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September 23, 2011

Posted by gray.15 in Dean's message

Created on September 23, 2011 at 9:06am

And tagged with: Array

Welcome back to the start of another academic year at The Ohio State University at Mansfield campus! Among other things, this means a fresh round of communiqués from yours truly. In response to feedback that I received from many of you over the summer, I have decided to make a few changes this year to the format of my communications, including the merging of my “Week that Was” and “Dean’s List” efforts into a single “Dean’s Bi-Weekly Report” document. I believe that the blending of these efforts will allow me to write in greater detail about the variety of efforts underway that are designed to move our campus forward.

Hopefully, you were able to get an initial sense of the new successes I believe our campus can and will enjoy this year when you attended the 2011 State of the Ohio State Mansfield Campus Address this past Tuesday in the Conard Performance Hall. I opened with some initial thoughts about where we find ourselves right now, including our Autumn Quarter enrollment figures and our current fiscal situation, and I also took the time to introduce all of the newly hired faculty and staff. As well, a number of senior administrative staff provided some brief remarks of their own, including: Donna Hight, who discussed recruitment and retention efforts; Associate Dean Dave Tovey, who provided an update on semester conversion and changes to advising; Nick Orosan, who talked about our upcoming capital campaign; Rodger Smith, who provided information about the brand new Board Alumni Group; Brian White, who discussed campus building updates; and Mike Collura, who provided planning and implementation updates for the Bromfield Information Commons.

The last part of the State of the Campus address constituted the heart of the matter regarding our pursuits in the coming year. In essence, this was the portion of my remarks that provided some initial details both in terms of where we are going and how we will get there. This included a discussion about our need to create a Campus Implementation Plan (CIP) as a direct response to the Regional Campus Cluster Strategic Plan. Our work on the CIP – which is due by the end of this calendar year – will be focused squarely on advancing our learning/teaching goals, our discovery/research goals, and our engagement/service goals as spelled out in the Cluster Strategic Plan. Further, our campus also has a deadline of July 1, 2012 in terms of updating our Pattern of Authority (POA) and Appointments, Promotion, and Tenure (APT) documents. Work on these documents undoubtedly will contain significant deliberation of workload flexibility issues related to faculty course responsibilities, as well as the need to focus on an enhanced peer review process regarding instructional efforts. Finally, the last part of my remarks during the State of the Campus address focused on the upcoming work of the OSU Mansfield Board members, with special attention given to the direction of its four core committees: Facilities and Planning; Academic Affairs/Student Life; External Relations; and Finance.

The State of the Campus address could only provide a brief overview of the year ahead. For that reason, I have arranged a series of informal lunches in Ovalwood throughout Autumn Quarter in order to continue our dialogue about these activities. Those dates are:

Of course, all of the work ahead requires amplified communication efforts beyond these lunchtime opportunities for Q&A. This bi-weekly report is designed to be one primary information channel about all of these activities as well.

I very much appreciate the opportunity to work with all of you in the year ahead. Go Ohio State Mansfield and GO BUCKS!