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Good morning, uh, I want to begin today with a poem by our own Philip Levine, which for
me says a great deal about who we are and why we’re here. It’s titled “Among Children.”
I walk among the rows of bowed heads. The children are sleeping through fourth grade
so as to be ready for what is ahead. The monumental boredom of junior high and the rush forward
tearing their wings loose their eyes and turning their eyes forever inward. These are the children
of Flint, their fathers work at the spark plug factory or truck bottled water in five
gallons in sea blue jugs to the widows of the suburbs. You can see already how their
backs have thickened, how their small hands soiled by pig iron leap and stutter even in
dreams. I would like to sit down among them and read slowly from book of Job until the
windows pale and teacher rises out of a milky sea of industrial ***, her gowns streaming
with light, her foolish words translate formed into song. I would like to arm each one with
a quiver of arrows so that they might rush like wind there where no battle rages shouting
among the trumpets ha! ha! How dear the gift of laughter in the face of the eight hour
day. The cold winter mornings without coffee and oranges. The long lines of mothers in
old coats meeting silently where the gates have closed. Ten years ago I went among these
same children just born in the bright ward of the Sacred Heart and leaned down to hear
their breaths delivered that day burning with joy. There was such wonder in their sleep.
Such purpose in their eyes dosed against autumn. In their damp heads blurred with the hair
of ponds and not one turned against me or light, not one said I am sick. I am tired.
I will go home. Not one complained or drifted alone unloved on the hardest day of their
lives. Eleven years from now they will become the men and women of Flint or Paradise, the
majors of a minor town. And I will be gone into smoke or memory so I bow to them here
and whisper all I know, all I will never know. Philip Levine’s voice here full of heart
and grace and dedication to teaching those who will make the future reminds us why we’re
here. And indeed we are going forward with heart and grace and dedication this year.
And I am once again deeply grateful and deeply impressed by all that you do for our students,
for the region and for the academic disciplines that you enrich through your scholarship and
artistry. I want to return to Phil Levine’s poem in
a few minutes after some updates and announcements that will give a glimpse of the year ahead.
There have been some administrative and organizational changes since last year’s opening day. Andrew
Rogerson has left us to become provost at Sonoma State. And Andrew Hoff, who is dean
of Human, Health and Human Services has also taken over as interim dean of College of Science
and Mathematics. So this is be kind to Andy week in that connection. And Rick Zechman,
we’re very grateful that Rick Zechman, chair of Biology has agreed to serve as interim
associate dean in the college of Science and Math during this transitional period.
Jose Diaz, our associate dean for the Arts and Humanities, will be serving this fall
semester as acting dean of the College of Arts and Humanities while Dean Vida Samiian
is on a one-semester leave. Vida will however be very much in evidence at various points.
So if you see her don’t be surprised. But she is leaving all the most difficult and
entrenched and insoluble matters to Joe Diaz. Kathy Moffitt has taken over as associate
dean in the Craig School of Business. With the departure of Karen Carey, Sharon Brown-Welty
has been appointed for a two-year term as dean of Graduate Studies. With the retirement
of Berta Gonzales, Lynette Zelezny has been appointed for a two-year term as dean and
Associate Vice President for Continuing and Global Education and with some reorganization
that I will describe in a moment Dennis Nef has been appointed dean of Undergraduate Studies
and Associate Vice President for Academic Programs and Resources.
Professor Asao Inoue of our English Department has been appointed special assistant to the
provost for writing across the curriculum and Ted Wendt started in January as interim
associate vice president for academic personnel. We’ve also changed the administrative home
of our American English Institute. Through its long and successful history the American
English Institute has been a mark of distinction at Fresno State and a point of pride for the
college of Arts and Humanities. In association with the department of Linguistics, AEI has
provided expert instruction and orientation to generations of international students helping
to assure their successful transition to life in a new country. As we expand our internationalization
efforts, AEI will become part of the division of Continuing and Global Education.
In order to meet the budget reduction targets this year, which are considerable and distressing
certainly to say the least, in order to meet those targets for the units that report directly
to me and for those initiatives that are funded from the Provost’s Office, I’ve implemented
a ten percent reduction in most budgets or line items. In addition, we are consolidating
administrative and staff support for Undergraduate Studies, Graduate Studies and the Academic
Affairs, Academic Affairs Budget Office into a unit that we are calling as I mentioned
a moment ago Academic Programs and Resources. Dennis Nef has been appointed Associate Vice
President for Academic Programs and Resources and he will work as dean of Undergraduate
Studies with Sharon Brown-Welty as dean of Graduate Studies in that, that enterprise.
