For the last few years, we’ve had a great deal of conversation about “outcomes,” particularly focusing on the learning outcomes of our curriculum (the knowledge and skills our students should develop in their four years with us) and on graduate outcomes—the kinds of jobs, graduate schools, and post-graduate service we help students to enter.
Even as we continue our discussions about academic challenge and about Stonehill's course and credit model, I think we’ve made a good first effort of reviewing each academic program and articulating the goals of the curriculum. At the end of this academic year, we will have completed a full cycle of the new academic program reviews. I know we still have work ahead to better capture the graduate outcomes of our students, and this task will require a great deal of collaborative work among the faculty, career services, and alumni affairs—first to articulate what graduate outcomes we want for students, then to refine the systems to assist students in their efforts, and finally to capture and record information about what they actually go on to do.
There is, however, another set of outcomes that I hope we never lose sight of, and these outcomes are related not to what our students become, but to who they become. I know that faculty members and many others on campus work toward educating “the whole person so that each Stonehill graduate thinks, acts, and leads with courage toward the creation of a more just and compassionate world.” This noble statement from our mission should always remain a central part of our focus.
Over the last week or so, a number of campus events and activities have promoted these “other outcomes.” The Department of Sociology and Criminology, for example, hosted the 2007 meeting of the New England Sociological Association. The conference topic, “Civic Engagement: Linking Campus and Community,” seemed made for our campus, where community-based learning has become a feature of many courses and Learning Communities. And the conference did much more than bring major speakers and other academics to campus; it also provided opportunities for our faculty and students to contribute in meaningful ways—moderating panels, presenting papers, and participating in poster sessions. Six Stonehill students presented their original research, one alumna currently in the Ph.D. program at UConn presented a co-authored paper, five Stonehill faculty members attended (three of them moderated panels), and at least eight additional Stonehill students attended the sessions.
For students who intend to earn an advanced degree, inclusion in this kind of professional activity provides a preview of the professional world they seek to enter. It also reminds them that professors have responsibilities beyond those they see in the classroom—responsibilities to their scholarly disciplines and to far-flung collegial networks. And for those who intend to enter the job market, the skills they gain in effective communication and public presentation and are invaluable. The students all remarked on how important it was to have this opportunity.
In the case of this particular conference, the topic also lent itself to considering post-graduate service. The keynote speaker, Dr. Jonathan White of Bridgewater State College, specializes in the critical examination of inequality, poverty, globalization, human rights, and public sociology—all topics of compelling interest for students interested in sociology and criminology and all topics that engage students to get outside their limited experiences and make a difference in the world. Congratulations to the department for bringing this event to Stonehill and for so meaningfully involving your students and alumni!
Two other events highlighted the responsibilities we invite students to accept as members of our community and, when they leave us, as members of the the communities they create and sustain. Dr. Celeste Lay, Assistant Professor of Political Science, spoke in the Martin Institute’s Public Policy and Social Justice Series. Focusing on the re-election of C. Ray Nagin after Hurricane Katrina, Lay explored how voting behavior is influenced by natural disaster. While the specific subject of her research matters to all of us, her presentation also reminded students—in a more general way—that voter behavior matters, and that they should take seriously their responsibility to participate in the political process.
Last week’s Common Sense Lecture—sponsored by the Office of Student Activities—featured Assistant Professor of Mathematics Eugene Quinn on the topic of "Living Green." Gene spoke about the kinds of choices his family has made to become more “green” and about the quantifiable results of their practices. He also challenged students to develop habits that reduce the use of non-renewable resources, to re-use materials that can be reused, and to recycle whatever materials that they can. Again, this event featured an adult mentor who showed—by example—how a single individual can make choices that actually make a difference. This week Prof. Cheryl Schnitzer of the Chemistry Department will reinforce what Gene spoke about last week when she discusses global warming in the Common Sense Lecture Series.
Of course, our curriculum goes a long way in promoting the connection between knowledge and practice, and many faculty members have sought ways to encourage civic engagement within the curriculum. But these co-curricular events (and others like them) also send messages to students about what our community values and about why they should work—with us—to preserve the values we share. When they do, the “other outcomes” of social responsibility that we’ve promoted become part of the fabric of their lives—and these are outcomes worth celebrating.
Best regards,
Katie
Friday, November 9, 2007
Friday, November 2, 2007
Friday, November 2, 2007--"Getting Dirty"
Last Tuesday morning, I headed down to the University Club at Brown University, where Stonehill was hosting a breakfast for Rhode Island high school guidance counselors. Maybe it was the mystique of the University Club or maybe it was that “something” about Stonehill I wrote about last week, or maybe it was the great relationships that Sam Smith. Associate Dean of Admissions, and others on our Admissions team have built in Rhode Island, but we had a wonderful turnout for the event.
I spoke briefly about Stonehill’s academic program and some of our current initiatives, and Maryjean Viano Crowe, Chair of the Fine Arts Department, made a superb presentation about one of the Learning Communities she has taught in, about her short-term courses in Paris, and about taking seven students last year to a conference on “Defining Culture Through Dress” at Hofstra University where their work was widely acclaimed. The counselors commented afterwards that it was “refreshing” to have a faculty member speak at such an event—that they got a different kind of “inside” view from Maryjean that extended the vision they can get from our colleagues in admissions. Together, these views gave them a far more complete picture of a college that they might want to recommend to students. And it’s hard to overestimate the influence of guidance counselors on prospective students.
Events like that remind me of how hard it is to keep an eye on the big picture of even one’s own college. Sam, Maryjean, and I each touched on many of the important qualities of the experience students have when they choose us: a challenging and diverse curriculum, a creative faculty who are willing to take chances and who are nimble in responding to opportunities that enrich both student experience and their own professional growth, and a focus on successful learning outcomes and post-graduate planning.
