September 8 - 12

Another whirlwind of a week! I can't wait until the semester settles down a bit.

Bernice, Jonathan and I met with the Enrollment Management staff who do our recruiting. We will be focusing heavily on what we think of as "traditional enrollment" which means students in seats. The best way faculty can help is to attend open houses; the first Westchester open house is Sunday, November 9, and the first New York open house is Sunday, November 16. So fellow faculty members, please get those dates on your calendars right now!

I also met the entering DPS students in the IT professionals cohort. Much to my surprise as I was introducing myself at each table, one of them turned to me and said, you taught me database. It was nice to be reconnected with Rafael Leefoon again.

Thursday I was in New York on the 18th floor for most of the day, at Dean's Council in the morning and Management Council in the afternoon.

Some things to pay attention to:

Middle States: next week there will be two town hall meetings and while this might not be the most interesting thing in the world, our Middle States visit is very important, so please take the time to at least skim the part of the report that relates to the Seidenberg School.

Digital Gallery: Frank Marchese, along with Jillian Mcdonald of Dyson College, co-curate the gallery and will have an opening this Thursday evening.

Some of you were inspired to buy David Allen's book, Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress Free Productivity. If enough of us are interested, we can get together once a semester and talk about how we are doing with GTD. Any one up for a "lunch and learn" format?

Next week I'll be in Pleasantville on Monday and Tuesday, at the Graduate Center on Wednesday, and in New York on Thursday and Friday, but mostly at the Midtown Center. I have a Society for Information Management meeting in Stamford on Thursday evening; I am really looking forward to going, especially since the speaker is E. Jeffrey Hutchinson, the CIO of Group Danone and a student in our DPS for IT professionals.

Thursday the department chairs, program chairs and I will be meeting to discuss the role of a department/program chair. Faculty, you may want to discuss your perspective with your chairs. This is the beginning of a discussion of the structure of the academic side of our school. Please note that I said BEGINNING of a DISCUSSION. All of us need to be involved.

Have a great weekend-see you around campus!

The First Week

Here I am at the end of my first full week as Dean. I spent two hours at Dean's Council, two hours at Management Council, and many hours meeting with some of you as I learn more about what we do in our school. I've enjoyed spending time in New York again, although the last time I was in New York we weren't called the Seidenberg School and we weren't at 163 William Street, so I'm a "stranger in a strange land" but I'm certainly enjoying myself.

Staff on both campuses have been busy with orientation-yes, we have multiple orientations throughout the summer. I had the pleasure of meeting one of our Seidenberg Summer Scholars, Brian Minoghe (I hope I've spelled his name right!) who will be a first year student with us this fall. Brian and his dad stopped by the office in NY on Monday so I got to say hello and welcome him.

This year all students will be reading the book Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder. We'll be planning events around this book for Pace Academy Day which will be held on Tuesday, September 2 on both campuses so mark your calendars now. The book is the story of Doctor Paul Farmer and his work in Haiti, working to provide health care to folks in the poorest country in the western hemisphere. It's a wonderful story and he's an interesting guy-here's a link to his website Partners in Healthcare

You might be interested (and proud!) to know that Sylvia Russakoff of the Pace Computer Learning Center made a presentation to the members of the Management Council about the kinds of project management courses that PCLC conducts. Steve Friedman mentioned that many of us think we know how to manage projects but we really don't, and the folks at the PCLC might be able to help us out here. And there are many projects, large and small, going on. More about that later.

Next week I'll be in Pleasantville on Monday, out of the office on Tuesday, and in New York on Wednesday (for a Strategic Planning Committee meeting from 10 until 12:30) and again on Thursday (for a Management Council Informal Lunch from 12:30 until 2:30). I'm planning to take off Friday morning (but that might change).

I'll be on vacation from Saturday July 19 until Sunday August 3.

Finally, our biggest concern continues to be enrollment. Please comment here, drop me a line or call me at either X11810 or X33750 and let me know what you've been doing and/or what you think I can do to help with enrollment. And let me know what you think about anything at all.

See you on one of the campuses!