NMU BOARD OF TRUSTEES – ACADEMIC AFFAIRS COMMITTEE
July 2011
ACADEMIC AFFAIRS ROAD MAP UPDATE
The Road Map to 2015 was introduced in March 2008. The Academic Affairs Division, with the leadership of the Provost and members of the Academic Cabinet and with contributions by outstanding faculty and staff, continues to move forward with many aspects of Road Map implementation. This July 2011 update, while not an exhaustive listing, provides highlights of progress made since the last report in April 2011.
Innovation
Priority: Integrate global engagement and diversity learning experiences throughout the academic curriculum.
· The International Studies curriculum has been updated and improved with the help of the Title VI grant. The same grant has helped fund curriculum development in the Spanish program which will be submitted to the Committee on Undergraduate Programs next fall, as well as curriculum on the Middle East.
· Hugo Eyzaguirre, principal investigator, and Tawni Hunt Ferrarini, Economics, secured one out of six nationally competitive grants to facilitate a Latin American study tour of the NMU Center for Economic Education and Entrepreneurship. The NMU-CEEE successfully secured financial support from the national Council for Economic Education to bring in nine university-based economic educators from Argentina, Mexico, Peru, and Uruguay. It was the only rural center selected to show economics in action in the rural U.P. Site visits included North Star Academy, Gwinn Middle School, Jilbert’s Dairy, Donckers, Vierling, the U.P. Children’s Museum, Marquette-Alger Regional Educational Service Agency (MARESA) and the Marquette Regional History Center. Experiences from this study tour were used to connect K-12 educators attending the Summer Education Institute with economic educators, teachers and students in Peru.
· In August, more incoming freshmen will join Paul Truckey (Theatre) and Dan Truckey (Beaumier Heritage Center) in Scotland for an international experience just before they begin their undergraduate careers.
Priority: Utilize corporate partners to increase internship opportunities for students.
· A number of History student interns under Dr. Rebecca Mead are working in museums and archives around the Midwest.
· Dr. Suzanne Williams, Head, Chemistry Department, will become the director of the forensic biochemistry program (which is Chemistry’s fastest growing program), and they will be applying for certification for the degree within the next two years. In the meantime, Dr. Williams is pursuing establishing formal internship relationships with crime labs in the Midwest. They are using CERP funds to upgrade their obsolete thermal cycler to a genetic analyzer-thermal cycler set up to give the students a real world lab training and experience, and they should be ready to do genetic profiling and testing by the 2012 winter semester. She will also be attending a four-day training workshop in the fall to learn current best practices in forensic DNA labs.
Priority: A growing portfolio of corporate collaborations that exploit NMU’s technical expertise, enhance academic programs and facilitate global engagement for students and faculty both on campus and abroad.
· The Hospitality Management (HM) program of the Department of Technology and Occupational Sciences partnered with Dining Services to provide two new initiatives for students.
-Students in the Professional Cook I class rotated through dining services food outlets to gain additional on the job experience besides that seen in the Culinary Café. This is planned to continue and include time spent by students at the new Temaki & Tea outlet on Presque Isle Avenue.
-A specialized internship was set up with HM and Dining Services to provide a “special event” experience. The intern helped design, promote and implement the February 13th event of “Where the Frost are We? The event featured the Polar Pie eating competition, music and raffle prizes.
Priority: Consolidate and/or reduce the number of undergraduate majors and streamline baccalaureate programs to enhance quality and efficiency.
· The Electronic Journalism major in CAPS has been enhanced by the addition of journalism courses from the Department of English and re-branded as a program in Multi-Media Journalism. This new major is now in the process of being approved by the Committee on Undergraduate Programs.
Priority: Implement the Wildcat Innovation Fund to support innovative practices by faculty and staff that will help to achieve Road Map priorities.
· The College of Business graduated the third Entrepreneurship Academy class in April 2011. This six-week program, open to NMU students and community members, provides small business start up training. To date, over 65 people have participated in the Academy, which has resulted in over 1,000 hours of entrepreneurship training for Marquette County.
