Office of Academic Affairs VCAA News    April 2005

Dear Colleagues,  Happy Spring!!! I believe I can say that with timid assurance.  The interminable sunless, cold days have gone into hibernation for the next several months.  Let’s welcome the warmer clime as we frolic in the sun. Graduation day is fast approaching.  Remember to reserve rental of your cap and gowns if you have not done so already. The university is paying the rental costs.  I hope to see as many of you there as possible.  It’s a wonderful time to celebrate with our students as they make this important transition in their lives and embark on new and adventurous journeys.  I also want to take this time to reflect on some of the major accomplishments this year and to thank each of you for the extraordinary work you do in teaching, scholarship and service.  Thanks to the dedicated work of a team of faculty, staff and alumni, the campus completed and submitted its Strategic Plan  to the Higher Learning Commission which promptly approved it.  The plan is actually the beginning stages of preparation for our 2007, re-accreditation visit by the Higher Learning Commission.  I am deeply indebted to Professors Eileen Bender and Rebecca Torstrick for their co-leadership of the self-study process.  We are well ahead in our planning, starting three years ahead rather than the traditional two.  Self-study teams have been formed and are meeting regularly.  Recently, several faculty, administrators, staff and I attended the Higher Learning Commission Annual Meeting and a workshop in Chicago on re-accreditation and the new standards.   For most of the group it was their first time attending the annual meeting.  It was an exciting learning experience for all.  We returned to campus with renewed enthusiasm and confident that we are proceeding affirmatively toward a successful re-accreditation. Thanks, too, to many across the campus who participated in the Mission Differentiation project.  President Herbert has sent an initial response to which we are correcting factual errors.  We anticipate a final response that will affirm the future aspirations we established for our university.  Through our campus dialogues we were able as well to refine and strengthen our mission statement. Although mission statements help campuses define their academic focus and direction, it is through activities like the American Democracy Project that help chart distinction and excellence for a university.   With the enthusiastic leadership of Professor Elizabeth Bennion, and the complimentary work of Professor Ken Smith with the ADP blog and Ms. Julie Elliott with the One Book, One Community effort, IU South Bend has been a leader in the Midwest in integrating citizen responsibility for democracy into the fabric of teaching and learning.  The ADP blog has received over 100,000 hits.  Both Elizabeth and Ken have made presentations at regional and national conferences about our efforts.  The culminating activity of our thematic year, "War and Democracy,” was the visit by author Chris Hedges of War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning. Next year’s theme, led by Professor Micheline Nilsen, is the “The Mutable Body.”  I encourage you to visit the bibliography website for the thematic year and the One Book, One Campus. Special thanks is merited by Professor Joe Chaney for his industrious work this year in working with deans, faculty, and the Professional Advisors Committee (PAC) to ensure a smooth transition in the fall for our new general education curriculum.  Joe has been engaged also in university-wide activities with the University Faculty Council in developing IU principles for general education with particular attention to transferability.  One of the hallmarks of a great university is its outstanding faculty.  This year four of our faculty received university-wide awards:  Gretchen Anderson in Chemistry, Betsy Lucal in Sociology/Anthropology, Linda Chen in Political Science and Betty Mooney in Sociology/Anthropology.  Congratulations to each of them. The Graduate Council sponsored Project Aspire on April 12th.  All high achieving (GPA of 3.2 or higher) juniors and seniors were invited to attend a reception and informational event designed to motivate them to attend graduate school either at IU South Bend or at another IU school.  After a welcome from Chancellor Reck, Jay Howard, an IU South Bend alumnus who now teaches Sociology at IUPUI talked about his experiences growing up in South Bend, and how well he had been prepared for graduate school by his professors.  A panel of current graduate students talked about their experiences in IU South Bend graduate programs.  The evening closed with students and graduate faculty/program directors discussing specific and individual concerns.  Project Aspire will become an annual event.  Let’s encourage as many of our extraordinary students to pursue graduate and professional education. Assessment The IUSB Assessment Committee is pleased to announce that Barbara Walvoord, a nationally recognized expert on assessment and accreditation will be conducting a workshop for the campus on Friday, September 9th, 2005. She has conducted more than 300 workshops on assessment at colleges and universities around the country, as well as coordinated the very successful self-study and accreditation visit at Notre Dame.  