Offleash

There are two really interesting events scheduled today -- unfortunately at competing times -- that may interest you;

Town Hall Meeting with the Provost: Provost Emily Cutrer hosts a town hall meeting at noon-1 in Markstein 125. The topic of today's meeting will be the "Foundations of Excellence" initiative in which CSUSM is currently involved. Some of you may have received an invitation from the Provost to join one of the various study groups that will help shape CSUSM's planning to assist first year students and to, indeed, lay foundations of excellence for CSUSM as a whole and for the individual students who come to us as first years. If you are still wondering how you should respond to the request --- this is the meeting for you. Learn what the FOE (unfortunate acryonym for Foundations of Excellence) is all about and how you can be involved.

As the Provost indicated in her email of last week, just because the Town Hall has a particular theme this should not prevent you from attending to ask any questions you have or raise any concerns.

Brown Bag Lunch concerning ATI -- aka the Accessible Technology Initiative today at noon in Kellog 2413/the Faculty Center. The meeting will also address IMAP. Senators will have received the text of a resolution and supporting documentation concerning one way in which CSUSM intends to respond as part of the overall ATI effort. If you want to learn more about why the recommendations that appear in the resolution --- about mandatory textbook adoption dates and procedures to accomplish this --- are on the agenda, please attend this meeting.

Thanks to those faculty who were able to attend the open forum. About 12 faculty were there and we had a lively hour with President Haynes. The topics discussed ranged from budget (no surprise there!), enrollment, Executive salaries, our ability to raise money and our actual success in doing so to date.

We learned some pretty interesting things. First, to address the raises approved for the President and MPP personnel (average of 11.something % for Presidents and a range capped at 6.75% for MPPs), the Trustees/Long Beach send no extra money to the campuses except a 4% increase on the overall salary pool that is part of the compact (which means it's an increase actually funded by the Legislature). When you add together all the raises from all the bargaining units and the President and MPPs, if the total commitments add up to more than 104% of the current salary pool, then the campus has to come up with the additional money itself. As the President commented --- what a way to run a system!! To negotitate (and/or grant) pay raises exceeding the 4% increase and then not fund them seems unconscionable since to behave otherwise will everywhere mean permanently cutting into operating budgets to make up the difference.** Some will remember that the Fact Finder used in the CSUadministration/CFA contract negotiations said that the CSU had the money to make up the difference --- not surprisingly the CSU administration saw things another way and spins the tale that everything is dependent on how we are funded by the Legislature.

Second -- I am trying to sort out what gives with enrollment. Check out this from Tracks:
********
Fall Census Reveals 5% Growth

The university’s fall 2007 census report shows total headcount increased more than five percent over last fall, from 8,734 to 9,167. FTE increased by nearly four percent from 7,089 in fall 2006 to 7,356.
********

The President seemed as surprised as most of the audience that somehow we had hit 105% of our target -- except that's not exactly what I understand from the above figures. Remember that last year we exceeded last years target by a lot and actually pretty much made this year's target. So, what does a 4% FTES increase over last year mean (note there is no info in this press release about 'targets')? We only receive state funding for hitting our target. Supposedly if you fall short by more than 2% you get dinged, but that doesn't seem to happen very much. More importantly from CSUSM's perspective going over target either by 5% or 4% or whatever the figure is [at some point I thought it was only 2.7% which is a reasonable margin of error) gets you NO extra state money --- all you get is the student fees.

The President promised to help clear this up -- because we all remember from last year, this sort of enrollment increase wasn't supposed to happen again.

Maybe others will write in with their impressions of the meeting. Thanks to those of you who came.

Oh -- yeah, I forgot to ask President Haynes if she took the quiz and if so, what dog she was??? Inquiring minds . . . .

** This is where the notion (admirably not advanced on this campus) that because faculty got big raises things are worse off. Anyone anywhere who wants to advance that narrative, however, has somehow got to deal with the fact that even though there aren't as many MPPs (although it sure seems that way sometimes) and Presidents as faculty in the system that their raises (since there salaries are waaaaay higher -- although it is important to realize that some MPPs do take home fairly modest salaries, esp. at the level 4/director level) are also part of the "problem".

