Peter's Notes from 10/16

Good Morning from Philly,

My notes are more or less random, list-like rather than listless, and will replicate most of what's been written already. Perhaps you'll find some new entries to consider.
First, I was very well pleased with the meeting; this is a good group.
Okay, then:
--We agreed that some combination of discussions about both Continuities and Collaborations was in order.
--The Continuity Forum would include the useful session on updating what all the schools have done since CLEA's last conference.
--Collaboration discussions might well include presentations on the Plus and Minus sides of using high-technology to connect our meetings, classes, curricula.
--A number of schools are interested in writing: remedial writing, writing centers, ESL, connections with Freshman Seminars, continuity to upper level liberal arts courses. We at UArts promise to lead such a discussion with the help of Sam Durso, our Director of First Year Writing.
--A Technology discussion: Laura Zarrow, our Associate Provost and the Maven of Hi-Techedness, will join us. We can also decide, before too long, to invite the Apple guys to give us a presentation on how iTunes University and other stuff can help us. We promise that this will not be a sales pitch.
--In addition, we might discuss what sorts of Course Management software different schools use, and we can explore how they might talk to each other. We can also discuss whether it would be useful for several schools to adopt the same system. (Yesterday, UArts signed on with Sakai, causing great bursts of happy enthusiasm from Laura.
--We discussed the prospect of having an Administrator's Forum to educate Provosts on up (we might add deans to this list). I have floated the idea of inviting the new NCSA Chancellor, John Mauceri, to be our guest as a way of consolidating CLEA's relationship with NCSA. My President is happy with this idea.
--When reminded, I will suss out what's on on campus during our conference.
--Another session might be interesting: we discussed the problems Liberal Arts folk face facing Institutional Structures that may prove inimical to liberal arts teaching. To whit, for example: at our school, the President's Cabinet includes members from finance, admissions, financial aid, development, public relations, student services, and the provost. At best, the academic side of the discussion has one full-time advocate.
--A vital part of Continuity and Collaboration is the site visit. We've done very well with this and the participating schools seem to have gained good benefit. Perhaps we should institutionalize such visits, particularly when the host school is facing an accreditation review.
--We briefly discussed the virtues and demerits of interdisciplinary courses. Perhaps the large group would like to take this on, too.
--A good idea: interested teachers might develop teaching Modules (reading and viewing materials and perhaps some other notes on Hogarth's "Rake's Progress," for instance. These can be archived on the CLEA website so that, even if we are not sharing courses or doing on-line teach teaching, our individual researches and hobby horses can benefit our colleagues elsewhere. We could call if CLEA's CLIFF Notes--but, no, that wouldn't be nice. This CLEA Reserve Library, properly indexed, could be a wonderful--and I mean really wonderful--project. It is also a means by which we can draw other members of our faculties into the CLEA conversation.
--On more mundane matters, we discussed creating a CLEA web page of teachers' biographies. And, usefully, a schematic of the curricular structure for the liberal arts programs at each school.
--(I have asked the Admissions office here to send me a list of competing art schools we could possibly invite as observers.)
I think that's enough for today.
Cheers,
Peter