College Update

From: Sanford Shugart
To: All Faculty and Staff
Date: 12/5/03
Subject: College Update

As the semester speeds to a close, I thought I'd share just a few brief items:

1. The process of faculty hiring has begun for the coming year. In the past few years we have been very aggressive in the numbers hired, in part to strengthen the corps of career faculty and also to reduce our dependence on four-month and adjunct faculty. This year, in anticipation of other priorities, we will be a bit more conservative. I have approved some 15 tenure track positions for recruitment in Mathematics (3), Nursing, Dental Hygiene, English(2), Psychology, EAP/ESL, Humanities, Digital Media, Music, Computer Technology, and Information Technology. Some are replacements for retirees or four month positions. Only a few are net new positions.

2. The college will participate again this spring in the Community College Survey of Student Engagement. The results from 2002 can viewed at http://www.ccsse.org/survey/public-profile.cfm?ipeds=138187&source=2002 . We had not planned to repeat the process this year, but the state has offered to pay for the survey and we thought the data would prove very useful to our assessment efforts, especially since it will allow benchmarking against all the community colleges in Florida.

3. You've seen the communication from Maryke Lee regarding the Compensation Committee and the proposals in development. I also want to encourage all of the faculty to participate in the dialog as it reaches a vital stage . And be sure to thank the committee members and leaders for their conscientious work to bring us this far.

4. I have no real political news to share. I'll be in Tallahassee next week to meet with legislative leaders and the Governor's staff. There are some encouraging signs, but it is early yet.

5. Dr. Edwards shared a summary of research indicating a strong correlation between learning results in public schools attempting reform and the quality of trust in their professional relationships in the school. It's an intriguing, if not surprising, finding. Surely the collaboration required to continually renew our work and our institutions depends on trust. That this would be reflected in student learning only confirms our belief that the work we do top improve the conditions of learning can make a difference for the results our students actually achieve.

I thank you for the trust I have been given in leadership and for the climate of trust you create with your colleagues. Both our work and our spirits are nourished by it.

Have a great season of last assignments, final papers, exams, grades, and at last ... rest and renewal...

Sandy

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