2014–2015 Provost Fellow for Public Affairs Announced
The Office of the Provost is pleased to announce that Dr. Kurt Heinlein, Associate Professor, Theater and Dance, has been selected as the Provost Fellow for Public Affairs for 2014–2015. As Provost Fellow for Public Affairs, Dr. Heinlein will be responsible for the Public Affairs Conference in April 2015 and promoting the Public Affairs mission of the University. The topic for the 2015 Conference will be the university-wide Public Affairs theme “The Ethical Citizen: Can you make a difference?” Dr. Heinlein will shadow this year’s Provost Fellow for Public Affairs, Dr. Kevin Evans, in preparation for the work he will do in preparing for the 2015 Public Affairs Conference.
According to Dr. Heinlein, “The concepts and practices of ethics and ethical citizenship have been elusive and contested notions throughout documented human history. The mere mention of the word ‘ethical’ conjures a complicated web of questions and socio-cultural considerations. Additionally, many would argue that, in recent years, considerations of ethical citizenship have grown even more complicated, notably as our world has grown ‘smaller’ and an eternally expanding roux of perspectives are being integrated into the pot of global communication.“
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Staff Excellence in Community Service Award Nominations Being Accepted
Do you know a staff member who is living the Public Affairs mission through their community service? Nominations are being accepted now through October 25 for the Staff Excellence in Community Service Award. Two staff members each year are recognized for their excellence in volunteer work with charitable, nonprofit, church or similar organizations within the community. Nominate a staff member today. See nomination guidelines and application on the Public Affairs website.
Optimal Preparation for Tenure and Promotion for COAL Faculty—
Years 1–4
Date: Monday, September 30
Time: 3:30 p.m.
Location: Library 101
This workshop will focus on the teaching, research, and service criteria that are used for tenure and promotion to various ranks and how to best prepare to meet them. Process for annual evaluation, what to expect in feedback, and how to respond optimally will be discussed. Establishment of yearly goals and documentation of progress will be emphasized.
Meet the New Instructional Designers in the Faculty Center for Teaching and Learning
Randy Meredith
Randy Meredith comes to Missouri State with 15 years of experience in higher education, the last 10 of those years working with faculty in the support of curriculum design. Randy moved to Springfield from Spring Arbor University in Michigan where he was an Associate Professor and also managed their faculty support unit. In this role he was responsible for academic quality of online courses and training faculty in online pedagogy and instructional design. Randy has an Ed.D in Distance Education and his research interests are in the areas of mobile digital audio on student learning and engagement and social and collaborative media in teaching and learning.
Randy has been working part-time in the FCTL the past few months and is excited to start as a full-time staff as of September 16th. You can email Randy at RMeredith@MissouriState.edu.
Stacy Rice
Stacy Rice will begin her work as an Instructional Designer with Missouri State October 1. Stacy comes from NorthWest Arkansas Community College (NWACC) in Bentonville, Arkansas where she is a Senior Instructional Designer. She holds a Masters of Education in Instructional Technology as well as 14 years of experience working in higher education, much of which has been spent working with faculty in support of curriculum development. Stacy has experience teaching in traditional seated, hybrid, and online environments at NWACC, Drury University, at Ozarks Technical Community College where she also worked full-time as the Online Teaching and Learning Specialist.
Stacy is very excited to return to Springfield and looks forward to working with faculty at Missouri State. You may contact Stacy in the FCTL after October 1.
Best Practices in Mentoring Faculty
Date: Friday, September 27
Time: 10:30 a.m.–Noon
Location: PSU Ballroom
Dr. Michelle M. Camacho, co-editor of Mentoring Faculty of Color, will give a presentation to the university community that will address tools for mentors, common problems faced by junior faculty and institutional mechanisms to support the roles of mentors and mentees.
Blackboard Feature Spotlight: Profiles
What’s this?! Pictures, at long last! Profiles are a great new feature of Blackboard which make the online learning experience more person-oriented. It’s long been understood that learning students’ names improves their dedication and effort in the classroom, and now profiles have enabled images to be associated with individuals, which means that you can learn your students names much more quickly and efficiently. Profiles allow you to share academic information about yourself and enable you to learn about others in your classes. You can also link your information to your Facebook and Twitter accounts if you so desire. You can set your privacy settings to the entire university, just those people in your classes, or to only yourself. The best thing is that it allows you to upload a profile picture that will be displayed in numerous places, including discussion boards and the “People” page of My Blackboard. You also have an “About Me” description in which you can give some general information about yourself or you can treat it more like a Facebook status. As a teacher or student, it will be a way to help memorize names in a seated classroom more quickly, and for an online class, it will help make that name you see all the time into an actual human being in your brain.
Check out this video from Blackboard about Profiles!
[youTubeVideo url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMEwrLskxaI” width=”220″ height=”140″]
See the Blackboard Blog to learn more about other great improvements to Blackboard, and don’t forget about all the opportunities for Blackboard training at the Blackboard at Missouri State University website, and learn how you can become a Blackboard Black Belt while you’re there!
