The February off-site meeting of the Academic Leadership Team (ALT) took place on 28 February 2013.  While the primary purpose of the meeting was to continue our discussion of the evaluation of scholarly and/or creative activities, the meeting started with an update on student affairs presented by Dean of Students Annamaria Wenner.  One of my major goals for 2013 is to bring academics and student affairs closer together.  Annamaria had presented some of the information to the Academic Affairs Committee of the Board of Trustees, but it’s been awhile since the ALT heard about the many projects being led by our colleagues in Student Affairs.   Some of the important topics discussed by Annamaria included occupancy rates of our residence halls (they will be at an all-time high next year as we continue to attract record numbers of students), students with disabilities, Wentworth Risk Assessment and Prevention (WRAP) and medical marijuana.  It is important to note that although the medical use of marijuana has been approved by the State of Massachusetts, it has not been approved for use in the Wentworth residence halls!

The rest of the afternoon was spent on further developing a shared understanding of the definition of scholarly and/or creative activities.  We examined the differences in the ratings of the 120 examples of scholarly and creative activities that were graded at the previous off-site (see my blog, Review of Evaluation of Scholarly and/or Creative Activities, Part 2 – posted 01 March 2013).  We all agreed that context is important, as is the discussion which takes place between the faculty member and the department chair when reviewing the Faculty Planning Worksheet.  The ALT discussed extensively and in detail the application of the rubric that is used for the qualitative terms in faculty evaluation.  Small interdisciplinary groups were used for most of these discussions, with the small groups reporting their findings out to all.

Before the discussion, I discussed Building a Culture of Excellence at Wentworth.  This is true for students, faculty and staff.  As we improve, we must have honest and straightforward conversations about how we can achieve higher performance.  These aren’t easy conversations, but they are important ones.  The vast majority want to improve.  A short video adapted by RSA Animate from a talk given by Daniel Pink entitled “Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us” was shown and discussed.  The three primary drivers are autonomy, mastery and purpose.  Individuals strive to be empowered to work as they see fit; they want to be more than just good at their jobs, they want to excel; we need a purpose greater than ourselves to achieve our best.  It’s a great video (RAS Animate is fantastic!) and you can watch it on YouTube at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

Starting next month, the ALT will begin working on improving academic advising.  That should lead to a series of interesting blogs in the future.

Best Regards,
Russ

Usually, Part 1 of a series comes before Part 2, but I didn’t realize that Part 1 was missing until I posted Part 2 last week.

The Academic Leadership team (ALT) met on 20 November 2012 to begin our conversations about the evaluation of scholarly and/or creative activities.  This is an important enough topic to warrant a substantial amount of time to promote fairness, equity and clarity for all faculty at the Institute.  There will be a Part 3 describing the ALT’s February off-site meeting posted soon.

Since negotiation of a new Faculty Federation Agreement is on this year’s calendar, the ALT spent some time reviewing the current Agreement.  We did this in a quiz format.  The Provost’s Office developed a set of 25 questions about the Agreement and presented them to small groups of three or four ALT members.  This was a relatively painless way of making sure that all of the chairs, deans and provosts understood some of the most important nuances of the Agreement.

Scholarly and/or Creative Activities

An important goal for the ALT is to develop a shared definition of scholarly and/or creative activities that can be used during the 2012 faculty evaluation period.  Each chair was asked to submit a one page description of the definition used by his or her department.  The one-page definitions were discussed first in small groups of three or four, and then by the whole ALT.  The purpose of these exercises was for everyone to achieve a greater understanding and appreciation of the similarities and differences of scholarly and/or creative activities that occur across the Institute.  The ALT then used the same approach to evaluate a set of fictional scenarios of scholarly and/or creative work that might be submitted by a Wentworth faculty member.  Working through the scenarios allowed everyone to gain some insight into how things might work in other departments.  It also allowed all of us to learn from each other’s experience.

 Just about all of the institutions of higher education in the United States use teaching, scholarship and service as the three primary roles of a faculty member.  However, the relative weight of the three varies considerably not only from institution to institution, but from faculty member to faculty member within a given institution.  Wentworth is above all else a teaching institution.  We pride ourselves on “Students First” as one of our core values, and explicitly included this statement on our new Strategy Map.  It is important to remember that even though the ALT is spending time on the evaluation of scholarship, this is not a reflection of its relative importance compared to teaching.  Most agree that the evaluation of scholarship is more difficult, and therefore prone to more variation, than the evaluation of teaching or service.  The ALT is trying both to clarify the definition of scholarly and/or creative activities and to minimize differences in the evaluation of this area so that we can all move forward together as a team.  The Faculty Planning Worksheet (In three parts in the current online evaluation process; we hope to make it a separate section when the software is updated) is designed to generate discussion between each faculty member and her or his department chair so that each understands the expectations for the next year.  It is important to have this discussion during the faculty evaluation process so that no surprises occur at the next review meeting.  It is also important that by using this process, we generate a common understanding of scholarly and/or creative activities not only by the chairs, but also by the faculty as a whole.

Best Regards,
Russ

Belated wishes for a happy and productive Spring semester!  Yes, I know it’s already mid-term.  In these irregular blog postings it’s sometimes hard to keep them as up-to-date as I would like.

The Academic Leadership Team (ALT) had its first off-site meeting on 29 January 2013.  We discussed a number of topics that I think are of interest to everyone.

First, Charlie Noyes, our Director of Public Safety, led a training session on responses to an active shooter situation on campus.  He presented a short training video recommending “Run, Hide, Fight,” in that order.  The ALT engaged in an intense discussion about how best to protect both oneself and our students.  The training will be rolled out to all faculty through department meetings.  There will also be training forthcoming for the rest of the Wentworth Community including adjunct faculty, staff and students.

I thank all of you for your hard work over the past 18 months on curricular review and revision.  All of the departments and programs successfully completed submission of their new curricula to the Institute Curriculum Committee before the end of 2012.  Most of the new curricula have been approved both by the ICC and the provost.  There are only a few that are still under discussion because they proposed significant changes in both the way we teach and the schedules we use.  I’m confident that those will be finalized this semester.

There was a brief presentation to the ALT by Chuck Hotchkiss regarding the work and recommendations of the First Year Seminar Committee.  Again, thanks to everyone involved in this endeavor.  The team included representatives from both the Academic Division and the Student Affairs Division.  There will be significant changes in FYS next year that should make it more focused and responsive to our students.  One of my goals this year is bring academics and student life closer together.  The more integrated we can make the total student experience at Wentworth, the greater the chance of success for our students.  The best college experiences include everything that students do, not just their time in the classroom.

A new year is always a good time to review the activities of the past year, and the ALT accomplished quite a bit in 2012.  Without going into details here, the list includes:

• formulation of new guidelines for curricula with respect to semester credit hours and contact hours
• review and revision of all of our curricula
• revision of class structures with respect to “lecture – lab/studio – contact” hours
• completion of a comprehensive review and revision of the graduation requirements
• initiation of aligning academics and co-op more closely together
• revision of the residency requirements
• discussion of scholarship scenarios to promote understanding, equity and uniformity
• elimination of the Sophomore Writing Assessment Test
• initiation of a new curriculum and course structure for Humanities and Social Sciences
• a review of the “new” academic calendar and revisions
• discussion of the Faculty Federation Agreement in preparation for contract negotiations
• updates and revision of First Year Seminar

 It was a busy year for the ALT!

Finally, we’ve reached the topic of the title of this blog entry.  The ALT spent most of the January off-site reviewing how we evaluate scholarly and/or creative activities.  The purpose of spending so much time on this (We also worked on it at the November 2012 and February 2013 off-sites.  More on that later.) is to make the evaluation process as consistent and equitable as possible.  With 16 chairs and 4 deans, training is required to make sure that we’re all on the same page.  The development of a shared understanding not only of what activities fit the definition of scholarly and/or creative activity, but how they fit within the faculty evaluation rubric, is extremely important.  The approach used was a “group grading exercise” where over 120 examples were evaluated by each ALT member.  The examples included work associated with the ranks of professor, associate professor and assistant professor, and work that could be graded superior, exceeds expectations, satisfactory, needs improvement, and does not fulfill.  This was done to insure that all possibilities were covered.   The ALT individual evaluations were then discussed first in small groups, and then by the ALT at large.  This exercise helped the ALT develop more consistency and commonality for the evaluation process.  The grading results have been collected and collated, and were used as input for additional training and an even more detailed process at the February off-site.  I’ll write more about that next week.

