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The Word - 2009/04/06

Posted On: 4/6/2009


The Word from CSEA

Columbus State Education Association Newsletter of April 6, 2009

JOIN CSCC AND CSEA FOR KOMEN RACE FOR THE CURE

Columbus State students, faculty, and staff are invited to join thousands of other central Ohioans in this year’s Komen Race for the Cure to benefit breast cancer research, treatment, education, and screening.

The 5K race/walk and 1-mile family fun walk will take place Saturday, May 16, starting at 8:30 a.m. downtown.

To join the CSCC/CSEA team, register online by following these steps:

  1. Go to http://www.active.com/framed/event_detail.cfm?event_id=1658822
  2. Select “Register Now” button.
  3. Select the “Team Registration – Join a Team” option and click “Continue.”
  4. Fill in the appropriate information on the following page and click “Continue.”
  5. In the “Participant Information” section, select the “CSCC and CSEA” team from the dropdown box.
  6. Fill out the remaining sections of the form, enter your payment information, and print your confirmation.

Hurry! Team registration ends April 24th!

Not available for race day but still want to support the cause?

You have two options: You can register for the CSCC/CSEA team by following the directions above and selecting “Sleep in For the Cure” under “event type.” Or you can donate in the team’s name by going tohttp://www.active.com/donate/columbusRFTC09/KJames31 and completing the online donation form.

For more info, contact one of the CSCC/CSEA team captains:

LAST CALL FOR GARDENERS

Maybe February was too early to inspire interest, but CSEA still seeks anyone interested in helping to organize an early-May swapping of perennials plants, a Saturday-morning event for the entire campus community.

As we prepare our spring gardens, there will be perennials that have spread too much or that we’d like to replace with something else. If you’re interested in working on planning this opportunity to share some plants and gardening ideas with others and pick up some for yourself, contact Steve Abbott by email (sabbott@cscc.edu) or at x5096.

INVITATION TO BREAKFAST WITH FRANKLIN UNIVERSITY

In light of the recent 3+1 agreement between Columbus State and Franklin University, the Provost at Franklin University has extended an invitation to a breakfast meeting to all Columbus State faculty. The invitation follows:

With sincere appreciation for our renewed partnership, Franklin University cordially invites you to join them for breakfast on Tuesday, April 21st from 8:00 am - 9:00 am in WD-409. Dr. Christopher Washington, Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs, will speak to the group at 8:30 am. He will discuss potential opportunities for collaboration between the faculty and staff at our institutions to better serve the needs of our community. Franklin faculty will also be on hand for new and renewed introductions, and to discuss specific partnership opportunities that capitalize on the strengths, talents and resources of each institution. Franklin University's Education Relations staff will be on hand to schedule classroom visits, take information requests, and offer their support services.

Please RSVP to cscc@franklin.educscc@franklin.edu before April 15, 2009.

SPRING SYMPOSIUM SEEKS FACULTY PROPOSALS

Organizers of a new academic event at the College are asking both full-time and adjunct faculty to submit proposals for the first Spring Symposium, a full-day event featuring presentations on recent scholarship, professional projects, and academic interests.

The Symposium will be held on Wednesday, May 20th, in the West Lounge of Nestor Hall.

The Symposium is scheduled on a regular class day in mid-week, when the greatest numbers of students, instructors, and staff members will be on campus, in the hope that the presentations will draw a large audience for this celebration of Columbus State's diverse and thriving intellectual life. The all-day event will be open to the public, and classes are welcome.

Columbus State faculty members from all divisions and departments are invited to send 200- to 250-word proposals on any topic to event co-coordinator Dr. Doug Gray by next Monday, April 13. The Arts & Sciences Faculty Lecture Series Committee, which is sponsoring the Symposium, will select the presenters and announce the schedule for the day in May.

For more information, please contact event coordinators Susan Flatt (x5978), Dr. Mort Javadi (x5635), or Dr. Doug Gray (x5819).

CHECKING FOR SYSTEM OUTAGES

Recently, and for several days last week as classes began, the college has been experiences sporadic outages with Blackboard, resulting in the inability for many faculty to effectively conduct their distance learning classes, and in many cases compromising the effectiveness of the traditional classes as well. When these outages occur, there is usually an alert posted on Columbus State's homepage indicating the nature of the problem.

Since many faculty, especially those teaching distance learning classes, may access Blackboard without going through the Columbus State homepage (i.e., they may have Blackboard set as their homepage already, or they may have a link from their homepage directly to Blackboard), we have requested that an email be sent to all faculty informing them of the nature of the problem whenever these problems do occur. We commend IT for its quick response to this request; the first such notice appeared last Wednesday to alert faculty of the problem.

When you experience difficulties with Blackboard, email, or other college-provided technologies, you are encouraged to refer to Columbus State's homepage for any announced technical problems before contacting the help desk at x5050.

PRESIDENTIAL SEARCH PROCESS

When six of the members of the Board of Trustees agreed to an extension of the President’s contract (until June 2010) at its March 26 meeting, it also appointed past Board chair Susan Stilson Edgar as chair of a presidential search committee. Although no notification has gone out to the campus yet, it will be important for faculty to play a significant role in the process.

Faculty have a vital role to play in shaping any higher education institution, and their input is generally considered central in a search process. With the College facing a conversion to semesters, ongoing implementation of Board of Regents’ initiatives, and the significant changes in operation that the opening of the Delaware campus will entail, such participation will be even more important.

