January2008Initiatives

I write to you with updates about several matters on the horizon in student affairs as well as next steps to address the vacancy created by Reuben's departure last week. First, let me say that Reuben will be missed. He approached his work with ASHNU and orientation with great enthusiasm and competence. He was instrumental in designing web pages and other communications, which are increasingly important in our work with students and each other. Finally, he was courteous, kind, respectful, and fun to be around, characteristics that make the HNU experience enjoyable and engaging.

Organizationally, Reuben reported to Laura and held the title: Coordinator of Student Involvement and Leadership. He was our liaison to ASHNU and he coordinated/facilitated student activities, orientation, and communications to students. The job description for the position Reuben held is included here for your reference and consideration as we move forward.

Reuben's charismatic personality and efforts will not easily be replaced by just dropping a new person into the position, especially when we juxtapose various challenges faced by the university onto those challenges this position is responsible to address. Fortunately, we have great people working here, great students, a plethora of creative ideas, and on many days, what seems to be boundless energy.

To proceed, we will consider the present situation as an opportunity to look more broadly at what we are doing and how we are aligned with the 2007 – 2012 HNU Strategic Plan. This means that we will reorganize some staffing and responsibilities (see below) and convene a series of planning seminars to address operational matters pertaining to the reorganization and opportunities for realignment with the strategic plan. It is likely that we will develop and implement a transition plan and a long-range plan. The transition plan will be affected immediately and the long-range plan will need to be in place by September 1, 2008. Each of these perspectives will be further outlined below.

Organizational Matters

We are currently organized in two ways: linearly, as it is represented by departments and reporting structures, and strategically, per our retreats during summer 2006. With the adoption of the strategic plan by the HNU Board of Trustees last summer, we need to organize around strategies and plans for which we are responsible. This will involve a review of the strategic initiatives we set 18 months ago, merging them with those embedded in the strategic plan, and a program review process that parallels the process academic programs are currently conducting. Using guidelines adopted from a variety of sources, these reviews and analyses will occur over the next eight months and will involve all staff members. Students will be asked to participate too.

Several other organizational initiatives will also affect our efforts, and how we are organized, as we move forward over the next several years.

Further developments to organize strategically around civic engagement initiatives. Sr. Shirley Sexton has worked with us during the last year supervising service learning experiences in community settings in Oakland . Her work has primarily been in association with classes taught by Dr. Bob Lassalle-Klein, but she is poised to expand her efforts to other classes and other community settings. Tom, as the director of campus life and civic engagement, will work closely with Sr. Shirley, and they will be joined by Sr. Maureen Hester, who will serve as our primary contact with Campus Compact. Sr. Maureen will be our liaison between this important organization and civic engagement efforts throughout our campus.

As we move forward with organizational efforts to make civic engagement initiatives an intentional part of the total educational experience for students, we will organize around four tracks:

service learning, as set forth through Campus Compact and other organizations that provide resources and research about the effects and implications of learning through service and its connection to citizenship;
values informed and citizenship, as articulated through Catholic social teaching;
community-based learning, which aligns educationally-oriented programming through a social learning perspective with action - in other words, the intentional creation of a campus culture that is socially active and civically engaged; and
student learning and development, as they are impacted through the application of constructs from social learning theory and empirical research on motivation for learning through civic engagement initiatives.

Major changes to dining services on campus. This is expected to be the last year that Bon Appetite will be at HNU. Over the next several months, we will pursue a modified request for proposal process to identify and contract with the next vendor/partner. Both HNU and Bon Appetite have provided notice to each other that this will be the last year of the current contract, and Bon Appetite has declined to bid. This means that we will have a new vendor by the start of the fall 2008 semester and if possible, we will use this process to re-orientate the cafeteria to intentionally link the Hawks Nest, Sky Room, Mealy Living Room, and courtyards. It also may have significant implications for food provided through the Green Banana Café and dining plans for students. For the immediate future, the GBC is following provisions stated in a recently drafted MOU.

The renovation of the first floor of Brennan into a Student Success Center. The HNU Board of Trustees are aggressively pursuing plans (space and fundraising) to renovate the first floor of Brennan Hall. This project involves all offices, classrooms, restrooms, lounge spaces, and dining-related services. It includes outdoor spaces in the St. Francis Courtyard and the possible addition of an office for health services, and is tentatively planned for summer 2009. A copy of the current plan is in my office and available for viewing and at this point, the project depends on funding, which members of the Advancement Committee of the HNU Board of Trustees is committed to securing. It includes a “Wall of Success” and other items identified in either visits to other campuses or discussions with students.

Intentionally reflected in this project is an expansion and emphasis of the current Student Success Center. The discussion for this project, which occurred in numerous forums, clearly reflects a commitment to commuter and adult students, and opportunities to effectively use space to promote student/faculty engagement outside the classroom. It also addresses several items that were consistently mentioned by students that they would like to see us fix (e.g., restrooms, ceiling tiles, noise, and air circulation).