Maryjean spoke about how she had taken students to Paris before, but how she hadn’t imagined that she would ever partner with Biology professors and take students camping in a west Texas desert habitat to produce art that engaged with the environment. She exuded enthusiasm for the remarkable results of that trip, but she also recalled that her tent blew down in a windstorm and that the faculty had to set a good example about conservation of water and thus went days without showers; indeed, she said, “I have never been so dirty.”
We’re all finding out how much “getting dirty”—figuratively, least—is required when we try new ways of doing things. And we’re doing new things with students in every stage of their academic lives.
This past week, advisors met with their first-year students, and from the reports I’ve heard, most students are making a great transition to college and giving high marks to the advising they’ve received. A few faculty members who had told me that they had students who struggled with the adjustment at the start of the year were thrilled to connect with the students and to hear that they have integrated themselves and found ways to become involved. Their peer mentors have been instrumental, often connecting one-on-one with a student if the faculty advisor felt that peer support was most needed. Such advising takes time and can pull faculty away from advising in the major, but most people I’ve spoken with feel that we are moving in the right direction by focusing new energy on first-year students.
Our sophomores participated in course selection for Learning Communities in advance of the general course selection process, and I want to commend Registrar John Pestana, John’s staff, and Dean Joe Favazza for making that messy process as clean as anyone could dream. At the end of the LC registration, 86% of students received their fist choice LC, 12% received their second choice, and 2% received their third choice. This is a great success! Still, one challenge in this area involves the funding necessary to help needy students to participate in the travel learning communities. Although we have $40,000 in the budget this year to offset this need, the programs costs are rising rapidly, participation is increasing with new travel LCs emerging each year, and the budgeted amount is not enough to help students as significantly as we would like.
As you know, juniors are electing to go abroad or to take part in one of our full-time domestic “away” experiences in high numbers, and this past week, Erika Schluntz and Alice Cronin hosted the director of the Granada program on campus for a lively lunch with about 20 students who had either been to Granada or who plan to attend in the future. And while this is just one of many available programs, the students are articulate in saying just how transformative such experiences are. Our challenges ahead include the weak dollar, which has made many of our traditional programs in Europe hit unacceptable price points for students and families. Indeed, the International Programs office now spends considerable time looking for more affordable programs to augment our strong list of historical relationships.
And of course the Senior Transitions project is placing new emphasis on how students make post-graduate plans and how the entire college can collaborate for their success. I look forward to conversations with the faculty and with Career Services to share what the senior administration learned through this effort and to look for feedback that will influence future plans in this area.
All these efforts can get messy: they may involve differences of opinion about the processes and even about the goals we have set. As we continue find new ways of improving that “big picture” of Stonehill College—and communicating it to prospective students—I appreciate your willingness to roll up your sleeves in a productive way and even to get a bit dirty in order to make fresh starts on important college priorities.
Best regards,
Katie
I spoke briefly about Stonehill’s academic program and some of our current initiatives, and Maryjean Viano Crowe, Chair of the Fine Arts Department, made a superb presentation about one of the Learning Communities she has taught in, about her short-term courses in Paris, and about taking seven students last year to a conference on “Defining Culture Through Dress” at Hofstra University where their work was widely acclaimed. The counselors commented afterwards that it was “refreshing” to have a faculty member speak at such an event—that they got a different kind of “inside” view from Maryjean that extended the vision they can get from our colleagues in admissions. Together, these views gave them a far more complete picture of a college that they might want to recommend to students. And it’s hard to overestimate the influence of guidance counselors on prospective students.
Events like that remind me of how hard it is to keep an eye on the big picture of even one’s own college. Sam, Maryjean, and I each touched on many of the important qualities of the experience students have when they choose us: a challenging and diverse curriculum, a creative faculty who are willing to take chances and who are nimble in responding to opportunities that enrich both student experience and their own professional growth, and a focus on successful learning outcomes and post-graduate planning.
Maryjean spoke about how she had taken students to Paris before, but how she hadn’t imagined that she would ever partner with Biology professors and take students camping in a west Texas desert habitat to produce art that engaged with the environment. She exuded enthusiasm for the remarkable results of that trip, but she also recalled that her tent blew down in a windstorm and that the faculty had to set a good example about conservation of water and thus went days without showers; indeed, she said, “I have never been so dirty.”
We’re all finding out how much “getting dirty”—figuratively, least—is required when we try new ways of doing things. And we’re doing new things with students in every stage of their academic lives.
This past week, advisors met with their first-year students, and from the reports I’ve heard, most students are making a great transition to college and giving high marks to the advising they’ve received. A few faculty members who had told me that they had students who struggled with the adjustment at the start of the year were thrilled to connect with the students and to hear that they have integrated themselves and found ways to become involved. Their peer mentors have been instrumental, often connecting one-on-one with a student if the faculty advisor felt that peer support was most needed. Such advising takes time and can pull faculty away from advising in the major, but most people I’ve spoken with feel that we are moving in the right direction by focusing new energy on first-year students.
Our sophomores participated in course selection for Learning Communities in advance of the general course selection process, and I want to commend Registrar John Pestana, John’s staff, and Dean Joe Favazza for making that messy process as clean as anyone could dream. At the end of the LC registration, 86% of students received their fist choice LC, 12% received their second choice, and 2% received their third choice. This is a great success! Still, one challenge in this area involves the funding necessary to help needy students to participate in the travel learning communities. Although we have $40,000 in the budget this year to offset this need, the programs costs are rising rapidly, participation is increasing with new travel LCs emerging each year, and the budgeted amount is not enough to help students as significantly as we would like.