Since the tone and atmosphere of any organization is set at the top, Columbus State’s future success will depend on the next president having a complex blend of skills. S/he will need a mix of academic and administrative experience, the ability to maintain and improve existing relationships with government and business, an understanding of the varied goals and needs of both associate’s degree programs and the Arts & Sciences transfer modules and, possibly most important, the ability to motivate faculty and staff and harness their creative energies by recognizing their shared role with administrators in shaping every aspect of the College.

A useful article on search processes for colleges and universities appeared in the March 2003 issue of the American Association of Higher Education and Accreditation Bulletin. Written by Dr. DeBow Freed, who for 20 years served as President of Ohio Northern University and since 2003 has served as President of the University of Findlay, it’s an instructive guide to avoiding common mistakes in the complex process of finding the right leader for an institution of higher education. The full article, "How to Improve Presidential Searches: Seven Suggestions From Someone Who Has Been on Both Sides of the Table," is available at http://www.aahea.org/bulletins/articles/pressearch.htm.

Among his insights from his more than 40 years of working in higher education are that too often, professional search firms that are hired to assist with the process end up not utilizing the institution's own selection committee's expertise to the maximum benefit - essentially hijacking the process while working under a "one size fits all" assumption about colleges' needs. Freed also points out the importance of exercising due diligence in researching a candidate's credentials, personal histories, and statements made; the importance of not allowing "matters of the moment" to outweigh long-term needs; and some of the reasons that faculty involvement is essential to an effective search process.

The next president will determine both the direction and the atmosphere of the College for probably the next decade. We urge faculty to become actively involved in the process of selecting a president who will possess leadership as well as administrative skills.

CONVERSION TO SEMESTERS

With OSU’s Board of Trustees voting last week for the university to convert to semesters, Columbus State will need to prepare to convert from quarters to semesters, probably in Autumn Quarter, 2012. There are many complex questions that will have to be answered as this process unfolds. How long will a semester be: 15 weeks, 16 weeks, or something other? How will summer semester fit in? What do we do with "stand-alone" one-quarter courses that we currently offer? Although we have not received any notice of the administration’s plans yet, a great deal of work will need to be done.

Much of this work will be the responsibility of faculty to perform—determining which courses and course sequences will be converted, determining if there are any stand-alone courses that would better be merged together, actually doing the conversion of each course's curriculum/content to a semester schedule, and multiple other processes. This work will require a great deal of time and effort from many faculty within each program and department, as well as a huge investment by the college into reassigned time for the work to be done. This additional workload will be especially onerous on full-time faculty, given how limited our numbers are for the size of the college.

Past practice has been that faculty who develop a course or significantly revise a course receive reassigned time equal to the number of contact hours of that course. In addition to those doing the course conversions, there will likely need to be some faculty within each department heading up those conversions, which will require additional reassigned time.

Not only do courses and curriculum need to be converted, but there will be a great deal of work required by support staff, from Registration and Financial Aid to Information Technology and Institutional Advancement. The president seems to think that this work will “just happen" and previously suggested that the cost of converting from quarters to semesters will be $400,000 - $500,000. More recently, she has revised that amount to "as much as $1,000,000.” From a faculty perspective, we believe she is likely underestimating the cost by several magnitudes, even if we are able to partner with other colleges to get much of this work done.

Faculty and administrators at OSU have been discussing conversion to semesters for several years, and the Chancellor of the Board of Regents has been discussing it since his appointment to the post. This is something that the administration should have been planning for months ago, rather than simply reacting to the announcement from The Ohio State University.

"LEAVING THE COLLEGE A BETTER PLACE"?

For the second spring in a row, after twenty years of achieving great success, Columbus State will not field a men’s intercollegiate baseball team. Although CSCC’s baseball team was highly successful and earned numerous appearances in the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) Division III World Series, the President eliminated the program last year, along with a number of other sports programs, after several baseball coaches requested a meeting with the Provost to discuss the fact that, on an hourly basis, they were getting paid less than minimum wage. A lawsuit against the college filed by several of these coaches is pending.

Columbus State is now the largest college (2-year or 4-year) in the state, and one of the largest community colleges in the nation, that does not field a men’s baseball team.


The Word is produced by the Communications Committee of the Columbus State Education Association. We welcome your comments, news, and insights.

Darrell Minor, President/ x5310
Amy Brubaker, Vice-President / x5068
Judy Anderson, Secretary / x5453
Phil MacLean, Treasurer / x5308
Kevin James, Parliamentarian-elect / x5008

Steve Abbott, Senior Association Representative / x5096
Gil Feiertag, Senior Association Representative / x5861
Beth Barnett, Association Representative / x2593
Liz Betzel, Association Representative / x5329
Dave Busch, Association Representative / x5079
Dr. Bill Cook, Association Representative / x5364
T.J. Duda, Association Representative / x5309
Cindy Evans, Association Representative / x2435
Dr. Charlie Gallucci, Association Representative / x5499
Dr. Mort Javadi, Association Representative / x5635
Dr. Sue Longenbaker, Association Representative / x2430
Jackie Miller, Association Representative / x2601
Mark Mitchell, Association Representative / x3612
Eric Nuebauer, Association Representative / x5698
Keith Sanders, Association Representative / x2588
Gilberto Serrano, Association Representative / x3863
Leslie Smith, Association Representative / x5302


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