conference will take place in the NSE building on April 26th.
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Dual Credit
This spring, we enrolled 656 dual credit students at four partnering high schools:
ECTA - 271
Liberty - 150
SECTA - 230
Mojave - 6
Managing these partnerships is a complicated process that includes enrollment, billing, and quality assurance. I want to thank Andrea Martin, Tracy Matthews, Jaime Castle, and all of the faculty liaisons for making this program successful. Our hope is that more students from each high school will continue their education at NSC.
Common Read
The LAS Humanities Department is planning an interdisciplinary panel on
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks on February 19th. Speakers will present short (5 min.) approaches to the text and participate in a roundtable Q&A. If you are interested in participating, contact
Leila Pazargadi.
Master’s in Speech Language Pathology
Things are moving quickly for NSC’s first master’s degree. Dr. Angel Ball and her team have completed the curriculum, created a graduate handbook, and
updated the website. The Speech-Language Pathology faculty will begin reviewing student applications for the full-time and part-time tracks in February.
A site visit from the Council of Academic Accreditation of Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology (CAA) will occur February 11-12, 2019. This is a critical step toward accreditation. The public is invited to present comments in an open forum on February 11, 4:30-5:30 in the NSE Auditorium.
NSC Up North
We are currently accepting applications for an instructor who will be employed with NSC as a Visual Media Lecturer, but be located on the TMCC campus in northern Nevada. This is a bold experiment in expanding our statewide mission.
Also, the School of Education has worked diligently to strengthen our commitment and collaboration with WNC and TMCC, forging seamless 2+2 articulation agreements for our elementary and special education programs. We are working to complete similar agreements for our secondary English and secondary History programs. These agreements make it possible for northern Nevada students to complete a baccalaureate program without relocating to southern Nevada. The SOE has also employed an individual, in a limited capacity, to work part-time at these institutions, including spending regularly scheduled office hours on each campus.
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How does Spring 2019 enrollment compare to Spring 2018? Headcount is 13% higher than last spring. This is our second spring in a row with over 10% annual growth. If past trends continue, this number is expected to rise by the end of this week.
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NSC Office of the Provost | 702-992-2663 | http://nsc.edu/provost
Be Bold | Be Great | Be State
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