Updates to faculty layoff plan and other stuff

General Campus News, Updates, Discussion
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sealhall74
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Agree bigly, lets steer way clear of personal insults. BTW, we can probably all relate to having at least one college prof who had less than eloquent English enunciation. I had a math prof who called the Chi-Square test somehing a long the lines of the "kas-ka" test. But forgive me, I digress as usual. After letting things settle in overnight, my thoughts. It is a positive strategic move, focusing on what we CURRENTLY do best. But when you get down in the weeds, is it really that much different? Centers of Excellence concept is a little muddy IMHO. What is it about a college program that makes it "Regional"? If you graduate, you can find a job somewhere within X miles from the school? Org boxes are moved around a little. Some new "School" boxes around those with common threads. But if you don't put new leaders at the top of those School boxes, you probably wont see any differences. What are they going to do? Department heads take turns acting as the School point person? Putting some dollars into the Centennial Honors college is good but I would never admit incoming Freshmen into it from the getgo like they do now. You must earn a spot during your first year or two to get in. When you are having trouble keeping kids in general, the last thing you want is some kid showing up to college on his first day and seeing something that makes him feel like he does not belong there. Also, it should take more than just GPA to qualify for Honors College. You need to be engaged in the community and/or campus (volunteer service, mentor struggling students in your discipline, etc). to make the cut. Who remembers the old Andy Griffith episode about Opie and his buddies' "Mayberry Minutemen" history club? Come up with something that really makes it a special challenge and reward. A lot of thought needs to be done to come up with those research/thesis projects.
Last edited by sealhall74 on Tue Jul 17, 2018 10:28 am, edited 1 time in total.
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wiu712
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WIU unveils academic re-structuring plans.
From the McDonough County Voice:
http://www.mcdonoughvoice.com/news/2018 ... ring-plans
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ST_Lawson
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sealhall74 wrote: Tue Jul 17, 2018 9:00 am It is a positive strategic move, focusing on what we CURRENTLY do best. But when you get down in the weeds, is it really that much different? Centers of Excellence concept is a little muddy IMHO. What is it about a college program that makes it "Regional"? If you graduate, you can find a job somewhere within X miles from the school? Org boxes are moved around a little. Some new "School" boxes around those with common threads. But if you don't put new leaders at the top of those School boxes, you probably wont see any differences. What are they going to do? Department heads take turns acting as the School point person?
I agree with this. It's a bit of restructuring. Some of it makes sense, some of it is a bit questionable to me, but I don't see anything that's going to make Western that much more appealing of a place to go to school. Some money will be saved, which helps, but it feels a little too much like "rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic" when someone really just needs to "grab the wheel and give it a hard turn".

Also, regarding the personal attacks bit. We hadn't really ventured too far into that territory yet, but I just wanted to head things off before it went too far down that road. Some criticisms are valid...personally I'm not a fan of how Joe Rives seems to need the audience to applaud everything and will actually scold them if they do not applaud enough...for example. I just wanted to make sure we were staying in the "valid criticisms" area.
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rocki
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I guess my biggest question is what does this actually solve? We move stuff from one place to another, but we don't eliminate (or don't appear to, anyway) extraneous stuff.

I guess it seems to me like moving your living room furniture - it makes the room look different, and maybe fresher, but in most cases unless you eliminate items as well as rearrange them you really don't gain anything. You won't have any more space than before, and you won't have anything newer or more stable than what you had before.

What am I missing?
wiu712
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Looks like there is a move away from the Liberal Arts programs and going towards the Technical and Vocational programs.
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Tere North
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ST_Lawson wrote: Tue Jul 17, 2018 10:45 am
sealhall74 wrote: Tue Jul 17, 2018 9:00 am Some criticisms are valid...personally I'm not a fan of how Joe Rives seems to need the audience to applaud everything and will actually scold them if they do not applaud enough...for example. I just wanted to make sure we were staying in the "valid criticisms" area.
Agreed, when you have to ask the crowd repeatedly to applaud that should be sending a signal the crowd hasn't heard anything were applauding. It might be better to do like TV comedies and use canned laughter sound tracks so the speaker can push an applause button to start the clapping sound and then see if it takes off. At least that would be a bit more subtle :D
rocki
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wiu712 wrote: Tue Jul 17, 2018 12:02 pm Looks like there is a move away from the Liberal Arts programs and going towards the Technical and Vocational programs.
But what exactly have they done away with?
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ST_Lawson
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rocki wrote: Tue Jul 17, 2018 1:10 pm
wiu712 wrote: Tue Jul 17, 2018 12:02 pm Looks like there is a move away from the Liberal Arts programs and going towards the Technical and Vocational programs.
But what exactly have they done away with?
In the recent past they've made large cuts (or complete eliminations) to things like Women's studies, African-American Studies, etc. But also, in the new plan, I don't see any mention of literature, philosophy (which was recently merged with the math department for some insane reason and is now merging with all the natural sciences...geography, geology, meteorology, etc.). They're squeezing all the traditionally "liberal arts" pursuits into smaller and smaller areas.
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wiu712
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Positioning Western Illinois University for the Future.
From WIU News:
http://www.wiu.edu/news/newsrelease.php ... e_id=15666
wiu712
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The news story from KWQC-TV mentioned that the current Director of Student Services will become the Academic Success Coach for the Quad Cities campus--a position that was added to the Macomb campus last year.
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