September 22-28

Another week of meetings-I had no idea how many meetings a Dean is expected to attend. My schedule is at the end of this post, so just scroll down if that's all you are interested in.

This week included:

• The Mortola Heritage Luncheon, an event that recognizes those people who have remembered the university in their wills. A highlight of the lunch was a performance by students in the performing arts program-a medley of show tunes sung by seniors, accompanied by a first year student on the piano. It was a pleasure to see Mrs. Mortola, and to meet alumns (and others) from all years.
• A meeting of the Campaign Executive Committee.
• A meeting with Seidenberg staff who report directly to the Dean.
• A meeting with Ted Brodheim, the CIO for New York City's Department of Education and a member of our advisory board.
• Lunch with Joe Bazcko, Dean of the Lubin School, to discuss areas of shared interest where we might collaborate.

I've been looking over our enrollment numbers, and I'm concerned. I'll be following this posting with a note to all of you once we get the "final" fall numbers, but I can say with certainty that we did not meet our budgeted goal for first year students. This makes faculty involvement in open houses even more critical. Faculty, make sure that these dates are on your calendars: the first Westchester open house on Sunday, November 9, and the first New York open house on Sunday, November 16. Our graduate enrollment is slowing returning and that's the good news.

I'm continuing to meet members of our Advisory Board. I'm working with Jeanne Dennison in Philanthropy to begin the planning of our premier fund raising event, Leadership in Service to Technology, to be held in June.

I'm working with department chairs, program chairs and curriculum committee chairs to review and reinvigorate our curricula. You will be hearing much more about this as the semester goes on, including some exciting inter-disciplinary initiatives with Dyson College.

Here's my schedule for the next two weeks:

The week of 9/29: Monday and Friday I’m in Pleasantville; Wednesday I’m in NY. Thursday I'm at the Graduate Center. Tuesday is Rosh Hashannah and I'll be out of the office.

The week of 10/6: Monday and Tuesday, I'm in Pleasantville, Wednesday, NYC and Friday I'm at the Graduate Center. Thursday is Yom Kippur and I'll be out of the office. Friday October 10 is the date for the Seidenberg Faculty Council meeting.

As a "heads up" I'll be out of the office from Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, October 22 through the 25 in Reno, Nevada, presenting a paper at the Professional and Organizational Development Network Conference.

If you are celebrating the Jewish New Year, I wish you a sweet year, l'shana tova.

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.

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!

September 2 - September 5

This feels like the longest four day week ever-moving between the two campuses on Tuesday wore me out! I think Academy Day went well-what do you think? Comments welcome.

Louise and I met with Jeanne Dennison of Philanthropy to start thinking about the LST (Leadership and Service in Technology) event. It's never too soon to start planning. I'm also planning to meet with the Seidenberg Advisory Board in October.

Thursday I also attended the Management Council Informal Luncheon. Management Council is made up of the Deans and the Officers of the University. This is my second lunch. I've enjoyed them because I get to meet the newer officers whom I have not met, and to reconnect with those folks I've known but not as colleagues in this new way.

Tonight we'll welcome the third cohort of DPS students in the DPS for Educational Technology Professionals; next week we'll welcome a new cohort of DPS students in the DPS for Information Technology Professionals.

Managing my time has become more challenging. One of the advantages of being a college professor is that one has control of one's schedule. One of the challenges of being dean is that everyone has control of your schedule. If you come by the office on Friday mornings (whichever office I happen to be in) you'll see a "Do Not Disturb - Weekly Review in Progress" sign hanging on my door. The sign is courtesy of David Allen, and the weekly review is part of his Getting Things Done method, known to many as GTD. I'm a HUGE David Allen fan. When he started running seminars in New York city I signed up - twice - and paid with my own money (I really wanted to go).

GTD is really just organized common sense but it provides the discipline I need to keep track of everything. You can read more at GTD Times. I encourage you to read the book.

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

Finally, let me thank everyone of you for getting the semester off to a good start. By Monday each member of the staff will have been told about your salary increase, (Note: the faculty were notified in June when we signed contracts) and you'll see the change in your Friday paycheck. Please know that I appreciate everyone's efforts, and that I am looking forward to working with each of you during this interim period. We're off to a great start!

Note: this was originally posted on Friday September 5. The changes in red were added on Saturday, September 6.

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.

Week of August 18-22

Hard to believe but the fall semester is nearly underway. Please make sure to get your office hours to Fran-we'd like to be able to publish them as soon as possible.

This was a week that began in Pleasantville and ended in New York, with a day at the Graduate Center. Yesterday was devoted to Dean's Council and matters related to that; Thursday I spent trying to finalize graduate assistantships and schedule issues. I sent a note to everyone about graduate assistants, but it bounced back-here's the note:

" I have some additional graduate assistant time available for faculty who need research/project support. If you have not already requested a graduate assistant please send me, Louise or Jonathan a brief description of:

1. the work to be done
2. the amount of time you would like

For example, if you have a project that you think will require 15 hours of someone's time for a lit review, write a paragraph briefly explaining that you need lit review help for 15 hours.

Please send me your requests as soon as possible. I'll assign help in the order in which I received the requests. Please make sure that I hear from you BEFORE Friday, August 25 so that we can award the assistantships in a timely manner."

I'll try sending it again but meanwhile if you are reading this and you have a project that a graduate assistant can help with, let us know.

Next week I'll be in Pleasantville [Correction: New York] on Monday, New York on Tuesday, Pleasantville on Wednesday, the Graduate Center on Thursday and I'm not sure where I'll be on Friday-probably Pleasantville.

Tuesday the second of September is Academy Day-I'll be in New York at 11 AM to welcome students, then I'll head up to Pleasantville for the afternoon to welcome students. I look forward to seeing many of you then, if not before.

Enjoy these last days of vacation-I biked six miles along the North County Trailway today and it was beautiful. Some of the leaves are already turning-fall isn't far away at all!

Mid August Doldrums

Seems like we all might be in the mid-August doldrums (in case you're wondering what doldrums are click here). I enjoyed my short time in Maine, and now it's really back to work for me.

This week I spent Wednesday in Pleasantville cleaning up my office and getting organized. My docking station was installed and is working well-I now have docking stations at each location which is great. My move to Microsoft Exchange went smoothly-I hope everyone else's did as well. I have much to learn about Outlook, and I'm not ready to give up my Yahoo account, but so far I like having my calendar integrated with my e-mail.

Thursday I was in New York, where I met with the folks planning Academy Day for our new students. I'm almost finished reading Mountains Beyond Mountains, the book that is being read by our new students, and I'm struck by what Dr. Paul Farmer can teach us about leadership. He's a charismatic doctor, a man with a mission, who gets people to "buy into" his vision, and he also leaves behind sustainable structures that function well even when he is not around. That impresses me.

I look forward to seeing many of you at Academy Day, which will start around 11 AM on both campuses. Right now I'm planning to be in New York in the morning and in Westchester around lunch time. Be sure to join us as we welcome our new students and kick off the new semester.

Today I was at the Graduate Center, where I got quite a bit of work done - everyone else must be on vacation!

Next week looks like this:

• Monday, Pleasantville;
• Tuesday, Graduate Center;
• Wednesday and Thursday, NYC (which includes Dean's Council from 1-5 on Thursday).

I'm hoping to take Friday off.

Enjoy the weekend!