The appointment of a commission on the role of intercollegiate athletics at HNU and the appointment of the next director of intercollegiate athletics and recreation. During February and early March, a group of faculty members, staff, and students will convene to discuss the current mission of intercollegiate athletics at HNU and its role in the future as a component of the total educational experience students have here. This group will also serve as the search committee for the next director.

The renovation of Feehan for student housing. This initiative obviously depends on increases in enrollments, which are presently projected to continue to grow. This is an exciting opportunity and will be pursued over the coming months in the context of a series of planning meetings between housing and campus services.

A formal partnership with Merritt College. This item involves both academic and nonacademic initiatives. For our purposes now, it involves the use of the MC stadium for soccer practices and games in exchange for housing for approximately 15 international students. These students are likely to replace the Oakland teachers who are likely to not continue their residency in the future at HNU.

The Conversion Project. The implementation of Blackbaud and its use as single relational data base for all student functions has the potential to transform how we deliver services to students. This project has major implications for housing, dining, monitoring athletic eligibility, delivering international student services, and tracking/analyzing retention.

Other initiatives. Several other things will happen over the next several months including new appointments in the athletic department, a re-energized Experiential Learning Program (ELP), and FY 09 budget construction.

A total revision of the HNU web site, including the eventual development of portals for use by different users. This project will use branding-related messages and multi-media modalities to deliver messages, enhance services, and better align what we do with who we are.

Changes in Organizational Structure

To respond to the significant organizational initiatives on the horizon, including the HNU Strategic Plan and recent staff changes, we will pursue the following organizational changes within Student Affairs/Athletics.

Laura Lyndon, Associate Dean of Student Affairs, will assume a broader role in student affairs/athletics. She will no longer directly supervise campus life, but instead, assist me directly with supervision and operations throughout the division. She will continue her outstanding efforts to coordinate the Connections Project and we will work together on expanding this initiative into a comprehensive HNU Experience (see the strategic plan). Laura will oversee orientation and continue leading retention efforts.

Organizationally, we will consolidate the Student Affairs Office into the Student Success Center , which means that instead of operating the SSC and Student Affairs, both will be operated as one department.

We will modify the open administrative assistant position and seek to hire a student affairs coordinator who will be on the same level as the other coordinator positions. This person will provide general assistance for a variety of administrative tasks, including orientation.

Tom Cunningham, Director of Campus Life and Civic Engagement, will assume all responsibilities for Campus Life. Effective Monday, January 14, he will report directly to me. Tom will oversee all aspects of residence life, and will continue to work closely with Campus Services on matters related to housing. Marissa Brown, Coordinator of Residence Life will report to Tom, who will also supervise student life/activities (see below), ASHNU, and leadership (redefined as a strategy instead of a department). He will pursue efforts to address the “residential college” component of the HNU Strategic Plan, and he will lead efforts to address many of the housing and dining matters listed above.

We will revise the Coordinator of Student Involvement and Leadership position to be 50% housing and 50% student life (activities), and this position will report to Tom Cunningham, Director of Campus Life and Civic Engagement. This position will be further developed in the coming months (see section below on transition) and we will seek to appoint a full-time staff member by July 1, 2008.

We will add a part-time position, to be filled if possible by a faculty member, to serve as the point person for service learning. This position will be further developed in the coming months and will report to Tom Cunningham.

All other positions will remain the same. In other words, Sarah is still in charge of operations in the SSC etc.

Planning

To affect these changes, we will convene a series of planning seminars to address operational and strategic matters going forward and we will develop and implement transition plans that address immediate and longer-term organizational and strategic issues.

The first planning session(s) will be held over the next few weeks and will address operational matters related to items 1 through 7 listed above. These sessions should be concluded by February 1, 2008, and the longer-range implications should be in place by July 1, 2008, to coincide with the FY 09 budget. Laura will lead these session(s) and seek to identify what can happen now and what needs to be phased in over the next several months. This planning should involve everything from offices and phones to budgets and programmatic matters. To guide this process, I suggest participants use, Managing Transitions, by Bill Bridges as a guide. I distributed several copies of this book to several of us last year.

A second set of planning sessions will happen over the next eight months and will involve program reviews that lead to alignment with the strategic plan. The outcomes of these planning sessions may impact the ways in which we are organized, but I expect that to relate less to structure (who reports to whom) and more about the psychological boundaries of our work together.

These planning sessions will involve everyone in the division, students, and possibly faculty and trustees. They will be of critical import to helping position the university to achieve the ambitious goals set in the HNU Strategic Plan, and they will be instrumental to our actions, and in most cases day-to-day activities, that affect our work together. Please expect more information in the next few weeks about these planning sessions.

I look forward to your ideas, perspectives, and most of all, the synergies that develop when talented and committed professionals come together to affect positive change.

Best regards,

Michael S. Miller

Vice President for Student Affairs