Priority: Explore and act upon graduate programming (certificate, master’s, doctoral) in areas of strength, needs and opportunities.
· The College of Business has received approval from the Board of Trustees to reduce the number of credit hours per class for the MBA program from four to three. This will result in the addition of two elective courses to the student’s schedule, therefore providing a more customizable experience. The program went from 10 classes at 40 credit hours to 12 classes at 36 credit hours.
· The College of Business is pleased to announce the 2011-12 Executive in Residence, Dr. Matthew Songer. Dr. Songer will be delivering the new MBA program’s first elective course during the fall semester, Entrepreneurial Finance.
· The College of Business has completed its first year of the new MBA program. Starting in the fall 2010 semester with 20 students and adding another eight new students during the winter semester, the enrollment reflects an interest and need in the community. The program is slated to admit 12 new students this fall.
Priority: Work with strategic technology and telecommunication partners to enhance the teaching, learning and working environment.
· In the winter semester, CAPS audio production classes produced a feature-length studio recording of the French-Canadian group Mauve Sort that was aired on Public Radio and WUPX will bring on-line enhanced transmitting ability thanks to the work of NMU alumnus Kevin Boyle with the FCC.
Meaningful Lives
Priority: Develop a “virtual” campus that provides reliable, convenient access to online courses and other essential student services.
· The Registrar’s Office has gone live with online transcript ordering services for students and an electronic transcript exchange program, allowing NMU to send and receive transcripts electronically with other participating schools.
· Chemistry ran its first ever online course during Summer Session I. Dr. Yan Liu taught Chemical Equilibrium as a web only course.
· The Chemistry Stockroom Manager is planning to get Kindle or iPad type devices for the stockroom and teaching labs so that stockroom workers and TAs will have access to online MSDS and other safety information without having to lug around laptops. She is planning on having these mounted to the walls of the labs.
· The CAPS department increased its summer on-line courses in 2011 by 25%.
Priority: Establish articulation agreements with community colleges that effectively evaluate and improve the transferability of liberal studies and other courses and credits, and that will be attractive to transfer students.
· The CAPS department is now securing signatures for an articulation agreement concerning the transfer of courses from Macomb Community College's Electronic Media Broadcasting program into the Media Production and New Technology major at NMU. In addition an articulation agreement between Lansing Community College and NMU regarding communication studies is now in the process of being finalized at the two institutions.
Leveraging Campus Attributes
Priority: Enhance the portfolio of academic programs, research and other activities that leverage the university’s location in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
· Marcus Robyns, AIS – Central Upper Peninsula & University Archives, received a Wildcat Innovation Fund for a “Local Government Historical Records Digitization Project.” This project will digitize and make available via a project web site the historic meeting minutes of the Marquette City Commission and the Marquette County Board of Commissioners. These records span the political and governmental history of Marquette County and the city of Marquette from 1849 to 1970 and complement other political and governmental records already housed in the Archives. Both local governments have transferred the records to the Archives as part of the Local Government Records Depository and will contribute funds ($10,000 each) toward the project.
Priority: Continue campus discussions regarding the “library of the future” to identify state-of-the-art facilities, collections, technology and collaborations that will meet current and emerging instructional and research needs, and that will support the goals and priorities of the Road Map.
· Olson Library staff continues to make progress on their strategic plan to rebalance acquisitions toward materials in electronic format and reduce the number of volumes in the print collection. The target of 71% expenditures dedicated to electronic resources was exceeded in FY 2011 with 73.8% of funds going to electronic materials. Through March of FY11, staff had weeded 19,889 print volumes from the collection; 16,810 of those volumes went to Better World Books, netting Olson Library a modest return of funds while simultaneously supporting the international literacy initiative. Since starting the weeding project in mid 2009, more than 42,000 volumes have been removed from the collection, with many of those books being distributed to Better World Books or other libraries.
Priority: Provide training opportunities at all appropriate levels to improve the responsiveness and effectiveness of office operations.
· Admissions Counselor Jeron Schmidt was re-elected to the position of co-chair of the development committee for the Minnesota Association of Counselors of Color at their annual conference in June 2011.
