School of Education
Dean's Update Archive
Previous issues of the Dean's Update are archived here and available for download.
Dean's Update 8/1/11
Budget Update
As you probably know, the budget cut to UNCG was 15.98%. This has resulted in a budget cut of $1,876,642 for SOE. To accomplish this budget reduction, SOE surrendered 16 full-time and 4 half-time vacant positions. In addition, we reduced our course offerings by 38 classes (865 seats) by various means including hiring 11 fewer adjuncts than originally planned. The program that was most seriously affected by the budget reduction is undergraduate Elementary Education. The number of students admitted to this program for Fall 2011 has been significantly reduced from recent years.
We also cut our OTP (Other than Personnel) funds by 50%. The reduction of OTP funds means that we all need to be vigilant in reducing costs associated with copying, printing, telephones, etc. Last year we spent $70,000 on telephones and this is one place we feel we can cut costs by eliminating phones that aren't used frequently.
Progress on New SOE Leadership Structure
Effective July 1st, Terry Ackerman assumed the position of Associate Dean for Research and Assessment and Sam Miller became the Associate Dean for Academic and Student Affairs. Working with Terry are Sheila Gambardella (grants) and Cheryl Greenberg as our new Director of Assessment. Working with Sam is Jacqui Dozier, the Director of our new Office of Student Services, which is still being organized and staffed. The Teacher's Academy will continue to provide oversight and coordination of all licensure programs and Barb Levin will officially assume the role of Director in January 2012. We also have two new Department Chairs--Bonnie Billingsley is Chair of SES, and Colleen Fairbanks is Chair of TEHE. We do not as yet have a new Chair for ERM. Continued discussion about the SOE leadership structure will be one of the agenda items for the August 30th Faculty retreat.
Academic Program Review (APR)
We are proceeding with the work of the APR and will have all of the SOE data submitted by the deadline of August 15th. The data will be finalized and returned to us by September 1st, at which time SOE Review Committee will begin its work. The SOE Review Committee has until November 24th to forward its program evaluations to the University Program Review Committee. The recommendations of the University Committee will be available on March 2, 2012. The Provost will forward recommendations to the Chancellor on April 15, 2012, and the Chancellor will make final recommendations by May 3, 2012. All of this information and more is available on the APR website. http://opa.uncg.edu/programreview
Because there was Faculty Senate concern that the SOE Committee included too many administrators and not enough faculty members, the existing Committee members and I worked to rectify this situation while maintaining continuity on the Committee. The newly reconstituted SOE Committee, effective August 15th, is as follows:
Carl Lashley, ELC, Chair
Mary V. Compton, SES
Deb Taub, TEHE
Lee Shiflett, LIS
Keith Mobley, CED
John Willse, ERM
Cheryl Greenberg, EPA non-faculty staff
Jewell Cooper, Faculty Senate rep
Karen Stacherski, Staff Senate/SPA rep
Nancy Poole, grad student rep
Canesha Hewett-Undergraduate Student Rep
Teacher Education Assessment
I have been meeting regularly with a group of dedicated faculty to create an assessment plan that will yield the information we anticipate needing for our 2014 NCATE review. Our goals are to build on existing assessments in ways that provide information that can be used to continuously improve our programs in relation to the North Carolina Professional Teaching Standards. We are close to having a draft plan to share with others who need to be involved for their input. I'd like to thank the following people for the time and effort they have dedicated to this activity this summer-Terry Ackerman, Colleen Fairbanks, Cheryl Greenberg, Barb Levin, Sam Miller, Christina O'Connor.
Personal
I moved into my new house on July 1st and am busy unpacking so it will be presentable for our faculty and staff reception on August 26th (watch for the evite). My son graduated from high school in June and will be at the University of Miami starting in August in a program in Music Engineering.
The special issue I edited of Elementary School Journal on Response To Intervention (RTI) came out in June. Also, I'm now officially Dean and Professor Emerita at the University Michigan.