Welcome to the Academic Year 2022-23!
I want to thank all the academic faculty, administrative faculty, and classified staff who participated in Professional Development Day on August 15th. I was also very pleased that so many people stayed and enjoyed the breakout sessions. Presenters reported good participation and enjoyable dialogue.
In my presentation for Professional Development Day, I highlighted important initiatives moving forward pertaining to potential academic faculty compensation changes, and I shared my major goals for the upcoming academic year. Here are the highlights:
Academic faculty compensation working groups (all recommendations are needed no later than mid-October).
- Nursing clinicals contact vs. workload credit hours: A working group has already been formed through Faculty Senate to examine this issue.
- Changing calculation for compensating independent study: I will convene a group with many of the original members who have already supplied valuable research on national data in this area.
- Examination of summer/overload pay for faculty by academic rank: A task force examined this issue carefully last year and made recommendations for implementation this fall if the budget allows.
Major Provost goals for AY 2022-23 include:
- Help President Pollard “carry the water” on her major initiatives including a name change to Nevada State University, and advocacy for an Academic Village and planning money for a new STEAM building.
- Continue to develop our Workforce Development capacity including continuing education, certificate, and micro-credentialing options.
- Guide proposal and implementation of new academic programs.
- Guide strategic hiring of faculty.
- Work on continuous, improved communication between leadership, faculty, staff, and students.
- Oversee all aspects of academic integrity including NWCCU accreditation.
- Build out graduate program support and administration.
- Build out undergraduate research/honors/McNair programming.
- Build out arts programming and curriculum.
- Launch a pilot of an academic incubator.
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I’m filing this particular report from the field. Specifically, a soccer field. I’m at my son’s practice, which would be an all-around pleasant setting if it didn’t feel like the Conair gods were aiming the world’s largest hairdryer directly at my face (granted, my son has it worse – merely watching him run up and down the pitch in 99-degree heat makes me want to throw up).
This will be a light update because I don’t have a ton to share and I’m hoping to share it before fainting from heat exposure. First on my list is the “Student Success Equity Intensive” (SSEI) from the American Association for Colleges & Universities (AASCU). As I noted in a recent update, we applied to be a part of this project that, in the words of AASCU, “will enable teams from multiple AASCU institutions to come together to work collectively on student success, learn from one another with support from AASCU, and access tools and strategies through our engagement in national networks.” Through your powers of deduction, you probably have surmised that I would not be mentioning this if our application were NOT accepted, and if that’s the case you would be right. We’re in. I’ll follow up with more info in the wake of my orientation meeting next week, but I hope this will be a good opportunity to build upon our existing successes in closing equity gaps and to share what we have learned with other public institutions.
The other thing I wanted to mention is how hot and humid it is on this soccer field. I now know what it feels like to be inside of a George Foreman grill. Also, some quick-hitting updates:
- We recently submitted a proposal to the Academic Affairs Council to change the name of our degree program from “Interdisciplinary Data Science” to “Data Science.” The latter is more recognizable, easier to say, and fits a lot nicer on a t-shirt.
- Our first-year student recruitment plans have really taken shape, and next time I’ll dedicate more space to discuss our four focus areas for improvement.
- I said this would be a light update, and it’s becoming increasingly clear that I must have been lying.
- I recently worked with Sandip to recommend a new list of peer and aspirational institutions for Nevada State. The existing list, which this would replace, mostly established matching institutions in terms of funding rates, size, and student diversity; the new list attempts to improve upon this by including new variables that further reflect the New Majority (e.g., Pell rates, transfer-in rates, and proportion of part-time students, among others).
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Publications, Grants, & Accomplishments
- Laura Naumann (Psychology) and Sam Jewell (Biology received word that their NSF ADVANCE proposal was funded. It will provide $1 million over 3 years to address workload disparities experienced by women and faculty of color.
- Heather Lang-Cassera (College Success/English) will read from her work as part of her Nevada Arts Council Literary Arts Fellowship; the reading is scheduled at The Writer's Block on September 22nd at 7 p.m.
- Chris Garrett (CTLE/SOE) published the article "Images of the Prodigal: The Moral Didactics of William Dean Howells in The Rise of Silas Lapham" in Literature and Belief.
- Emily Hoover (English) wrote a piece of flash fiction, "Mosaic for My Mother," that is a semifinalist in SmokeLong Quarterly's SmokeLong Summer Competition, a prestigious international competition. Another flash fiction piece, "How to Vanquish the Demon Raktabija," has been published in The Disappointed Housewife.
