Our Assessment grants have been highlighted by external reviewers as being one of the biggest returns on investments related to assessment. This seed money support faculty, programs, departments, and colleges, incentives and acknowledges assessment of student learning projects, and provides important stories to accreditors on our assessment progress. Please encourage your colleagues to contact the Assessment team. We can usually help them identify how what they are doing ties to assessment and we’re happy to do that. A good goal would be that every department on campus has received an assessment grant. On our website we include a photo of the faculty, a description of their proposal, and the results of their work.

Please invite me to a department heads meeting this spring or fall. It’s my goal to touch base with each department head. I can do that at your meetings by introducing myself and then following up as needed.

The Council on General Education and Intercollegiate Programs has piloted a new process for reviewing and providing feedback to faculty course coordinators in a more timely, meaningful, and streamlined manner. In December and January, CGEIP reviewed annual reports, composed feedback to course coordinators, and send that back out to department heads and coordinators last week. Dr. Biagioni, the chair, will be presenting to Senate in February on the results of that. There is a feedback form; please encourage your course coordinators to provide feedback to the Council. Anecdotally, the response has been positive.

Faculty Writing Retreats continue and we have had excellent attendance. These are currently facilitated by Dr. Madden in English. In December, the day after grades were due, there were almost 30 attendees even though we had that bad weather. I’ve sent flyers out to all new faculty.

Finally, I’m getting ready to update the faculty funding opportunities booklet. I’ve emailed deans a PDF and ask that you take a look and email me with any updates in dates or changes that you see. I’ve identified some technical edits, but email with anything else that needs to be updated. We will get these printed again for faculty in the fall.