COE Leadership Council
September 1, 2016
9:00 – 10:30 a.m. Hill Hall 100
NOTES
Attendees: David Hough, Russ Brock, Gilbert Brown, Christine Combs, Denise Cunningham, Janice Duncan, Karen Engler, Cathy Pearman, James Satterfield, James Sottile, Kim Dubree, Juli Panza, Judy Pickering, Michele Smith, Tammy Jahnke, Erich Steinle
Judy Pickering is working with Gilbert Brown on recruitment and marketing. She discussed two upcoming recruitment events, Fall Showcase, Saturday, September 24, 9:00 – 11:30 a.m., PSU 314, and the Majors Fair; Wednesday, September 28, 9:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m., PSU Ballroom. She asked department heads to attend if possible and to let their faculty know. Their new graduate assistant, Peyton Davis, has been cleaning out the file cabinets and can be of help with recruitment/marketing events.
Michele Smith is the chair of the COE Mentoring Plan committee, which includes Joe Hulgus, Mandy Benedict-Chambers, Eric Sheffield and Denise Vinton. The committee has met a few times and came up with an eight-page working document. Michele brought a one-page document and explained the mission, vision and faculty mentoring program goals. Not all faculty have been mentored the same. The COE document will serve as a framework. Individual departments will compose their own documents. The document will be discussed with the dean’s promotion/tenure group, Faculty Advisory Council and back to the committee before it is finalized. Email any comments/suggestions to Michele.
Tammy Jahnke, Dean, College of Natural and Applied Sciences, and Erich Steinle, Assoc. Dean, CNAS, discussed their intention to eliminate the BS Ed in Science degree. The number of new Science teachers in Missouri is decreasing dramatically. Dean Jahnke said that Gigi Saunders et al. in CNAS believe eliminating the BSEd Science program will increase their ability to attract and prepare more science teachers by circumventing the 3.0 GPA requirement in the content field. The idea is for students to graduate with a BS and then go on for certification or possibly have a five-year graduate degree that would end with a masters degree. This would involve double counting a number of courses. One suggestion was to have an intense summer program with education classes which would reduce the amount of time needed to complete certification. Dean Hough reminded the group that eliminating the BSEd Science degree would circumvent education courses in that graduates would seek certifgication via ABCTE which is not a good option and one that MABEP is scrutinizing and may make a recommendation to the SBE in the near future. If the ABCTE circumvent is eliminated, that would leave only a post-bac or advanced degree certification option. Dean Hough suggested focusing efforts on recruitment and retention or on moving the degree to COE as was done with Family and Consumer Science. He also suggested getting involved with DESE’s “Grown Your Own” program as a recruitment strategy. While LC members urged more rigorous recruitment efforts, Tammy Jahnke disagreed, saying no one enters college wanting to teach science; rather, they fall into it after taking classes. James Satterfield asked for data in lieu of annedotal commentary, but Tammy asked everyone to “see themselves in her shoes,” i.e., with student enrollments declining, something has to be done. Dean Hough thanked Dean Jahnke and Dr. Steinle for attending and requested they keep COE informed of any further discussions.
Julie Panza discussed that due to program changes, advisement would like to create a college wide module in Blackboard for all transfer students and new students. This will include information such as that found in the student handbook, about programs, advisement, MEGA assessments, admit to Teacher Education, and Taskstream. After a discussion with LC members, the dean asked Juli to work with Gilbert, and James Sottile to work out the details.
A Southwest Missouri Dean’s Summit was held on August 25th to discuss DESE’s Cooperating Teacher Regional Forum meetings. The first Regional Forum has been scheduled for October 6, 2016. The purpose is to collect information from the area’s best teachers on ways to improve the student teaching process. Russ Brock sent out an email asking COE faculty to nominate outstanding cooperating teachers that could be part of the group invited to attend the summit. He needs names by September 2nd. Twenty-one teachers from the southwest area will be invited to attend.
James Sottile has a job description for Scott Fiedler’s position which needs to be filled. The dean would like to see a broader description so there would be more overlap with certification and clinical experiences. He asked everyone to think about how this could be accomplished which would then be discussed again.
James discussed student teacher videotaping in Springfield Public Schools for the MoPTA. Notification was provided by Springfield Public Schools to allow videotaping. James said we have the capacity to store all of the video tapes in our isolated secure server. He would like to see students submit their video to ETS and our isolated secure system.
Numerous emails are going out to a number of people regarding MO CEEDAR Statewide Leadership Team Meetings. Dean Hough asked LC members to contact him before committing to attending one or more. The meeting needs to be beneficial in order to attend.
Around the Table
Janice Duncan
They are still enrolling students. Some of the students are returning to Greenwood. They have approximately 370 students, up from 350 last year.
Cathy Pearman
All students are in classes. New faculty have been assigned mentors. Cathy plans on conducting informal meetings with new faculty.
Russ Brock
Tracy Gross has put together a Southwest Regional Teacher Leader Cohort Group to work on and discuss the needs of teachers. They have had one meeting so far. A number of the teachers felt they were unprepared to be a cooperating teacher. Russ said they would like to offer a workshop on guidelines for becoming a cooperating teacher and would like COE faulty to be part of it. Dean Hough agreed it would be a good idea and to move forward with it and asked Russ to send him the list of the cohort group members. Russ discussed RPDC piloting a new AMP program since things are changing at the DESE level. They are working on a new manual. He also would like RPDC to work with the BTAP. Dean Hough agreed.
Kim Dubree
They are busy placing practicum students.
Denise Cunningham
Cars Smith is working as the new cohort for Child Life Specialist in Kansas City and things are going very well.
Chris Combs
Jane Ward organized a presentation on bullying and other topics for principals, teachers, and community members that was well attended. Jane did this as the Community Foundation of the Ozarks new community coordinator.
Candace Fairbairn
There is not an emphasis on how the 16 Student Teaching Evaluation Indicators of the MEES are interwoven and connected. They are presented individually and start at an evaluation point of a “0” or baseline at the beginning of the last semester of a program. The question to be asked is what goes on prior to that last semester. If you look at the baseline “Possible Observables,” our students are presented with information in all program courses prior to that baseline. The baseline is described as the students have knowledge of these indicators but may not have had a chance to apply them or may not know how to apply them yet. The elementary program is looking at that semester prior to baseline, whether in the year-long internship or 500 block internship, and examining an evaluation point connecting that acquisition of knowledge semester to the baseline with how the knowledge builds. Candace would like to see the students guided to see how the 16 indicators connect with one another and overlap instead of operating in 16 individual silos.
James Sottile
He and others have had calls from the US News and World Report that asked for data about NCTQ. Do not give them any information. James will be at a DESE meeting on September 7th.
Gilbert Brown
Gilbert discussed how the university’s long range action plan is related to our college. The retention of students is the highest priority. The COE Living-Learning Community is going to be an excellent way to help with this. Students enrolled in education classes live in the same “community” and interact educationally and socially. He would like to see faculty help mentor some of the students or meet with them occasionally.
Karen Engler
Karen attended the COE LLC social and enjoyed it. She was able to connect with the students that are in secondary education. She will work on making a connection with secondary education faculty. Karen asked if secondary teachers are included in the regional forum; Russ told her they were. She then thanked everyone for welcoming her and working with her.
The meeting was adjourned at 10:30 a.m.
Submitted by Sharon Lopinot