Brown Bag With Brooke Sheldon

April 8^th, 2002

About a dozen attendees met with Brook in the SIRLS conference room, where Brook gave us the following department updates:

·          Accreditation—good until 2005, when we’ll need to show an increase in number of faculty members.

·          Internal review—occurs every seven years.  The overall experience was very positive, and we should get a full report within four weeks.

·          Gifts—we received $10,000 from Margaret Maxwell (endowed), and $10,000 from H.W. Wilson Company (scholarships)

·          Specialization updates---Want to hire an Archives professor.  Will offer a Museum course in the fall.  There’s some discussion currently about a Law specialization as well.

·          Knowledge River is moving into SIRLS space soon.  They are taking applications until April 15^th.

After the updates, attendees brought up suggestions and concerns:

·          Possible Information Technology Specialty

·          Public Administration courses

·          Web Creation and HTML code writing courses for 1 or more credits

·          WebCT concerns:  need more interactivity (i.e., chat), more input from professors, more weekend and on-campus meetings

·          Summer offerings could be more diverse—need more virtual sections of required courses.  Brooke responded that larger number of course offerings made for prohibitively low attendance.

·          Concern from a distance student, who wanted to know why U of A courses taught by U of A professors at Phoenix locations did not count as residence credit, since these courses seemed to fulfill the required “interaction among classmates and faculty.”  Brooke responded that this policy came down from the Graduate Dean’s office, and added her view that without available University resources (for example, the library), the off-campus classes did not actually fit this requirement.

Questions, Concerns, and Ideas from Fellow Distance Students

From last month…

·          Do you ever wish you could be present for some of the terrific Brown Bag meetings scheduled throughout the semester?  Would you be interested in participating in an online Brown Bag, through a message board or chat format?  If you have expertise in this area, or are interested in participating, please email Lori at the address above.  I’ve gotten one request for more Distance Student participation in Brown Bags, but no suggestions about chat, message boards, etc.  Do you feel that having a representative at only the meetings in which we want our voice to be heard is enough?  If so, if a meeting comes up that you feel requires a representative, be sure to let me know.

·          About social events in the Phoenix area:  No response to the hike suggestion, and it’s starting to get too warm.  Do you want to try a potluck after finals week at a park?  Let me know. Concern regarding being a distance student.  I think that it is totally ridiculous that on-campus students can order their books online but distance students cannot—we have to call on the phone AND they call us “correspondent students.”  The first time I said “distance student” they didn’t know what I meant.  Also, they need to make the books available for classes in the bookstore when they have them so distance students who are on campus for other reasons can go ahead and get the books.  This past winter session some of us wanted to buy the books for the spring semester and although some books were in, we were told that, as distance students, we had to wait until January 11^th to get our books.  I sent this concern to the Technology Director at the University Bookstore, with a follow up reminder this week.  No response yet, but I’ll keep trying.

·          Phoenix classes.  I would like to see more classes held in the Phoenix area.  Additional classes were discussed at the April 8^th Brown Bag.

I know it’s a crazy time in the semester.  If you have a question, suggestion, or concern to share (and a few minutes to write—something rare these days!) please send it in.

Upcoming Events

Brown Bag Series:

·         Elaine Baarson, Public Librarian, Wilmot Branch of TPPL; Wednesday, May 15, 12:00pm

·         Bob diaz will be presenting a resume writing/interviewing workshop Thursday, April 25, 6:00pm

Other news/events:

·         The Motorola Career Center is starting a networking group called Pathfinders, a “forum for career transition clients to provide and receive search activity feedback.”  For more information, call 602-389-4305.

·         If you plan to attend the May 10^th Graduation Dinner, make sure you contact Shannon Mack at mack973@yahoo.com, so she can get a head count.

·         Library Tour:  Tucson Museum of Art Library; meet at SIRLS no later than 9:45am on April 16^th.

·         ALA National Town Hall Meeting teleconference, “Recuritment @ Your Library.”  Friday, April 26^th from 9:00 – 11:00am at Pima Community College campus.  You need to register by April 19^th.  More information at http://www.cod.edu/teleconf/ala/index.htm

Have a good month—keep writing!

Lori