The Graduate Studies operation has moved from the Thomas Building to the fourth floor of
the Library so that staff from Graduate Studies and Undergraduate Studies can work together
on academic programs and initiatives. Associate Vice President Nef will oversee
the academic budget as well in order to accommodate the October retirement of John Waayers from
his position as Budget director. With this reorganization and accompanying staff reassignments
we will save approximately $270,000. Additional savings from a ten percent budget reduction
for units and initiatives that are funded from the provosts’ office will save an additional
$920,000 for a total reduction of central administration costs and initiatives of about
$1.2 million. However, this leaves a base budget gap of
over $5 million for the schools, colleges and the Library. Those units have implemented
measures that reduce this gap, but we are still projecting a total permanent gap of
more than $2 million. We must both confirm and close this gap by the beginning of the
next fiscal year. To that end, last spring I appointed an Academic
Affairs Budget Advisory Task Force, co-chaired by Dennis Nef and Michael Caldwell, and consisting
of six faculty members, Professor Caldwell, Jim Farrar; Colleen Torgerson; John Constable,
Dawn Lewis and Antonio Avalos, and four administrators, Dennis Nef, Dean Robert Harper, Dean Andrew
Hoff, and Associate Dean Manocher Zoghi. By October 15, the Task Force will recommend
to me approaches to closing the estimated base budget gap between the University allocation
to Academic Affairs and the recurring costs of operating Academic Affairs units, in accord
with University, Academic Affairs, and College and School Strategic priorities and enrollment
targets.
We should not, even in the face of these kinds of difficult decisions that are ahead of us,
however, reverse our commitment to faculty development and faculty research, because
these are commitments that truly transform the lives of our students.
Therefore, I will be continuing and attempting
to increase support for undergraduate and graduate research. When our students work
side by side with our professors, they take an important step toward a rewarding professional
career, they become even more dedicated to academic success, and they contribute to the
making of new knowledge that improves the quality of life.
I will also be maintaining and attempting
to increase support for faculty assigned time for research, scholarship, and creative accomplishment. The
dollars for this research support, which will amount to $400,000 for 2011-12, come from
two sources: First, the overhead dollars attached to our grants and contracts, especially those
grants from federal agencies; second, they come from the net revenue generated by the
division of Continuing and Global Education. As long as our sponsored research and continuing
education efforts thrive, we should be able to continue moving toward more substantial
research support for all faculty who are active scholars and artists.
Our faculty development initiatives are crucial
to providing students with learning environments that bring out their best efforts. The Center
for the Scholarly Advancement of Learning and Teaching, CSALT and our office of Technology
Innovations for Learning and Teaching, TILT under the leadership of Associate Provost
Junn, will be continuing and expanding its support for faculty this year.
First, we’ll continue to focus on improving
student writing, advancing our exploration of how technology based tools can help faculty
build student writing skills. In addition, I have appointed Professor Asao Inoue as Special
Assistant to the Provost for Writing Across the Curriculum, and asked him to develop University-wide
approaches to improving our students’ writing.
Second, we’ll continue to encourage and support the redesign of high enrollment classes,
to provide the faculty with more effective and less burdensome approaches, and to afford
our students greater opportunity for success.
Third, our Enhancing Student Information Literacy Initiative with the unfortunate acronym (ESILI)
will continue to add departments that want to help students evaluate and use information
capably and critically.
Fourth, we’ll move forward an initiative that will further support the scholarship
of learning and teaching. Its focus is to help faculty publish their findings about
teaching and student learning in order to share it with others in their discipline and
beyond. Each college and school will have a faculty coordinator who will work with the
school and college faculty. Stay tuned for more details on that one.
Fifth, we’ll continue with our Partners In Education Program as well as our Peer Observation
of Teaching Program designed to provide peer support and consultation for faculty in the
teaching process.
We continue to drive toward the greater and better use of technology. We are building
a Technology-Enhanced Reconfigurable Learning Space classroom, funded by a keck grant in
the IT Building and we are piloting a lecture caption system that will allow faculty to
supplement the classroom experience by putting class material online.
As you can see then, CSALT and TILT have excellent programs and opportunities planned for faculty
this year. In addition, starting this year, TILT will offer training sessions on-site
in the various schools and colleges. We make house calls, bringing technology support directly
to the faculty on location. And CSALT will continue its support activities for all full-time
and part-time lecturers.
It’s very gratifying for me to see our continuing commitment to faculty development, coupled
with your talent and dedication and hard work, result in so many great faculty achievements.
This was my second year reviewing faculty
accomplishments as part of our Retention, Tenure, and Promotion process. This year I
reviewed 136 files, in a, no complaints really, in very rewarding spring ritual that gives
me fresh appreciation every time for your rich and full professional lives, for the
great range of your interests, abilities, and achievements, and for the high standards
that so many of you meet.
The Academic Senate has passed a revision to our RTP process, effective this year. Our
two university committees, UBORT and UBOP, will be fused into one committee, URPTC, that
I haven’t figured out how to pronounce as an acronym yet. It’s like urp tic I think
but I’m not sure. URPTC will review any retention, tenure, or promotion cases that
receive a negative review, or no review, at one or more prior level.