Please see the following op-ed piece written by Roberta Achtenberg, a member of the Board of Trustees.

It makes arguments with which we are all familiar. However, I do have some questions and maybe some of our COBA faculty who understand this stuff in a more sophisticated way can chime in. From my layperson's reading of the NYT's business page, I gather that one 'problem' with the argument that we (whoever 'we' are in a particular circumstance) have to match the market and pay our Execs high salaries is that the chummy nature of the relationship between some Boards of Directors' salary committees (and COEs) artificially inflates the market. So while presidents might lag behind the market, that statement begs the question of whether the market is correct -- does it actually reflects the real value of the executive or has it been interferred with.

You will enjoy (in a perverse, 'you can't make this stuff up' sort of way) this article from the Washingtonian Magazine last year about the President of American University. I would love to say this is infrequent, but the only thing infrequent about it is the audacity and scale of the situation.

In reporting on the President's Open Forum with faculty on Monday, I said that a question had come up about our enrollment increase this fall and that the President was a surprised as the rest of the audience in hearing about a 5% increase, esp. as all the info which the President and her Cabinet had received said the increase was at about a 2.5% level for the campus as a whole. I quoted a recent Tracks ? In the Loop ? (who can keep them straight!!!?) piece that talked about 4% and 5% increases. Yesterday at Senate and also in an email to me, President Haynes cleared things up:

I reviewed the fall enrollment numbers after the faculty forum. As you know, the Chancellor's Office gives us an annual target. Our 2007/08 college year target is 7283 FTES. The Provost and Deans project how that target will be met over the three semesters. For this fall, we were 2.7% over the projection that the Provost and Deans had set. We do expect that will translate to being ~2.6% over our target for the entire year - which was 2.5% increase.

The fall headcount is 5% over last years fall headcount. This is the number that the media always asks for and uses; and probably what caused the confusion.

On campus, where we are always talking about targets not headcount, this was confusing and thank you to President Haynes for clarifying things. Truly much appreciated. I know we want the external community to see CSUSM as 'hot' and, as a result, clamor for admittance, but we always need to remember which 'language' (Gown-ese-- CSU dialect -- or Town-ese) we are communicating in and then remember to provide translations if and when necessary.

As I said in my earlier post, a 2.5% increase over target is probably a reasonable margin of error, since aiming to hit target exactly runs the risk of us falling short of target. And, even though the CSU system is inconsistent in how they enforce targets, we don't want to have to give money back by failing to hit target. [added later -- it's also true that we generally lose students from Fall to Spring -- graduations, nonretentions, fewer transfer ready students, etc -- so that having a cushion from fall makes us more likely to come in on target]

Still, closer examination of the Fall's Census report shows that some units First Year Programs, the School of Nursing and the College of Arts and Sciences were anywhere from 5% to 10% over their assigned targets. Our 2.5% over target is an aggregate of campus-wide enrollment data (and even so, fails to take into account 200+ "non-resident" FTES). I know we're all supposed to be thinking 'university first' (more about this at a later date) but one would assume that since 5 and 10 percent overenrollments are pretty significant in themselves that some short term, internal re-allocations to cover these would occur. I have no reason to believe that any such reallocations haven't occurred, but this could also be where some of the confusion came from.

More blogging about yesterday's spirited Senate meeting later. I still have 3 meetings to go to and 1 class to prepare before my week is 'mostly' over.

This past Wednesday the CSUSM Academic Senate met for our second meeting of the year. It's often the case that the fall meetings are a little dull, if only because it takes a while for committee work to crank up, but this meeting was anything but dull. I guess it met the definition of rollicking.

For those of you who were not there, here's what happened. The Senate took action on two items. The first and non-controversial one was a resolution to initiate a process to find a temporary (new) name for Building 37 or Science Hall II. I never knew until this fall how badly having buildings named Science I and Science II confused students, the general public and others like delivery folks, etc. It seems to make perfect sense to think up a name that is both more creative -- our names do feel awfully generic!! -- and less confounding. Many thanks to Mike Schmidt and Jackie Trischman for moving this issue forward.

There was also a lot of agreement on the second action item -- endorsement of the IMAP [stands, I think, for instructional materials accessibility plan] -- but unfortunately most of this agreement was negative. For those of you who haven't taken notice of this yet, the CSU is involved in a laudable effort to make the university completely accessible to those with disabilities. This means changing practice in many instances, redesigning websites and using technology to enable the disabled to participate as full members of the university. The IMAP issue had to do with the specific issue of making sure that disabled students have access to printed course materials (textbooks, etc) on an equal footing with all other students. While I think many people agreed with this idea, how to make it work is a harder nut to crack. In talking about this issue it has seemed like there are two important notions in apparent conflict: 1) that disabled students have equal access; and 2) that faculty have sufficient time to review and select materials for use in the classroom. The process that the Senators were asked to endorse and which would have been the basis for developing a policy on the acquisition of course materials suggested deadlines for course materials adoption that struck most of the faculty present as too early. In a long and lively debate, the Senate was unable to figure out a way of honoring both ideas. In the end, the Senate refused to endorse the recommended processes --- more accurately, the Senate refused to suspend its rules to take action on the recommendations. Then however (and actually I now think this was 'illegal' since we had refused to suspend the rules and then did so anyway in a backhanded way) someone suggested that we endorse the ideas on a temporary basis (so that CSUSM could 'respond' to some Chancellor's Office deadline to submit plans about planning for IMAP). I would say that you had to be there -- and you sort of did, but I hope your Senators will tell you more about IMAP, solicit your ideas and then bring them to the Senate.

First things (almost) last -- next to IMAP the issue that got the most attention was sabbaticals. Provost Cutrer announced in her report that 42 applications for sabbaticals had been submitted. The CBA requires that the university grant a minimum of 10 or was it 12 --- anyway the CBA says that the university must grant a minimum number of sabbaticals equal to 12% of the number of people eligible. Understandably, people tried to get from the Provost some idea of how many sabbaticals she would be willing to fund. Honestly, I heard her say that she wanted to fund as many of the quality proposals as she could and I believe she means that. Still, I don't know if CSUSM has any money budgeted for sabbaticals beyond what is required by the CBA and I'd like to see us in a conversation where we are all working cooperatively and collaboratively to increase the number of sabbaticals at least to the historical maximum given on the campus. I actually don't think anyone is against this but the devil is in the dollars (and the details). Once again, if we are going to have conversations about things like faculty and staff development, then these conversations are going to have to move beyond expressions of intent to demonstrations of good faith. I have confidence that we can get there.

Which leaves me to the last (ish) item to report. The question of sabbaticals prompted a comment by the President that we had to build our resource base for things like faculty development by raising more external dollars. The Senate had invited Rick Keith, VP for Univ Advancement, to come talk to us about his office and these efforts. Because of the length of the IMAP discussion, VP Keith didn't have much time either to present or to take questions. I have asked VP Keith to return and he has agreed to do so, after the feasibility study on the campaign for the annual fund is completed. I know there was a lot of interest in this topic and lots of questions for VP Keith.

And truly last -- VP Keith was not the only one whose time was abbreviated. Ofer Meilich gave a short presentation about international opportunities for faculty, including serving as a resident director of a study abroad program. We'll have him back in December, but in the meantime, if you are interested, feel free to contact him. I know he'd love to talk with you.

In sum, it was a good Senate meeting. It's much harder to run a meeting than to participate in it -- and I could feel my inner bureaucrat starting to take over. It's so easy to become officious when someone tells you that you have to watch the clock. So, my apologies to all who felt cut short or cut off. I will work at being more mellow about such things.

Still, it was fun, it was rollicking, it was everything a Senate meeting should be. Well done, everyone.

I've already blogged on my impressions of the Faculty forum with the President. Anyone who has additional observations, please write in. Also, I understand that the President also met with staff and students this week. OffLeash is looking for blog-reporters working under real names or pseudonymns -- so please write in! Thanks.

Well, Gus is still a conehead on and off, and there's only so many ways you can shoot that, even with a digital camera. Besides, he's rather sensitive about things. And, the number of contributions from the CSU community has dried up for the week. Please keep sending those. I've had a number of people say that they enjoy seeing them (it breaks up my ranting for one thing!). Dog pix to me; cats and other species to Marcia Woolf. Sorry, Marcia, I keep trying to spell your last name Woof.

