Promotion and Tenure 2020

Congratulations to our six faculty members who received tenure and promotion to Associate Professor in 2020! 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, helps to enlighten our culture, and invigorates their teaching in the classroom. They are committed to the notion that sending students out into the world who can question, analyze, contribute to high-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 this decision official on March 5th, 2020, during their meeting at the College of Southern Nevada, Henderson.

NSC’s newest Associate Professors with tenure are:

Promotions for Lecturers

I am extremely excited to announce that full-time Lecturers will now have the opportunity to seek two levels of promotion and receive base salary increases with each promotion. After completing five years of service and with support from their program and Dean, Lecturers may apply to become a Senior Lecturer. After three full years of service at the Senior Lecturer level and with support from their program and Dean, Lecturers may apply to become a Distinguished Lecturer.

 

I want to thank the Lecturer Promotion Task Force chaired by Pam Call and Brian Martinelli for their collaborative work on the initial policy. Thanks also go out to Faculty Senate for their thoughtful debate of the issues and suggestions on the final draft. This is an interim policy that will be revisited for possible revisions by August 31, 2021. The first group of Lecturers seeking promotion will send up their portfolios on the same schedule as faculty applying for promotion and tenure.

 

I am proud of the progress we have made in developing fair and equitable pay increases across sectors of faculty and staff who had not had increases in many years. Since 2017, Nevada State has proposed and passed a career ladder for administrative staff to gain promotion and pay increases; increased pay floors for part-time instructors; passed summer pay increases for academic full-time faculty; and now collaborated on a policy to give Lecturers the opportunity to seek promotion and pay increases at two levels.

 

Arts and Culture at Nevada State

Under the direction of Angela Brommel, Executive Director, the Office of Arts & Culture has presented thirteen arts events and programs since August 2019, and has worked one-on-one with faculty, staff, and students on arts initiatives and funding opportunities, such as donating art supplies to Nepantla’s Día De Los Muertos Celebration and hosting an on-campus grant workshop with Nevada Humanities Council. This March they will issue a call for art based on the college’s common read, Educated by Tara Westover. This show will be the fourth and final exhibition of the year.

 

Last fall the Office of Arts & Culture hosted two eight-week exhibitions, Still Here Now and Home Means Nevada, through the Nevada Arts Council’s Nevada Touring Initiative (NTO) Traveling Exhibition Program funded by the National Endowment for the Arts and the State of Nevada. Fire on the Mountain: Country Music Gets Political, Memorabilia and Recordings, curated by Dr. Peter La Chapelle and Angela Brommel, is still on display in the Nevada State Gallery on the third floor of the Rogers Student Center.

 

Be on the lookout for more than 20 new works by local, faculty, and alumni artists coming soon to the Raker Student Success Center and the Dawson Building.

Common Read

The Common Read Committee wants your feedback!

 

Please take our 5-minute survey. You can complete it even if you haven’t read this year’s book, Educated by Tara Westover. The survey includes an (optional) opportunity to nominate a book for the 2020-21 Common Read.

 

The survey closes this Friday, February 21. Contact Alena Principato with any questions or comments.

An interesting side note: Dr. Marshall noted that some schools do a "common experience" instead of a common read. UCLA's common experience is a podcast about gentrification in Los Angeles.

Inbox Zero and Productivity Lists

Achieving inbox zero (where there are no messages in your inbox) is possible, but it requires some habit changes. For many of us, our email inbox doubles as a to-do list, so replies that require a little more time quickly pile up. One way to make a dent in all these items is to turn the emails that are waiting on a reply into a task on a to-do list. This does a few things. First, it allows you to safely remove the request from your inbox. Second, it transforms a request (e.g. Can you send me suggestions for a committee?) into an actionable item (e.g. research possible committee members). You can make to-do lists on paper or with electronic lists like Outlook Tasks. My favorite list application is Microsoft To-Do, a free tool that was formerly called Wunderlist (now discontinued).

DeafNation

In 2017, we launched the first BA in Deaf Studies in the entire state of Nevada. Since then, we've had our first graduating class and can proudly state that several of our interpreting students have passed statewide certification exams. We'll also have a booth this year at the DeafNation World Expo. It will be a great opportunity to interact with organizations from all over the US, promote our program, and energize our students and clubs.

Stefanie Coleman

The NSSA Student Lounge is Here!

The NSSA Student Lounge is officially open! Congratulations to NSSA President Nicola Opfer for her leadership and vision for a dedicated space for students - one of the many accomplishments for Nicola and NSSA during her two-year term as president.

March Is Women's History Month

We have several great events planned for the month; see the Key Dates below for details.

Avoid the Hold

On March 1st , advising holds will be placed on all students with fewer than 60 credit hours and all Pre-Education/Pre-Speech Pathology students. Students must meet with their advisor before registering for summer/fall.

In other advising news, Alex Kunkle and Jesse Poole attended the NACADA Assessment Institute to develop new goals, student learning outcomes, and assessment protocols for the Scorpion Success Network E-Alert program.

NSC Food Pantry

The NSC Food Pantry is a wonderful resource for students, thanks to the continued support of our campus community. Donations keep coming from our amazing faculty, staff, students, clubs, organizations, and departments. Since the beginning of this Spring semester, the Food Pantry and Mini Food Pantry have had approximately 67 visits combined from students in need. Nevada State College is making a genuine impact in reducing food insecurity on our campus.

Student Events

The Office of Student Life (OSL) hosted a number of events this month:

Sandip Thanki

The Next Step for Our Graduates

What percent of our alumni enroll in graduate or first professional schools after completing their degree at NSC? If we look at a five-year window, over 31% of our graduates move on to Masters, PhD, or First Professional programs. The chart below shows number of graduates by area and percentages of students enrolling in post-graduate programs 2, 3, 4, and 5 years after graduating from NSC.

Key Dates