Department of Philosophy and the Workshop for Critical Inquiry
In the Name of the People: The Story of Terror in the Democratic Age
Date: Thursday, September 26
Time: 4:00–6:00 p.m.
Location: Strong Hall 004
Today, democracy is at war with terror. September 11, 2001. Madrid in 2004 and London in 2007. Mumbai. Fort Hood. Utøya. Boston. Democracy protects the rights of people to get up in the morning, go to school or work, and come home safely to our families at night. Democratic ideals are generous and peaceful, whereas terrorism exploits our fears by pursuing destruction for its own sake. Terrorism is toxic to our values. It is not what we do. Or so we think. Join Dr. Julian Bourg, professor of history at Boston College, as he presents, “In the Name of the People: The Story of Terror in the Democratic Age.”
“Outward Adornment: (Ad)dressing Antebellum Protestants”
Date: Thursday, October 3
Time: 3:30–5:00 p.m.
Location: Strong 203
Presenter: Dr. Martha Finch, Religious Studies
American Protestants have always been concerned about what they and others wear, but never more so than during the antebellum period, a time of rapid and unsettling social change. And there has been no preacher more interested in dress than the great evangelist Charles Grandison Finney, who ranted against the “fickle goddess fashion.” Finney’s arguments regarding outward adornment expose Protestant understandings across time about the relationship between inner motives and outer conduct, between the hidden “heart” and the visible body.
CHPA and the Department of Religious Studies present
Righteous Rhetoric: Sex, Speech, and the New Christian Right
Date: Thursday, October 3
Time: 7:00 p.m.
Location: Meyer Library 101
Join Dr. Leslie Dorrough Smith, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Avila University in Kansas City, as she presents a free public lecture on how changing the way that we look at religion may help create new models for thinking about the intersection between religion and American political life. Dr. Leslie Dorrough Smith is an alumna of the Religious Studies department here at Missouri State.
Academic Advisor Forums
A Review of What’s New for 2013–2014
Date: Tuesday, September 24
Time: 12:30–1:30 p.m.
Location: Plaster Student Union 313, Traywick Parliamentary room
Facilitator: Jamie Schweiger
Topics to be covered include: “How to Read an Audit” video series, projected course offerings system, new intent to graduate system, the press politics certificate, a new Hospitality and Restaurant Administration degree for AS/AAS degree holders, the museum studies minor and the health services major.
If you have handouts to share, please bring at least 50 copies.
What’s your Study Away IQ?
Date: Friday, September 27
Time: 11:45 a.m. to 12:45 p.m.
Location: Plaster Student Union 308
Presenters: Elizabeth Strong and Miko McFarland
Do you think you have what it takes to challenge Study Away Programs? Then join Study Away Director Elizabeth Strong and Study Away Advisor Miko McFarland to test your study away knowledge during a game-show presentation pairing Cultural Competence and informative quiz questions. Learn about upcoming scholarships, Study Away student stats, new program offerings, and study abroad destinations as part of this engaging Master Advisor session. Come for fun and prizes on September 27 and pick up some helpful Study Away advising tips along the way. Whether you win a prize or just come to learn more about the study abroad process, your Study Away “IQ” will improve. Now, is that your final answer?
Sustainability Newsletter
The first issue is here! Read about the many efforts happening on our campus to promote sustainability.
Read the Sustainability newsletter
The Cuban Dilemma—Raúl Castro’s Reforms and U.S. Policy
Date: Thursday, September 26
Time: 6–7:30 p.m.
Location: Meyer Library Auditorium
Join Professor Philip Brenner, School of International Service, American University in Washington, DC, as he talks about the current reform process in Cuba and its implications for U.S. policy, especially the longstanding economic and trade embargo on Cuba.
Contact Indira Palacios-Valladares, Assistant Professor in the Political Science department, if you have questions.
This event is sponsored by the Political Science department with support from a Missouri State Public Affairs grant.
Submit Your Public Affairs Student Work to the Quality
Initiative Project
The Quality Initiative Project (QIP) is a continuous and non-intrusive system for assessing (not grading) student work related to the public affairs mission. By collecting student work across all disciplines, course levels, and both curricular and co-curricular units, this project will provide campus constituents with a sense of our students’ understanding and integration of the public affairs mission themes and our diversity goals.
How the process works:
- Fill out the online Intent to Participate Form
- Collect student work as usual
- Either submit copies electronically to assessment@missouristate.edu, or
- We can come to you, make copies, and return your originals in 2-3 days
- Faculty and staff reviewers score the work using a scoring rubric, and we send you a report
- Office of Assessment staff report aggregate data to the Assessment Council and Faculty Senate
As a bonus, everyone who submits student work will receive a Starbucks gift card and a certificate of participation that can be included in a promotion and tenure dossier or ADP!
To submit student work: complete the online Intent to Participate Form
To become a QIP reviewer: fill out the online application
For additional information: visit the QIP page on the Office of Assessment website, or contact us at assessment@missouristate.edu or 836-6300.
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