Also, consistent with the passage of APM 322, the Policy on the Assessment of Teaching Effectiveness,
we will this year begin administering student evaluation of teaching using forms provided
by the IDEA Center. Training on how to customize and administer this new instrument will be
held this fall, and we’re looking forward to results that will help us to continue improving
teaching effectiveness, and provide uniform feedback crucial to faculty development.
One of my great pleasures last spring was
a weekly visit to sit in on a class, to better appreciate both the dedication of the faculty
and the engagement of our students. This has been a real treat—I’ve learned about glassblowing
and actually created my own rather odd looking paperweight to prove it. I’ve learned how
to distinguish amphetamines from anti-depressants although the students were way ahead of me
on this one. I’ve learned how a master conductor gets the string section of the orchestra to
brighten up, how to tell a good statistic from a bad one, and on and on. I’ll be continuing
these visits over the next year, for those of you who invite me, and want to thank you
in advance for letting me go back to school with a great core of master teachers.
We continue to focus on the success of our
students, both locally and through system-wide initiatives that represent the CSU's commitment
to student success.
The CSU Board of Trustees has directed that students who are not yet college-ready in
English and math have an “Early Start” experience in the summer preceding their first
fall semester. For this purpose, we’ll be offering a series of Early Start courses in
English and math next summer, for students whose test scores put them in the remedial
category.
During the past year, our Fresno State Student Success Task Force has continued to focus
on a system-wide initiative to improve our 6-year graduation rate by six percent by the
year 2015. Their efforts were bolstered as the president mentioned by the attainment
of our highest-ever retention rate for our Fall 2009 entering cohort 86.7% and it looks
like we’re on track to nearly match that retention rate for those students who entered
in fall 2010. Retaining nearly 87 percent of our students from the first to the second
year is a tremendous achievement, resulting from a joint effort of faculty, staff, and
the Task Force, and including initiatives to require freshmen academic advising during
the first Spring semester, implementation of an academic success course for freshmen
in academic difficulties after their first semester, academic support to increase the
availability of tutoring, supplemental instruction for most challenging courses, an early warning
system for students who are struggling in their courses and faculty staff mentoring.
We are as we’ve seen welcoming twenty new
tenure-track faculty to campus this year, including faculty who will join University-wide
cohorts in three areas: Globalization and World Cultures; Physical, Psychological, and
Environmental Health; and Urban and Regional Transformation. For the coming year, I have
authorized to this point 24 searches, including searches for a university-wide cohort of faculty
that will develop teaching, research, and outreach initiatives that focus on water quality,
water technology, and water management, including a new interdisciplinary online Master's degree
in water resource management. As the president has said developing a diverse and highly-qualified
pool of applicants will be our top priority in every search. While we face great fiscal
challenges, we must continue to build the tenure-track faculty in crucial areas. We
owe this to our students.
Our schools and colleges, the Henry Madden library, and our offices of undergraduate
studies, graduate studies, Institutional Research Assessment and Planning, research and sponsored
programs, service learning and community engagement, and continuing and global education, have
contributed in wonderful ways to our academic success over the last year. I will be detailing
some of those accomplishments at the Faculty Appreciation Reception at 4 today in the Residence
Dining Hall. I hope many of you can join us. But I must shout out a general thanks to our
great deans, associate deans, associate vice presidents, and directors, and in particular,
the hardworking, incredibly talented, and absolutely essential support staff in each
of our offices and programs. You are the ones who, on so many occasions, make it all happen.
Thank you for that.
During these very challenging times, I’m especially grateful that our commitment to
academic quality is shared by each of our Fresno State Vice Presidents. Paul Oliaro
embodies a passionate commitment to the success of our students, and has worked with me to
keep the quality of what we do in view at every step; Peter Smits has been a tireless
cheerleader, regionally, across the state, and nationally, for the value of our academic
programs and for the crucial importance of private support; and Cindy Matson has been
a great champion for the facilities and space that allow our students and faculty to do
their best, while she helps us to devise fiscal strategies and solutions that preserve academic
quality, even while it is under siege. And I’d underscore the President’s comments
on the achievements of our student athletes by stressing that, under Thomas Boeh’s leadership,
academic achievement remains a top priority.
Let me return, finally, to the last lines of Phil Levine's poem, where he looks upon
the men and women that our students will become.
We are going forward today to teach those students that he calls the majors of a minor
town. He says in those final lines "I bow to them here and whisper all I know, all I
will never know.” Just so, we re-dedicate ourselves to sharing our own passion for learning,
and bequeathing to our students those big questions--all we will never know--that will
shape the next hundred years of Fresno State, and constitute your great, great legacy. Welcome,
and thank you.