We're off to a good start

for the Spring semester.

Some highlights so far:

1. The Advisory Board met and discussed the Seidenberg Curriculum Task Force Report. I've sent the overview to department and curriculum committee chairs for review and discussion with their respective faculty. I'll be delivering a copy to the Provost tomorrow at my regularly scheduled meeting with him.
2. We are also busy planning the Leadership in Service and Technology Award evening, tentatively scheduled for Tuesday June 9 (very tentatively).
3. Thanks to a recommendation by one of our board members, we are now affiliate members of NCSSSMST and will be including those secondary schools in our outreach.
4. The Building Livable Communities in Second Life Competition was held on the Pleasantville campus on Friday, January 24. Thanks to Jean Coppola for serving as a faculty advisor, and to Matt Ganis for providing technical support. Three teams competed, and finished in the following order: Pace University, Monroe College and Manhattanville College.

This current economic environment will certainly challenge us as we work with admissions to bring in a fall class. I know I can count on all of you to help as needed with our outreach efforts.

I'm planning on scheduling an "all school" meeting for February 13 at the Graduate Center. Please mark your calendars now-details will follow early next week.

See you on campus one of these days:
Monday and Friday next week I'm in Pleasantville, Tuesday and Wednesday I'm at the Graduate Center, and Thursday I'm in New York.

September 13 - 19

This has been a particularly busy week as far as meetings go. (And so this is a really long post-you can just skip to the bottom if you just want to know my schedule).

The academic department chairs (Dan, Narayan, John, Sotiris – Nancy had a family emergency and couldn’t join us), program chairs (Fred and David) and I met for a couple of hours yesterday and agreed that our number one focus needs to be on our curriculum. We’ll be meeting with the curriculum committee chairs to map out a plan for curricula revision.

I attended the Middle States Town Hall meeting in Pleasantville on Tuesday. The preliminary visit will be on November 17 and 18^th. Please read over the Middle States Draft

I also attended the beginning of the Service Learning meeting. I’ve asked the faculty working on service learning courses to identify courses that might be of interest to students in other schools in the university. I’ll be working with the Deans and advisers in the other schools to make sure that students in all schools are aware of the fine service learning courses that we are offering.

I’m pleased to be able to tell you that Provost Geoff Brackett will be sending out a call for proposals for ThinkFinity grants to faculty and staff. These grants will provide a wonderful opportunity for us to develop courses across disciplines and schools; I encourage everyone to be creative and apply. How do I know this? I had a meeting with him.

Joe Malerba has been in contact with Mike Gargano’s widow Phyllis, and she asked that we not plan a memorial for Mike until after the middle of October. Jonathan Hill will be organizing this event on the downtown campus and we’ll be working with folks in the Math Department to coordinate this event. Please make sure to let Jonathan or me know if you want to be involved.

I had an opportunity to attend the Westchester Fairfield Chapter of SIM (Society for Information Management) meeting along with David Sachs, who has been representing the Seidenberg School and serves on the chapter’s board as the Academic Liaison. For many years SIM sponsored the top journal in information systems research, MIS Quarterly. Coincidently the speaker was Jeffrey Hutchinson, a second year student in our DPS in Computing for IT professionals. Jeffrey is the CIO of Group Danone, the French company that owns Dannon yogurt. I met him last year when I gave my qualitative research lecture to the first year students. Jeff said wonderful things about our program during his talk-approximately 50 IT executives heard him. I felt very proud of our school and I was reminded again of how important our work is. Everyone with whom I spoke was surprised to hear that enrollment in schools of computing is down. These executives are concerned about a looming shortage of IT professionals – now if we can just get the word out to guidance counselors, parents and talented prospective students….

Which is a nice segue to remind everyone that we will have two open houses this Fall-November 9 in Pleasantville and November 16 in New York. Faculty, please make sure to attend at least one open house this year (and more as you are able). Make sure that your chair knows your plans so that we know when to expect you.

If any of you want to see my calendar on Outlook, send me a “sharing” note and I’ll be glad to share it with you. Here’s how the next couple of weeks look:

The week of 9/22: Monday and Friday I’m in Pleasantville; Tuesday at the Graduate Center, and Wednesday and Thursday in NY.

The week of 9/29: Monday and Friday I’m in Pleasantville; Wednesday I’m in NY. Tuesday and Thursday are open at this point.

The week of 10/6: Monday and Thursday, I'm in Pleasantville, Wednesday, NYC and Friday I'm at the Graduate Center. I believe that Jim has set Friday October 10 as the date for the Seidenberg Faculty Council meeting.

Finally, congratulations to Darren Hayes and his family who welcomed Shay Darren Hayes, who weighed in at 7 1/2 pounds on Wednesday. Shay joins Nikolai, Aine and Fiona. Mother Nalini and baby Shay are doing fine.

There are many, many things going on - post a comment and let us all know what I've missed!

Enjoy the weekend, and happy fall-Monday is the Autumn equinox.

The Semester Begins!

Ready or not, school starts next week!

Sunday is Setters Day on the Pleasantville campus. The program begins at 4:30 PM-I'll be there to welcome new students and I hope to see some of you there. I went last year and enjoyed the event.

Tuesday is Academy Day. I'll be in NY in the morning and Pleasantville in the afternoon. I hope to see many of you at Academy Day, possibly at the CIS 101 meeting in the morning or at one or the other of the Academy Day events on either campus. I hope to finish the Common Reading, Mountains Beyond Mountains, before we discuss it on Tuesday. Please join your colleagues to welcome 29 first year students and transfer students to the New York City campus, and 18 first year students and transfer students to the Pleasantville campus. They join the 114 full time and 40 part time undergraduate students who will be returning to both campuses.

Mark your calendars NOW for convocation to be held on Friday, October 24. Details will be forthcoming but as of right now Tracey Kidder, the author of Mountains Beyond Mountains, is expected to be on campus.

Next week I'll be on the Pleasantville campus on Wednesday and Friday, and on the New York campus on Thursday. I'll be at the Graduate Center on Friday evening to welcome a new cohort of Educational Professionals to our DPS program.

The following week I'll be in New York on Monday and Thursday, Pleasantville on Tuesday and Friday and at the Graduate Center on Wednesday (got that 8:)?).

Some things that I'm currently working on:

The Strategic Planning Commitee report, which we hope to release in early October.

Reporting against the Three Year Plan, for President Steve Friedman-each Dean is monitoring activities in the five areas outlined in Steve's three year plan: growth, retention, academic reputation in selected areas, strategic repositioning and management culture.

Working with department and program chairs to define the role of a chair as we review administrative and academic structures.

I've been thinking about curricula, especially as I look at opportunities for interdisciplinary work. Other schools are offering "dual majors" in areas such as digital art and music, and Provost Brackett, Dean Hermann and I met to explore areas such as computer forensics, digital art, and other areas of mutual interest. I intend to meet with Deans Bazcko and Feldman to have similar conversations.

Finally, we are planning a memorial for our colleague Mike Gargano. Some of you may know that Mike and I worked together in the Management Science Group at the Equitable Life Assurance Society in the early 70's. I knew him for over 30 years. He was a wonderful colleague and a great friend, and we all miss him.

I wish all of us a productive semester.