Wentworth continues to progress and improve at an amazing rate.  This is due to all of you and all of the hard work that you continue to pour into making Wentworth a better institution of higher learning and a stronger community.  Thanks!

and best regards,

Russ

Last Friday, the Accelerate program held its second Pitchfest.  This is where teams of students present their ideas for start-up businesses to a panel of judges who decide which teams will be funded and how much they should receive.  Fifteen groups stood up in Beatty 426 and explained their ideas, demonstrated prototypes, showed why they needed start-up funding, and asked for help to achieve their dreams.  The teams included 7 students from computer science and networking, 6 electromechanical engineering majors, 5 each from architecture and industrial design, 3 each from mechanical engineering and technology, construction management and management, 2 from interior design and biomedical engineering, 1 each from electrical engineering and civil engineering, and 6 team members who were not Wentworth students.  That’s a total of 42 team members and 11 different departments who spent time on a Friday evening talking about engineering, technology, design, science and management instead of partying (at least until 8:30).  At times, Beatty 426 was standing room only.

Over the past three years, several of my blog posts have talked about interdisciplinary project-based learning (IPBL).  Friday’s Pitchfest wasn’t a theoretical discussion of IPBL.  It was a clear demonstration of our students taking IPBL to heart in the guise of entrepreneurship.  The projects ranged from a harness that allows patients undergoing infusion treatment to have freedom and mobility, to a portable backpack speaker, to a new style of skateboard, to a storage device for nail polish, to a smart pump with an advanced insulin dosing algorithm.  Those were just the five ideas that were recommended for funding by the judges.  The judging panel included Sam Altschuler, a Wentworth corporator who founded a successful electronic manufacturing company, Jerry Cotellessa, an alumnus who currently works for Opera Solutions in the Cambridge Innovation Center, Nelson DeWitt, another alumnus who is a crowd-funding expert, Stefania Nappi Mallett, a corporator who is running her third start-up venture, Jim Woodward, who has been involved with eight successful start-ups including Iris Graphics, and David Zhou, the founder of ePowerhouse.  This is an impressive panel and the experience and insights gained from presenting to this group will stay with our students forever.

I know many of you wonder how to implement IPBL.  I think attending a future Pitchfest would show you the way.  Our students aren’t limited by the way things are or the way things should be.  They have ideas that they think are worth following, even though there’s no academic credit involved and the work they put into their projects is on top of everything else they have to do.  Many of the teams would benefit from the knowledge and experience that many of us could contribute to their projects.  It would probably only take an hour or two a week.  I encourage you to work with one of these teams to gain firsthand knowledge of how to put IPBL to work in academics.  It will take an open mind to see how to bring this energy and enthusiasm into the classroom in a very non-traditional way.

Kudos to Monique Fuchs, Associate Vice President for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and to Fred Driscoll, Dean of the College of Engineering and Technology, and to all of the co-ops, students and others who have made Accelerate a huge success in a very short period of time.  Wentworth is being seen by the innovation community in Boston as a major player because of their hard work.

This is a clear demonstration of the power of IPBL.

Best Regards,
Russ

Dear Colleagues,

After a somewhat long break, the Academic Leadership Team (ALT, comprised of the department chairs, deans and provosts along with the Director of the Interdisciplinary Engineering Program, Director of the Library, Registrar, Director of Career Services, AVP for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Director of CPCE Graduate Programs, and representatives from the Faculty Senate) met last week.  There were three topics on the agenda for this meeting: (1) ideas for improvements to the Faculty Federation Agreement, (2) the Sophomore Writing Assessment Test (SWAT), and (3) a review of the new academic calendar. 

(1) The current Faculty Federation Agreement is in effect until 31 December 2013.  That means that negotiations between the Institute administration and the Federation will begin early next year, even though it seems like we just finished the last round of talks a short while ago.  I’m looking forward to working with the Federation once again in a collaborative fashion.  The members of the ALT were asked to review the current contract and send their suggestions for improvements or changes, as well as possible discussion items, to the Provost. 

(2) Ron Bernier, Chair of the Humanities and Social Sciences Department, presented a proposal to eliminate the Sophomore Writing Assessment Test (SWAT).  The following are excerpts from the justification that he presented, with a few edits of my own to make it a bit briefer.

“The long and thoughtful deliberations during the HUSS curriculum revision process, in addition to enhancing academic rigor in terms of reading and writing requirements across all courses, included  revision of standards for English I (ENGL100), which have been in effect since Fall 2011.  

 The Sophomore Writing Assessment Test (SWAT) was originally designed to measure the old English I standards.  It is now out of sync with the new curriculum and does not fit our revised curriculum or model for assessment.  Therefore, it is our recommendation that SWAT be discontinued and removed as a graduation requirement effective immediately.  

 We are now, with Asst. Provost for Assessment and Accreditation, Tracy Rusch, working on designing a new model for assessment that will shift the focus from evaluation of individual students to evaluation of the HUSS program as a whole.  This, we feel, will be more in keeping with the intentions and directives of the recent NEASC review for General Education at WIT.  This new assessment will be administered during the junior or senior year.”

After discussion, the ALT supported this recommendation.  The President’s Administrative Council also agrees with the recommendation.  Current sophomores will not be enrolled in the SWAT.  Only those students who entered prior to Fall 2011 and who have not taken or have failed the SWAT will sit for the exam in Spring 2013.

(3) The ALT spent a significant part of this first off-site meeting of 2012-2013 discussing the new academic calendar.  In particular, the scheduling of the two Faculty Days preceding the start of classes, the scheduling of graduation, and changes to the calendar that occur after the academic calendar has been published were reviewed in detail.  While no final decisions were made at this meeting, several recommendations for change were found to be meritorious and will be examined in detail over the next month or so.

The next ALT meeting is scheduled for 20 November 2012 with only one major topic: Scholarly and Creative Activities.  We will discuss expectations and the faculty evaluation process.  It is important that everyone on the ALT understand the similarities and differences between departments and colleges, and that all faculty are treated equitably and fairly.

We have already scheduled ALT meetings once a month for January through April 2013, so there should be more regular posts to this blog in the future.

Best Regards,
Russ

The Academic Leadership Team (ALT) meeting of February 2012 dealt with two topics: reprioritization of the graduation requirement discussion list and initial discussions of aligning the co-op program more closely with academics. 

 The reprioritized graduation requirements list is:

•  residency requirements / semester credit hours
• 50% transfer credits
• academic outcomes for co-op
• capstone design courses must be taken at WIT
• research requirement
• minors and double degrees
• must pass all courses in the curriculum unless otherwise approved by academics
• research methods class
• computer science requirement
•  
• First Year Seminar (FYS)
•  
• no math or English requirements in graduate programs
• 100% of master’s/professional certification courses must be taken at WIT; i.e., no transfer credit is allowed

 The first two items were discussed and recommendations given to the deans and provosts for development into a recommended policy.  Their recommendations will be discussed in a later blog posting as part of the summary of the ALT April offsite meeting.  The three items with strikethrough, research requirement, research methods class, and computer science requirement, were ideas that the ALT put on the discussion list last year.  The current consensus appears to be that while all three are reasonable ideas, adding more requirements as we restructure our curricula is probably not a good idea.  I think all three will be removed from the list at the next ALT meeting in early June.  First Year Seminar (FYS) is a topic that requires a lot of collaboration between the student affairs staff and the academic staff.  Since student affairs is not usually represented at the ALT meetings, the ALT decided that this topic is best discussed by a separate committee composed of members from both student affairs and academics.  Chuck Hotchkiss and Annamaria Wenner are co-chairing a committee that has been tasked with reviewing FYS.  The last two items on the list deal with graduate program requirements and are best handled by the Graduate Programs Committee and not by the ALT. 

 The need for better alignment of academics and the co-op program is represented schematically in the attached file, Coop Configurations.  At the present time, the majority of our students have an optional co-op after the sophomore year.  The first required co-op is in Spring of the junior year and the second required co-op is in Fall of the senior year.  The linkages between the co-ops and the academic programs are generally weak, as indicated by the dashed lines in the current model in the figure.  It would be better to have strong linkages as shown in the integrated model.  The alignment of the co-ops with the semesters before and after them would lead to a better all-around educational experience for our students. 

 The discussion by the ALT was both collegial and constructive.  There was general agreement that three areas need additional development.  First, a more robust assessment system for co-op is needed, especially as related to academic outcomes.  Second, better “local representation,” that is, more direct involvement of the departments with co-op, would be beneficial.  Third, since there are no students on the ALT, a student survey and meetings with student focus groups would generate data that could be used during subsequent meetings.

 Additional discussion of the alignment of academics and co-op will be the topic of my next blog posting.

Best Regards,
Russ

Coop Configurations

The Academic Leadership Team (ALT) has had four meetings this semester to discuss our graduation requirements. The requirements haven’t been modified in many years, and it’s an appropriate time to take a look at them since everyone is working on updating our curricula. The meetings are half a day long. Usually, there is homework to be done beforehand to facilitate the conversations and to make sure that everyone has the same information and data to review.

At the January meeting, we discussed implementation of the new curricula and re-prioritized the graduation requirement topics.

The Curriculum Implementation Timeline is attached as a pdf file. The important milestones are the initiation of the curriculum reviews in Spring 2012, final reviews of the modified curricula by the Institute Curriculum Committee (ICC) by December 2012, and implementation of the new curricula in Fall 2013. As of 18 May 2012, 6 curricula have been reviewed and approved by the ICC including computer science, computer networking, electromechanical engineering, applied math, construction management, and facilities planning and management. Key criteria to keep in mind when developing the new curricula include interdisciplinary project-based learning (IPBL); keeping operations within the current resources, including personnel, finances and space; and insuring that the curricula are consistent with the Institute’s graduation requirements.

After discussion by the entire group, the ALT agreed that implementing modified curricula with the milestones described above was feasible. To no one’s surprise, however, people, space, time and money are limiting factors and might (will?) affect some of the decisions and processes that need to be put in place. The ALT also pointed out that additional discussion about the balance between the engineering and engineering technology programs was required, since some departments must teach these curricula in parallel.

Interdisciplinary project-based learning was also a topic of much discussion. The planning required to include IPBL in the curricula is extremely important, and sensitivity to student workload is a must. IPBL should be integrated into the curriculum and not just added on top of the other requirements since the credit hour and contact hour requirements of our degree programs are already quite large. The ALT also said that the time has come to actually implement IPBL and that we need to move from “talking the talk” to “walking the walk.” As I discussed in my previous blog posting, we have implemented two projects since that time to directly support IPBL. The first is funding for IPBL by the Provost’s office. Contact Associate Provost Chuck Hotchkiss if you have an idea that needs some support. The second is the Accelerate Innovation and Entrepreneurship Challenge which had its kickoff networking meeting for students last night, 17 May 2012. More information on Accelerate can be found at www.wit.edu/accelerate.

I’ll be posting commentary about the other ATL meetings in the next few weeks.

Best Regards,
Russ

Curriculum Implementation Timeline – 120507

Now that it’s finals week, this is a good time to write a few very overdue blogs and report on the activities that the chairs, deans and provost’s office have been working on this semester. Once a month we’ve met as a group to discuss curricular changes, graduation requirements and other academic matters. There has also been substantial activity in moving interdisciplinary project-based learning (IPBL) and innovation and entrepreneurship projects forward. In this post, I’ll discuss the initiatives in IPBL and innovation and entrepreneurship, and over the next week or so I’ll post some comments about the curricular and graduation requirement discussions.

