In litteris proficere volo, malo diligere Jesum
Volume 12, Issue 11 – May, 2012 Concordia University, Saint Paul
The Faculty Bulletin can be accessed directly from the Academic Affairs web page: http://concordia.csp.edu/academicaffairs/Faculty_bulletin/index.html. Or go to the Faculty/Staff Portal, click on “Academic Affairs,” and then click on “Faculty Bulletin.” The bulletin emphasizes faculty policy and business issues, upcoming events, professional development opportunities, and deadlines. News items for the faculty and the Concordia community are publicized through the weekly CSP Update. Articles for publication in the Faculty Bulletin may be submitted via email to at least five working days prior to publication. The next issue will be sent on
June 1, 2012. The submission deadline for articles for the next issue is May 24, 2012
DH=Dining Hall BEC=Buenger Education Center BMCA=Buetow Music Center Auditorium
GC=Gangelhoff Center GMC=Graebner Memorial Chapel
May 4, Friday Last Day of Classes for Traditional Students
May 7 Installation Service for Kelly Lamkin (10:10 am GMC)
May 7 – May 10 Finals Week for Traditional Students
May 10 – 11, Thursday, Friday Board of Regents Meeting
May 10, Thursday Baccalaureate (7:30 pm in GMC)
May 11, Friday Faculty Business Meeting (10:00 am in BEC)
Service of Sending (11:30 am in GMC)
Commencement Ceremony – CAS, CBOL, COE, CVM trad. programs (7:30 pm)
May 12, Saturday Commencement Ceremony – CBOL, COE degree completion programs (10:00 am)
Commencement Ceremony – Graduate programs (2:00 pm)
May 14, Monday Semester Three begins for Degree Completion and Graduate Programs
May 16, Wednesday Strategic Planning “Circles” work day (some faculty and staff)
May 17, Thursday Faculty Retreat/Prof. Development Activity– Critical Thinking and Writing
(Dr. Stephen Brookfield; EML Department Faculty; 8:30 am to 4:30 pm)
Grades due for Traditional Students (12 noon)
May 21, Monday Summer School Session #1 for Traditional Students begins
Fall Faculty Workshop – Monday, August 20 and Tuesday, August 21 (NOTE: Change of Date)
This event is tentatively scheduled from 8:30 am to 5:00 pm on each day with Administrative Reports and a Faculty Business Meeting on Monday and other activities planned for Tuesday.Notice the name change from “retreat” to “workshop.” Although this event has been held the second week of August for at least the last 10 years (as early as the 13th), we have moved it to the third week for this fall. The first day for first-year students is August 27.
Student Course and Instructor Feedback Process
The Course and Instructor Feedback process is being made available to students electronically through the CSP Portal one week prior to the end of courses and for one week after the end of courses. The administration of the process has been “outsourced” but the content of the instrument will include the same 12 questions as were used in the fall. A “pilot” process will be used this spring. Faculty will also be able to add their own questions to the instrument and provide comments in the reporting section. Beth Peter, Director of Administrative Computing of the Office of Institutional Research, will be visiting college meetings to share more information.
Reminder to Meet as Scheduled During Finals Week
All classes for traditional undergraduate students are required to meet during finals week for some sort of culminating activity. This spring finals are scheduled for May 7 through 10, 2012.
Additional Academic Department Reorganizing Initiated
In an ongoing effort to ensure that our alignment of academic departments into specific colleges affords us the desired opportunities for “cross pollination” and synergy, for efficiency, and for balance in supervisory workload (i.e., colleges of similar size, if possible), four academic departments are being moved from one place to another. The Dean’s Council has had several discussions about these matters over the past months and faculty have been invited to offer their input as well.
The first part of the academic restructuring took place in January, 2012, when the two departments in the College of Vocation and Ministry were integrated into the College of Arts and Sciences. The departments were Christian Ministry and Religion and Theology.
Changes – The department of Information Technology Management (CBOL: one faculty member) will be moved into the department of Mathematics. The department of Mathematics (CAS: five faculty when fully staffed), the department of Science (CAS; five faculty), and the department of Social and Behavioral Sciences (CAS; five faculty) will be moved from the College of Arts and Sciences into the College of Education. It is envisioned that these changes will allow the Mathematics faculty, the Science faculty, and the Social and Behavioral Sciences faculty to more closely work with the faculty in Kinesiology and Health Sciences to bring about new academic programs and strengthen current ones. The names of the colleges necessarily will be considered in the coming weeks. The moves will become “official” July 1, 2012.