As you know, juniors are electing to go abroad or to take part in one of our full-time domestic “away” experiences in high numbers, and this past week, Erika Schluntz and Alice Cronin hosted the director of the Granada program on campus for a lively lunch with about 20 students who had either been to Granada or who plan to attend in the future. And while this is just one of many available programs, the students are articulate in saying just how transformative such experiences are. Our challenges ahead include the weak dollar, which has made many of our traditional programs in Europe hit unacceptable price points for students and families. Indeed, the International Programs office now spends considerable time looking for more affordable programs to augment our strong list of historical relationships.
And of course the Senior Transitions project is placing new emphasis on how students make post-graduate plans and how the entire college can collaborate for their success. I look forward to conversations with the faculty and with Career Services to share what the senior administration learned through this effort and to look for feedback that will influence future plans in this area.
All these efforts can get messy: they may involve differences of opinion about the processes and even about the goals we have set. As we continue find new ways of improving that “big picture” of Stonehill College—and communicating it to prospective students—I appreciate your willingness to roll up your sleeves in a productive way and even to get a bit dirty in order to make fresh starts on important college priorities.
Best regards,
Katie
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Friday, October 26, 2007--Something about Stonehill
As some of you know, I’ve been away from Stonehill for about 10 days—on three different work-related projects. On Thursday and Friday of last week, I attended a meeting sponsored by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC), the accrediting body that reviews Stonehill and other New England schools and colleges every ten years. This workshop was intended to prepare colleges coming up for review in 2009 for the self-study and campus visit that are important elements of the accreditation process.
On Sunday I joined four academics from other institutions (three faculty members and a librarian) as part of a team named by the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education to undertake an intensive review of a college seeking to add new programs that would change the nature of its charter. It was an exhausting four days of working late into the night—indeed into the early morning!—to understand that college’s unique culture and to evaluate the quality of the programs they were proposing.
Both the NEASC workshop and the off-site curriculum review reminded me that our profession depends in so many ways on peer review. We think about it most with our scholarship, but in fact, all kinds of institutional accreditations and program approvals rely on peer evaluation to hold colleges to the professional standards we have agreed on as institutions of higher learning. We may sometimes take this for granted, but among the interesting things about being at a young college is that we actually have colleagues among us who remember when the College was first accredited! And it was an enormous accomplishment.
After finishing up the review on Wednesday, I flew to Washington D.C. on Thursday to join a Stonehill team that included Louis Liotta, Sue Mooney, and Karen Talentino for a conference called “Promoting the Liberal Sciences: Science as Liberal Education,” sponsored by the Phi Beta Kappa Society and the American Conference of Academic Deans. We made a 90-minute presentation on two curricular developments at Stonehill that we argued promote the sciences as liberated from narrow specialization and liberating in developing the broad and deep scientific literacy required for engaged citizenship.
As all of you know, there’s nothing like getting away to make one feel that there’s something about Stonehill. Something good. Something to appreciate.
In fact, the most powerful aspect of all three of my own experiences over the last ten days was an informal kind of "peer review"--hearing about Stonehill’s reputation and profile among the other academics I met. I found people who knew and admired a faculty member or knew and respected a faculty member’s work. Or they had been on our campus and were stunned by the physical beauty of the place. Or they identified Stonehill as being a “hot” school that was doing innovative things.
As the other Stonehill folks at the PBK/ACAD meeting can attest, many people we met who did not know of Stonehill before today were impressed with our spirit of engagement and with the curricular efforts we described. In fact, one conference speaker began his own presentation by commenting on the “inspirational” Stonehill session he had just attended!
We met junior faculty members from colleges with far more resources than Stonehill who said that they could not ever team-teach at their own institutions, so the idea of Learning Communities with a third course that counts fully in each faculty member’s course load was mind-boggling to them. Between sessions, one such junior faculty member confided wistfully that he’d like to be “one of us.”
Sometimes, when we get bogged down with our campus responsibilities and the day-to-day minutiae of our jobs, we lose sight of the great community we really are—a community where I know there’s a good deal of faculty collegiality and where I think there’s relatively little tension between faculty and administration. Getting away can offer some perspective about what really matters, and this week it offered me insights into just how much we have to celebrate.
Best regards,
Katie
On Sunday I joined four academics from other institutions (three faculty members and a librarian) as part of a team named by the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education to undertake an intensive review of a college seeking to add new programs that would change the nature of its charter. It was an exhausting four days of working late into the night—indeed into the early morning!—to understand that college’s unique culture and to evaluate the quality of the programs they were proposing.
Both the NEASC workshop and the off-site curriculum review reminded me that our profession depends in so many ways on peer review. We think about it most with our scholarship, but in fact, all kinds of institutional accreditations and program approvals rely on peer evaluation to hold colleges to the professional standards we have agreed on as institutions of higher learning. We may sometimes take this for granted, but among the interesting things about being at a young college is that we actually have colleagues among us who remember when the College was first accredited! And it was an enormous accomplishment.
After finishing up the review on Wednesday, I flew to Washington D.C. on Thursday to join a Stonehill team that included Louis Liotta, Sue Mooney, and Karen Talentino for a conference called “Promoting the Liberal Sciences: Science as Liberal Education,” sponsored by the Phi Beta Kappa Society and the American Conference of Academic Deans. We made a 90-minute presentation on two curricular developments at Stonehill that we argued promote the sciences as liberated from narrow specialization and liberating in developing the broad and deep scientific literacy required for engaged citizenship.
As all of you know, there’s nothing like getting away to make one feel that there’s something about Stonehill. Something good. Something to appreciate.
In fact, the most powerful aspect of all three of my own experiences over the last ten days was an informal kind of "peer review"--hearing about Stonehill’s reputation and profile among the other academics I met. I found people who knew and admired a faculty member or knew and respected a faculty member’s work. Or they had been on our campus and were stunned by the physical beauty of the place. Or they identified Stonehill as being a “hot” school that was doing innovative things.
As the other Stonehill folks at the PBK/ACAD meeting can attest, many people we met who did not know of Stonehill before today were impressed with our spirit of engagement and with the curricular efforts we described. In fact, one conference speaker began his own presentation by commenting on the “inspirational” Stonehill session he had just attended!
We met junior faculty members from colleges with far more resources than Stonehill who said that they could not ever team-teach at their own institutions, so the idea of Learning Communities with a third course that counts fully in each faculty member’s course load was mind-boggling to them. Between sessions, one such junior faculty member confided wistfully that he’d like to be “one of us.”
Sometimes, when we get bogged down with our campus responsibilities and the day-to-day minutiae of our jobs, we lose sight of the great community we really are—a community where I know there’s a good deal of faculty collegiality and where I think there’s relatively little tension between faculty and administration. Getting away can offer some perspective about what really matters, and this week it offered me insights into just how much we have to celebrate.
Best regards,
Katie
Friday, October 19, 2007
Friday, October 19, 2007--Back to the Future
On Wednesday night, I attended the James J. Kenneally lecture, an annual event at the Martin Institute. Jim Kenneally was—indeed still is, even in retirement!—faculty member and colleague extraordinaire, beloved teacher and author and editor of books on American Catholicism, women’s suffrage, and House Speaker Joseph Martin. His significant scholarly and teaching contributions now span almost a half-century.
Any event that honors Jim and Louise Kenneally’s contributions to Stonehill is, in my mind, a no-miss occasion—I think of it as “back to the future.” Jim already looked like the future of Stonehill when he arrived in 1958, and reflections on his career offer us previews of the future we now inhabit—a college that invites faculty members committed to teaching simultaneously to pursue their research passions. Today Stonehill supports faculty members quite vigorously to help them reach their scholarly goals; Jim managed to publish articles and books under very different conditions. The lecture bearing his name is a major event in the Catholic-Jewish Dialogue—a dialogue that Jim founded and that he and and Louise have ardently supported.
This year’s lecture featured Prof. Susannah Heschel, the Eli Black Chair in Jewish Stuudies at Dartmouth College, who spoke eloquently about her current research on a Protestant Christian group whose project was to “de-Judaize” Christianity in 20th-century Germany —to remove references to Jesus being a Jew, to move his ancestry north to Galilee and thereby to make him seem more Assyrian, and to strip any references to the Hebrew Bible in Christian worship.
I was struck not only by the brilliance of Prof. Heschel’s arguments and by her ability to answer every kind of question about her research but also by her generosity of spirit. In some informal words spoken at the dinner which preceded the event, she spoke of the deep sense of welcome she felt at Stonehill. She honored Jim Kenneally and his work, and then also honored the memory of her father, Abraham Joshua Heschel, a major scholar and Jewish thinker who also promoted civil rights and interfaith dialogue and instilled a passion for such issues in his daughter.
It was our privilege to host this eminent scholar, and I’m proud that Stonehill works in so many ways to promote understanding of world religions and to encourage the critical and historical study of religion. Some of that work—such as the Catholic-Jewish Dialogue, other campus lectures, the film series on Religion and Film begun last year by the Religious Studies Department, and a significant number of courses in our curriculum—are substantive engagements with the study of religion. Others, such as the Buddhist Retreat that takes place on campus every second summer, are symbolic events that demonstrate Stonehill’s openness to and respect for all religious beliefs, practices, and cultures.
As I looked around the room at the Kenneally lecture, I noted the number of faculty members present there who encourage our students–and each other—toward such encounters. Kevin Spicer C.S.C. of the History Department came back from his year at Notre Dame to host the event. But Kevin is also the co-creator, with Shari Lowin of the Religious Studies Department (who was also present), of a Learning Community that pairs a History course on Nazi Germany with a Religious Studies course on Jewish Religion and Culture—and it culminates with a travel course to Poland, the Czech Republic, and Berlin. Sitting with Shari was Prof. Erica Tucker (Sociology), who agreed to help keep that enormously popular LC going this year in Kevin’s absence by pairing “Anthropology of the Holocaust” with Shari’s Religion course and team-teaching the travel course with Shari.
I saw Pete Beisheim (Religious Studies) and thought about how his Learning Community with Jose Luis Martinez (Foreign Languages) challenges students to look at the contemporary Catholic Church in Latin American and involves a Spring Break trip to Peru that partners with the HOPE trips sponsored by the Mission Division. Mary Joan Leith (Religious Studies) was also there, and her Learning Community with Allyson Sheckler (Fine Arts), "Pagans and Christians, Roots of Christian Worship" uses the study of religion and art to help students understand the world of early Christianity, and takes the students to Paestum, Pompeii, and Rome as part of that engagement.
Other faculty members attended the lecture too, like Daniel Itzkovitz (English), whose scholarship focuses on Jewish identity in American culture. I single out these faculty members only to suggest that—while Jim Kenneally probably couldn’t have imagined that the small, 10-year old College he joined in 1958 would someday be in a position to support educational endeavors such as our Learning Communities or to support such a breadth of scholarly effort—his work, and the work of others in his generation, built our foundations. For that, and for the creativity so evident in the faculty’s ongoing work, I am grateful.
Any event that honors Jim and Louise Kenneally’s contributions to Stonehill is, in my mind, a no-miss occasion—I think of it as “back to the future.” Jim already looked like the future of Stonehill when he arrived in 1958, and reflections on his career offer us previews of the future we now inhabit—a college that invites faculty members committed to teaching simultaneously to pursue their research passions. Today Stonehill supports faculty members quite vigorously to help them reach their scholarly goals; Jim managed to publish articles and books under very different conditions. The lecture bearing his name is a major event in the Catholic-Jewish Dialogue—a dialogue that Jim founded and that he and and Louise have ardently supported.
This year’s lecture featured Prof. Susannah Heschel, the Eli Black Chair in Jewish Stuudies at Dartmouth College, who spoke eloquently about her current research on a Protestant Christian group whose project was to “de-Judaize” Christianity in 20th-century Germany —to remove references to Jesus being a Jew, to move his ancestry north to Galilee and thereby to make him seem more Assyrian, and to strip any references to the Hebrew Bible in Christian worship.
I was struck not only by the brilliance of Prof. Heschel’s arguments and by her ability to answer every kind of question about her research but also by her generosity of spirit. In some informal words spoken at the dinner which preceded the event, she spoke of the deep sense of welcome she felt at Stonehill. She honored Jim Kenneally and his work, and then also honored the memory of her father, Abraham Joshua Heschel, a major scholar and Jewish thinker who also promoted civil rights and interfaith dialogue and instilled a passion for such issues in his daughter.
It was our privilege to host this eminent scholar, and I’m proud that Stonehill works in so many ways to promote understanding of world religions and to encourage the critical and historical study of religion. Some of that work—such as the Catholic-Jewish Dialogue, other campus lectures, the film series on Religion and Film begun last year by the Religious Studies Department, and a significant number of courses in our curriculum—are substantive engagements with the study of religion. Others, such as the Buddhist Retreat that takes place on campus every second summer, are symbolic events that demonstrate Stonehill’s openness to and respect for all religious beliefs, practices, and cultures.
As I looked around the room at the Kenneally lecture, I noted the number of faculty members present there who encourage our students–and each other—toward such encounters. Kevin Spicer C.S.C. of the History Department came back from his year at Notre Dame to host the event. But Kevin is also the co-creator, with Shari Lowin of the Religious Studies Department (who was also present), of a Learning Community that pairs a History course on Nazi Germany with a Religious Studies course on Jewish Religion and Culture—and it culminates with a travel course to Poland, the Czech Republic, and Berlin. Sitting with Shari was Prof. Erica Tucker (Sociology), who agreed to help keep that enormously popular LC going this year in Kevin’s absence by pairing “Anthropology of the Holocaust” with Shari’s Religion course and team-teaching the travel course with Shari.
I saw Pete Beisheim (Religious Studies) and thought about how his Learning Community with Jose Luis Martinez (Foreign Languages) challenges students to look at the contemporary Catholic Church in Latin American and involves a Spring Break trip to Peru that partners with the HOPE trips sponsored by the Mission Division. Mary Joan Leith (Religious Studies) was also there, and her Learning Community with Allyson Sheckler (Fine Arts), "Pagans and Christians, Roots of Christian Worship" uses the study of religion and art to help students understand the world of early Christianity, and takes the students to Paestum, Pompeii, and Rome as part of that engagement.
Other faculty members attended the lecture too, like Daniel Itzkovitz (English), whose scholarship focuses on Jewish identity in American culture. I single out these faculty members only to suggest that—while Jim Kenneally probably couldn’t have imagined that the small, 10-year old College he joined in 1958 would someday be in a position to support educational endeavors such as our Learning Communities or to support such a breadth of scholarly effort—his work, and the work of others in his generation, built our foundations. For that, and for the creativity so evident in the faculty’s ongoing work, I am grateful.
Best regards,
Katie
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Friday, October 12, 2007—Endurance
When about 115 members of the Stonehill faculty met on Tuesday to spend the morning discussing how to support a culture of academic integrity, then ate lunch together and spent the afternoon reviewing the work of a faculty committee on course and credit models, I found myself thinking: “How have we created this faculty culture of self-evaluation, dialogue, and trust?”
I remembered a day back in early 2001 when Registrar Linda Sullivan, hard at work on the 2001-02 academic calendar, asked if I would like to use an "extra" Monday in the calendar for any kind of academic purpose. Out of that conversation Academic Development Day was born—a day now set aside each semester for faculty conversation about topics related to teaching and learning. This semester’s meeting was our thirteenth, and the record attendance, the spirited discussion, and the obvious good will in Alumni Hall made me certain that thirteen is a lucky number.
Back on our first Academic Development Day, Prof. Sue Mooney, who had just become our inaugural Dean of General Education, offered reflections on what was needed to move our Gen Ed agenda forward. Fifty-five current full-time faculty members and a significant number of academic administrators have been hired since that time, so let me take a moment to anchor you in 2001—and to remind those who were here for the discussion that day about the theme Sue chose.
Sue spoke of seeing a new film about Ernest Shackleton’s 1914 Antarctic expedition involving 28 men, 69 dogs, two pigs and one cat on a ship that would endure nine months trapped in the frozen seas before being crushed by shifting ice. You know the ending was happy—for the human travelers at least—but Sue focused on how the adventure on the ship called “Endurance” might offer lessons to the Stonehill faculty.
My favorite of her observations: “The men on the Endurance were an unlikely crew, a mix of professional, educated men and uneducated seamen. Men from the aristocracy and men from the slums. A moody artist, a fractious carpenter, a ground-breaking photographer, a nerdy scientist, a captain enamored of the ship and rather indifferent to the crew, even a young stowaway. Somehow, this group of very different men became a true community, trusting one another and cooperating under the most challenging of circumstances.”
