Newsletter — Office of the Provost

Tuesday, July 30, 2024
Volume 2, Issue 9

I hope everyone is enjoying their summer. I wouldn’t normally put together a newsletter for distribution during the summer, but there have been several developments over the past few months that I want to share. Some of these have impact for your planning for the fall semester so I wanted to get them on your radar for consideration as you begin organizing your semester plans.

Artificial Intelligence

I am grateful to Logan Rath, Nicole Baker, and Brigette Meskel in our library who worked with Catie LaLonde in CELT to develop a Library Guide that faculty can use to help determine how to make effective use of AI in your classes. Please be reminded that faculty are expected to include a statement in the syllabus guiding students on the appropriate use of AI within the class. Faculty have the flexibility to determine how AI can be used, making it critically important that students are properly informed in advance. The guide includes a page that provides numerous examples that faculty can use. Additional content in the guide will help faculty find the best resources on AI as you look for the latest information about how to effectively use AI to drive innovation, either in teaching or scholarship. As this is a rapidly evolving area, there is also a scholarship and news page that is continuously updated to contain the latest information. CELT will be hosting several workshops throughout the semester in support of faculty needs.

CELT Expansion

As of July 1, the Instructional Design Team, which is comprised of Shari Hardenbrook and Lyndsay Marrone, has joined CELT. This reflects CELT’s expanded mission to include support and training beyond our Brightspace LMS to include integration of best practices into online, hybrid, and face-to-face spaces. Shari and Lyndsay will continue to support faculty course design-related questions, conduct OSCQR reviews of online courses, and offer individual consultations. This new affiliation with CELT also provides an ability to offer more direct support for faculty development of teaching and learning tools, and programming to support high-impact practices within all educational formats. CELT will continue to grow during this academic year, with the addition of a CELT Administrative Assistant and two additional positions designed to support first-year programs and experiential learning opportunities at the University. Finally, as part of a series of departmental moves that took place this summer, CELT has moved to the first floor of the Fannie Barrier Williams Building, where they will continue to serve faculty needs with workshops and seminars, faculty learning communities, and direct help for your professional development needs.

ACE Pilot Program

Laurel McNall (Provost Faculty Fellow for Strategic Initiatives) has been working with Jianna Howard, Sarah Unger, and Amanda Shearer throughout the summer on curriculum development for our ACE (Academics, Career, & Experiences) pilot program. The full year (2 credit fall, 2 credit Spring) first-year experience course is designed to support student success, aligning with current best practices for first-year experience and connecting students with an initial awareness of the opportunities that their chosen major can offer them beyond graduation. As of July 25th, 355 first-year students (out of 1411 total deposited first-year students) indicated a preference for ACE (25% opt-in rate), and an anticipated 200 students will be accommodated in the pilot involving eight instructors this academic year. An IRB approved research study led by Laurel, Angela Thompsell, and Thomas Chew will be conducted to evaluate if there are meaningful differences in the performance, sense of belonging, and other metrics, for ACE relative to APS students.

Building these experiences into our first-year course is only the first step in providing more engaged and active learning throughout our curriculum. As we learned through the work of the Experiential Learning Committee that met last year, we have many faculty who are already doing this important work, but often on their own: “faculty are often left trying to figure out on their own what steps are needed to facilitate experiential learning.” Roughly eight years ago, there was a committee co-chaired by Laurie Cook and Karen Podsiadly to coordinate activities across Divisions, but that structure was not maintained. Among their many recommendations, the committee suggested that we should have a cross-divisional leadership team to support and advance faculty and staff efforts. I will be asking Laurel McNall, Catie LaLonde, and Emily Marchese to lead a new Interdivisional Executive Steering Committee on Experiential Learning to begin implementing the recommendations of the committee and to help us form a more cohesive plan for integrating active and engaged learning throughout our student experience. I am pleased to be able to implement this effort that derives from a recommendation from the Experiential Learning Committee.

Student Success Equity Intensive (SSEI)

As part of this AASCU (American Association of State Colleges and Universities) initiative, I traveled with our delegation (consisting of me, Karen Podsiadly, Jose Maliekal, Christiana Oritz and student Orlensy Castillo) to Indianapolis in June and to Denver with Karen Podsiadly earlier this month. The Indianapolis convening was to work with other institutions in cohort 3 to define our proposed outcome and work to develop a plan of action to implement over the upcoming academic year. During the Denver meeting, we had the benefit of meeting with representatives from earlier cohorts to learn about their successes through this program. Using the information derived from our student focus groups that were conducted during the spring semester, we have determined that our goal will be to improve students’ sense of belonging. We recognize that a sense of belonging is also important for faculty and staff, and thus we see this as appropriate for our SSEI initiative. This also fits with our overall strategic plan goals of being a great place to learn and a great place to work. We are hoping to increase our efforts to gain student input (and at the same time, that of faculty and staff) during the academic year so that we can identify specific strategies to implement for increased student success.

Finally

I am looking forward to the beginning of the academic year and everyone’s return to campus in a few weeks. There are several exciting initiatives underway that will lead to increased enrollment and improved student success and even more under discussion. We will continue to involve faculty and staff in deliberations as to how best to proceed, work collaboratively across all divisions, and in keeping with the focus of our SSEI, look to integrate student input into these discussions as well. I am excited to begin my third year as Provost and thank you for your continued dedication to the success of SUNY Brockport and our students.