The new numbers of faculty by college (if all of the searches are successful and we have a full contingent of 84 faculty): Arts and Sciences 32, Business 18, and Education 34.
Research and Scholarship Symposium Judges’ Awards
for Outstanding Presentation
Student(s) / Mentor / TitleGabriel Sims / Dr. David Bredehoft / Pathways from Childhood Overindulgence to Helicopter Parenting, Psychological Entitlement and Spiritual Involvement
Kevin Commerford, Tom Bang / Dr. David Bredehoft / Stait-Trait and Anger: Playing Video Games Solo vs. Cooperative
Jackie Wiebold / Dr. Mark Schuler / The Northeast Insula Project in 3D -- Documenting a Decade in the Decapolis
Emily Bryan, Felicia Sechser, Neil Boehlke, Nicole Zauhar, Phillip Barlow, Ted Schwerzler, Tyler Trost, Zack Sieber / Dr. Nancy Harrower / Convocation Analysis Project
Emily Bryan, Stacy Hillmer, Tim Rivers, Zack Sieber / Dr. Nancy Harrower / LCEF A Marketing Strategy
Anna Schield / Dr. Jean Rock / Exploring Influences on Children's Academic Achievement
Jeffrey S Williams / Dr. Thomas Saylor / Understanding the Minnesota Powerline Protests of the 1970s
Association of Lutheran College Faculties Conference – Call for Proposals
Augsburg College in Minneapolis will be hosting the 77th Annual Meeting of the Association of Lutheran College Faculties October 5 and 6. This year's theme is "Enhancing Teaching and Learning in Lutheran Higher Education Through Experience-Based Pedagogy." All Concordia University faculty are encouraged to consider submitting a presentation proposal. The deadline for proposals is June 1, 2012. Website: http://lutherancolleges.org/lecna/alcf
Proposals for concurrent sessions are being accepted in the following categories of experience-based learning:
· service learning/community-based learning
· internships, practicums, student teaching, clinical placements
· civic engagement
· in-class techniques (case study, simulation, laboratory, etc.)
· international study
· student/faculty research
Service of Installation for Kelly Lamkin
Kelly Lamkin, teacher education, will be installed as a Minister of Religion – Commissioned at the chapel service on campus Monday, May 7, at 10:10 am. Kelly is moving from a term faculty position to a tenure-track position. Please join the campus community for this event.
From the Assessment Council: Rubric Change
New Rubric for University Outcome in Writing: “Effective Writing”
Formal Implementation: Fall 2012
Beta Users: Spring 2012 (Contact your Assessment Council coordinator if you’d like to try it out this semester.)
Back in 2004 when we installed eLumen as our assessment data management system, we developed rubrics for measuring students’ achievement of the learning outcomes (SLOs) we’d set for them. Over the years we’ve made improvements to these original rubrics. The latest change has come to the writing rubric, which is called Effective Writing to distinguish it from the earlier rubric.
Given the feedback we’d gotten from faculty – full-time and adjunct, traditional and cohort -- about the unwieldiness of the current rubric (6 points to score in eLumen for each student), the Assessment Council has combined all of those criteria into one holistic rating. You can view it at http://concordia.csp.edu/assessment/Gen_Ed_Courses.html (bottom link) or in eLumen in the University Outcomes group. Colleagues teaching in cohort programs and in the business college were especially pleased with the change to one rating per student because they have a lot of adjuncts and use a variety of writing artifacts as measures.
A couple of points to remember:
1. The eLumen “Effective Writing” rubric is intended as a summative, holistic appraisal of a student’s writing level, which can be applied to any type of writing activity. It is intentionally broad for that reason. Most would not find it quite as effective as a pedagogical tool because it doesn’t allow for as much detail as the current rubric, which some instructors currently use to give scores to students on individual assignments. In this case, detail was sacrificed in favor of ease of use.
2. However, recording one holistic rating for a student in eLumen for a semester does not preclude your use of a more detailed rubric with students for pedagogical purposes. In other words, if you want to use assignment or writing rubrics throughout the term as grading guides or feedback to students, we encourage you to do so! Rubric use in evaluating student work is deemed a best practice in many fields. There are lots of books and articles on the use of rubrics in teaching/grading that we can provide a resource list for, if requested. But when it comes time to record your rating of a student’s writing effectiveness in eLumen, you will be making your final evaluation using the Effective Writing rubric starting in the fall.
