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