She is author of many widely cited articles and books.  The topic of the morning session will be: Assessment Clear and Simple: Feasible, Useful, and Sensible Ways to Assess and Improve Student Learning in Departments and General Education.  She will offer a host of practical tips as well as one-on-one assistance to academic programs polishing their assessment plans.  In the afternoon the emphasis will be on the upcoming Higher Learning Commission accreditation visit. Please reserve September 9th for this exciting event.   More details will be available soon.   The Assessment Committee is also pleased to announce that three assessment grants were awarded for Spring 2005.  The grant awards totaled $6,640. The Graduate Studies Counsel will be developing and evaluating survey instruments to assess and track graduates. SPEA will also be developing and administering an alumni survey. The First Year Writing Program will be using their grant to refine and use their exit goals as an assessment tool for evaluating students. UCET Just as we watch nature for signs of spring, the University Center for Excellence in Teaching is a place to visit to see some new faces this season. Ms. Peggy Geik has been at UCET for one month in the role of Secretary/Office Manager, taking on multiple responsibilities at the center with professionalism and high energy. The newest UCET employee is Ms. Sujie Man, who has joined UCET in a newly created role as an Instructional Technology Specialist. She and her family have just moved here from Tampa FL, where she earned the Education Specialist Degree in Instructional Technology, and worked closely with faculty there as they transitioned from the Web CT to Blackboard course management system. Sujie also has a Bachelor of Arts in English Language and Literature from Lioning Normal University and a Master of Arts in World Literature from Beijing Normal University. Watch for announcements from UCET regarding training as we transition to the new version of Oncourse.  Thematic Year A login has been created in Refworks (the web-based works cited program) where members of the campus community can create a giant Campus Theme Bibliography (with various folders for our individual topics).  You can access the bibliography at https://www.refworks.com The login is body and the password is mutable. Directions for using refworks are at: http://www.iusb.edu/~libg/guides/refworkstrainingguide.pdf or you can contact the library for a reference appointment. School of Business and Economics and Beta Gamma Sigma Night.   The 2005 annual Beta Gamma Sigma (BGS) Night scheduled for April 11, 2005, 5:15-7:00 PM, in the Student Activities Center.  There is an induction ceremony for the students who will be admitted to BGS and their families on that night.  Mr. David Bloss, Sr., an IU South Bend Alumni, the Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer of CIRCOR International, is the keynote speaker. The Indiana University South Bend collegiate chapter of Beta Gamma Sigma, School of Business and Economics, has been recognized as a Premier Chapter for its superior level of membership acceptance and promotional activities.  By receiving the Premier Chapter award, the Indiana University South Bend chapter is being recognized for its high level of success in recruiting top business students into the Society. With Premier Chapter status, the Indiana University South Bend BGS collegiate chapter has been awarded a $1,000 Beta Gamma Sigma scholarship in the 2005-2006 academic year.  The chapter is also pre-qualified for consideration as an Outstanding Chapter, the highest honor attainable by a collegiate chapter.  Indiana University South Bend’s Beta Gamma Sigma chapter will also receive a certificate recognizing its Premier accomplishments. Beta Gamma Sigma is the honor society for AACSB International – The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. Of the 417 Beta Gamma Sigma chapters currently established on college and university campuses, only 62 were recognized as a Premier Chapter in 2004.   Executive-in-Residence and School of Business and Economics Alan H. Cohen, co-founder of the Finish Line, Inc., one of the Principal Stockholders, Chairman of the Board, Chief Executive Officer of the Company since May 1982, will be the Executive-in-Residence at Indiana University South Bend, School of Business and Economics, on April 12 and 13. Mr. Cohen will speak on leadership, organizational change, buyer behavior and general business concepts to graduate and undergraduate classes in the School of Business and Economics. The Finish Line, which recently reported that it has $1 billion in annual sales with nearly 600 stories nationwide, is a specialty retailer in men’s, women’s and children’s brand name athletic shoes, athletic apparel and accessories. In 1996, Mr. Cohen received the Distinguished Alumni Service Award from Indiana University School of Law – Indianapolis, and the Distinguished Entrepreneur Award from the Kelley School of Business, Bloomington. He was named Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst & Young, and Inc. Magazine in 1991, and Retail Executive of the Year by Sporting Goods Business Magazine in 2003. The Executive-in-Residence Program in Business and Economics is underwritten by Crowe Chizek and Company. Diversity Diversity is one of IU South Bend's areas of distinction. In speaking about recent experiences in one of her classes, Linda Chen writes: I just completed teaching a course on “Third World Politics”, perhaps the fifth time I have taught this course at IUSB.  