Positive Restlessness
“Never Let It Rest: Lessons about Student Success from High-Performing Colleges and Universities” (Kuh, Kinzie, Schuh, & Whitt, 2005) represents a still-relevant guide for institutions like SUNY New Paltz, that is, institutions with a history of higher-than-predicted graduation rates and other robust student success outcomes. The institutions on which Kuh and associates reported in their publication continually strengthened student success through “an intentional focus on institutional improvement” and featured campus cultures suffused with “positive restlessness.” Moving forward in the spirit of positive restlessness to further increase student success can sound daunting if not downright exhausting. However, we should consider that an unwavering focus on student success may not mean simply more work. It can also mean working differently. In what follows, I briefly suggest one way to harness positive restlessness and to have it serve at least two purposes at once.
If I have learned anything in over three years as Interim Provost of SUNY New Paltz, it is that faculty place a high value on both scholarship and student success. Given a renewed focus on student success under the leadership of President Wheeler, I invite and encourage more faculty to explore the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SOTL). SOTL is an opportunity not merely adding to the work but for working differently through mutually reinforcing synergies offered by this approach to scholarship. One useful definition of SOTL, among many explications found here, is that by Pat Hutchings, who states that SOTL “involves faculty bringing their habits and skills as scholars to their work as teachers… habits of asking questions, gathering evidence of all different kinds, drawing conclusions or raising new questions, and bringing what they learn through that to… students’ learning.”
It is because teaching and learning necessarily play a large role in New Paltz’s history of exceptional student success outcomes that greater attention to the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning is warranted. I trust that various forms of SOTL will evolve to be just as highly valued by faculty as more familiar forms of discipline-based scholarship. Accordingly, SOTL should be appropriately recognized in faculty reappointment, tenure, and promotion processes. To assist interested faculty in further explorations of SOTL, please see lists found here of scholarly publication venues, both general and discipline-related, which may be suitable for disseminating knowledge emerging from SOTL.
General Education (GE) 5 Implementation – Note of Appeal and Appreciation
At one quarter of the way through the academic year, the following update shows the excellent progress made towards implementing the new SUNY General Education (GE) 5 Framework for fall 2023. However, as you will see, we need additional GE 5 courses for this coming academic year.
GE 4 Course Recertifications We are nearing completion of the process for recertifying GE 4 courses for the five GE 5 Knowledge and Skills areas of The Arts, Mathematics and Quantitative Reasoning, Natural Sciences and Scientific Reasoning, Social Sciences, and World Languages.
Major Course Revisions and New Course Proposals Faculty have been responding to calls to revise and submit their courses for the GE 5 Knowledge and Skills areas of Communication - Written and Oral; Diversity: Equity, Inclusion, and Social Justice; Humanities; US History and Civic Engagement; and World History and Global Awareness. I am very pleased to report that 40 major course revisions have been fully approved for GE 5. Of those fully approved courses, two are existing courses that will be new to GE. An additional 52 course proposals have been submitted and are in varying stages of review and approval. These proposals include 47 major course revisions, one course that will be new to GE, and four new course proposals.
More Course Proposals Needed for GE 5 We thank all faculty who have submitted GE 5 course proposals; the department chairs, associate deans, the staff in Records and Registration and Academic Affairs who are managing the details; and Curriculum Committee members who are reviewing the proposals. We are especially grateful to the Curriculum Committee for reviewing these revisions with utmost care and speed. Although we are making good progress toward achieving our goal of having a sufficient number of GE 5 courses for our new and transfer students matriculating in fall 2023, we are in need of more courses. Please consider submitting a GE 5 major course revision or proposing a new course for GE 5 as soon as possible, especially if that course is intended to be offered in fall 2023.
Note on GE 4 Offerings Please remember that we will also still need to offer GE 4 courses for continuing students.
Thank You! We appreciate your commitment toward helping the College achieve a successful and timely transition to GE 5. Please remember and as needed consult the memoranda from the GE 5 Implementation Task Force, which contain important information. These messages, along with the GE 5 major course revision form, successful examples of courses revised for GE 5, and a FAQ can be located on the GE Board’s website, found here: www.newpaltz.edu/ge.
Black Solidarity Day – November 7, 2022
Student leaders have expressed appreciation for faculty’s attention to New Paltz’s policy regarding Black Solidarity Day. The institution’s policy can be found on page 11 of the Faculty Handbook as was noted in the fall Welcome Letter to faculty and the genesis of Black Solidarity Day is described on the website of the Department of Black Studies.
As shared in earlier reports, the relevance of Black Solidarity Day (especially in 2022) is made more salient if we reflect on the words of journalist and Pulitzer Prize winning author Isabel Wilkerson who wrote in Caste,
It is a measure of how long enslavement lasted in the United States that the year 2022 marks the first year that the United States will have been an independent nation for as long as slavery lasted on its soil. No current day adult will be alive in the year in which African-Americans as a group will have been free for as long as they had been enslaved. That will not come until the year 2111 (emphasis added).
Wilkerson’s words underscore the importance not only of Black Solidarity Day but also of addressing in the curriculum this history, triumphs despite this history, and its reverberations to the present time.
Resources and Initiatives Supporting Faculty
National Center for Faculty Development & Diversity (NCFDD) Participation in the wealth of resources available through the NCFDD continues to increase. Over 130 members of our campus community have engaged in over 525 of the NCFDD training sessions. Whether you need a boot camp for your scholarly writing, tips for tenure and promotion, resources to support your efforts with equitable and inclusive teaching, or help managing a healthy work/life balance, NCFDD has assembled exceptional tools developed and offered by faculty scholars for your support. To activate your access to this campus subscription, please go to http://www.facultydiversity.org/join.
Faculty Development Center (FDC) Our FDC Interim Co-Coordinators welcome your participation in the following October and ongoing FDC events.
- New faculty (hired in the last 3 years) may wish to join the First-Year Fridays series to learn more about SUNY New Paltz and bolster community.
- Fall Writing Groups are held each Wednesday and Friday and all faculty are welcome.
- On Friday, October 21 at 2:00, faculty can join a discussion and ask questions aimed at Demystifying the Reappointment, Tenure & Promotion Process.
- The second annual Sound Your Truth event, Friday, October 14, 4:30-7:30, provides an opportunity to learn more about how we can all amplify and center underrepresented voices in our classrooms, across our campus, and in the larger community.
Brightspace As we continue our transition from Blackboard to D2L Brightspace, faculty are encouraged to complete the Core DLE and Core Pedagogy Training (available on demand and required to teach remotely) and to participate in Brightspace Drop-in Sessions as needed. We invite faculty to reach out to one of our Online Peer Mentors for support with online teaching. We especially encourage all faculty who teach online to learn more about how to ensure regular and substantive interaction in your online courses by joining the Wednesday, October 12, 12:00-2:15, Virtual OSCQR (Open SUNY Course Quality Review) Discussion & Webinar, "Discover Resources for Engaging Students."
Library Dean Search
The search for the Dean of the Sojourner Truth Library continues at a steady pace. Please anticipate announcements in the near future regarding campus finalist visits and opportunities to participate in sessions with candidates.
Recent Recognitions
You will find recent recognitions of faculty and staff accomplishments at the following link: https://sites.newpaltz.edu/news/category/research/. Please submit news of your awards and honors, publications/creative works, or other external recognitions of your accomplishments to the Office of Communication & Marketing. News of faculty accomplishments also often appears in the Daily Digest.
Closing
I trust that Fall Break allowed opportunities to rest, reflect, and reenergize so that we may remain steadfast in our lived commitment to the success of our students heading into the second half of fall 2022. As we work collaboratively with colleagues across the campus in this ongoing work, please anticipate further opportunities, as noted recently by President Wheeler, to contribute to optimizing systems such as Brightspace and Starfish that are being implemented to further support students and their success.
With best regards,
Barbara
Barbara Lyman
Interim Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs
