Dr. Heather Prescott
Professor
History
March 18, 2004

1. Comment on overall Strategic Plan:

 First off, I would like to comment on the overall quality of the plan.  I find it well written and mostly congruent with how I see the mission and goals of this university.  I am especially impressed with the strong commitment to liberal arts education presented in the plan.  I also agree strongly with the suggestions to create a division of General Studies, to strengthen the Graduate School and more fully distinguish the graduate programs from undergraduate ones, to more adequately fund and support the Office of Sponsored Programs, and above all, to adjust the faculty teaching load so that we can better fulfill our roles as faculty members.

2. In what part(s) of the strategic plan are you most interested?

 I am most interested in Goal 5, regarding strengthening the Office of Sponsored Programs.  To that end, I propose creating a Center for faculty development and grant writing. I also am very interested in Goal 12 regarding faculty workload.

3. Do you have suggestions/criticism/changes you want to see?

 I think the Proposal for Academic Reorganization contained in Appendix A is inconsistent with the rest of the Strategic Plan.  First, the plan maintains a strong commitment to liberal arts, yet proposes splitting up the School of Arts and Sciences.  In my opinion, this division would weaken rather than strengthen the liberal arts education at CCSU.   My colleague Robert Wolff has already mentioned that separating the Department of History from the other social sciences would make things complicated as far as administration of the secondary education programs housed in our department.  It would also present major problems regarding licensing and accreditation.  We adhere to the accreditation standards set by the National Council for Social Sciences, hence the need to keep history with the social sciences.

As I see it, the problem with the School of Arts and Sciences as it is currently organized is not size, but rather underfunding and understaffing.  A number of departments in the School of Arts and Sciences have the highest student-faculty ratio in the university (indeed, several departments have more students than the entire School of Technology).  Rather than divide up the School of Arts and Sciences into separate schools, I suggest that the administration create new faculty lines in order to deal with this excessively high student-faculty ratio.  I also suggest the following divisions within the School of Arts and Sciences, each of which would have its own division head who would be compensated in the form of administrative reassigned time:

1. Division of Arts and Humanities:  Art, Communication, Design, English, Modern Languages, Philosophy, Theatre, Music
2. Division of Social Sciences:  Anthropology, Geography, History, Criminology, Sociology, Economics, Political Science, Social Work, Psychology
3. Division of Natural and Mathematical Sciences:  Computer Science, Biology, Chemistry, Physics/Earth Sciences, Mathematics
4. Division of General and Interdisciplinary Studies

Despite the plan’s suggestion to strengthen the Graduate School, the reorganization proposal does not contain any mention of making the Graduate School into a real academic school, i.e. one with its own Dean, Associate Deans, and adequate support staff and perhaps even dedicated graduate faculty.  If we truly want to compete with other graduate schools in the region, we should make creating a real Graduate School a top priority.

In order to maintain a four school model (the reasons for which I don’t understand but I’ll go along with it for now), I don’t see any reason for maintaining the School of Technology as an independent entity.  As mentioned earlier, the entire School of Technology has a smaller enrollment than the largest departments in the School of Arts and Sciences, yet they have more faculty than the largest two departments in Arts and Science.  The School of Technology also has the largest budget in the University.   The School of Business is scarcely larger than the Department of English. This seems to me to be a waste of limited resources, especially in terms of administrative salaries.  I suggest that the two schools be merged into a School of Business and Technology, and that the savings in administrative salaries be used to support the changes in the School of Arts and Sciences listed above.

4. Would you like to be on a subcommittee for strategic planning?

 No thanks.

5. Have you reviewed the website and if so, can you offer feedback about it?

  Yes, I have.  I think that faculty could have been made more aware of the comments section.

6. Have plans been communicated to you effectively?

Yes, for the most part.  I especially appreciate having the opportunity to ask questions and raise concerns in an open forum.  I hope the UPBC committee will allow additional opportunity to discuss their next draft of the strategic plan before the present it for vote in the Senate.

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