Summer Pay Increase for Full-time Faculty
Beginning in Summer 2019, full-time academic faculty will see a significant increase in their summer and winter-session paychecks. A faculty taskforce led by Dr. Kevin Graziano (Education) has been working with College Leadership since Fall 2018 to devise the appropriate methodology for adjusting summer and winter session pay. Since its inception, NSC has paid a flat, per-credit rate for summer and winter teaching. The current rate of $1440 per credit has been in effect since 2008. The new pay scale differentiates by faculty rank and is pegged to increase in years we receive COLA (by the same percentage as COLA). The new plan was presented to Faculty Senate on March 4th.
The faculty taskforce members were Kevin Graziano, Rachel Bower, Susan Growe, Pete LaChapelle, Abby Peters, and Bryan Sigel. The College Leadership group was comprised of Vickie Shields, Kevin Butler, Pam Levins, and Tony Scinta.
New Faculty Per-Credit Summer Salary Base Rates
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* Applies to Summer 2019, not preceding Winter
** Applies to Winter 2019-20 and Summer 2020
*** No COLA expected in 2021
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Dean of Students Search Update
The Dean of Students search committee has invited four candidates to campus for in-person interviews. Please join us for their presentations to the campus on the following dates (all in the NSE Auditorium):
Each candidate has been asked to present on how they would promote student success at NSC, including one or more initiatives they would implement, why they believe the initiatives would be effective, and how they would assess effectiveness. This is a key position that will have an important impact on our campus, so we would love to get feedback on their presentations from as many of you as possible.
Accreditation Is Coming
On October 9-11, 2019, the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities (NWCCU) will visit campus for their culminating “mission fulfillment” evaluation of the College. In preparation, in early March I traveled to sunny Seattle with Gwen Sharp for the NWCCU's annual accreditation workshop. They provided helpful insights about our visit and the evaluation process – reiterating the ever-growing focus on student success – and we further learned that Gwen is an unrelenting force who will stop at nothing short of accreditation success.
Big Statewide Developments
Three quick, but substantial, updates:
- The Board of Regents asked the System Office to develop a policy that would preclude Nevada institutions from offering remedial math to degree-seeking students.
- Also in consideration is a draft policy that would enforce mandatory advising for all degree-seeking students.
- Recently we participated in a Complete College America summit that began paving the path to our implementation of the Metro Momentum Pathways Project.
The first two items are relatively new developments that I would be happy to discuss.
Shout Out
I have to put the spotlight on Cristina Caputo, Phil LaMotte, and Alex Kunkle for a moment – they just gave a sponsored presentation, "Examining the Congruence between Students' Perception of Learning and Their Actual Abilities," at the 2019 NASPA Annual Conference based on their superb outcome assessment work. As one of just a handful of sponsored presentations from over 350 submissions, our team demonstrated how the congruence between students’ self-assessments and their actual abilities can have implications for student success.
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Welcome Our New Case Manager
I'd like to extend a warm NSC welcome to Laura Hinojosa as our new Case Manager for the Student CARE Team. Laura has master's degrees in Counseling Psychology and Special Education. She has previously held positions as an academic advisor, student counselor, K-12 special education teacher, and a career coach at Goodwill. We're very excited to have her join our team.
At the same time, I'm sad to see Laura Carroll, our interim Case Manager, leave. I've known Laura since she was a student in my gender class, and she's done a tremendous job filling in this past year. While it's been great working with her, I'm thrilled to see her move on to pursue graduate school and her long-term career goals. Laura C.'s last day is this Friday, March 22nd.
IRB Tip
If you're a graduate student, the institution where you're enrolled is considered your home institution for IRB purposes; you must go through their IRB approval process, even if you're a full-time employee at NSC and the research will occur here. If you're wanting to do research here, talk to your graduate advisor about it, as it's a big no-no to do research without your home institution's knowledge and approval.
GradFit Update
More than 30 NSC students applied to UNR's GradFit program, which helps them prepare for graduate school. Of those, 14 have been accepted to the no-cost program. Thank you to everyone who got the word out to students!
Summer Institutes Reminder
Two summer institutes are accepting applications through April 5th:
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Common Read
The Common Read Committee met to begin selecting our next Common Read text. It will be difficult to match the wide appeal of
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, but the committee is definitely up for the challenge. Some early suggestions include:
Our goal is to collect suggestions from the committee, solicit feedback from campus, make a recommendation to the Provost, and (if the recommendation is successful) announce the next Common Read at the Undergraduate Research and Creative Works Conference in April.
I’d like to thank the members of the committee for their hard work so far: Dawn Butler, Leilani Carreño, Susan Growe, Darlene Haff, Amber Howerton, Myra Infante-Sheridan, Vanessa Mari,
Alena Principato, Leila Pazargadi, and Nate Silva.
Study Abroad
Dr. Jasmine Philips has long been a champion of students studying abroad. Recently, we met with a representative from the
University Studies Abroad Consortium (USAC), which offers an impressive range of programs across the world. If we can formalize a partnership with USAC, it will be easier for faculty to recommend study abroad programs and easier for students to participate.
When We Gather
Did you know NSC has an Alma Mater? Recently, Richard McGee (the composer and a great friend to the College)
sent me this copy – with music and lyrics. Try singing it at your next meeting! If you can’t read music, here’s a version that an app on my phone converted to grand piano.
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How many students do we expect to graduate this spring? Here are the number of graduates for recent spring semesters:
- Spring 2015: 199
- Spring 2016: 190
- Spring 2017: 215
- Spring 2018: 302 (with 308 graduation applications by March 2018)
- Spring 2019: 295 graduation applications as of March 2019
In summer and fall 2018, NSC graduated 128 and 175 students respectively, 31 more than in the previous year (2017-2018). Given that, after we add in graduates from summer and fall 2019, our graduating class for 2018-2019 should be about the same as or a bit larger than last year.
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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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