Dean’s report Oct. 17, 2014

Each year we welcome new members into the Ohio State academy. Last week, President Drake hosted a new faculty member reception at the Ohio State Faculty Club, and I was delighted to take part in this celebration with both Ruth Lowery and Agus Munoz-Garcia. We were able to catch the attention of President Drake for a couple of moments, and he spoke warmly about the regional campuses due to his recent visit to Newark. In addition to noting his interest in visiting the Mansfield campus in the not-too-distant future, he also was quite animated about the special role he saw the regional campuses playing in the realm of P-16 education. This certainly left Ruth with a big smile on her face!

Meanwhile, here is a quick rundown on the past two weeks:

Human Resources

  • On Monday, NCSC President Dorey Diab and I hosted an Open Student Forum along with Ohio State Student Trustee Jaime Cruse and NCSC Student McKayla Cox. Special thanks to Andrew Kinney for offering extra credit to students who participated in the forum!
  • On Tuesday, I sent out a notice to the Mansfield campus regarding Norman Jones having accepted my offer to become the next Associate Dean. Norman will begin his new role on July 1, 2015.
  • NOTE: Following our ironing out of some last minute details in Executive Committee, we soon will begin the search process for our next Assistant Dean.

Curriculum

  • On Monday, Dave Tovey, Brian White and I met with Ozeas Costa and Carol Landry regarding both the BAIS (Integrated Studies with emphasis on environmental studies) and the SENR minor and major and how all of this curricular-based work would dovetail with our EcoLab initiative. Next steps include completing the BAIS curriculum outline and notifying the Columbus campus of our intention to begin offering students an Individualized Study Program (ISP) option while seeking official recognition of the new major from the Arts and Sciences faculty.
  • On Wednesday, Dave Tovey and I toured some of the Mechanical Engineering (ME) sites on the Columbus campus in order to gain a better idea about the facilities we would need to have to offer the second, third, and fourth years of an ME major.
  • On Thursday, several members of the College of Engineering (COE) – including Dean David Williams and Associate Dean David Tomasko – visited our campus. Special attention was given to the development of our four year engineering degree offerings, as well as connecting local employers with students and graduates from the COE.

Diversity and inclusion issues

  • As a result of last week’s Woman2Woman conversation with Katherine Ezawa of The DomesticViolence Shelter, Inc., participants unanimously agreed to begin efforts to champion the “NoMore” campaign to end domestic violence and sexual assault. Renee Thompson is working withthis group to develop mission and vision statements and will meet again with Katherine onWednesday, October 22nd to begin crystallizing a campus-wide “No More” campaign.
  • NOTE: Bruce George, the co-founder of Russell Simmons Def Poetry Jam on HBO, will present atthe Mansfield campus on Tuesday, October 21, 2014 from 4:00 pm-5:30 pm., EisenhowerStudent Union.

Property and facilities

  • Last Thursday, President Diab, Brian White and I met with members of the Ontario Growth Association in order to discuss a range of issues, including most significantly a series of zoning issues that are being considered by the Ontario City Council regarding the Campus District. Much of this work is being done in order to create a uniform look to new businesses that will develop on Lex-Springmill Road.
  • On Thursday, I spent some time with Larry Stimpert on a tour of our physical facilities, as well astaking the opportunity to meet with his Physical Operations and Maintenance (POM) staff.

Town-gown relationships

  • Last week, I attended the Coalition of Urban and Metropolitan Universities (CUMU) conferencein Syracuse, New York. In addition to presenting a talk on the recent campus-community surveywe conducted, I spent quite a bit of time talking to CUMU members who are facing similarchallenges as our campus in terms of improving town-gown relationships. One of the mostgratifying pieces of good news I brought back was that the baseline data created by our surveywas the envy of the conference!

From the flight deck

This is Homecoming week, and later today we will be crowning a new Mansfield campus Homecoming Queen and King. The following individuals are representing our campus this year as part of the Mansfield Homecoming Court: Nella Blackford (Ashland, Early Childhood Education), Maris Bucci (Bellville, Communications), Jordan Morse (Ashland, Psychology), Joey Burley (Ashland, Psychology & English), Jordan Landis (Crestview, Middle Childhood Education), and Greg Palmerton (Norwalk, Biology & Pre-Medicine). In addition, these students will get to participate in the Homecoming Parade and Marching Band rehearsal on the Columbus campus today, and then will be on hand tomorrow for the pre-game skull session and ensuing football game against Rutgers. This is a great bunch of students, many of whom have already positioned themselves as student leaders on our campus. Many thanks to Elise Riggle for working with the other regional campuses to coordinate these events for our Homecoming Court. This is another great example of our students benefitting from our small campus advantages while still being able to participate in the big campus events!

If you have any of the Homecoming Court students in your classes, please let them know how proud we are of them. There is a lot to be delighted about these days, and our stellar students are the centerpiece of it all. Go Bucks and Go Ohio State Mansfield!

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