Anyway, in the absence of new Gus photos. Here are some photos of some of Gus' relatives. My mom has 3 yellow labs

Meet Major, Jack and Andy. Sadly, Major passed away recently. The trio has been re-established by the addition of Toby

In case you missed this article in the Los Angeles Times this weekend.

I like the fact that the piece begins and ends with reference to staff. In all the discussions we have of making things work better or about quality at CSUSM, we often forget to talk about the staff's role in making that happen. So, this morning -- a shout out to staff all over CSUSM.

I noticed that that busy-bee of a Trustee, Roberta Achtenberg, had a letter in the same paper defending, once again, the raises to CSU Executives. The juxtaposition of the article about the state of the university and the need to raise the salaries of presidents is, well, priceless. Thank you, Los Angeles Times!

Some things you just can't let go of. I went to a meeting last week --- a perfectly fine meeting, par for the course, blah, blah --- and ever since then something has been gnawing at me. The meeting was to talk about how the FedEx Kinkos relationship is working. Lots of things to say about this but not yet.

Anyway, here's the thing that's been annoying me. We learned about sending things electronically to FedEx Kinkos (so far I'm on board with the concept) and then having them delivered to your 'desktop'. But, if they were actually delivered to your desktop --- wouldn't you still need to copy them? And if this was the case, why did you even send them out to be copied in the first place?

I know the person talking meant to say that they were delivered to your 'desk' -- what we used to call door to door service, but the repeated use of desktop to mean desk was driving me batty.
It's the small things that drive you over the edge in the end . . . .

About the meeting itself -- useful I think and it seems everyone wants to work with everyone else to make this work better. And in impressive style we are moving forward, not looking at the past when decisions were made (note the passive voice), etc., etc. What I kept thinking though as I sat there was why didn't someone ask the people who actually use the service what they needed before contracting it out? But why ask us, we just work here.

Someone asked me the other day why I'm so concerned about the staff salary negotiations and staff development. A couple of reasons and I hope they make sense.

One reason is that staff turnover is about 50% here. By constantly churning the staff mix, we are losing experienced people and hurting our own productivity. We should be trying to keep good people and make sure not only that the university benefits from their knowledge but that these staff benefit from working at a university. And part of being in a learning environment is both getting the opportunity to contribute in significant ways and getting to expand your own knowledge and skill set. How can we all not benefit from that?

Another reason is my own peculiar (but I hope not too peculiar) view of leadership. My dad who was coal miner and manual worker before WWII really benefited from the expansion of the federal government after the war. He got an entry level clerical job with the VA and even without a college degree eventually retired from a position in which he managed people. The one thing I always remember him saying was that 'you take care of your people, before you take care of yourself.' That seems absolutely right to me and something that a place which goes on and on about "social justice" at the drop of a hat should embrace. I guess that's why I don't understand how the Chancellor can accept a raise the size he has accepted (and argued for on behalf of his executives) BEFORE the staff contract is settled in a decent and just way.

Last, don't know about the rest of you all but I financed my graduate school education once the stipend ran out -- in the absence of a trust fund, a spouse or rich parents -- in two ways 1) loans -- which I am still paying off and 2) working as a staff member for 5 years at my graduate institution (not to mention work-study as an undergrad). I know what staff bring to the table (and to work) every single day.

And finally, I've been thinking about the whole 'it's so hard to hire administrators' narrative. I've been on a LOT of search committees in my 17+ years here and actually, it's often much harder to hire an Administrative Coordinator than an Administrator/MPP. For the former, you have to jump through endless HR hoops (which I'm sure are there for good reasons) and it can take 2-3 months to fill an AC position. On the other hand, many has been the time at CSUSM when someone just somehow 'got' put into an adminstrative position: no search, no discussion, no nothing.

Anyway, that's why.

Lot's of wonderful woofers to share with you all as we close this week out and head into the weekend.

First up, the famous Arnold Shaffer -- who really needs no introduction

And then we have Rosie Nava-Mattox -- one of the "Hounds of History"

And, Koshi Biggs, emeritus pooch, has a new 'brother', AJ .