What distinguished this offering from past years is that I had five international students, all of whom would be viewed as African or Asian in the community.  In addition, I had several students with Hispanic last names.  The student diversity in this course had a great impact on student learning.  When I taught the section on Mexican economic development, several of my students of Mexican heritage offered stories of their parents’ migration to the States; when I taught about apartheid in South Africa, an Asian student from South Africa gave examples of what it felt like to live under apartheid rules.  When I taught about the factors that led Asian women and girls into the sex trade, my Laotian American student spoke about how his friends always assumed that Asian girls were sexually promiscuous.  In the past few weeks, students read a book about the genocide in Rwanda and my Rwandan student spoke of witnessing the slaughter of his family and of his own harrowing escape from the genocide at the age of 14.  His story of escape and how he has not been able to locate any surviving family members brought tears to my students eyes.  I describe this to anyone who has time to read this because I think it illustrates the value of diversity in our classrooms.   My student’s stories about their lives in the Third World greatly enhance the other student’s learning.  I guarantee that when I receive their exams on the Rwanda book, students will most likely remember what their Rwandan classmate said.   In my many years as an academic, I have heard few administrators articulate the case for diversity as a value that we should embrace.  ‘Diversity’ still seems to be a necessary addition to campus mission statements and strategic planning documents, but wouldn’t it be worthwhile if we all thought about why exactly it is that diversity should matter to an academic institution?  Maybe then we can actually make more than token progress towards a truly multicultural society and frame of mind.  That is, assuming we all embrace the hope and promise of multiculturalism. --Linda Chen KUDOS Eleven IU South Bend students traveled to Indianapolis on 14-16 April 2005 to attend the Midwest Model European Union and returned to South Bend with the most coveted “Best Delegation” award.  In past years, the award of “Best Delegation” has gone to the University of Notre Dame, Ball State University, Purdue University, IUPUI, Principia College, and the University of Missouri, which has won the award for the past three years.  IU South Bend last brought the award home in 2001. The IUSB student team was comprised of a cross section of majors playing various political roles: Jesse E. Bohannon, General Studies, Commissioner for Health and Consumer Protection Amanda Griffin, Political Science, Director General Ryan Hill, Political Science, Director General Tracy Huddlestun, General Studies, Director General John Leland, Secondary Education, Foreign Minister Jihàd Omar, Political Science and Mass Communications, President of Cyprus Wayne Purucker, Political Science, Director General Laura Reiniche, Political Science and History, Director General Steven Turner, History, Minister of Agriculture James Segars, Economics, Minister of Finance Derek Webb, Business and Economics, Minister of Environment Individual team members were also recognized at the event.  Derek Webb was selected as “Best Environment Minister” and Jesse Bohannon came in second place as Commissioner for Health and Consumer Protection.  A former student of Professor Geraldine Huitink’s, David Keller, recently defended his dissertation and will be awarded the Ph.D. in Chemistry from Iowa State University this spring.  Mr. Keller received the B.S. from IUSB in December, 1997 and went on to study analytical chemistry at Iowa State.  A recent message from Mr. Keller states in part, “Please give my regards to the rest of the department and let them know that I will always cherish the time I spent at IUSB.”  Congratulations to Professor Huitink, to the other members of the Department of Chemistry and to the soon-to-be Dr. David Keller! Late last month we got good news from the Council on Social Work Education.  Both our BSW and MSW programs were reaffirmed for accreditation for the full 8 years.  All areas are fine and there is not one thing that we have to address with CSWE.  Please let me thank Irene Queiro-Tajalli and Marion Wagner for their excellent leadership and hard work during this process.  We can all now celebrate. The Department of Mathematical Sciences at Indiana University South Bend is pleased to announce that its competition team of Duc Dang, Danielle Johnson,and Carlos Esteves placed fifth in the Indiana College Mathematics Contest.  36 teams from colleges and universities throughout Indiana took part in the contest, held April 1, 2005 on the campus of IUPU-Fort Wayne.  The contest features problems from a broad spectrum of college mathematics, and is regarded as being one of the better mathematics competitions for college students. Best wishes, Alfred J. Guillaume, Jr. Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs