It’s a Dean’s Life 2014 Vol. 3

Dean Lisa VollendorfThis month marks my second year at San José State. This summer, once I got over the usual end of year collective feeling of exhilaration and exhaustion, I took time to reflect on what I have learned and what we have accomplished together.

Much has happened at the university in the past two years. In our college, we have made great strides to come together to serve our students well, to improve our programs, and to devise new and creative ways to continue to adapt our programs and our teaching to a changing world.

As we are wont to do on anniversaries, I also have reflected on what I love about our college and about my job. It is true that a lot of the things that land on my desk don’t have easy solutions. But I can say without cynicism or even a hint of irony that it is truly a joy to represent the college on campus and in the community and to frequently have the opportunity to talk about the accomplishments of our faculty, students, staff, and alumni.

I am thrilled that we have been able to foster more collaboration among our programs in the past two years. The H&A Annual Student Showcase is an important occasion for our students to put their skills and talents on display. Concrete benefits for us have included students, faculty, and staff from across the university learning about our creativity and success. Since launching the event, we have seen a real commitment to showcasing student and faculty work in all forms on the campus. One example that impacts all of us is the new Spartan Branding initiative spearheaded by Professor Chang Kim and his graphic design students. This year’s Student Showcase will be held from 1-4pm in the New Student Union Ballroom. The event is free and open to the public.

Our commitment to collaboration in Humanities and the Arts also has helped us up our creative game and offer new and meaningful opportunities to students. The Steinbeck semester last spring was a moving testament to what we can do when we work together across our disciplines: an opera, a play, a read-a-thon, a book signing, and a canned food drive were all the result of our desire to find more ways to showcase the energy and creativity of our students.

In terms of the nuts and bolts of the work accomplished in the College, our strategic planning goals developed in 2012-13 continue to guide our work. Specifically, as an educational community, we are committed to:

  1. Enhancing support for faculty, staff, and students
  2. Improving visibility of the College
  3. Strengthening global engagement opportunities

We have made great strides toward implementation of those goals by:

  1. Increasing our hiring of tenure-track faculty
  2. Securing generous donor support for a Global H&A Initiative to support high impact teaching and learning focused on global engagement and global citizenship
  3. Sponsoring College Signature Events that foster collaboration among our various disciplines
  4. Implementing a student internship-based Communications and Marketing Team that provides pre-professional opportunities for our students. The team designs our posters and our communications, including our newsletter. The team has allowed us to create robust student internship opportunities for writing, design, and programming to serve College-wide communications, social media, and web design.

This year we have three additional pieces to add to our implementation of our strategic plan:

  1. Stretch English starts this year as the first year of a two-year transition away from strictly remedial or academic English toward a program that allows students to choose to take English 1A over two semesters. This is a powerful cohort model that has been proven effective across the country, and I am excited to be launching it here for our students.
  2. We expect that our Student Success Center and Internship Lab will be up and running by Thanksgiving. This advising, career services, and internship lab will create a one-stop shop for all H&A advising support so faculty and staff have advisors who can support them with answers about how to navigate our complex system. We hope to have career services, internship coordination, internship opportunities, and advising all in the same space.
  3. In collaboration with other deans, I also am rolling out a Leadership Academy this year. The purpose is to provide a professional development opportunity to full-time faculty who are interested in exploring leadership opportunities and learning more about the challenges facing higher education so they can be part of tomorrow’s leadership solutions.

As we move into a new academic year, I take this opportunity to thank every single person who supports our programs and makes our work possible. From the staff who work long hours to prepare the campus for this year’s 32,000 students to the faculty who have returned invigorated for another year of teaching to the alumni and supporters who believe in the College of Humanities and the Arts and in San José State University.

Sincerely yours,

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Lisa Vollendorf, Dean

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