Learn about Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder on Friday, May 18
Pathways Counseling Center in partnership with the Minnesota Organization on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and Concordia University is hosting an awareness and training event focused on Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) on May 18, 2012 from 11am to 3pm in the Buenger Education Center (BEC). This event will include a live Jazz band, free food, guest speakers talking about topics related to FASD, vendor tables, networking opportunities, and certificates of attendance. For more information please contact Jerrod Brown at 651-734-5517 or
Technology Purchases
Alltechnologypurchases(hardware and software) need to be reviewed and approved through Information andTechnologyplease contact JonathanBreitbarth () orEricE.LaMott().
A Model for Paper-Saving Strategies: School of Continuing Studies
Submitted by Rich Carter
The course THL 352 Is God Green? raises awareness of “green” practices and promotes sustainability. As a part of this course, students were asked to collaborate and choose a “green” project to complete throughout the semester. This semester, students decided to tackle the issue of CSP printing. Students divided into small groups, each taking on a specific campus department. As a sample of what students learned, here is the report concerning the School of Continuing Studies.
“Carol Klempka, the director of the School of Continuing Studies, in collaboration with department faculty, staff, and students have been working on promoting sustainable practices within the department for the past 6-7 years. This includes using Blackboard to post all syllabi and handouts for all classes, embedding e-books into their courses, and discouraging unnecessary CSP printing. They are also experimenting with more sustainable ways to process registration paperwork, create and store files, and produce and present monthly reports electronically, i.e. revenue reports. Klempka cited important reasons behind this “e-push:” reduced printing saves Concordia a lot of money, and electronic communication is more efficient and updated than traditional communication methods. The School of Continuing Studies has seen the financial and logistical benefits of increasing technology use since they began their green initiative. The results push them to continue to look for new ways to promote sustainability.
“When deciding on paper reduction efforts as a class project, this is exactly what the students of “Is God Green” had in mind. Being “green” not only benefits the environment, but it also benefits CSP, making it both efficient and cost-effective.”
My thanks to Carol and the School of Continuing Studies for their green efforts, and to all who took time with students this spring to look at CSP printing and green, sustainable options.
Upcoming Faculty Retreat on May 17
From Paul Hillmer
The Faculty Development Committee has been diligently working on steps toward creating a new model for “faculty retreat.” We have come to you on several occasions seeking your guidance and feedback, and started with the ideas that a “retreat” should include some social time, some intellectual stimulation, and some time to incorporate what we discuss—hence the decision to meet in May. We will “retreat” to Saint Anthony Main, where we’ll have box lunches and a lengthy mid-day break to go outside and take in some riverfront views. You are also encouraged to stay after the day is formally over (rush hour will just be getting underway, after all) to share refreshments and visit with your colleagues at Tugg’s Tavern, and/or take a stroll along the river.
The goals of our retreat are as follows:
1. Engage and energize faculty by exploring and modeling the process of challenging personal assumptions to think critically.
2. Leave the retreat with several simple, yet high impact ideas of how to …
2.1 Sequence learning and utilize peers in teaching and evaluating critical thinking.
2.2 Be effective and efficient in teaching and evaluating student writing.
In the morning we will be led by Dr. Stephen Brookfield, whose new book, Teaching for Critical Thinking: Tools and Techniques to Help Students Question Their Assumptions, will help inform our discussions. Dr. Brookfield has sent the following message to whet our appetites:
Critical thinking involves students (and teachers) being able to identify and research the assumptions that frame how they think and act. Only if these assumptions are accurate and valid can we trust them as guides for thought and action. Studies of critical thinking show that four factors are crucial to how students learn the process: (1) it is an incremental process of learning in which students learn best by acquiring certain mental & intellectual habits and, over time, bringing these to bear directly on their own thinking, (2) it needs explicit modeling of the process by teachers, (3) it needs to be inserted into how learning activities and assignments across the curriculum are constructed, and (4) teachers need constantly to study how critical thinking is learned and practiced by students. In this interactive workshop Stephen Brookfield will model critical thinking about critical thinking (!) and will introduce a number of classroom activities that can actively engage students in learning how to think critically.