And finally a full picture that I got around to resizing of some of my mom's granddogs (Major, Jack and Andy):

I hope I get around to some new Gus pix this weekend.

The issue of instructional materials adoption is one that the Senate took up at its last meeting. As I said in an earlier blog entry, the need to get instructional materials into the hands of students with sight impairments promptly and in a way that gives them true 'access' to their classes at the university is a very important goal. Equally important is the responsibility of faculty to chose appropriate materials that are integral to the learning goals of the course. This is often no easy matter and can involve hours, days and even weeks of work depending on the class, the subject and whether or not the course is a new one.

At times it appears as if these two important goals are at loggerheads. And I have to say that sometimes the appearance of irreconcilability is real -- both things can't be done.

BUT, sometimes is not always. That's why, although I think adopting an early and hard bookstore deadline for instructional materials ordering and combining it with draconian enforcement mechanisms is a bad idea, I think we can work on this issue from other directions.

First, I don't think most faculty know (I certainly didn't) that right now only 4% of faculty meet the current bookstore deadlines to order books. That might mean that 96% of faculty absolutely need the extra time to select materials in processes much like those I alluded to above. Maybe. Still, I know from my own case that I usually know about 50% of the materials I want to use by the deadline but delay ordering because the whole ordering process is easier if you submit the entire order at the same time. There have been other times (many, many fewer, but still in one or two semesters) when I did know the booklist by the order date and didn't get it in on time because there was really no pressing need to do so. I wasn't really, really late getting the order in, but I also wasn't one of the 4%.

Here's what I mean about working the problem in another way. If I could easily submit a partial booklist by the due date and easily add to it as I knew more, then I could improve on meeting campus deadlines.

It really is imperative that, if at all possible, we do try to make these deadlines. Let me share with you part of an email exchange between John Segoria and me. John wrote me to explain the process of securing materials for visually impaired students:

The process is lengthy to get a book turned around in alternate format. Let me try and provide a summary. I first have to determine which classes the print impaired student will be taking. I contact the professors via email requesting a list of their required textbooks and explain why this is necessary. I then have to track down the publisher for each book and then purchase the book. I have to wait for the book to come in and then overnight it to a vendor to get it re-formatted into alternate text. It all depends on what type of alternate format is required (i.e, Kurzwiel, Word, PDF, large print, Braille, audiotape) which will dictate how long it will take to complete. Once the book is completed it is mailed back to me and the student is given this material once we confirm that they have actually bought the required textbook (copy right issues). All received copies of books in alternate format are kept for future use.

One of the unfortunate facts that John shared with the Executive Committee was only 50% of the faculty whom he contacts when he learns after early registration that a print impaired student will be enrolled in their classes ever even respond to him about the course materials they are going to use.

Even with all the really irreconcilable imperatives that make up this problem, we can surely do better as a faculty than this.

One of the things I talk about in my classes on the history of human rights is the status of a "norm" around human rights. Norms are not laws but widely known and accepted standards of behavior. Norm enforcement can be difficult if not impossible; however, the notion is that over time the belief in the legitimacy of the norm and that fact that some actors not only adhere to the norm but generally expect compliance from others as a condition of having a relationship, each work to give the norm a validity which creates an expectation that (in most cases and most circumstances) actors will accept and behave according to the norm. The whole process takes time --- it isn't something that happens overnight. Some norms never gain the requisite legitimacy, but others do and they then guide and shape behavior in a tangible way.

So if we think about changing the 'norms' around ordering instructional materials, then maybe we should think about doing it over tme and making what progress we can right now and then think about the ways in which we can frame the problem in a way that does justice to each of the laudable goals that appear to be in conflict. We have lots of really smart and caring people who work here as staff, faculty and administrators. The Office of Disabled Student Services is one of the campus' jewels; John is easy to work with. Since we know what the challenges are, let's tease the issues apart and see what progress we can make.

More about Sac State from the Sacramento Bee

Here's the Op-Ed piece written by our former President: Download file

How do you say/spell schadenfreude? or is the appropriate expression here 'crocodile tears' --- esp. given the context of a big game hunt?

