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Colleges of the South > Newsletters > Fall 1998 Newsletter |
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A Window to the South |
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Fall 1998
MELLON PLANNING GRANT TO EXPAND INTERNATIONAL HORIZONS ACS received a $47,000 planning grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to examine its international education and study abroad programs, with an eye toward exploring collaborative arrangements with the liberal arts colleges belonging to the Great Lakes Colleges Association (GLCA) and the Associated Colleges of the Midwest (ACM). The grant will enable the consortium to examine its own programs in detail, focusing on rectifying weaknesses and building on strengths that might be expanded through collaboration with the other two consortia. Together, the three groups include 41 institutions. Following the information-gathering phase, the groups are expected to contemplate collaborative programs such as joint centers abroad, technology links to overseas programs, joint research, and joint training programs. In addition, the three consortia may examine the possibility of coordinating efforts, with each specializing in specific functions or responsibilities - a division of labor that will open programs to faculty and students from all three consortia. For example, one consortium might emphasize faculty development related to overseas experiences, another overseas service learning opportunities, and a third student internships abroad. A discussion and planning phase began during the summer and will extend through February 1999, at which time the consortia expect to finish their plan or proposal for presentation to the Mellon Foundation. Interested faculty and staff are invited to contribute their ideas. This grant falls into place with the key recommendations from the ACS International Program Directors meeting in February. Their overriding recommendation was to explore international areas with an eye toward collaboration and included specific areas such as: student internships, faculty development seminars, service learning programs for students, joint research, exchange programs, and international conferences disseminating research results. They also recommended more student financial aid for ACS managed or approved programs, and price flexibility for students from one ACS campus enrolled (on a space available basis) in another ACS international program. While this grant may not meet all these needs, it is certainly a large step toward expanding the international program offerings for students and faculty at all ACS institutions.
WORKSHOP KICKS OFF ENVIRONMENTAL INITIATIVE The Environmental Studies Curriculum Workshop represented the first major activity of the four-year Environmental Initiative. Held June 22-23 at the University of Richmond, the workshop focused on alternative ways of educating undergraduates about the environment in which they will live. The workshop aimed to help ACS institutions develop environmental education curricula that are best suited for their individual students and universities. The workshop consisted of presentations by invited speakers followed by small group discussions, and question/answer/comment sessions for the entire group. The workshop examined four main topics: (1) purposes, (2) content, (3) organization, administration and staffing, and (4) establishment of environmental studies at undergraduate liberal arts institutions. Attendees included representatives from 12 of the 15 ACS member institutions, in addition to speakers from business, government, nonprofits and graduate and undergraduate universities outside the consortium. "We brought in national leaders who have gone through the process of trying to build a program. It was a wonderful opportunity to hear about pitfalls, successes and what to expect as we continue to build the program," said Bob Whyte, ACS Director of Environmental Programs. This workshop was the first time many of the participants were able to meet and discuss their individual programs. "The meeting was a success since it was an opportunity to build a sense of community and facilitate collaboration - not only within ACS, but with outside organizations as well." "The Richmond workshop was a good first step for all aspects of this initiative. There was outstanding substance to this workshop, but in this first year, the workshops go far beyond that. We are building a sense of community, which to me is as important as the actual content," Whyte continued. Upcoming workshops include Sustainable Development in Local Communities in Atlanta on September 12-13, The Environment and the Liberal Arts College at Hendrix on October 4-7, and Greening of the Campus & Environmental Collaboration at Birmingham-Southern on October 15-17. "I think as the program goes on, we may move away from as many workshops and to more specific programs and activities. But there is always room for workshops because we need that sense of community; we need to talk to our peers and bounce ideas off each other. Our future workshops will feed off these initial ones and cover more specific material," Whyte said. "Our goal is to promote enhanced environmental awareness, so when students leave our institutions they are environmentally literate and can participate in society from an environmental perspective." In its seven years, the consortium has done many remarkable things, but no program has had more impact than its Summer Teaching and Learning Workshop held each June at Rollins College. Special kudos for those involved in this notable program are long overdue, beginning with Dr. Rita Bornstein, President of Rollins College, and Dr. Steve Briggs, Dean of the Faculty at Rollins. Rollins has been the perfect host of the rigorous one-week workshop for ACS faculty. Special thanks go to the extraordinary faculty from ACS institutions who have led this program, starting with Professor Jack Lane of Rollins who created the program and directed it so well for many years. The current co-directors, Roger Casey of Birmingham-Southern and Barbara Carson of Rollins, have supplied the critical brain power and verve necessary to keep the program pertinent and valuable for participants. Limited space keeps me from paying proper tribute to the following long-term workshop leaders who have challenged, inspired and mentored participants for many years: Lloyd Benson of Furman, Terry Goodrick and Barry Spieler of Birmingham-Southern, George Newtown of Centenary, Diane Persellin of Trinity, Roy Starling, formerly of Rollins, Beau Weston of Centre and Gary Williams of Rollins. Also serving with distinction have been Alice Alaujo, formerly of Southwestern, Robert Blystone of Trinity, Stephanie Fabritius of Southwestern, Allen Scarboro formerly of Millsaps, Kim White-Mills of Rollins and Thomas Wren of University of Richmond. Judging from my firsthand view and feedback from many participants, these leaders have performed a distinguished service and brought enormous credit to the consortium. We thank all of them. Wayne Anderson LIBRARY DIRECTORS EXPAND PROGRAM On June 26, 1998, the ACS library directors met to discuss how the Mellon Grant library project was proceeding overall and lay plans for this third and final year of the project. Since the consortium plans to expand their database offering this year, vendors were on hand to demonstrate their wares for the directors. They decided to add the Wilson "Omni File V" to the current UMI database. "We have found that the UMI databases are constantly changing. They provide good coverage of specific articles, but not complete publications," said Barbara Halbert, ACS Director of Library Programs. To round out the coverage, the Wilson package was added. This new database will overlap some of the journals from UMI, but will provide more complete coverage. "Wilson has multi-year contracts with the publishers, making it more consistent," Halbert continued. "Wilson is a great product for the students...it's a really useful reference." A large part of the grant is for the consortium to analyze the impact of buying publications online. "We want to see if schools will cancel their print subscriptions and rely on the web for the same information," Halbert said. To see if this is the case, Richard Meyer of Trinity College is doing an economic analysis, which should be completed by late winter. This analysis is the culminating reason for the grant, to show if, by using these computer databases, the individual institutions and the consortium can contain costs. Since the project ends in December 1999, directors are looking at next steps. "We have scheduled an October meeting to concentrate on only this topic. We were challenged by the presidents to look in new directions - toward the 'Library of the Future.' We need to be ready to meet the future and use all the available technology for this step," Halbert said. ENVIRONMENTAL UPDATE: WHERE WE'VE BEEN, WHERE WE ARE GOING Dr. Robert Whyte, ACS Director of Environmental Programs, recently shared his thoughts on the progress of the Environmental Initiative and upcoming plans. Describe the program activities since you came on board in mid-January. When I started, the initiative had already gotten underway. ACS had written the proposal and received the grant, and Nora Bynum was doing a great job as the interim director. It was much like jumping onto a moving train! But that meant there was already a good foundation established. What did you do first? Before I could do anything, I had to learn about the ACS institutions. I talked to as many people as I could to learn what programs were already in place, what plans each institution had for their environmental program, etc. Just as a common bond brought all these institutions together to form ACS, I had to realize that each institution is unique and what works at one is not necessarily going to work at another. What do you feel was the most important step once you learned who the players were? As with most things, it's important to have a plan. ACS can support all kinds of programs, but without a plan, there will be no lasting effect. A good plan will send out threads that tie to each of the institutions so the programs are developed along a well-laid framework. At the end of the four years, we will have established a strong foundation and institutionalized the program. That way, programs will emanate from the institutions themselves. I want to provide leadership, but my job is to see that leadership comes out of each of the institutions and that they eventually take over the program. What is your ultimate goal with the Environmental Initiative? My real goal is at the end of the four years to have established a firm foundation. This way even if the funding is no longer available, each of these programs will continue on the campuses. I want the faculty, students and staff to develop a sense of ownership and responsibility about the program. I'm here to facilitate, not to direct. Describe the accomplishments thus far. We have accomplished a lot in this first year, starting with the formation of the faculty program committee. We solicited and received proposals encompassing the priority areas -- environmental education, research, service learning and outreach, and campus operations. We developed a program framework and appointed faculty fellows and student interns. We also formed several environmental discussion and planning groups, and plan to have a collaborative internship posting online soon. We also have a number of faculty workshops coming up this fall. What is coming up next? We are preparing environmental forums on each campus with the campus program committee members, fellows and student interns. These forums will include faculty, administration, staff and even people from the community. Each forum will be an opportunity to talk about the environmental initiative, how it can affect the campus and give everyone present an opportunity to comment. The setting should also encourage conversation to go beyond the initiative to the environment and community at