Priority: Work to enhance opportunities, funding and events that strengthen and increase current university areas that focus on the Upper Peninsula—Center for Native American Studies, Center for Upper Peninsula Studies, Beaumier Heritage Center, and NMU and Central Upper Peninsula Archives.
· The Beaumier U.P. Heritage Center has received a grant for $12,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts for the 2011 Upper Peninsula Folklife Festival. The festival will change its format during the 2011-12 academic year. Rather than being held during one weekend as with past events, the Festival will be spread out over both semesters. Each month from September through April, there will be several events related to the culture of the Upper Peninsula, including concerts, lectures, dances, workshops and other cultural events.
· In 2007, Deborah Pearce and Chris Kibit (Hospitality Management) began working with the Michigan Sea Grant. This grant was a cooperative project with the University of Michigan and Michigan State University and the ongoing efforts to educate the public about this signature, native species to promote Great Lakes whitefish. It is part of the National Sea Grant College Program, a network of more than 30 university-based programs in coastal states across the country, and administrated through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
· Pearce and Kibit also participated by developing a curriculum package for university culinary programs to incorporate into their seafood segment or a stand alone whitefish lecture. Additionally the two attended the American Culinary Federation Midwest Conference in 2008, preparing whitefish recipes, showing informational videos and distributing the curriculum package to interested educators.
· In 2010, as the grant was coming to a close Pearce suggested that a cookbook would be a lasting culminating project. Contact with chefs and fishermen from around the great lakes gleaned a wonderful variety of prized recipes that showcase a variety of cookery methods. ‘Wild Caught and Close to Home’ is available on the Michigan Sea Grant website (miseagrant.com)
· Center for U.P. Studies student interns continue to transcribe oral history tapes dealing with University and Marquette General Hospital history. As their work is completed, it is deposited in the NMU Archives for future researchers.
· Center for U.P. Studies work continues on the tentatively titled "Journal of Superiorland Studies" to be published in the fall.
· Graduating senior Whitney Oppenheuizen (Public Relations) was lead investigator on a study designed to improve the communications program for a joint Mississippi State University – MDNRE study concerning predator-prey relations in the Upper Peninsula.
· The annual American Indian Science, Technology, Engineering and Math program is underway (from June 20 – July 1, 2011). Forty American Indian students from New Mexico, Montana, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan spent one week at the U.S. Forest Service Camp Nesbit in Sidnaw, Michigan and spent one week on the Northern Michigan University campus. Themes surrounding the program are leadership through service and lifelong learning. Topics mainly reflect science, technology, engineering, math and leadership. While on the NMU campus, the visiting middle school students will take part in workshops put on by faculty and graduate students from the School of Education, the School of Business and these specific departments: Physics; Biology; and Math. Additional workshops are hosted by the Center for Native American Studies, Center for Student Enrichment, the Hannahville Indian School as well as local artists and actors. The two-week program for American Indian youth is a collaborative effort by the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission, the Hannahville Indian School, the NMU Center for Native American Studies and the U.S. Forest Service.
· The NMU Center for Native American Studies received a grant to upgrade and enhance the Center’s resource room. The Center is fortunate to maintain a resource room consisting of Native American reference materials; books, periodicals, newspapers, scholarly articles, audio and video recordings, VHS tapes, and DVDs.
· The NMU Center for Native American Studies received a grant to offer classrooms a presentation entitled the Seventh Fire Project. This sixty-minute interactive presentation targeting 7-12 grade classrooms will introduce to students the concept of Traditional Ecological Knowledge. This interactive presentation will be led by Aimée L. Cree Dunn, an instructor for CNAS, and will be offered free of charge during the 2011-2012 school year.
Priority: Identify new opportunities for academic study, external funding and research in sustainability and other related areas.
· Dr. James Cantrill, Head, CAPS Department, was among 20 academics from across the country invited to Washington, DC to help the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Research and Development create a social science research agenda for the next decade, thereby opening avenues for future funding through various federal programs.