By repurposing some funds in this year’s Provost’s budget, the Provost’s Office has been able to make limited funds available to promote interdisciplinary project-based learning. The IPBL activities on campus are being coordinated by Associate Provost Chuck Hotchkiss. To apply for funding, the best path to follow is to talk with Chuck about your project ideas and the reasons why additional funding is needed. Requests can be up to $5k or so. If it’s a really good idea and you convince Chuck and Chuck convinces me, it might be possible to obtain a bit more than that. One project that has been funded already is a program to combine computer science and mechanical engineering. Durga Suresh and Bob Lind have arranged for their classes to be scheduled at the same time so that the students from both classes can work together. They received funds to purchase some of the supplies needed to build prototypes.

To be eligible for funding, all three of the components of IPBL must be demonstrable. It must be interdisciplinary, that is, it must bring together at least two separate areas of study to work on a project at the same time. While it is easiest to see this occurring with students and faculty from two or more departments, it is possible that two faculty from the same department who approach a single problem from different directions could meet this criterion. It must be project-based. The students should learn by doing, not through traditional lecturing. A project should have a specific, measurable goal as its final result. The project should include measurable learning outcomes that demonstrate that the students have successfully added knowledge and skills.

A second IPBL initiative is the Accelerate Innovation and Entrepreneurship Challenge. This initiative is being led by Monique Fuchs and Fred Driscoll. We are challenging our students to assemble interdisciplinary teams to put their ideas into practice. Their plans will be judged by faculty, alumni and successful entrepreneurs, and the top-rated ones will receive funding to produce prototypes or proof-of-concept results. We should be able to fund one to three of the student projects. You may be familiar with similar programs in place at other schools, like the other Institute of Technology across the Charles River. Monique and Fred have spent a lot of time talking to lots of different people about how to set this program up for success. They’ve visited other schools, talked with successful entrepreneurs (both Wentworth alumni and others), students, faculty and businesses. They’ve indentified the good ideas and used them as the basis of the Accelerate Challenge. It should be an interesting summer for our students who become the first teams to be part of it. For more information, go to www.wit.edu/accelerate.

We’ve talked about IPBL for several years now. It’s time to move from discussion to doing. These two initiatives will be the first steps in what should be an exciting adventure for all of us. The solid boosters are lit and the main engines are burning. Hang on for the ride!

Best Regards,
Russ

Dear Colleagues,

The Strategic Planning Steering Committee completed its review of the white papers that were submitted as part of the strategic planning process for Wentworth 9.0. Thanks go out to all of you who worked on them. All of the ideas are good ones and it would be great if we could do them all. However, we cannot move all 41 forward.

The white papers had natural groupings, and most of the recommendations for further development suggested combining some of them into single proposals. While the individual white papers were mostly tactical in nature, the combinations of white papers identified larger strategic opportunities for the Institute.

Here are the recommendations of the SPSC for longer proposals, along with the strategic opportunity that was identified. (They are not rank-ordered.)

Strategy: Continue to Implement Graduate Programs
White Paper Title: “Engineering Graduate Programs”

Strategy: Improve the Campus Climate and Increase Diversity
White Paper Titles for a Combined Proposal:
“Diversity Recruitment”
“Wentworth Women’s Forum”

Strategy: Enhance Student Retention
White Paper Title: “Improving Lab/Studio Accessibility and Utilization”
White Paper Title: “Bridge Program”
White Paper Title: “Transitional Assistance for International Students”
White Paper Titles for a Combined Proposal:
“Early Alert System”
“Formalized Exit Interview”

Strategy: Emphasize Innovation and Entrepreneurship
White Paper Titles for a Combined Proposal:
“Innovation Lab”
“Institute Funded and Facilitated Research and Development”
“Entrepreneurship Incubator”

Strategy: Strengthen the Co-op Program
White Paper Titles for a Combined Proposal:
“Entrepreneurship Co-op”
“International Co-op Grant”
“Career Development Course”
“Career and Co-op Advising Model”
“Bridging the Gap between Academics and Co-op”

Strategy: Sustainability
White Paper Titles for a Combined Proposal:
“Sustainable Campus Facilities”
“SOLARWit Campus”
“Climatewise Campus Demonstration Project”
“Sustainability Financing for the Future”

Six strategies are still too many to implement at the same time. Most strategic planning experts recommend three. Three would enable us to concentrate our efforts and make sure that the final strategies lead to successful results.

There are two observations about this process so far.