large. We are also starting Environmental System Surveys on campuses. These surveys will give us baseline information about how campuses are functioning with respect to the environment. We will look at the transportation system, energy efficiency, hazardous waste, solid waste and recycling, etc. Obviously we can't do every single component at once, but we are hoping to have a pilot at the start of this year and begin with three institutions. The audits will be conducted by students. Faculty will help set up the guidelines and be the point of contact, and then we'll review the whole project with an outside consultant. Then at the end, the faculty will do a review. As far as we know, this is the first collaborative audit effort. A lot of audits are being done now, but no one has gathered the results of multiple audits to create a broad picture of what's happening on multiple campuses. Other than being a "good thing to do," what other reasons exist to make this initiative attractive to institutions? Not only can we save the environment, we can save money. A recent study by the National Wildlife Federation looked at this very topic. Their year-long study followed programs at 15 public and private colleges and universities of various sizes. The combined annual savings realized across this sampling of projects was an impressive $16,755,500. It's hard to argue with figures like that! Not only do we have a wonderful education tool, but we can also save a great deal of money at the same time. What challenges do you foresee in the near future? We need to continue to encourage and foster collaboration. We need to finalize our strategic plan to provide strong program guidance and reinforce commitment on the part of ACS and its members. In addition, we need people on campuses to promote the program and its activities. Finally, we must institutionalize the program. We want to see projects and resources emanate directly from the campuses themselves. This will in turn ensure the necessary leadership to ensure a long-term success. JOINT PURCHASING MOVES AHEAD On June 16, 1998, numerous ACS purchasing officers met in Atlanta to explore the possibility of establishing a joint buying group. As part of that meeting, the purchasing director for Emory University volunteered to add ACS institutions to a number of contracts used by Emory. The ACS group agreed to review the contracts to determine how applicable they would be for their institutions. The group was especially interested in making use of the Internet to disseminate information on purchasing opportunities. Those opportunities include new projects and contracts, Emory contracts in which ACS institutions could participate, or vendor arrangements with individual ACS institutions that could be broadened to include other ACS institutions as well. Seeing considerable potential in collaborative efforts, the group agreed to meet again in September to develop a clear set of objectives for joint purchasing and establish a process for ongoing collaboration. Meanwhile, they will be learning from the experience of other buying groups and identifying goods and services in which they are particularly interested and in which considerable savings may be realized. COLLABORATION ON-LINE Need to share ideas with more colleagues than your campus can supply? The ACS office maintains dozens of discussion group lists for cross-communication and greater collaboration between member institutions. Suzanne Bonefas maintains the lists. "These email lists enable a wide variety of ACS staff and faculty to communicate with their counterparts at other ACS institutions. For example, registrars can consult with one another about procedures, human resource directors can inquire about policies at other institutions, and career planning and placement officers can keep up-to-date on the latest opportunities for graduates seeking employment." There are so many lists that space does not allow us to describe them here, but you can easily find the right one for your needs by signing on to the ACS website at http://www.colleges.org/lists.html ACS Dates Ahead
NON-MAJOR SCIENCE CLASS EXPLORED Dr. Ed Roy, Vice President of Academic Affairs at Trinity University, and Professor Leo Pezzementi of Birmingham-Southern are coordinating an effort to bring together ACS faculty interested in designing a science course for the non-major. Their efforts are an extension of the conference on the subject held at Birmingham-Southern in the spring of 1998. The two are assembling a planning group, who will work toward the development of this proposed course. They will present the group's results to the ACS academic deans at their October 31-November 1 meeting. Faculty interested in contributing to this effort are asked to contact Dr. Roy at (210) 999-8201 or Dr. Pezzementi at (205) 226-4880. With the sixth annual Summer Teaching and Learning Workshop fresh on many minds, we announce next year's workshop will be at Rollins again onJune8-13, 1999. This summer's workshop attracted 21 participants from ten institutions and received excellent participant feedback. On a scale from a low of one to a high of five, faculty participants ranked it a 4.9 in terms of their overall impression of the workshop. Leadership effectiveness and the workshop setting and conditions received similarly high ratings. Co-directors Dr. Roger Casey of Birmingham-Southern and Dr. Barbara Carson of Rollins College invite ACS faculty to think now about attending next year. Interested faculty should talk to past participants from their campuses, explore the possibility with their chief academic officer and look at consortium brochures - coming soon. ACS will hold two openings for each member institution - nominations from the chief academic officers will be received prior to February 1, 1999. For further information, go to ACS website: http://www.colleges.org/summerteach.html. We are pleased to announce the new Mellon Technology Fellows for the 1998-99 school year. Faculty were awarded fellowships to develop technology-based materials for use in their classrooms.
For more descriptions of each of these projects and fellows contact information, please see http://www.colleges.org/tech/fellows99.html EXPANDING FOREIGN LANGUAGE INSTRUCTION ACROSS THE CURRICULUM Birmingham-Southern College and Trinity University are taking the lead in ACS in creating Foreign Language Across the Curriculum (FLAC) programs. As they move their programs forward, both institutions successfully secured grants from the National Endowment for Humanities (NEH) for approximately $20,000 each. The two institutions are identifying the myriad ways foreign language can be brought into different courses, using NEH funds to draw on consultants from other institutions and hold workshops focusing attention on the many possibilities. Dr. Janie Spencer, Assistant Professor of Spanish at Birmingham-Southern and Director of the FLAC program, sees the new program as an exciting venture through which both faculty and students can benefit. She has taken the lead to encourage the cooperative examination of such programs and offers to collaborate with other institutions. A number of ACS institutions have shown a strong interest in learning from the Birmingham-Southern and Trinity experiences and perhaps collaborating in the future. Some of these institutions were represented at a meeting held on this topic at Birmingham-Southern last year. For further information, contact Dr. Janie Spencer at (205) 226-4858. Elizabeth A. Perkins, assistant professor of history at Centre College, recently published Border Life, through the University of North Carolina Press. Her book is a look at the settlement of the Ohio Valley that gets beyond the mythic accounts associated with figures such as Daniel Boone and Simon Kenton. Perkins was also named the first holder of the Gordon B. Davidson Professorship in History at Centre. Brian Mattingly of Louisville was tapped to become a Fulbright Scholar and will spend a year studying in Granada, Spain. He plans to study the culture and lifestyle of gypsy families that have lived near Granada for hundreds of years. Centenary College hosted a National Science Foundation FastLane Workshop on May 13-15 to provide hands-on training on electronic proposal preparation and submission, and institutional management, as well as to encourage collaboration between regional institutions of higher education. In order to make a connection between historical roots and contemporary realities, 20 Furman University students followed in the steps of the Freedom Riders in February. The five-day, 1,200 mile journey by bus included stops at landmark sites of the Civil Rights Movement - Nashville, Memphis, Birmingham, Selma, Montgomery and Atlanta - and many points in between. Students met civil rights leaders along the way. Five Hendrix College professors accompanied 39 students who presented research results at the National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR) at Salisbury State University in Maryland. NCUR invited undergraduate students to give formal presentations or displays of original research, scholarly activities or creative endeavors in any academic area. This year, NCUR attracted more than 1,600 students representing 255 institutions. Millsaps College received a $3 million gift from the Gertrude C. Ford Foundation designated for the construction of the new Millsaps Campus Life Complex. The Campus Life Complex is part of a $17 million multi-phase, comprehensive initiative designed to encourage students, faculty, staff and other members of the community to engage in a wide variety of physical, social and professional activities. The 21st annual Hendrix-Rhodes-Sewanee Undergraduate Mathematics Symposium was held at Rhodes College on April 18-19. A record number of participants attended. Rollins College Crummer School of Business received a $1 million gift from the SunTrust Banks of Florida Foundation. The money will be divided equally between the school's new Bush Executive Center - for the SunTrust Auditorium, and an innovative class in portfolio management to be added to the school's curriculum. Southwestern University recently launched an attack on "techno-ignorance" with a new instructional technology program-FACT, Faculty Awareness of Computer Technology. The program included a symposium showcasing faculty websites, two beginner and one intermediate level html workshop and six peer mentoring sessions. Timothy Kramer, associate professor of music at Trinity University, has been awarded a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Kramer is one of 168 artists, scholars and scientists to be awarded a fellowship from more than 3,000 applicants. Fellows are appointed on the basis of unusually distinguished achievement in the past and exceptional promise of future accomplishments. Dr. William E. Cooper was elected the University of Richmond's eighth president, effective July 1. Dr. Cooper is leaving a position as executive vice president at Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. Dr. Cooper will succeed Dr. Richard L. Morrill, who is retiring after 10 years as president. After a brief sabbatical, Dr. Morrill will continue at University of Richmond as a University Professor. Dr. Scott T. Allison, associate professor of psychology, was named a recipient of the 12th annual Outstanding Faculty Awards presented by the Virginia Council of Higher Education. He was one of 11 faculty members selected from 75 nominees from colleges and universities across the state. Washington & Lee University will celebrate its 250th anniversary during the 1998-99 academic year. Under the theme of "Learning, Leadership, Honor," the University has planned a number of events to commemorate the occasion. The academic centerpiece of the celebration is the Responsibility Symposium lecture series. During the year, 14 participants will discuss the idea of responsibility in the disciplines of religion, politics history and law.
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