March 27, 2020
A couple of COVID-19 related items: The NEA’s summary of what the latest congressional bill has for education, including higher education, and the agenda for the special BOT meeting on Monday, where they will give the president the authority to refund some student fees.
March 16, 2020
Dear colleagues,
The attached document shares some FA recommendations for the COVID-19 crisis.
We are all scrambling to react to this crisis. The recommendations we pass on are just that, our best ideas for how to handle this crisis now. The way things are going, many of them may be overtaken by events in the next day or two.
March 13, 2020
I’ve posted a COVID–19 page which can be accessed directly from the menu (top left) and via this link. I’ll try to gather together relevant information there as this situation progresses.
January 28, 2020
To any not in this particular loop, restructuring is now making its way to the remaining ten departments in CoLA (i.e., those not included within the proposed college of Arts and Media or otherwise already shipped off to other colleges.
Attached here are two relevant documents: the “Solicitation of Feedback” memo from the administration, and a response by Joseph Brown of Africana Studies, which was written up in preparation for a meeting held for CoLA faculty on January 21.
December 10, 2019
Graduate student numbers.
The most important news item may have been an explanation for why SIUC didn’t provide any data on graduate applications at last week’s Board of Trustees meeting. As was noted in the last FA News post, numbers distributed on campus indicate a decline in graduate school applications of over 50%. Yet at the same BOT meeting where the provost touted higher undergraduate numbers, she reported that no figures were available for graduate students. At the FS Provost Komarraju provided a more nuanced response. Komarraju said that a glitch in the new reporting system appears to have led to a undercounting of applicants. Undergraduate numbers were the priority, she said, and a staffer was out in the grad school, explaining why they had undergraduate application numbers but no reliable graduate numbers. The administration is working on getting more accurate numbers, they said. Komarraju assured a questioner that applications were being processed despite this glitch.
