TO: All Employees, All Seawolves
FR: Karen R. Moranski, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs
Happy New Year! We are excited to see the start of another semester at Sonoma State. I hope each and every one of you got to spend the winter break exactly as you hoped, and that your time was full of rest, relaxation, and positive relationships. January was a rainy month, but it brings green to the hills and lowers the impact of drought.
Our proudest congratulations go to Dr. Dan Crocker, Professor of Biology, who has received the prestigious Wang Family Excellence Award for Outstanding Faculty Scholarship. The Wang Family Excellence Awards celebrate CSU faculty members “who have distinguished themselves through extraordinary dedication and exemplary achievements in their academic disciplines, while significantly contributing to the success of students.” You can read our news story here. It is a privilege of the Deans, Provost, and President to prepare and send these nominations forward and a wonderful recognition of the important student-engaged work our faculty do. Kudos to you, Dr. Crocker!
Our semester is off to a great start in part because of the caring community we have here at Sonoma State. My thanks go to faculty and staff who went the extra mile to communicate with students at the beginning of the semester and to ride out this past weekend’s storms. Thanks to everyone–faculty, staff, and students–for your efforts.
Here are some updates on our big initiatives in Academic Affairs:
Impaction Update
Sociology and Criminology and Criminal Justice Studies have found a path to removing impaction, leaving Nursing, Pre-Nursing, and Psychology as the only impacted programs. Campus-wide marketing messages will be able to indicate that nearly all Sonoma State undergraduate majors are unimpacted.
Retention Initiative
A natural outgrowth of Graduation Initiative 2025 is a new focus and emphasis on retention. Retention is generally measured by entering cohort (e.g., the 2024 “class” of new students), and it is measured most often for entering first-time, first-year students, although we do measure transfer student retention. Important benchmarks are the fall-to-spring retention rate (from one semester to the next in an academic year) and the fall-to-fall retention rate (a three-semester measure from one fall to the next). Sonoma State has excellent fall-to-spring retention rates (typically 93-94%), but our fall-to-fall retention rates have dropped in the two years since COVID to around 75%. There are also equity gaps for our underrepresented and first-generation students who come in as first-time, first-year students. We will be sharing awareness of our retention data and what we can do to improve retention this semester and next year so we can raise our retention rates, which are an important milestone for timely graduation.
Dual Credit
Sonoma State is embarking on dual credit pilots with area high schools, after the successful launch of a dual credit teacher preparation course in Petaluma City Schools. Our K-16 Collaborative Grant fosters dual enrollment at both the high school and community college levels. We are in conversations with the Diocese of Santa Rosa and Rancho Cotate High School to initiate dual enrollment programs. This is an exciting opportunity to really partner with area PTK-12 school districts and increase interest in Sonoma State as a college destination.
SRJC Collaborations
Academic Affairs leaders from Sonoma State and Santa Rosa Junior College met in January to develop new avenues of collaboration. They asked for a report on our academic reorganization project so that a similar project on their campus can seek some alignment with our structures. We are also working on initiatives through the departments, schools, and colleges, to create pathways for students. We discussed HSI and Ethnic Studies initiatives, and we talked about the impact of AB 928 - the Cal-GETC curriculum (you can find more information on Cal-GETC here).
Academic Master Planning
This is the third semester of our Academic Master Planning (AMP) process. This spring, the Academic Support Services Working Group, the fifth of our working groups, is beginning in the capable hands of Dr. Ayumi Nagase from Early Childhood Studies and Loriann Negri, Director of LARC and CCE. Continuing this semester is the Current and New Programs (CNP) Working Group, led by Dr. Richard Whitkus from Biology and Dr. Stacey Bosick, AVP Academic Affairs. CNP has two main tasks this semester: 1) to review their current programs recommendations in light of economic data soon to be available from Gray Associates (now Gray Decision Intelligence) and 2) to develop recommendations for new programs that would increase enrollment. You can read the fall 2023 interim report from CNP here. The Learning Spaces and Technologies Working Group finished its work in the fall, and you can read their final report and recommendations here. Note the emphasis on Hyflex learning as a pathway to accessibility.
The Provost is working with Senate leadership to develop an implementation plan and timeline for the AMP. We’ll have an implementation plan in place by the end of this semester, and then in the fall we will finalize a draft plan, send it out for review and comments and get it ready to publish. The full timeline for the AMP will be five years, but we will be making progress and assessing it regularly.
Academic Reorganization
The Academic Senate’s Committee, Academic Planning, Assessment and Resources Committee (APARC) is currently reviewing and providing feedback on the Omnibus Proposal, due on March 15. Please work with your governing body’s leadership to make sure your comments are included. We released the chair assigned time model based on APARC work on January 18, and we will be releasing Department Coordinator assigned time on March 8, along with recommendations for program coordination and special project coordination. Between March 15 and April 1, we will be evaluating the feedback on the Omnibus Proposal, finalizing it and discussing it with the President by April 1. School chair elections will take place by May 24. The reorganization will become effective on July 1, 2024 although the full implementation will not be complete until Summer 2025. A high-level implementation timeline can be found at this link.
Dr. Jenn Lillig has convened the Reorganization Implementation Team. The kickoff meeting on Zoom was attended by 70 people from across the campus. That group is looking at how to implement the structural changes throughout our systems–everything from PeopleSoft to signage. We have the slidedeck of that Kickoff Meeting available on the Reorganization website.
We continue to work through all of the complexities of the reorganization with the help and good will of faculty and staff. The next phase of reorganization involves encouraging and incentivizing faculty in schools to work together, to build curriculum, to share courses and ideas, and find new ways to encourage enrollment growth. More information to come as the semester progresses!
