Faculty Assembly IV

Next up, Bette Zehnder and Joyce Pigge - early academic alerts. We're now having two types of early alerts. Oh, boy! This may be confusing.

We're going over standard procedures. Interestingly, all the forms we need are now on the local area network, on a drive to which faculty have only access to read, but not to write. This drive was a new addition last year, and is a welcome one. Materials used to be in Public Folders on Outlook. That tended to be confusing. Now we have many things in two places, and we haven't made a policy that says, "What you need will all be in one place and that place is. . ."

Withdrawl from courses is now under discussion. What Bette's explaining seems to be news to the faculty. I'm not sure why. This is not a new procedure.

Joyce is now talking about Athletic eligibility and a guide she has prepared. This is now in Public Folders on Outlook. There's the confusion.

Denise is inviting us to the library. We can use the library catalog from home now!

Then came the Dean. Good news - we aren't going to fail every accreditation we face. Bad news, we have three visits coming in quick succession. Good news, we don't have division meetings anymore. Bad news, we need to have departmental meetings and get to business taking care of business. Good news, we have a new, revised Faculty Handbook. Bad news, we have a New Revised Faculty Handbook, and we need to read it and fix it.

And then I had to go! And the laptop shut down due to running out of battery. So that's it.

Faculty Assembly III

You can tell we've been away from each other too long. Greg LeGault has just been put under the gun. He has to log into the LMS site after having been away for a semester.

In her own nice way she is giving everyone a heads up on Faculty Development and JICS/LMS. She's also giving a not too subtle push to actually apply for and use the foundation money that the college has developed in order for faculty to develop their scholarship.

Overall, this is quite a scholarly faculty. Loranelle is among the most scholarly of our faculty.

Faculty Assembly II

A major concern for faculty is, ta-dah, students. Right now we're talking about the forms needed to get early intervention with students who need help.

That's a great idea. There are, of course, two problems. Problem one is that some students don't want help. They have the Amy Winehouse attitude - you know - "they tell me go to rehab and I said, no, no, no." I've had a few of those students. They are difficult.

On the other hand, we also have troubles with some faculty who don't want to do the kinds of things that are needed in the contemporary academy. "I'm not good with the touchie feelie kind of thing," one faculty told me last year in connection with teaching Bethany Seminar. That instructor turned down a request to teach.

There's no doubt that students are the great joy of the academic life - and the great difficulty of the academic life. I could get a lot more blogging done if it weren't for the students.

The question was just raised, "How many students with suicidal thoughts do we have?" Well, we have lots of students in this age group who have suicidal thoughts, even take some steps towards self destruction. "Even a joking suicidal comment we take seriously." Yes, we have to take such seriously.

We have many students who are medicated, says one of our staff. Yes, we certainly do. Some are self medicating - a common event for college students. Most of my generation was self-medicating their way through undergradate days.

At the faculty meeting

Bethany faculty is back and back to its work together. Bob Carlson is keeping the meeting moving along.
We're into reports. Jodi Frisbee and Margaret Presley are presenting their experiences at the Mission of the College conference. Right now Margaret is talking about the on-line experience. I'm not sure that what she's reporting is entirely accurate. I wish I could have been at this meeting.

New Bethany Faculty

I'm painfully aware that I haven 't finished the Byways post. I've gotten us to the Dam and left us there. OK, that post will come later today, or possibly tomorrow morning.

This morning Bethany faculty return to campus. Bryan Yorton is back, Greg LeGault is back. All I have to see is Mark Ahlseen and I'll know that we're all back from the world wandering that Bethany faculty does during the summer months.

We have two new faculty members.



Melissa Seacat joins us in Physical Education.



Banjo Oriade is our new Physics professor.

Welcome to both of them and their families.