Newsletter — Office of the Provost

Tuesday, September 17, 2024

Happy September. Time seems to have gotten away from me, as we’re now in our fourth week of the semester and this is my first communication. We’ve been building on the work that was initiated last year, putting together teams to continue the work on experiential learning, research and scholarship, continuous improvement, reorganization, and more. There are also a few new initiatives that are getting underway as we continue to work to make SUNY Brockport responsive to our students’ needs.

Reorganization

By now, you should have received an invitation to a meeting in which I will go through the new proposed organizational structure for academic affairs. This proposal was developed in response to further input that was received during my discussions with chairs and other leaders during the summer. This updated proposal addresses many of the concerns that have been raised previously, providing increased investment in our growing programs while retaining a focus on the fundamental areas in which we have always excelled. I will be meeting with each of the academic areas on consecutive days, describing the proposal and the reasoning for the selected investment, as well as next steps to be completed this academic year.

Learning Assistance Center

As part of the learning that has come out of our participation in the American Association of State Colleges and University’s Student Success Equity Intensive (SSEI), we are looking at places where we have deficit language that should be re-evaluated. One of those is the tutoring center in the Academic Success Center, which we have renamed as the Learning Assistance Center (LAC). At the same time, we have begun to re-evaluate the services that are provided through the LAC. Support for writing and math assistance is a central function of the LAC and will continue. However, there are also significant numbers of students who come to the LAC instead of seeking help through their professor or department. Students will be able to continue to seek this assistance, but rather than assuming that independent support is always the best type of support for their needs, the request will be filtered back to the department so they can identify the best opportunity to help that student. The other major support activity for the LAC is providing extra help for large populations of students in upper division or major courses. Coming out of SSEI, I have learned that these types of extra support services are inherently unfair, as many of our students have family or work obligations that make it challenging for them to take advantage of these supports. To minimize the need for extra support services, I hope to work with departments over the course of this academic year to determine if there are changes to the curriculum that can better address student needs.

Experiential Learning

The experiential learning committee report has been posted on the web and describes multiple opportunities for us to continue the work of not just the most recent committee, but also many of the efforts that have preceded this. To facilitate this effort, we have created the Interdivisional Experiential Learning Steering Committee, co-chaired by Laurel McNall, Emily Marchese, and Catie Lalonde. The committee seeks to bring together leaders from across the University who are engaged in experiential activity, and recognizing that experiential activity occurs in areas outside of academic affairs, we have included representatives from student affairs and enrollment management on the committee. The committee has three main objectives for the current year: 1) rebuilding infrastructure, 2) enhancing faculty/staff/student connections, and 3) renewing a faculty/staff recognition program for experiential learning. There are many other elements of the report that will need work, but these appear to be three items that build on past activities, can be completed this year, and will be impactful in advancing this initiative.

Internship programs

SUNY Brockport’s Unpaid Internship and Needs-Based Stipend program, supported by SUNY incremental funding, offers students a valuable opportunity to participate in credit-bearing, on- and off-campus unpaid internships or curricular applied learning within public service and high-demand nonprofit sectors. The program is designed to align with students’ future career goals while enrolled at SUNY Brockport. The funding provided can cover various expenses such as transportation, parking, childcare, housing, food, and other incidental costs, enabling students to focus on their learning and professional development. We were able to provide students with nearly $200,000 in such support during the academic year 23-24, and with the additional support received from SUNY, we will have nearly $300,000 to award this year. We are accepting applications from students through October 9^th; information is available on the Career Design Center website.

Online learning

We have been highly successful in developing online learning initiatives. With our online degree completion programs and online graduate programs, we have between 20 and 25% of our students engaged in online programs, not to mention the large number of other students taking online courses. Given the large use of online learning by our faculty, I am developing a new initiative that can help us to be more deliberate in the support that we provide. I have asked Catie Lalonde, working with Susan Lowey and Eileen Daniel, to form an interdivisional committee to explore ways to better operationalize online learning at SUNY Brockport, from pre-admission through graduation. Initially, we would like to develop a strategic plan for online learning, then consider policies that need to be modified or established, communications tools especially for our online students, and finally training activities that should be offered. Our goal is to embrace best practices in online education to ensure that we are offering the highest quality educational opportunity for, and meeting the needs of, our online students.

Faculty communications

I have worked with John Follaco and the web team to determine the best process for implementation of the new communication tool that I mentioned during my welcome back remarks last month. At Logan Rath’s suggestion, we evaluated the potential to use information entered into Faculty Success from which to pull data. I am pleased to report that the team was able to develop a process through which that could be achieved. Because that will require some manual processing, the communication will be delivered monthly, with the categories for faculty accomplishments based on how they are entered into Faculty Success, and thus it is very important to fill out the fields completely and accurately. The dates entered are especially important since that will determine what gets pulled into the communication. Likewise, it will now be important for faculty to enter the information as it becomes available so that it can be included in the communication. This should simplify the development of faculty annual reports at the end of the academic year, since these accomplishments will already be included in the system. We hope to be able to launch this publication in October and will monitor the success of this new tool throughout the year.

Finally

I am very encouraged by the enrollment data announced yesterday. These enrollment numbers are very positive, a testament to the hard work of faculty and staff in meeting with prospective students and their parents, engaging with colleagues in community colleges to promote our programs, and developing new programs in growth areas. I am especially pleased to note that we have over 1600 graduate students and over 100 international students enrolled this fall, both of which appear to be records for these categories of students.

While the number of new incoming students remains a key element of our success, so too is the work that you are doing to help our students through their courses and encouraging them to remain engaged with their classmates. Many departments are coordinating student engagement events as part of the first six-week initiative. The ACE implementation is underway. We have developed recitation sections for classes in critical pathways. And much more. Thank you for all these efforts.

In addition, continuous improvement is ongoing. Frances Dearing is coordinating with the School of Arts and Sciences leadership to ensure appropriate data collection in advance of our assessment day activity, to be held on May 22, 2025. During this event, faculty from A&S will come together to complete holistic program review for selected programs, evaluating how well the course content and sequencing supports student achievement of program learning outcomes.

As I continue to look at the landscape of higher education, I continue to be impressed with all the positive momentum we have at SUNY Brockport. Great progress is being made on many important initiatives that not only create opportunities for today, but also set up many more for the future. It is rare to have so much excitement and positivity, especially in higher education today, and I consider myself truly blessed to have come to the right place at the right time. Thank you for all that you do to make SUNY Brockport a great place to learn and to work.