- Zach Woydziak (Chemistry) co-authored "Improving the Brightness of Pyronin Fluorophore Systems through Quantum-Mechanical Predictions" with several students. It was accepted for publication in The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters.
- I got word that we will receive an extra $22,000 this year for our CCAMPIS grant to support student-parents by paying for their childcare at the campus Early Childhood Education Center.
Undergraduate Research Resources
City Tech CUNY Library's YouTube page includes a number of short videos you might find useful for your classes that include research projects. Topics include what a peer-reviewed article is, elements of scholarly articles, and tips for reading scholarly research articles, among others.
Food Drive
The CARE Team is holding a food drive through September 9th to stock the campus food pantry. You can order items from the Amazon wishlist or drop them off at the RSC Welcome Desk.
CTLE Update
The CTLE just released its 2021-22 annual report. It provides an overview of their activities last year and highlights faculty achievements. Their Fall 2022 Newsletter lists the various virtual trainings and events they'll offer throughout the semester.
Free COVID-19 Tests
Three branches of the Henderson libraries are offering free at-home tests. You can pick up two tests per person per visit at the Gibson, Green Valley, or Paseo Verde locations.
NEH Summer Stipends Grant Opportunity
The NEH Summer Stipends program provides $6,000 for two months of full-time work on a humanities project. Interested faculty should download the grant details; the deadline to apply is September 21st. Faculty apply as individuals and do not need to be nominated by the College. Christine González can provide help navigating Grants.gov for the submission.
NSSE Data
We've received the results of the 2022 NSSE survey of our students, and I'll begin including them in our newsletters. To start, the pocket guide report provides an overview of some key items about academic expectations and preparation. For instance, first-year students said they are assigned about 52 pages of writing per year, while seniors reported 83 pages of assigned writing.
Glance through the report for a quick perspective on what our students say is being asked of them, how much time they spend studying, and how they rate a variety of areas of their educational experience.
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Core Curriculum Update
The Core Curriculum revision continues to be a Herculean task. Thank you to everyone who has contributed their time and energy to help this project succeed. I promise that we’ll be very proud of the results once it's done. For now, we’re slowly chipping away at it. I compiled my list today of course proposals and their Essential Learning Outcomes (ELOs), which you can see here. So far, we’ve got 36 that are either approved or proposed. If we wanted to add ELOs to every class currently in the Core (about 330), we’d be 11% done. Ouch. Thankfully, part of this project involves reducing the number of classes available, so we may be closer to 25% done. Either way, if you teach a class in the Core Curriculum and want to keep it in the Core, now is the time to start adding those ELOs. At some point, we’ll need to look at the classes without ELOs and decide if we want to keep them in the Core. Here’s the ELO form if you’re feeling inspired.
A couple of other Core notes:
- Alex, Stefany, and I have been working on a project to remove “major” classes from the Core. For example, our Deaf Studies degree requires students to use AM 141 & AM 142 to satisfy their Humanities Core requirement. I can fairly criticize the person who put this requirement in place because it was me. However, now that I’m older and slightly wiser, I’d like to move those courses into the major, making the Core more consistent for everyone. If we can change the policy that prohibits double-dipping in the major and the Core, the overall effect of this change is negated. Students still have the same number of credits – just in different places.
- Should upper-division courses be in the Core? It’s a great question – and probably not up to me. If it were up to me, I’d say that generally, Core classes should be 100- and 200-level. Upper-division classes aren’t prohibited, but Core classes are supposed to be broader, survey-type classes, as opposed to focused courses that require pre-requisites. When we are ready, I’d like to hear how Faculty Senate feels about it and use that information to develop some additional guidelines.
- How can we be sure students hit all twelve ELOs by the time they finish the Core? At the moment, we can’t. I imagine ELOs as glitter bombs dispersed throughout the field of the Core Curriculum (thank you Rachel for that analogy). The ELO glitter bombs are so well distributed among the required classes that students are likely to hit them all, often multiple times. If you look at the list of proposed and approved classes with ELOs, you’ll notice that some are more popular than others, so we’ll need to consider that as we move forward with new proposals.
Language and Learning Lab
Did you know we have a language and learning lab? It's true. The lab is located in the Dawson building and serves as a hub for three programs: Deaf Studies, Spanish, and Math. Take a look at this flyer to learn more.
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Aug. 28 - Last day for students to add/drop classes
Sept. 5 - Labor Day; campus closed
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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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