Well this started as a welcome back e-mail to be sent out first of the week but one thing led to another, and now we have a first week as Acting Associate Chair wrap up e-mail instead.
This actually works out better and has made me thing more about the bread crumb trail I can leave for Mark’s return in the form of 14 “confessions of the Acting Associate Chair e-mails”… so here we go with week 1
My first week was a much different week 1 from when I was the coordinator of the Radio program. I still helped my new acting coordinator; Jim Craig with all the scheduling and program related stuff but class prep time, normally a very large part of the week was cut to almost nothing. Instead, I signed things… Lots of things! A letter to security, a photocopy request and a large stack of grade change forms. I affiliated a couple students with various programs, and helped with a bunch of student schedules. I met with a couple of new students that had some general questions about the school and some programs, and I met with a couple of new faculty members with Blackboard questions. I love this job so far!
I was able to solve the two or three little problems that popped up over the course of the week with great support from our administration team, and would like to acknowledge the sometimes-unsung heroes of the School of Communication Arts by thanking them for their help. Thanks to Luis and Adrian for working more hours then they get paid for, trying to keep and get up and running the new labs this semester. Thanks to Harry, Dave and Mo for being instrumental in making a very busy between semester construction schedule impact on our students as little as possible. Thanks to Karen for getting all our students and faculty in the right rooms at the right time and to Kelly and Isabelle for supporting the continually growing SCA population so well. I would like to thank Anna for telling me what I can and cannot sign and basically keeping me inline, the coordinators for working hard as they always do for their students and thanks to Jed for giving me the opportunity to see the Seneca world from a different perspective.
Thanks also to Tim for setting up the first (of many I hope) faculty / staff pubs of 2009. From all accounts if we settle our outstanding bill, and follow through with fixing the chairs that where damaged, we should be able to go back there again!
Projects:
New Programs – I have been given the task to work with a group in support of their application for a new program at SCA. I am excited to be offering insight on such an interesting venture, and hope that we will have the appropriate documents ready for DEAN presentations in the next couple of weeks.
TAVIS – The team of CAB students has completed the research (step 1) in the TAVIS project, and handed it over for the next 2 steps to Paul Shecter and his GRA class – Design for Social Change. The handover was a background – project presentation this week, thankfully attended by a number of faculty staff and students from multiple programs and I look forward to the possibilities for multi level / program collaboration.
Old student Track Down – I have started the process of gathering names of students in all SCA programs, that are 1 or 2 credits away from graduation, to see if there is something we can do about getting theses students out of the system. I have the names going back to January 2007, so I am in the sorting phase, and will have more information on this in the weeks to come.
Future: (week 2 and beyond!)
I have started a “free to all” lunch club in and / or around my office or the SCA boardroom everyday of the week around 12:00 or so… The only stipulation is that we do not talk about anything Seneca.
I want to take full advantage of the new found time I have during most days to find out what is going on in other programs within the school, so if you have an interesting class coming up, or a place for me to sit in the back of one of your classes, please let me know. I want to learn about your programs from the inside… Just let me know if I can drop in on your class.
My door is always open, and I would love to help you with anything program / course or school related. I am a self-proclaimed Blackboard and Excel geek, so support in these areas is a given!
Thanks! 1 down and 13 to go.
Jim