Welcome back to another exciting year at IUSB.  I hope that each of you found time during the summer for much deserved time with family and friends.  Beginning with this newsletter, I will be updating you monthly on events within Academic Affairs in the hopes of keeping you informed of the important issues that relate to our work.  And in a spirit of communication and shared governance, I invite you to share your thoughts with me about what is contained in my news updates or to comment on items that you deem important.  I’ve established a new e-mail account to receive these comments, vcaa@iusb.edu.

NCA ACCREDITATION: Our NCA accreditation visit is fast upon us, November 13-15, 2000.  Linda Fritschner has been updating the campus periodically about that visit.  Our self-study is done and is a remarkable assessment of the current state of the university.  I feel that it is an honest and genuine evaluation of our strengths and weaknesses and represents a global campus perspective. I am deeply grateful to you and to all those whose tireless work produced a document that will assist us in planning for the future.  I am confident that the NCA will concur with our self-assessment and that we will be reaccredited.

STUDENT SERVICES REORGANIZATION: As I reported to you in an earlier e-mail, the reorganization of student services is now complete.  The staff is working diligently on assuring efficient turnaround on financial aid applications; advising; recruitment; planning for direct admits, graduate and career planning and placement, and the shift later this month of the SIS system. 

DIRECT ADMITS: For the Fall 2001 semester, the campus will move to a direct admit model. The deans and I have had several discussions about implementation strategies and the import of such a decision on the colleges and schools.  To assure as smooth a transition as possible for the campus, a team of us from academic/student affairs visited recently Indiana University Northwest where a direct admits model has been in place for two years.  Acting Dean Larry Garber has agreed to chair a committee of faculty, staff and students.  Joining Larry on the committee are:

Karen White, Karen Christopher, Mike Mancini, Marian Pettengill, Doug McMillan, David Barton, Terry Ryan, and two students. 

1. Master of Arts in English
2. Master of Arts in Teaching English
3. M.S. in Applied Mathematics and Computer Scinece
4 - 6.   BFA, BS, and BA in Integrated New Media
7.  BA in Anthropology
8.  BS in Actuarial Science
9.  BS in Health Science

BUDGET: This year our campus will be engaged in building the next biannual budget.  I have had discussions with David Vollrath, the Senate Chair, Ben Withers, Co-chair of the Senate Budget Committee, the deans and Mary Ann Zemke about the establishment of a budget calendar for the year.  Once that calendar is established, we will publish it widely across the campus. 

Institutionally, we have reallocated dollars from the hourly budget to meet other academic needs. We are making an effort to provide on an annual basis allocated dollars for equipment.  In this biannual budget construction year, we will make this a budgeted item.

Additionally, Mary Ann Zemke and I will be attending a NCEMS workshop in mid-October on linking budget to planning.  I will report back to you what we learn.

ENROLLMENT: Thanks largely to the diligent work of our student services staff and the calls and letters written to prospective students by many faculty, IUSB has the third highest credit hour production in its history.  This Fall’s enrollment represents a 2.6% increase from last year. We also made an extraordinary effort to increase enrollment during the summer sessions.  We hired an outside marketing agency to promote our summer offerings.  Happily, we experienced a growth in number of student credit hours.  Our next task is to make Summer 2001 even more successful.  The deans are busy working with faculty to determine the appropriate mix of courses to attract the maximum number of students.

B&E DEAN’S SEARCH COMMITTEE: The committee has now been formed.  Miriam Shillingsburg will chair.  Other members include Peter Aghimien, Hossein Hakimzidah, Katherine Jackson, Paul Joray, Brenda Knowles, Ali Montazemi, Raman Muralidharan, Bruce Wrenn, Pat Agbetsiafa, Chris Craft (alumni), John Housand (Community), and Lori Butchko (LAS Student).  One more student will be appointed soon.

This is an excellent committee and I ask your support for their work.  Thank you.

RESEARCH AWARD LECTURE: John McIntosh will be delivering his Research Award lecture on Thursday, 9 November 2000 at 7:00 p.m. in Wiekamp 1001.