Academic Address at Orientation

New student orientation is rightfully focused on adjusting to life at college and getting administrative and logistic things taken care of, but maybe there is a missing academic dimension? We do have the book discussion session which is academic-ish, and faculty are invited to participate in various activities (and could be said to be the stars of one: first orientation sessions), but is there anything which really introduces students to the academic intellectual world they are about to join?

What about an address each year by a faculty member that talks a bit about learning, the life of the mind, the purposes of education, what liberal arts means in the 21st century, what's exciting in a particular field, etc.?  We'd have to set some guidelines so that it wasn't just a lame introduction to one's own department or division or the same old same old.  We'd expect people to take it seriously, we'd plan on archiving the talks or publishing them in the Quarterly or posting the video online.  They'd be about marking a transition (YOU ARE AT MILLS NOW).  They'd convey academic and intellectual values (integrity, honesty, search for truths, importance of science, the empirical and the theoretical, life of the mind and the issues of the day, etc.).

New Courses Earn Simultaneous Course Release

Proposal

Any faculty member teaching a new course should receive a course release that year.

Rationale

Teaching a new course is difficult and time-consuming.  It involves actual new work on faculty member's part : organization, planning, research, etc. and the actual teaching tends to be much more labor intensive the first time through.  There is an inevitable effect on one's other courses.  It is especially important to have the time and energy to do the first run of a course particularly well so as to determine if it generates student interest and fits well in the curriculum and because the first run lays the ground work for subsequent offerings.   This will encourage curricular innovation and more excellent new courses.  It would also resonate with our commitment to taking seriously the quality what we put on the course schedule.

Impact and Cost

Examine recent faculty meeting minutes to estimate number of new courses approved each year.  Likely only those taught by multiple course faculty would come under this.  Suppose 2 new courses per faculty meeting at 6 meetings per year nets 12 new courses each year.  Net budget impact $50-100k.  Consider distribution of new courses: are there programs that have over-abundance?  under-abundance?  What explains disparity?

Implementation Ideas

• Perhaps require that the release be taken in the same semester (since the whole point is the time and effort it takes to field the course) with possible option of the semester before (the consideration being prepping the course).
• Perhaps 180s are not included?
• Can put a limit on frequency with which faculty member can take advantage of this.  Or limit on departments/programs?  Or a global limit and have either EPS or Provost allocate?