NSC has been granted 5 sabbaticals for the 2022-23 academic year. For more information on the sabbatical process, read our Sabbatical Leave Policy. For information on applying, reach out to Zach Woydziak, chair of the Faculty Senate Academic Affairs committee.

Raul Tapia (Accounting) will serve as the IRB Chair for 2021-22. I continue to serve as the IRB Administrator, and review most proposals submitted to the IRB.

The annual NCUR conference is accepting undergraduate students' research abstracts from September 15 to November 19. This is a great opportunity for students to take part in a national conference and present their work to peers and faculty from other institutions. The conference will take place April 4-8, 2022.

Assignments or quizzes used to measure attendance/participation in online classes must be related to class content. "Introduce yourself" discussions and syllabus quizzes do not meet Department of Education standards for online participation. As we begin planning for winter and spring terms, please be sure online classes will have a meaningful content-related item due in the first two weeks that can be used to measure attendance.

Last week, Faculty Senate supported the three proposals below in a Sense-of-the-Senate vote. Based on that vote, Provost Shields approved the three proposals, beginning the next chapter in our Core Curriculum story. The three approved proposals:

I've spelled out more details about these changes here, along with other links and information. Our next challenge will be implementing these changes, beginning with the classes from this summer's pilot. Congratulations to all the faculty who worked diligently to get us this far.

The library recently added ProQuest’s Historical Black Newspaper Collection. Take a look!

LAS is hosting The Dean's Social Justice Series, which has two events scheduled this fall:

The Writing Center is also hosting a Social Justice Series, with four speakers scheduled for this fall:

With a case manager and a licensed counselor on staff, expect to see more information under the umbrella of STUDENT WELLNESS. This is going to be a growing area with different offerings for students. I am very excited to be working with NSSA President Lauren Porter on finding affordable student health insurance. Housing Director Shenise Noel is looking forward to our Student Wellness team developing targeted mental health programming for our growing housing population.

Speaking of housing and student wellness, Paint Nite will take place at The Village for our housing residents on Wednesday, September 15th from 5:30-7:30pm. This is one of the many self-care offerings Student Wellness will be offering exclusively for housing residents.

Student Wellness and the Office of Student Life collaborated to build self-care kits. The kits will be donated to our campus food pantry and local Henderson organizations. Kits include a variety of hygiene needs for both men and women. A very special thank you to the Academic Advising team for helping pack the bags.

STING OUT STIGMA is a movement to bring mental health and suicide prevention awareness to our NSC campus community. They will host a meet-and-greet and softball game later this month. More details will follow.

Did I learn a valuable lesson this weekend? Yes! Ask better questions before you participate in a hike with people much younger than yourself. The Office of Student Life partnered with Dr. Laura Rosales on an environmental hike at Mt. Charleston’s Fletcher Canyon. It was a beautiful day, and a number of housing students participated along with students from Dr. Laura Rosales's environmental science classes, and an out-of-shape Dean of Students. A hike and walking on a trail are two different things. I learned a lot, and it was nice seeing two different groups of students interacting and talking, and students talking with professors about any and everything. Did you know certain types of pine trees have different scents? The bark of the tree we found actually smelled like a mix between vanilla and butterscotch.

17 days, 11 hours, 59 minutes as of the writing of my update.

The week of September 20th, we should have the NSHE updated and approved vaccine exemption forms for students. These forms will be available on the Medproctor site as well as our NSC immunization link. Students who are approved for an exemption will need to submit to weekly COVID testing. Submitting a weekly COVID test is not an alternative to the vaccination requirement.

I got vaccinated because of my parents. At ages 81 and 79.5, my parents still have a lot of spunk about them. My mom is trying to learn the latest Chicago slide dance and my dad works out 5 days a week. Because of their ages, they received the shot earlier this year. What I didn’t know (before I was vaccinated) was my parents were concerned about me visiting their home every weekend, hanging out with them, playing cards, eating their food, and not vaccinated. My sister told me they didn’t have the heart to tell me to stop coming to their home because they feared for their health. The memory of this conversation still brings tears to my eyes. I did not return to their home after the conversation with my sister. Although I needed their interaction for my mental health, it was not going to be at the risk of their lives, so I got the shot(s).

Stay Safe, Scorpions!

The National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) has released some of the 2021 survey results. In the snapshot document, our students (both first-year and seniors) reported more engagement through higher-order learning, reflective/integrative learning, learning strategies, effective teaching practices, quality of interactions on campus, and encountering a supportive environment than did students in the comparison group of institutions.

The second tab of the spreadsheet shows time spent preparing for classes and reading for class, as well as average pages of writing completed per year. It also shows that our students were more likely than the comparison group to say that they were challenged to do their best work, and that NSC emphasizes studying and academic work.

As the third tab shows, our first-year students were much more likely than the comparison group to say that instructors provided prompt feedback, that they had quality interactions with staff, and that instructors provided guidance on drafts of work. Our seniors were much more likely to report encountering diverse perspectives in classes, connecting classes to social problems/issues, feeling valued by the college, and being taught in a way that matches how they prefer to learn.

We encourage you to look over the results to get a sense of what students think about their experience at Nevada State.

NSSE included a survey specifically asking students how COVID-19 has impacted their college experience and how well NSC has adapted. Overall, the campus did well. Compared to other institutions, our instructors got statistically significant higher scores from both first-year and senior students for remaining positive, having reasonable expectations of students, responding appropriately to the needs of students, and showing care for students. The campus as a whole also scored higher on keeping students safe.