It's that time of year. You should be receiving this from various sources, but I'm also including here the nomination directions and criteria for this years Presidential Awards. Timelines are tight, so please respond fairly quickly. This year's awards are:

Innovation in Teaching
Service and Leadership
Scholarship and Creative Activity
Contributions to Student Success

Access the award info at the president's website:
http://www.csusm.edu/president/

The last award is the award created to recognize contributions by contingent faculty, those not on the tenure track who do so much for CSUSM students. I hope faculty will consider nominating one of the many part-time, lecturer or adjunct faculty who add so much to the campus for this award.

Hello everyone,

The invitations are in the mail for the Fall 2007 Faculty Research Colloquium hosted by the Faculty Center. You should be receiving yours any day now. Details here.

I am especially excited about the colloquium for a couple of reasons. First, I've known Ann Elwood forever. She has been with CSUSM since January of 1991 -- and she's just a great colleague, teacher and scholar. Second, well, there's the dog thing. I'm totally thrilled that she's talking about her really exciting research on Rin Tin Tin. Third, Ann's work really highlights a lot of what is going on in history these days, rigorous attempts to look at popular culture, especially film. We're a department with a media emphasis these days, not only in our grad program but in the increasing number of folks over here who do historical research on media and film. Ann joins Jill Watts, Zhiwei Xiao and Darel Engen in writing about history and film.

Here are some great, current, popular cultural references to Rin Tin Tin. When asked by Carolina Miranda of Time Magazine whether or not his star turn in An Inconvient Truth would give Brad Pitt a run for his money, Al Gore anwered:

Given your star turns at Cannes and Sundance and the success of your documentary, should Brad Pitt worry?

Nah! I'm trying to follow in the tradition of Rin Tin Tin. I would like to have my paw print in front of [Grauman's] Chinese Theater. But I'll have to hold a lot more slide shows before that's possible.

And the again when testifying before Congress in March 2007, when Dennis Hastert (R-IL) complimented Gore on being a movie star, Gore replied: "Rin Tin Tin was a movie star. I just have a slide show"

And, last fun fact -- Some of you may have read Susan Orleans' book, The Orchid Thief, which was made into a movie (Adaptation, 2002 -- with Nicholas Cage, Meryl Streep and Chris Cooper ) -- well, Ann is in a "race" with Susan Orleans to finish their respective books on Rin Tin Tin.

With references like this, you know you've hit a vein in popular culture worth exploring -- so I hope you all come hear Ann's talk on November 16.

Update: What is it with Al Gore and Rin Tin Tin. Here in an interview with EW.com Gore uses the Rin Tin Tin comparison AGAIN.

The mystery is unraveled at Starsmix.com (truly, an actual website) where Gore explains: "Speaking at Augustana College in Sioux Falls, S.D., on Tuesday night, Gore said he won't let the star treatment change him. He said his model will be Rin Tin Tin, because the dog was the same after his TV show as he was before it."

It's not something I'm endorsing :-) but apparently there is a correlation between chocolate and good results on student evals. Brief summary of the study here. Who'd have thought?

. . . and see what happens. Gus came to keep me company Wednesday night while I wanted for students from my research seminar to show up for one-on-one conferences. Clearly he'd rather be at home --- and I can't really argue with him about that!

I do plan to do more blogging very soon. Midterm has kind of taken its toll and I've needed a bit of downtime. Hope you all understand.

Why don't I jump in here with a cute picture of Lourdes Shahamiri's cat, named Blue (for obvious reasons...), and a favorite quote of mine from Henry Beston's "The Outermost House."

"We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature, and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth."

Blue Shahamiri, a fellow prisoner:

The Provosts Briards, Jolie twice and Chloe:

Thoughts are with everyone who is under mandatory evacuation or has left home to be safe.

Please feel free use this site if you need a place to go or have a place to offer anyone. Maybe we can match some folks up.

I'm in Solana Beach. Brought Gus, essential papers and some bottles of the really good wine. Otherwise it's all stuff.

CSUSM did good to let us know early. Not like the last time. Thanks to everyone there.

