Staff Meeting

Thanks to everyone who made time today to join me in a four way (!) video-conferenced staff meeting. I'll post my notes later, but here is a brief summary of what we talked about:

1. what I see as our major challenges: enrollment, cost containment and collaboration
2. the strength of our school and my expectation that it will continue to be strong
3. the assurance that we will all have jobs at the university, although those jobs might not be in the Seidenberg School
4. my plan to reorganize the academic departments in a way that will serve our students more efficiently

I thanked everyone for the fine work we do in retaining our students, in working with them to insure that they have a good experience in the Seidenberg School, and in meeting challenges "head on" and solving problems creatively.

And I reminded everyone that problems caught early are more easily resolved than problems learned about later; a problem is an opportunity in disguise.

Next week I'll be at the downtown campus on Monday and Thursday. We'll be hosting a memorial service for Mike Gargano on Monday afternoon. I'll be at the Graduate Center on Tuesday (right after I vote-don't forget to vote!) and in Pleasantville on Tuesday and Wednesday [correction: make that Wednesday and Friday-I can't be in two places at once!]. Wednesday faculty and staff can get flu shots in Pleasantville-I'll be getting mine during the afternoon, after I attend the Faculty Exchange Lunch hosted by the Pforzhemeir Center and the Center for Teaching, Learning and Technology. The topic is the Middle States review-faculty,stop by at this lunch or the lunch in NY to learn about your role in a successful Middle States visit. Register at the CTLT Website.

Have a wonderful weekend, a Happy Halloween and don't forget to turn your clocks back (Spring ahead, Fall back!)

I'm instituting a new "meeting with me" policy

I'm attending the Professional and Organizational Development (POD) Network Conference in Reno/Sparks Nevada where Jim Stenerson and I presented a paper written by Jim, John Molluzzo and me on faculty career stages. I really enjoy this conference of primarily faculty development folks. They are a warm friendly group (mostly extroverts, I would guess!) and the conference always provides me with new ideas. The Pforzhemeir Faculty Development Center funded this trip, since the work was done while I was the co-director.

I can't say that I'm enjoying Sparks as much as I am the conference. The hotel is basically a casino with conference facilities. I've been here since Wednesday and will fly home tomorrow. I'll be in Pleasantville on Monday and Wednesday, downtown on Tuesday and Friday, and at the Graduate Center on Thursday.

I've been able to have an "open door" policy for the first two months of the semester but for the next two months I'll be saying "no" more than before to meetings.

In order to make the best use of my time I'll be asking those of you who want to meet with me to 1) contact Fran O'Gara and 2) tell her exactly what it is you need from me.

If the purpose of the meeting is to brief me on a project or an activity, please send me a note and copy Fran, rather than meeting with me. I will be reserving meetings for those issues that require a specific action from me.

This doesn't mean that my door will be "closed;" it just means that I need to focus my time differently. And this doesn't mean that I won't stop by and chat or say hello whenever I'm on campus (besides, I can't seem to help myself !).

Please feel free to let me know what you think about this or anything else!

Ooops-I forgot to post last Friday!

I broke "rule number 1" of maintaining a blog-I totally forgot to post last Friday.

This week I'm in NY on Monday, Pleasantville on Tuesday and at the Professional and Organizational Development in Higher Education Conference in Reno, Nevada on Wednesday through Saturday.

I'd love to have some dialogue and conversation about the vision of the Seidenberg School that I presented at the Seidenberg Faculty Council meeting, and I'm open to different ways to have that happen-I can join department meetings, we can have the discussion on-line, whatever works.

Faculty, I'm particularly interested in your reactions to the idea of a New York Department chair, a Westchester Department Chair, and a Special Programs Chair. Tell me what's good and bad about this idea.

I'm going to have a meeting with all the staff of the school in November to have a similar conversation about the interdisciplinary nature of the school.

I'll remember to post next week from my conference!

Seidenberg Faculty Council Meeting

Today we had our Faculty Council meeting, and I thank all of you who took the time to attend. I hope I left you with the following message: we have many challenges ahead of us, but we also have many opportunities. We should be able to work hard, meet those challenges and have fun along the way.

We need everyone to be "enthusiastic learners" as we redefine the school. The core of our school will be the same: high quality undergraduate and graduate programs in computing built on the foundations of each discipline. Around this core I envision collaborative courses/certificates/programs with other schools in the university. This redefinition of our school is one that I trust we can all support.

I described us as enthusiastic learners because I see us trying new things, working out the glitches as we learn what works and what doesn't, and emerging as leaders in technology across disciplines.

We also spoke about my idea of reorganizing the academic side of the school according to location, with a New York Department, a Westchester Department and a Special Programs/On-line/Corporate Department. I listened to the concerns expressed at the meeting and over the next few weeks I will draft a discussion document on this organization.

I'd like to know what you think about the vision of the school as expressed at the faculty council meeting, as well as the proposed organizational changes. Feel free to e-mail me privately, comment here, or start a thread on the Seidenberg Faculty discussion list at ft-faculty@csis.pace.edu.

Fran will be working with me to arrange a time for a meeting of all of the staff of the Seidenberg School so that we can have a similar discussion.

Next week I'm at the Graduate Center on Monday, in Pleasantville on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday, and in New York on Thursday.

I want to share a YouTube video that Narayan shared with the computer science faculty and me, starring one of our very own computer science students who had his brand new MacBook stolen. Enjoy!

Next Week

This will be a short post-I'll be posting a longer entry over the weekend, speaking about the outcomes of meeting the department chairs, the curriculum committee chairs, the curricula task force chairs and I had this week regarding curriculum, some thoughts I've had about reorganizing the academic departments, and my ideas for where our emphasis needs to be in this academic year.

I'll also be previewing my comments at next Friday's Seidenberg Faculty Council meeting.

This post just gives you my schedule for next week, which is different from what I posted last week:
Monday, NY
Tuesday and Wednesday, Pleasantville
Thursday I'll be out of the office
Friday, the Graduate Center for the Seidenberg Faculty Council meeting.

And if you are observing Yom Kippur, may you have an easy fast.