First, it is open-ended. If you think something was missed by the SPSC or you don’t agree with our findings, you (or a group of you) are invited to submit a proposal anyway. It will be evaluated along with all of the others without prejudice. One group has already decided that they will follow this path and will submit a proposal on “Holistic and Unified Student Development.”

Second, no white paper for internationalization of the Institute’s programs was received. This is in spite of the fact that at last March’s strategic planning meeting international programs were identified as important to the Institute’s future. The Academic Leadership Group also identified developing a global outlook as a high priority for Wentworth 9.0. Several of you have said that you would have submitted a white paper in this area if you knew no one else was doing so. Here’s your opportunity now – please submit a proposal! Criteria and instructions about drafting and submitting proposals will be published and presented to the community in the coming weeks.

Best Regards,
Russ

Dear Colleagues,

Have a wonderful holiday and a happy new year!

Many things have happened this semester and this is the traditional time to review what we have accomplished. Since my area is academics, I’ll concentrate on that. Here goes . . .

We started the year with a two-day start-up for the first time. The new academic calendar goes into place in January 2012 and will also have a two-day start-up. We’ll have a Wentworth Community Meeting on Monday morning, 09 January followed by a colloquium and workshop on building community on Tuesday, 10 January. All faculty are expected to be at both events.

The Fall 2011 entering class was the largest in many years. We also started five new engineering programs: biomedical, civil, electrical, mechanical and a unique general engineering program.

Junot Diaz spoke to our new students on 13 September at a standing room only event. While controversial to some, it was both interesting and intriguing to many.

Construction of the Center for the Sciences and Biomedical Engineering and the Flanagan Student Center are progressing on schedule. These projects will change the campus in dramatic ways.

A community-wide workshop on campus climate was held. This is the first step in developing a more vibrant and welcoming community for all.

Ken Reardon visited campus and spoke with many about interdisciplinary, project-based learning. His presentation of the work he has done in East St. Louis was captivating and inspiring.

James O’Brien and Ron Bernier presented the Distinguished Faculty Lecture. This interdisciplinary collaboration was between one of our science faculty and one of our Humanities Social Science faculty.

An open forum was held to discuss the NEASC 2011 visit. The NEASC itself visit went very well with Dr. Lisa Rosbacher, the president of Southern Polytechnic State University saying that the Institute was a special place, “grounded in the past, but looking toward the future.”

Associate Provost Chuck Hotchkiss led us through the singing of “The Twelve Days of NEASC” at the celebration ceremony.

The topping off ceremony for the Center for the Science and Biomedical Engineering was held on 19 October.

An open house to celebrate the opening of the new Manufacturing Center was held on 03 November. The Center has generated interest and congratulations state-wide with articles about it appearing in the Boston Globe.

The provosts, deans and department chairs accepted a proposal from the HSS faculty to change our current general education approach to seven courses of four credits each, with specific expectations for reading and writing in each course.

The topping off ceremny for the Flanagan Student Center was held on 18 November.

A Board of Trustees meeting was held in at the Seaport Hotel in conjunction with Build Boston and a get-together with our alumni.

The Strategic Planning Steering Committee reviewed 41 white papers that were submitted as part of the current strategic planning process. Recommendations of white papers that should be submitted as full proposals will be sent to the authors.

A visiting team from the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education reviewed our application for establishing a Master of Science in Facility Management. We hope to offer this degree in Fall 2012 for the first time.

NEASC approved three off-campus sites as venues for College of Professional and Continuing Education programs. We have also applied for four other sites that may be approved after a visit in January.

A freshmen survey conducted by Robert Yee and Jamie Kelly showed that the top reasons students choose to attend Wentworth are our academic programs, co-ops, location in Boston and cost.

The Board of Trustees approved a three-year degree program in Applied Mathematics and a B.S. in Computer Engineering. Both programs will begin in Fall 2012.

This is an incredible list of achievements and I congratulate all of you! When I joined the Institute, I said that my job was to remove as many barriers as I could so that you could achieve everything you wanted to do. I knew that there were many things that were just waiting to be done. This incomplete list is proof that all of you have stepped up and delivered.

Best Regards,
Russ