Promotion and Tenure 2019
Congratulations to our four faculty members who received tenure and promotion to Associate Professor, and our two faculty members who achieved the highest promotion to Full Professor in 2019! They have all chosen an intellectual life as educators and mentors – it is a noble choice. The new knowledge they produce through their scholarship contributes to intellectual debate and enlightenment for our culture and invigorates the teaching in their classrooms. They are committed to the notion that sending students out into the world who can question, analyze, contribute to highly functioning teams, and lead others is one of our greatest contributions to improving our community, culture, and our world. With tenure comes great responsibility! The newly tenured and promoted faculty are now part of the leadership of Nevada State College, responsible for its present and future greatness.
The Board of Regents will make it official on either February 28th or March 1st, 2019, at the meeting at Nevada State College.
NSC’s newest Associate Professors with tenure are:
Dr. Wendi Benson, Psychology
Dr. Sarah Bryans-Bongey, Education
Mr. Nathaniel King, Library Services
Dr. Shantal Marshall, Psychology
NSC’s Newest Full Professors are:
Dr. Shirli Brautbar, History
Dr. Gregory Robinson, English
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Dr. Henry Jenkins Fascinates Nevada State Audience
The Nevada State audience didn’t want to let Dr. Henry Jenkins go in the crowded Ande and Glenn Christenson NSE Auditorium on Valentine’s Day for the Spring 2019 Provost Lecture Series for Social Analysis and Critical Thought. After an enthralling one-hour presentation, the audience asked him probing questions for nearly an hour more. The talk, titled "Popular Culture as Politics, Politics as Popular Culture," wove concepts of fan-based culture with current politics. A master storyteller, Jenkins connected with the audience through critical analyses from mass media studies and commentary on how audiences are both seduced by and often resistant to the messages that surround us through popular culture, bringing some of the same textual readings and visual renderings to politics. I would like to thank Dr. Chris Harris (Communication) for making this connection possible. Henry Jenkins has been a participant in the Salzburg study abroad program with Dr. Harris and our Nevada State students. Check out his
Master Class on Convergence Theory.
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This update crept up on me – which, given the number of reminders from Gregory, is like saying that I was caught off-guard when the sun rose in the morning – so I’m going to keep it lean and mean.
Big Goal Update
Ongoing discussions and planning regarding a bona fide peer mentor program are already charting a course toward a very promising initiative. Also, we are shoulder deep in the review of candidates for the Dean of Students search and hope to conduct phone interviews in the first week of March.
The Big Apple
If you think your MacBook is sleek, you should see Apple's headquarters. Along with several NSHE representatives, I visited the Apple mothership last week to hear about several education-oriented initiatives, including their efforts with “Everyone can Code” and “Everyone can Create.”
Data, Data, Data
Every Friday morning, Sandip Thanki, Megan Cogliano, and I get together to examine data and plot out potential recommendations that can help improve student success. These are some of my favorite discussions, and there will be more to report soon.
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Undergraduate Research and Creative Works Conference Accepting Abstracts
March 8th is the deadline to submit abstracts for the 2019 URCWC. This is a great opportunity for students to share their work in an academic conference setting. Go to
urcwc.weebly.com for more information, and please
distribute our flyer to your students!
If you'd like to volunteer to judge students' work, email
urcw@nsc.edu
Convocation Date Feedback
I've gotten a few questions from faculty about why Spring Convocation isn't held the week before classes start. This is a compromise because of the differing needs of faculty and staff. For faculty, it's best to hold Convocation before classes are in session; however, the week before classes start is incredibly busy for staff in Financial Aid, Advising, the Registrar's Office, etc., making it nearly impossible for those areas to attend.
To ensure we aren't always prioritizing one group over others, we alternate; Fall Convocation happens the week before classes start, and Spring Convocation is scheduled on a Friday a few weeks into the semester. No time is ideal for everyone on campus, but we do our best to be attentive to different schedules.
A huge thank you to Chris Garrett and the Convocation planning group for putting together an awesome day. The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, especially about Dr. Wesch's keynote address.
Publications
- June Eastridge (Nursing) participated in the 2018 Summer Scholarship Institute. She just got word that the project she worked on, "Comparing Two Models of Collaborative Testing for Teaching Statistics," co-authored with Wendi Benson (Psychology) has been accepted for publication in Teaching of Psychology!
- Pete La Chapelle (History) has a new book, I'd Fight the World: A Political History of Old-Time, Hillbilly, and Country Music, forthcoming from the University of Chicago Press this year. The Provost's Office was glad to be able to support the project with a Seed Grant.
- Kathryn Tucker (English/Writing Center Director), Tony Scinta, Sandip Thanki (Director of IR), Qingmin Shi (now at UNLV), and I have an article, "Fostering Historically Underserved Students' Success: An Embedded Peer Support Model that Merges Non-Cognitive Principles with Proven Academic Support Practice" forthcoming in Review of Higher Education. The article assesses the effectiveness of our Course Assistant program.
IRB Tip
Revised federal regulations changed what is required in informed consent documents and how the information is presented. Be sure to use the new informed consent template, available on the
IRB website.
First-Year Lecturer (STEM Specialization) Position
Nate Silva has accepted a position as a full-time biology lecturer here at NSC. I'm thrilled for him, as that has long been his goal. We are now searching for his replacement as a member of our First-Year Experience team. The
FYE Lecturer teaches sections of ALS 101 (College Success) and intro-level courses in their discipline - in this case, a field represented in the department of Physical and Life Sciences. Thank you to Nate for agreeing to chair the search.
GradFIT Deadline Approaching
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Building Familial Ties
MGM Offers Free Tuition to Employees
Representatives from all the NSHE schools are meeting bi-weekly to develop the infrastructure needed to support the
MGM College Opportunity Program, which offers free tuition to all MGM employees who pursue a fully online degree. Currently, NSC does not offer any programs that can be completed entirely online (making us ineligible to participate), but partnerships like this are one of the reasons I’ve been working with faculty to expand online offerings while partnering with the CTLE to develop a quality assurance program for online courses.
Speech-Language Pathology Site Visit
Representatives from the
Council on Academic Accreditation (CAA) completed their first site visit on February 12th, in preparation for the planned launch of our MEd in Speech-Language Pathology in the fall. Although we won’t officially know if we’ve been granted candidacy until July, the review team seemed very positive during their exit interview, offering praise for our assessment practices, our integration of technology, and our willingness to address Nevada's dire need for more highly-trained speech-language pathologists.
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What are the most common lower- and upper-division courses taken by NSC graduates? The following chart shows the top 10 lower- and upper-division courses taken by our graduates, their total historic enrollment, and the number (and %) of students who graduated after enrolling in those classes. In lower-division courses, over 4,200 students have enrolled in PSY 201, and 36% of those students have graduated. In upper-division courses, over 2,700 students have enrolled in PSY 430, and 50% of them have graduated.
These are underestimates of the total numbers of graduates, as the students currently enrolled in those classes have not had enough time to graduate. (Click on image to enlarge.)
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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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