Enrolling Yourself on Faculty Workspace

If you as a Full-time or a Part-time faculty member are not already enrolled on the Faculty Workspace Blackboard Site, you need to be!

Here is the procedure:

Log on to Blackboard
Go to Courses
Search “Faculty”
You will see “King College Faculty Workspace” as the course name
Under “Committees” is the symbol for a drop-down menu
Click on that symbol
You will see “Enroll”
Click on “Enroll” which will give you the self-enrollment screen
On the right side of that screen, click SUBMIT.
One of the administrators of the site will approve your request.

Get It out of the Way? . . . No Way!

Even though the whole college—business majors, nursing students, and pre-service teachers included—has some interest in the structure and content of general education requirements, these groups see it as something to “get out of the way.” As Tim Clydesdale’s The First Year Out so clearly states, for students the value of their college education is a narrow career objective with a $$ attached.

We in Arts and Sciences see things differently. For us, the ones charged with packaging and delivering the wisdom of millenia (hence Athena, Goddess of Wisdom, pictured here) and critical life skills in communication, numeracy, teamwork, and critical thinking, the Core Curriculum is the way, second only to “The Way” in John 14:6.

Because of our vested interest, we owe it to our disciplines, our college, and our students to do the Core with all the passion and energy we can muster. And, of course, we must measure what we are doing with precision and scrutinize our collected data with perspicacity.

The MEETING coming up on Monday, October 19, for all Core teachers is important. It will lay out our course-embedded assessment plan for 2009-2010. It will remind us what data we need to collect and which IDEA objectives to mark for each course being taught for Core Curriculum credit this semester.

The plan was laid out in the re-imagined course proposals that came to the Ad Hoc Core Curriculum Revision Committee. However, the measures and methods may not be as familiar to the “boots-on-the-ground” classroom teachers as they were to the course designers. Hence this meeting.

IDEA Course Evaluations
Last year we pre-marked the IDEA Course Evaluations for Core classes, but some teachers really felt constrained by the fact that they could not measure distinctive features of their particular courses. So, this fall we are counting on teaching faculty to mark the objectives “Essential” that are designated on the course proposals, AND allowing each teacher to mark other objectives of his/her choice up to a total of five as either “Essential” or “Important.”

Course-embedded Measures
Just as we hope our students will embrace not only their Core Curriculum assignments but also the values and understandings those assignments can foster, we must undertake assessment with zeal. This year that means doing course-embedded assessment well.

CBASE
We will be continuing to use the CBASE; however, we are not giving it in 2009-2010. In the future we will give it to seniors as a part of KING 4000 to see if (as the SACS standard stipulates…) our graduates, four-year King students and transfers alike, do possess the five competencies we say our Core accomplishes. The students who are seniors this year took CBASE in the fall of 2008, so we will not be testing them again in 2009-2010.

This year the burden of assessing the New Core rests on each person teaching, and all but two are in the School of Arts and Sciences. Good assessment practice is one way we will get to keep on doing the job we love. Let’s not treat it as something to get out of the way.

Home

If home is where the the heart is, this place, this view, is home for me. The top of the beachwalk in Birchwood makes my heart happy. I drive miles to get here. I walk to the beach in all kinds of weather. And, every time I get to the top of the beachwalk, I stop and breathe in hard.

If the Lake is rough, I may have been hearing it roar all the way from my house. But the first glimpse that I get is a reminder that I am home.

If the Lake is calm, glassy smooth as it often is in summer, when I get to the top of the steps, I can hear children at play or a dog barking.

If the Lake is frozen, I am awed by the expanse and the absolute stillness that never happens otherwise. For even calm, the water laps at the shore in gentle wavelets that make the smooth gravel at the shoreline whisper.

If I go at sunset, I see the bright path on the water, and the world is bathed in rosy light.

This home of mine renews my energy. After being here, I'm ready face my never-ending list.


Carl Sandburg lived in my neighborhood from 1927 to 1945: he wrote the Lincoln biography here on the dune overlooking the Lake. Roger Ebert has a house nearby; I meet him going in and out on the ravine road and see him in local eateries. He may write his movie reviews on the dune, too. I live here. Big chunks of my two books were written in this place. It's a writer's place.

Fall Break Greetings from Birchwood Beach
Harbert, Michigan
49115

Insomnia and the Harvest Moon

Scottish artist Lesley Mclaren created this oil on canvas; I found it on her personal/professional website (http://www.lesleymclaren.co.uk/index.asp. It could be the harvest moon over Appalachia.

Last night I lay awake and watched the moonbeams stream in my west-facing window. It seems I am often awake when there's a full moon. Could there be a connection? Wakefulness and dreaming often go together.

My days have been so busy lately that my dreams for Arts & Sciences have been submerged in the flurry of activity around the SACS visit and now the revision of all the program ABC forms. But the moonbeams worked their magic; they brought the dreams to mind.

Let me share two dreams with you:

1. I would like to see us "convert" a large number of students from undecided to Arts & Sciences majors. We have 22 exciting programs. Last spring we "signed" 76 new students to our rosters; we need to do that again this semester as we go into advising mode for Spring 2010.

2. I would like us to imagine one or two adult degree-completion programs for our School. Our total numbers should include not just our traditional majors and minors but also some adult learners who are working toward bachelors' degrees.

We are the heart of the institution, we teach all but one class in the Core, we provide most of the KING 1000 and 2000 instructors, we do the tracs in D.C., we supply most of the student and faculty lecturers, we attend ball games, plays, concerts, recitals, films, chapel, and Buechner events. All that is more than wonderful. But, I still want a piece of the action with the adult students. We need to add this one more arrow to our quiver.

What dreams surface for you under the harvest moon?