Many of you may already have this information, but if not

-- at this time all plans are for the campus to open on Monday, Oct. 29

-- starting at 8 a.m. on Saturday, Oct 27, faculty will allowed on campus (via the Barham Road entrance only) and will have access to their offices for a brief period to gather essential belongings. You must have a keyed access card to get into your building. The point is to get in and get out quickly, you will not be permitted to work there. And, if you don't need to go on campus DON'T.

-- later today the Provost and I will send out joint letter urging all faculty to be sensitive to the needs of students as we all try to get back to 'normal'.

-- ASI and the Women's Center are talking with the administration about ways in which to assist members of the university community affected by the fires. More details about this are forthcoming.

-- At this time, resource tables will be set up on Monday, Oct 29 to provide information about various kinds of assistance available to staff, faculty, students and other campus community members.

-- No decisions have yet been made about how or if to attempt to make up the class time lost this past week. As with many other aspects of this situation, this is still being discussed and more information will be forthcoming. I expect that the Academic Senate Executive Committee will talk with the Provost about this issue next Wednesday at our regular meeting.

If anyone has information they want broadcast, please send it to me and I'll post it here. I am now back in Escondido and have regular access to email, the internet, etc. I am not sure if anyone is still checking here (esp as I have not written much in the last couple weeks) but at least it provides yet another venue to get information out.

Here is a letter/email sent to COAS faculty and staff sent by the Dean. I expect other deans sent similar messages to the people in other colleges, but if you didn't get one or are one of the people whose email password timed out during the week when you didn't have email access, the info is important and I'm sure Dean Golich will not mind my reproducing the letter here:

Dear Colleagues,
I am trying to send this to all faculty and staff in the College. I have just returned from a meeting on campus preparing for our attempt to return to some semblance of normalcy starting tomorrow, Monday, October 29. This is what I have learned:
The Academic Senate and the Provost sent a jointly-signed letter to all faculty (I have not seen it and do not know if it went to staff), which explained that the Senate will meet w/ the Provost on Monday at 10 to discuss how to deal with the academics side of this crisis. Hopefully, we will know by the end of the day on Monday -- or after the Senate Executive Committee meets on Wednesday at noon -- how faculty and students will address this missed week of classes. If you have any questions, I suggest you send your inquiries to Patty Seleski (Senate Chair) at pseleski@csusm.edu or the Provost at ecutrer@csusm.edu.
For employees, whose password timed out during this crisis, IITS will work to restore following an easier procedure than usual. Obviously if you password is working you won't see this message, but if you know someone whose is no longer valid, please pass on this word.
On Monday and Tuesday from 8-5:30+ (and maybe more throughout this week depending on need/demand) of this week, several volunteers will staff resource tables in front of University Hall -- one table for students and one for faculty/staff -- to provide information about resources available on campus and in the community for those affected by the fires. (The handouts we have will be forwarded to all faculty and staff electronically for you to have at the ready should students come to YOU or call you from off campus. They will also be posted on the web.)
The handouts include information about matching needs to resource availability via "crash boards" -- like conference message boards. If you were affected by the fires, please stop by to post what your needs are. If you wish to contribute to restoring lives destroyed by the fires, please stop by to see what contributions are needed.
In particular for STUDENTS,
a special emergency loan program has been set up for those permanently displaced by the fires or otherwise financially affected by the fires (lack of work, etc.)
counseling services are available through Student Health & Counseling Services -- 8-4:45 -- phone = 760-750-4915
computing needs -- in addition to the Student Technology Helpdesk and open computer labs, some laptop computers will be made available for 24 hours (and longer we hope) on a first come first serve basis; if you know of students w/ longer term needs, please ask them to call Bill Ward @ 760-750-4791.
the Bookstore is developing a plan for loaning books for the remainder of the semester AND ASI's Women's Resource Center has a library of textbooks too.
For FACULTY AND STAFF
please contact HREO -- Yasuko Shirakawa at yasukos@csusm.edu or Ellen Cardoso at ecardoso@csusm.edu.
please let me know as well
If you can, please watch the campus homepage for updates. Thanks so much. I suspect the week will start with some trepidation. I appreciate your commitment to making this as easy a process for each of us as possible, and thank you for your commitment and concern for your students! You are the best!
Vicki

The first of many, I expect:

The deadlines for all of the President's Awards have been extended a week to accommodate the campus closure

Scholarship and Creative Activity
Service Leadership
Innovative Teaching
Contributions to Student Success

deadlines moved to this Friday, November 2 (from October 26). The materials for each are on www.csusm.edu/president and timelines have been modified.