She didn’t imply that we were quite such a motley crew, but she did suggest that we would need to work harder at working together to achieve our goals—that we must reach out “to colleagues all across this campus, beyond the smaller communities we form so naturally with those in our discipline or allied disciplines. . . . [T]he only way for us to achieve our goals, in general education and in other issues of concern to the faculty here at Stonehill, is to become a trusting, caring community.”
I believe that’s the community that was in place in 2001—and the community that showed up on Tuesday (with many new members aboard) for Academic Development Day #13. Led and inspired by Dr. Donald McCabe, Professor of Management and Global Business, Rutgers University and Founding President of the Center for Academic Integrity, our morning conversations pushed us all to think about the ways we can build and sustain a culture that encourages student responsibility, that responds to academic dishonesty consistently when it occurs, and that uses (and shares) campus resources, such as the new Center for Teaching and Learning, to bring faculty members together around clarifying expectations for student work and continually developing creative and fair forms of learning assessment.
I’d like to thank the Honor Code Task Force, led by Dr. Marylou Jackson, for all the substantive research and work that brought us to this point. Members include: Roger Denome (Biology), Beth Devonshire (Director of Community Standards), Pauline Dobrowski (Associate VP for Student Affairs), Joe Favazza (Dean of General Education and Interdisciplinary Studies), Denise Gannon (Campus Minister), Kathleen Joint (Associate Director of Academic Services), and George Piggford, C.S.C. (English).
The afternoon discussions about proposals to move to a graduation requirement based on credits rather than courses also brought out great collegial discussion among faculty members and academic administrators. Many thanks to the course and credit committee, which completed its own feat of endurance over Summer 2007 to bring us this proposal: Karen Anderson (Education), Scott Cohen (English), Roger Denome (Biology), Joe Favazza (Dean of General Education), Glen Ilacqua (Business Administration), Daniel Itzkovitz, (English), John Pestana (Registrar), Allyson Sheckler (Fine Arts), and Karen Talentino (Dean of Faculty).
We won’t always come to complete agreement on the significant matters that Academic Development Day invites us to confront. But I think we’ve come a long way together. We continue to build a faculty ethos of respect, curiosity, responsibility, inquiry, affirmation—and even endurance—that must surely rub off on our students as they rig out their own vessels and explore their own uncharted waters.
Best regards,
Katie
I remembered a day back in early 2001 when Registrar Linda Sullivan, hard at work on the 2001-02 academic calendar, asked if I would like to use an "extra" Monday in the calendar for any kind of academic purpose. Out of that conversation Academic Development Day was born—a day now set aside each semester for faculty conversation about topics related to teaching and learning. This semester’s meeting was our thirteenth, and the record attendance, the spirited discussion, and the obvious good will in Alumni Hall made me certain that thirteen is a lucky number.
Back on our first Academic Development Day, Prof. Sue Mooney, who had just become our inaugural Dean of General Education, offered reflections on what was needed to move our Gen Ed agenda forward. Fifty-five current full-time faculty members and a significant number of academic administrators have been hired since that time, so let me take a moment to anchor you in 2001—and to remind those who were here for the discussion that day about the theme Sue chose.
Sue spoke of seeing a new film about Ernest Shackleton’s 1914 Antarctic expedition involving 28 men, 69 dogs, two pigs and one cat on a ship that would endure nine months trapped in the frozen seas before being crushed by shifting ice. You know the ending was happy—for the human travelers at least—but Sue focused on how the adventure on the ship called “Endurance” might offer lessons to the Stonehill faculty.
My favorite of her observations: “The men on the Endurance were an unlikely crew, a mix of professional, educated men and uneducated seamen. Men from the aristocracy and men from the slums. A moody artist, a fractious carpenter, a ground-breaking photographer, a nerdy scientist, a captain enamored of the ship and rather indifferent to the crew, even a young stowaway. Somehow, this group of very different men became a true community, trusting one another and cooperating under the most challenging of circumstances.”
She didn’t imply that we were quite such a motley crew, but she did suggest that we would need to work harder at working together to achieve our goals—that we must reach out “to colleagues all across this campus, beyond the smaller communities we form so naturally with those in our discipline or allied disciplines. . . . [T]he only way for us to achieve our goals, in general education and in other issues of concern to the faculty here at Stonehill, is to become a trusting, caring community.”
I believe that’s the community that was in place in 2001—and the community that showed up on Tuesday (with many new members aboard) for Academic Development Day #13. Led and inspired by Dr. Donald McCabe, Professor of Management and Global Business, Rutgers University and Founding President of the Center for Academic Integrity, our morning conversations pushed us all to think about the ways we can build and sustain a culture that encourages student responsibility, that responds to academic dishonesty consistently when it occurs, and that uses (and shares) campus resources, such as the new Center for Teaching and Learning, to bring faculty members together around clarifying expectations for student work and continually developing creative and fair forms of learning assessment.
I’d like to thank the Honor Code Task Force, led by Dr. Marylou Jackson, for all the substantive research and work that brought us to this point. Members include: Roger Denome (Biology), Beth Devonshire (Director of Community Standards), Pauline Dobrowski (Associate VP for Student Affairs), Joe Favazza (Dean of General Education and Interdisciplinary Studies), Denise Gannon (Campus Minister), Kathleen Joint (Associate Director of Academic Services), and George Piggford, C.S.C. (English).
The afternoon discussions about proposals to move to a graduation requirement based on credits rather than courses also brought out great collegial discussion among faculty members and academic administrators. Many thanks to the course and credit committee, which completed its own feat of endurance over Summer 2007 to bring us this proposal: Karen Anderson (Education), Scott Cohen (English), Roger Denome (Biology), Joe Favazza (Dean of General Education), Glen Ilacqua (Business Administration), Daniel Itzkovitz, (English), John Pestana (Registrar), Allyson Sheckler (Fine Arts), and Karen Talentino (Dean of Faculty).
We won’t always come to complete agreement on the significant matters that Academic Development Day invites us to confront. But I think we’ve come a long way together. We continue to build a faculty ethos of respect, curiosity, responsibility, inquiry, affirmation—and even endurance—that must surely rub off on our students as they rig out their own vessels and explore their own uncharted waters.
Best regards,
Katie
Friday, October 5, 2007
Friday, October 5: The Academic Enterprise
Last week, a new Trustee—who happens to have worked at Stonehill in an earlier decade—made an interesting comment after he spent two days on campus reconnecting with faculty members he had known and meeting many new faculty members.
He said, “I always knew that Stonehill faculty members were passionate about their courses and generous in their interactions with students, but I am struck by something different on this visit: a commitment to the larger academic enterprise.”
Now I’m not sure that the Trustee and I would define “the academic enterprise” identically, but I am very sure that he was onto something. Stonehill faculty members do show a remarkable commitment to the broad academic enterprise, and they do so through their courses, their advising, their attendance at Academic Development Day and other opportunities to discuss our common work—as well as through programming that augments the curriculum and faculty-led events that promote collegial conversation about scholarly work.
What’s my evidence that the academic enterprise is alive and well? Well, one major event of the past week offers a good example. Now in its seventh year, the Chet Raymo Literary Series honors our well-loved physicist and creative writer emeritus with a literary event in his name. This year’s guest, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks, inspired Monday’s audience with a presentation that was part reading, part personal journey, and part writerly advice. It was also pure enjoyment!
We have several such “signature” events on campus each year, but I am most impressed with the level of ingenuity shown by the faculty in weaving these events into the fabric of their courses or into the enrichment of their students. For example, the English Department undertook a number of initiatives to prepare students to get the most out of this event--from teaching specific individual plays by Parks to teaching selections from Parks’s current project, 365 Days, 365 Plays to working with the English Society to create campus interest in the event. The Honors Program also challenged students to read Parks’s work and to attend the event, and theatre students were likewise urged to attend.
In a stroke of creativity, photography professor Maryjean Viano Crowe invited students to do photographic interpretations of one of Parks’s short plays from the 365 project. These assignments were due on Monday, and after her reading (and about 90 minutes of book signing), Suzan-Lori Parks walked into Cushing-Martin Hall and generously gave time to those photography students as they reviewed the task and explained their individual “translations” of her words into visual medium. This and so many other imaginative projects invented by faculty members--and even the presence of so many faculty members at the Raymo event--are surely signs of a very healthy commitment to “the academic enterprise.”
Obviously, the Raymo event brings an important outside speaker to campus each year, but this year I am also pleased to see such a robust number of events on the calendar that feature Stonehill faculty members speaking on their areas of expertise. The Social Justice and Public Policy Research Series, for example, kicked off on September 21st, with Prof. Rick Gribble, C.S.C. (Religious Studies) speaking about his most recent book on the life of Archbishop Edward Hanna.
The Common Sense Lecture Series--a collaboration of Student Affairs and Academic Affairs--featured Prof. Celeste Lay (Political Science) in the opening lecture on the presidential primaries: how they work and why they are important. These are moments for faculty to share expertise with students--but also for faculty to join each other n collegial conversation about topics that matter to faculty work and to the intellectual life of our campus. Another such important moment will be our discussions at Academic Development Day next week--discussions focused on the critical topic of academic integrity.
The Trustee’s comment made me wonder about how much the campus intellectual culture has truly changed and grown richer in the last decade. And I was reminded of a colleague--dear to many of us--who left Stonehill early in his career, and whose life was brutally cut short in a still-unsolved murder in Chicago on June 22, 2005. Those faculty members who knew Peter D’Agostino will remember that he had uncompromising expectations for how faculty colleagues should sustain each other’s intellectual passions. He was truly committed to “the academic enterprise.” I know we fell short of Peter’s expectations, but I think about him regularly, and I believe that he would find Stonehill today the kind of enriching and supportive intellectual community he hoped for.
For your parts in making Stonehill that kind of community, thank you.
Best regards,
Katie
photo credit: Nicki Pardo
He said, “I always knew that Stonehill faculty members were passionate about their courses and generous in their interactions with students, but I am struck by something different on this visit: a commitment to the larger academic enterprise.”
Now I’m not sure that the Trustee and I would define “the academic enterprise” identically, but I am very sure that he was onto something. Stonehill faculty members do show a remarkable commitment to the broad academic enterprise, and they do so through their courses, their advising, their attendance at Academic Development Day and other opportunities to discuss our common work—as well as through programming that augments the curriculum and faculty-led events that promote collegial conversation about scholarly work.
What’s my evidence that the academic enterprise is alive and well? Well, one major event of the past week offers a good example. Now in its seventh year, the Chet Raymo Literary Series honors our well-loved physicist and creative writer emeritus with a literary event in his name. This year’s guest, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks, inspired Monday’s audience with a presentation that was part reading, part personal journey, and part writerly advice. It was also pure enjoyment!
We have several such “signature” events on campus each year, but I am most impressed with the level of ingenuity shown by the faculty in weaving these events into the fabric of their courses or into the enrichment of their students. For example, the English Department undertook a number of initiatives to prepare students to get the most out of this event--from teaching specific individual plays by Parks to teaching selections from Parks’s current project, 365 Days, 365 Plays to working with the English Society to create campus interest in the event. The Honors Program also challenged students to read Parks’s work and to attend the event, and theatre students were likewise urged to attend.
In a stroke of creativity, photography professor Maryjean Viano Crowe invited students to do photographic interpretations of one of Parks’s short plays from the 365 project. These assignments were due on Monday, and after her reading (and about 90 minutes of book signing), Suzan-Lori Parks walked into Cushing-Martin Hall and generously gave time to those photography students as they reviewed the task and explained their individual “translations” of her words into visual medium. This and so many other imaginative projects invented by faculty members--and even the presence of so many faculty members at the Raymo event--are surely signs of a very healthy commitment to “the academic enterprise.”
Obviously, the Raymo event brings an important outside speaker to campus each year, but this year I am also pleased to see such a robust number of events on the calendar that feature Stonehill faculty members speaking on their areas of expertise. The Social Justice and Public Policy Research Series, for example, kicked off on September 21st, with Prof. Rick Gribble, C.S.C. (Religious Studies) speaking about his most recent book on the life of Archbishop Edward Hanna.
The Common Sense Lecture Series--a collaboration of Student Affairs and Academic Affairs--featured Prof. Celeste Lay (Political Science) in the opening lecture on the presidential primaries: how they work and why they are important. These are moments for faculty to share expertise with students--but also for faculty to join each other n collegial conversation about topics that matter to faculty work and to the intellectual life of our campus. Another such important moment will be our discussions at Academic Development Day next week--discussions focused on the critical topic of academic integrity.
The Trustee’s comment made me wonder about how much the campus intellectual culture has truly changed and grown richer in the last decade. And I was reminded of a colleague--dear to many of us--who left Stonehill early in his career, and whose life was brutally cut short in a still-unsolved murder in Chicago on June 22, 2005. Those faculty members who knew Peter D’Agostino will remember that he had uncompromising expectations for how faculty colleagues should sustain each other’s intellectual passions. He was truly committed to “the academic enterprise.” I know we fell short of Peter’s expectations, but I think about him regularly, and I believe that he would find Stonehill today the kind of enriching and supportive intellectual community he hoped for.
For your parts in making Stonehill that kind of community, thank you.
Best regards,
Katie
photo credit: Nicki Pardo
Friday, September 28: The Art of Science
So much happened on campus this past week that I will have to pass over several possible topics to focus on one whose importance is impossible to overstate: we broke ground on Thursday for a new $34 million science center that will transform our campus in manifold ways!
As anyone who attended the event can attest, it was truly a “ceremonial” groundbreaking. We all knew that shiny shovels hitting an oversized sandbox was only a signifier of the earth-moving efforts ahead. But I’d like to reflect a little on how this event was also a sign of much past work. Indeed, I daresay that science faculty at Stonehill have been groundbreakers since the College opened its doors, and that this new building is the culmination of their efforts.
Many of the names in Stonehill’s lore involve scientists: Fr. Frank Hurley C.S.C., the “Father of Biology”; Mary Alice Moore, the chemist who dared--according to the stories--to destroy her lab furnishings in order to get students what they needed to do science; Chet Raymo, whose love for physics and astronomy drew generations of students to his classes, where he raised their sights to the night skies and beyond in the Merkert-Tracy observatory.
The new Science Center will house four academic departments: Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and Psychology. These departments sponsor majors in biology, biochemistry, chemistry, environmental studies, neuroscience, and psychology--and soon a full-fledged physics major. The current faculty is simply outstanding, and the College has recognized this: these departments boast five faculty recipients of the Louise Hegarty Award for Excellence in Teaching and two recipients of the Distinguished Faculty Scholar Award. (That’s one quarter of the teaching award recipients and one third of the distinguished faculty scholars!)
They have brought millions of dollars in external grant funding to support their research--and this has been happening in an environment where it is increasingly difficult to attract federal dollars for research. National Science Foundation (NSF) funding supports the honey-mushroom research of Diane Peabody. Robert Peabody, Maura Tyrell, and Jane DeLuca; NSF also supports Louis Liotta’s ongoing research on Polyhydroxylated pyrrolidines.
Marilena Hall and Cheryl Schnitzer have received substantial funding from Research Corporation to support their basic research. Mike Horne and Alessandro Massarotti enjoy remarkable collaborations with scholars at institutions including MIT and at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. In addition to these salient examples of specific research projects, these departments have also brought in matching funds for new instrumentation, such as a high-speed nuclear-magnetic resonator and a DNA sequencer. In the case of Chemistry, a whole department collaborated to acquire funding that fosters pedagogical change: we are in the second year of an NSF grant in excess of $860,000 that supports a substantial revision to the way we deliver General Chemistry. These are just a few examples of such work.
Even more importantly, these faculty members have shaped the lives of countless students by leading the rest of us in many of the most important academic directions we have taken in the last two decades: experiential learning, interdisciplinary exploration, and undergraduate research. Each of these departments has consistently been a “hands-on” department, where students learn science by doing science. Their labs and research facilities are hubs of activity--as are many corners of the physical campus--where students take pride in the record numbers of hours they log on their laboratory or environmental work. Three of the nine interdisciplinary majors at Stonehill are offered through these departments. And undergraduate research, which we are now proud to offer in every discipline, began with the sciences. Some of that research is course based; for example, 100% of Psychology students design their own research projects through the Research Methods class. And much of the research also involves the direct collaboration of a student and a faculty member. Indeed, it was Louis Liotta who brought the idea of the SURE program to Stonehill, and since 1996, the number and variety of projects has grown each year, as today’s SURE Poster Presentation demonstrated.
To call these steps in Stonehill’s remarkable progress would be an understatement; to call them quantum leaps would be a cliché. The truth is, our science faculty have broken new ground at Stonehill, and they’ve done it in spades. This week, they also did it with spades, and the Science Center that will open in Summer 2009 represents an another acknowledgement of their work--one that we will all have the opportunity to enjoy.
Best regards,
Katie
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