Just so you know, the Academic Senate Officers had a very good and productive meeting with the Provost, VP for Student Affairs and VP for Adminstration and Finance. David Barsky also joined us.

There will be an official statement, memo coming out soon. The gist of our discussions is that we will not attempt to make up the time lost by adding days to the semester. All faculty will be urged to look critically at their syllabi and try to make adjustments as appropriate. We are also setting up provisions for those faculty who need to make up work in a face to face setting or who would like to use technology to put together videotaped lectures, etc. The initial announcement will come out later today, with a list of resources, etc. to follow by Wed. Basically we will ask everyone to be creative and use multiple approaches to covering the material in their classes.

Here are some other things we are looking at:

1) Deadline for PRC letters --- your PRC should work with Mary Elizabeth Stivers and Michael Bell should making the 11/2 deadline be impossible. They plan to be flexible with the deadline and CFA has agreed

2) Open enrollment for Health Benefits -- deadline extended to Nov. 9 (SORRY for earlier reporting this Nov. 16 -- it's what I was told in HR on Monday)

3) Deadlines related to students -- students should be referrered to the Dean of Students Office for things like drops and withdrawals.

4) Spring schedule -- it is still scheduled to go up on Friday (perhaps without some of the last minute adjustments) and priority registration is still scheduled to begin on 11/5.

One thing we all agreed upon was that it was important to take a case-by-case approach in dealing not only with students who have been affected by the fires but also in looking at deadlines and other university processes. There was a lot of goodwill in the room and commitment to working together that I hope we can continue.

In several of my classes I show an old WWII film directed by Humphrey Jennings in 1940 called London Can Take It which depicts the nonchalance of Londoners in the face of the Blitz. For some reason, I've been thinking a lot about that film in the last day or two.

Last week was hard in so many different ways for so many of us. Having to spend the time indoors was a hardship for animals and children -- if not perhaps for their professor 'parents'. The amount of pent up energy was enormous.

To wit:

Dodger and Gus -- bored in Indio [who hasn't been!?]

Dodger and Gus -- fighting in Indio

Louie (Elwood) and Rio (Arnade) in a scrum in Cardiff:

And once some of us were fortunate to get back into our houses -- there was much need for a dog trip to the beach and as much running as possible:

Gus and Louie

Gus -- with obvious joy in his heart

AAUP is marking this week as contingent faculty week nationwide. Because of the disruption of the fires, the Provost postponed the reception planned for the 29th, but she has every intention of rescheduling soon.

In the meantime, I hear from the President's staff that we have gotten nominations already for the new President's award for PT faculty contributions to student success. Remember, you now have until Friday to nominate someone -- and I hope you do.

Please see this graph regarding trends in Higher Education relative to TT/PT faculty hiring. Nationally, fewer than a third of all faculty are either tenured or on the tenure track. It makes the goals of ACR 73 -- the Assembly resolution to have the CSU achieve 75% tenured/tenure track faculty and 25% contingent faculty all that more important. It also makes it more important to continue to examine our practices to make the campus more responsive to the development and other needs of part-time faculty.

This is a major holiday in the Seleski family. My late Dad's birthday and for as long as I remember celebrated in high style --- even before it became a secular, late "boomer" holiday sometime in the 90s.

Anyway, I'd love to say that Gus is too dignified to don a costume for the day --- but this isn't truth 'cuz he's a total goofball and would probably love being fussed over in costume -- esp if you told him that food was somehow involved. The real reason he doesn't have one is that I can't find one that fits him and I don't do the whole 'sewing' thing. But fortunately for you all and because Halloween is such a big Seleski holiday, my mother has no such scruples. So, I give you the 'grand dogs' and Gus' cousins -- Andy, Jack and baby Toby: