Prof. Miecznikowski presented the following report:


Prof. Miecznikowski solicited questions or comments from the floow.  Prof. Bucki suggested that space could be included on the existing application to include "banner codes" to facilitate the routing of complete applications; Assoc. Dean Im responded and announced that the new course application format (not yet available) incorporates this idea.

The Dean thanked and congratulated the working group and its drafting subcommittee for producing the mission statement.   With no other comments or questions from the floor, the Chair initiated the vote.

o    serves ex officio on AS Planning Committee
o    nominees must be able to attend meetings (typically monthly) on Wednesdays, 3:30-5:00 p.m.
o    nominees must be tenured

The Chair announced that Prof. Epstein was nominated prior to today's meeting.  She opened the floor for additional nominees.  With no additional nominations, Prof. Epstein was ELECTED CAS Faculty Chair by acclamation.

o    nominees must be able to attend meetings (typically monthly) on Wednesdays, 3:30-5:00 p.m.

The Chair announced that Prof. Fernandez was nominated prior to today's meeting.  She opened the floor for additional nominees.  With no additional nominations, Prof. Fernandez was ELECTED by acclamation to the Arts & Sciences Planning Committee. 

o    nominees must be able to attend meetings (typically monthly) on Wednesdays, 3:30-5:00 p.m.

The Chair opened the floor for nominations.  Assoc. Dean Perkus NOMINATED Prof. Bayne, and Prof. Bayne accepted the nomination.  Prior to this nomination, Prof. Nash volunteered to serve as the Humanities representative on the ASPC; she withdrew her nomination following the nomination of Prof. Bayne.  With no additional nominations, Prof. Bayne was ELECTED by acclamation to the Arts & Sciences Planning Committee. 

o    nominees must be able to attend meetings (typically monthly) on Wednesdays, 3:30-5:00 p.m.

The Chair announced that Prof. Zhang was nominated prior to today's meeting.  She opened the floor for additional nominees.  With no additional nominations, Prof. Zhang was ELECTED by acclamation to the Arts & Sciences Planning Committee. 

"Judyth Andrea Martinez (“Andrea”), MA, NCC, is a nationally certified counselor with a Master of Arts in Community Counseling from Fairfield University and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from the University of Connecticut, Storrs.  Andrea comes to us with valuable set of skills and experiences in student counseling, student database management, advising, faculty and staff training for advising, and first year experience management, first at the University of Connecticut, Stamford where she worked as an Academic Counselor in the Academic Center for Exploratory Students, and most recently at UConn, Storrs where she was an Academic Advisor and the Dean’s Designee in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences’ Academic Services Center. Andrea also brings with her experience in the private sector, having worked as a Behavioral Health Services Counseling Intern for FSW, Inc. in Bridgeport, providing counseling and developing clinical treatment plans for English as well as Spanish speaking individuals, couples, and families. I trust you will work with Andrea in the same ways as you work with Sue Peterson and Dawn DeBiase. Reach out to her, get to know her, rely on her."

Dr. Phelan will finish out Prof. Walker’s term as Faculty Co-Facilitator (working with Eileen O’Shea from the School of Nursing).  Prof. Walker is vacating the position because he is transitioning into his new role as Associate Dean.

Phelan and O'Shea will be working across departments and schools on the development of a health sciences minor program, and they will solicit proposals for the next round of Interdisciplinary Health Sciences Scholars (faculty-student research projects).

"Excellent liberal arts teaching guides students through an exploration of big questions and canonical texts, bringing great traditions into vivid and relevant conversation with contemporary times. Truly distinguished teaching inspires critical thinking and intellectual engagement, not simply as educational outcomes, but as emergent passion and way of life. Liberal arts pedagogy in the Jesuit tradition further ensures that students conceive of this examined life as one for others.
Such distinguished teaching describes the artistry of Dr. Sara Brill. Her learning environment is characterized by trust and mutual support, openness and intellectual integrity. Her classroom is a learning community in which students feel safe to examine their own assumptions and beliefs. Her approach is deeply informed by a commitment to understand race, gender, class, and power in classical and contemporary times. For example, she brings Plato into dialogue with Martin Luther King, Jr., juxtaposes Aristotle with contemporary French cinema, and considers Antigone from the perspective of contemporary feminist theory.

Professor Brill’s colleagues describe her as “extraordinarily creative” in getting students to “do philosophy.” Her students – from every quarter of the university – offer consistent and superlative praise. She has received nearly perfect course and instructor evaluations across all sections for each year she has taught at Fairfield University. Students repeatedly exclaim: “she makes you want to learn.”

For this conspicuous and consistent teaching excellence, and for the ways her teaching embodies and advances our liberal arts mission in the Jesuit tradition, the College of Arts & Sciences recognizes Professor Sara Brill with its 2014 Award for Distinguished Teaching."

Katherine is a recent PhD from UConn in Nutritional Sciences (where she got her BS and MS, as well). She has had research fellowships with McGill and the University of Iowa. She was project director on a USDA funded community-based research project about egg consumption in relation to nutritional outcomes and disease markers.

Jackie has a BA from Skidmore, MS from Georgetown, and PhD from Boston University’s School of Medicine in Medical Nutritional Science. She is currently teaching at Penn State. Her research focuses on nutritional aspects in relation to disease status, metabolic issues, and long-term health. She is already a well published scholar.

Jackie and Katherine will be working with our natural science departments and the School of Nursing to develop a Nutritional Sciences program at Fairfield. 

Audra is finishing up her PhD at the University of Nebraska. A specialist in multi-ethnic and racial identity in relation to broad themes in interpersonal communication, Audra has her BA and MA from the University of Central Florida. She also studied at the Sorbonne in Paris and the University of Georgia’s Costa Rica campus.

Jennifer completed her PhD at NYU in 2013. Her work is on the politics of rights and welfare in Argentina during the late 20th century. Her MA in History and Latin American Studies is also from NYU; she got her BA in the same areas at Vassar. Jennifer has been teaching at Bates College for the past two years.

Sergio comes to us from Georgetown, where he is finishing up hFiriis PhD in Applied Linguistics. His specialization is in second language acquisition and pedagogy. Sergio has an MS in the same also from Georgetown, as well as an MA in Spanish from San Diego State University. His BA is in English Philology from the University of Zaragoza in his native Spain.

Maggie is finishing up her PhD at Loyola Chicago. Her MA is from Boston College and her BA is from Mount Marymount University. Maggie is a feminist philosopher whose dissertation focuses on feminist readings of Augustine. She has been teaching at Stonehill College for the past two years.

Lydia is a specialist in American religious history. She has her PhD from Vanderbilt, her MTS from Harvard, and her BA from Connecticut College. Maggie’s research focuses substantially on religious movements and scriptures in 19th century America, but she also has interests in issues of race/gender from Medieval Christianity to contemporary times. Currently she is teaching at Whittier College.

David's PhD is in critical studies from the USC School of Cinematic Arts. His MA also is from USC and he got his BA in Language and Literature from the University of Maryland. David’s research focuses on American film and television – equally on the industry and texts, with a special interest in independent, experimental, and cult cinema. He has been teaching at LMU and Chapman University since finishing his PhD in 2012.

"We have accomplished a great deal in these past six years: complete review of the CAS governance structures and document, development of a successful and consequential academic program review process, and truly significant progress in the area of assessment. Moving forward, I ask you to lead assessment: You define the objectives, ask good and important questions, earnestly seek to learn and to improve. Program review provides one periodic framework for assessment, but your annual engagement in this process should be undertaken with the same quest for knowledge and value for excellence that you bring to your own scholarship.

We also have accomplished extraordinary enrollment management for optimal use of instructional resources, developed and launched four new graduate programs, reconfigured the CAS staff and work portfolios based resulting in an empowered team for project management, and developed a rotating faculty associate dean model that has developed and provided diverse faculty leadership for strategic projects.  These efforts contributed to our efforts to recruit top-notch faculty.

We have supported faculty research and service at an unprecedented level (stipends, course releases, start-ups and travel funds) despite the most difficult budget climate in Fairfield’s past three decades. The College (not counting anything through the SVPAA’s office or the FRC) invested nearly $4M in faculty professional development in the support of your scholarly and creative accomplishments during the time I’ve been Dean. Some of this has been from regular operating budgets and some from donor funds. Faculty outcomes are extraordinary as a result. I have cherished every expression of gratitude I have received these past six years.

With a keen sense of University mission, we have hired more than 40 outstanding and diverse new faculty in the College this past 6 years, several of which already have been tenured. This is 25% of the f/t faculty in the College! More than half of these new faculty members are women and over a third are faculty-of-color or international teacher-scholars. The truest joy of my work as Dean has been in hiring and mentoring faculty across the ranks. I have given pep talks, edited faculty work, shared tough love, and sometimes have cried with faculty as I communicated the worst. Most often the results have been overwhelmingly positive, even in some of the cases where faculty did not succeed here.

We grew the CAS advisory board membership engaging alumni, parents, and friends from across the country. We developed case statements for several endowments and, despite the hostile fundraising climate in the years following the 2008 economic crisis, garnered substantial and sustained financial commitments from the membership and other donors. This group, often working jointly with other school advisory boards in innovative ways, helped launch the Integrative Nursing and Health Sciences Initiatives, helped hone the Science Institute and Humanities Institute case statements, and have been tireless champions of the liberal arts generally and the Core Curriculum specifically, buoying my resolve at every meeting.  In individual donations, from the Advisory Board as well as parents and others, I have directly participated in the cultivation of at least $2M (many asks are pending), most for the CAS endowments and current use, and a lot for scholarships. I have enjoyed university advancement work tremendously, and am sad to leave the College Advisory Board, a group of exceptional individuals who are passionately dedicated to the liberal arts, to the College, and to Fairfield University. 

The Advisory Board also gave feedback on the “Classroom to Career” initiative that I conceptualized and that Associate Dean Jim Simon honed and operationalized with the departments and programs, and working across with Student Affairs. These and other advising and career readiness initiatives are vital to the effective communication of the value of a liberal arts degree. I encourage you to dedicate yourself to quality student advisement and mentoring, balancing care and taking responsibility for cultivating, not only students’ academic achievement, but also their holistic growth, and their outcomes after college. This is not surrender to the marketization and economization of higher education if you lead it with integrity and care for students, and teach them to love – and articulate the value of -- the liberal arts as much as we do.

During these very challenging times, we also have worked tirelessly on behalf of the broader university. For example, in the spring and summer right after my appointment as Dean, we worked on the institutional readiness for the Clare Luce Booth Professorship, conceptualized and written by faculty like Amanda Harper-Leatherman, Matt Kubasik, and Shelley Phelan, and originally targeted for Chemistry/Biochemistry but ultimately funded in engineering. Many of us worked together on half a dozen committees to close University College and integrate its sustainable operations into the schools. We generated documentation and case statements for the Integrative Nursing and Health Sciences Initiatives and the associated building project that will be game changing for Fairfield’s position in these areas. We worked together to move the School of Engineering into Bannow despite the many challenges, in order to support growth and the future success of more integrative applied science teaching and research. This kind of teamwork and cross-school collaboration is more possible at Fairfield today than ever before, and it is vital to our success moving forward.

As the longest-serving Dean at Fairfield at this point, I have enjoyed welcoming, mentoring, and collaborating with a wonderful and collegial cohort of deans in each of our schools and I depart Fairfield as a better leader for having been among their ranks. These relationships bode very well for the next Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences, who will find a vibrant intellectual community poised to collaborate on exciting new interdisciplinary and cross-school projects including new revenue-generating opportunities. I have every confidence that a national search will produce a superb candidate pool and that you will select an outstanding new Dean. We should have an announcement about an Interim Dean soon and that person, along with our hardworking staff and your continued collaboration, will ably shepherd the College in the meantime.

Throughout these six years, I have been called upon to lead projects beyond the College, and in so doing, may not have accomplished all I’d hoped for the College or all you’d hoped would be achieved.  The launch of the 21st Century Humanities Institute is one goal that I am happy to see come to fruition before my departure as Dean. This is a legacy I leave you to realize in full, and that we all will leave for the future Fairfield University in support of its enduring commitment to the liberal arts in the Jesuit tradition.

I am proud of all this and much more, all accomplished in teamwork with the incomparable CAS staff and in collaboration with so many of you, the extraordinary CAS faculty. Our work together has benefitted the College and the broader University, and I have been deeply moved, irrevocably changed, sometimes broken, and always challenged doing this work. I thank you for the opportunity to serve as your Dean, and for all that we have shared."

"Thanks to the CAS staff for dedication and hard work – Jean Daniele, Fran Yadre, Jean Siconolfi, Sandy Richardson, Giovanna Lindquist, and Cathy Alberti. I also want to thank Elizabeth Hastings, who has adapted to never-ending change in her configuration of duties with grace and creativity – the Downtown Bookstore was recently given a Best of Fairfield County award for providing a venue for authors and readings – much of the credit goes to her for her efforts to link all that faculty do with that venue.

Special thanks to the Assistant Deans: Sue Peterson and Dawn DeBiase, now in DSB, who have served our students incomparably; Andrea is a wonderful new member of this team, and comes with the same ethos, work ethic, expertise, and experience as Dawn and Sue. On the ground, every day, these are among the most caring and competent staff at the University.

Thanks to all the Associate Deans who have guided the College with me these past six years, who have informed my work – challenging me, supporting me, and leading in their own right, in so many important ways: Beth Boquet, Joan Weiss, Manyul Im, Jim Simon, and Aaron Perkus. Brian Walker is already a team member as he transitions into his term as Associate Dean this summer. These folks, who lead as faculty members with the values of and respect for the faculty, work with departments and programs, and mentor individual faculty to advance our collective goals and to support success all around.

Heartfelt thanks to all the CAS Department Chairs, ID Program Directors, and Grad Program Directors. I have worked hard to cultivate faculty leadership during my deanship and you have done me proud. Chairs and directors are more diverse than ever before. I see a new generation of faculty taking up the mantle of leadership at the same time as many senior faculty have re-engaged meaningfully. These folks are demonstrating both the courage and competence to lead the College forward. I encourage you all to accept the call to leadership when it comes, remembering that we can always lead from wherever we, and we lead as who are.

Deepest gratitude to the ASCC and the A&S Planning Committee for the hard work you do. And to those who served on the A&S Student Awards Committees and the Merit Review Committees – every role is important, and operationalizes our value for shared governance. Special recognition to CAS Faculty Secretary Scott Lacy and CAS Faculty Chair Sally O’Driscoll, with whom I have worked very closely this past few years and who have helped us hone our mission and prepared the College well for what comes next.

To the more than 40 faculty members I have hired as dean:  Take ownership of the University as your senior colleagues have done. There is an unprecedented commitment among Fairfield faculty, particularly those in the College of Arts & Sciences, to go “all in,” not only as teacher-scholars committed to excellence, but to serve and lead over the long term (as the administrative leadership changes), ensuring the institution both holds fast to its values and traditions and moves forward productively and innovatively. I invite you to be innovators and to embrace and lead change. At the same time, I urge you to embrace and keep faith with the sacred charge to faculty of the academy and of Jesuit education: to rigorously pursue truth, to engage productively the dialogue between faith and reason in animation of the Catholic Intellectual Tradition, and to keep students at the center of your endeavors.

To all: I want to warn you against passivity in the face of challenges and a propensity toward conflict avoidance. The heartbreaking side of a Dean’s work is learning about, witnessing, and trying to manage the dark side of faculty life. Festering conflicts, pettiness, grudge holding, disrespect of academic diversity, and tolerance of mediocrity (or worse) are cancer to the Academy. I ask you to be kind to but also frank with each other. To engage in open dialogue across differences of opinion and to respect diversity of background, identity, field, methodology, theoretical approach, and personality type. Hold each other accountable for fulfillment of all the terms of faculty employment. Don’t slack and don’t tolerate slackers. Innovate and learn. Don’t allow substandard teaching, negligent advising, lack of service, or dormant scholarly agendas. Demand and mentor excellence – for yourself and all your colleagues. Create every day with your actions and words and then cherish your faculty community as one of intellectual integrity and warm collegiality.

I want to say a bit more about University mission. I have benefited tremendously from engaging broadly and deeply in Mission & Identity activities at Fairfield, including participation in the Jesuit Leadership Seminar and the Ignatian Colleagues Program along with many events on our campus organized by Fr. Jim Bowler, Dr. Paul Lakeland, Dr. Nancy Dallavalle, among others. I have found a welcoming place to explore my own politics and spirituality, to live out my commitments as an educator and administrator, and where the features of my own identity have not resulted in my being a “suspect citizen” (as JB would say), but where I have been welcomed, as my authentic self, as a full partner, a true companion in mission. It has been professionally and personally enriching – truly transformational in some ways, as is appropriate -- to be engaged in the shared work of advancing Jesuit higher education. I will look forward to making future contributions to this distinctive and important mission as I move on to my new role within the AJCU as Dean of the Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts at LMU, where I can only dream of having the kind of faculty community and intellectual home as I have found here.

I have been honored to serve as Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences at Fairfield University, and moved by the respect and confidence that you the faculty, as well as the broad administration, and especially President von Arx, have all vested in me. I have enjoyed working with all of you through what have been particularly challenging times for higher education and at Fairfield, and yet during times we have also triumphed. Your engagement, your hard work, and your ready collaboration have been real gifts to me, as they continue to be for the College and the University.

As we turn to celebrating all our accomplishments for the year, I offer my most heartfelt CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL COLLEGE FACULTY FOR ALL THAT YOU DO. There are so many artifacts of our extraordinary scholarly and creative outcomes, and I hope all will stay to peruse and celebrate. Even I managed to publish a couple of articles this year and to make significant progress on a book David and I are writing together. I have been so very proud to be a member of this distinguished community of teacher-scholars-artists and will remain ever grateful for the time I have served as your Dean."

Immediately following the Dean's remarks, the College faculty rose with a hearty round of applause and a lasting standing ovation.

"There will be a formal reception for Robbin on May 14, and I’m sure on that day administrators will give us a full run-down of her many, many achievements.

Instead of doing that today, I’d like to thank her for what she has meant to us as faculty.

Robbin came from the faculty, and she knows us; she didn’t swoop in from the outside and use us to get lines on her CV, before moving onwards and upwards.  She IS us, and she has fought for us; she’s been a voice for faculty in an administration that in the last few years has not necessarily heard us. When I look back over Robbin’s years as Dean, and after working with her on this committee for the past four years, I think of how deeply concerned she’s been with faculty development. She’s worked to get us more travel money.  She’s been especially thoughtful about mentoring junior faculty, but she’s also concerned with those of us who are mid-career, so that we don’t stagnate. She has worked with many individual faculty members to help us advance our careers, and she’s created opportunities on campus for us all to grow – the new Humanities Institute, for example, and the Health Sciences initiative. These projects offer potential for new collaborations between faculty, new ways for us to stay fresh and creatively active. And her door has been open: she’s been available and encouraging. She’ll tell you what she thinks: she’s blunt and she doesn’t mince her words, but she’s also kind and supportive.

Robbin also cares very much about students: her emphasis on undergraduate student research, which she’s put a lot of energy into, has meant that our students are learning to see themselves as part of an intellectual community. That’s invaluable, and exciting for us. She cares about good teaching, and makes resources available to enhance it. Our teaching is the core of what we do, and Robbin has tried to make that better for all of us.

When I asked ASPC committee members if there was anything they particularly wanted me to say, one person noted her propensity for using salty language – or, dropping F-bombs, to be precise -- even in the most exalted company.  I’ll end with that because it’s a good reminder: Robbin has not forgotten her roots.  She may be in the dean’s office, but she has the heart of a faculty member.  Using salty language with the president is speaking truth to power.

So, let’s all raise a glass for Robbin: I’m sad that we’re losing a strong supportive voice for faculty, at a time when we most need one, but we can congratulate her on her wonderful new position, and wish her the best."

The College of Arts and Sciences is the academic foundation of Fairfield University. It serves its students, faculty, and staff,  as well as the University’s other schools and the  larger community, through teaching, research, and service in the Jesuit tradition.  In classrooms, studios and laboratories, on campus and around the globe, our faculty and students work together, calling on the vital intellectual values of analysis, reflection, discernment and imagination to understand the past, engage our present and shape our personal and collective futures.
 
The College challenges students to learn and grow, personally and professionally, through departmental and interdisciplinary majors and minors, as well as graduate and continuing education programs. It provides an integrative immersion in the liberal arts through the breadth and depth of the Core Curriculum and its cross-disciplinary Core Pathways. It sponsors a host of academic and cultural activities that connect the University to the broader world and promote life-long learning. In all its endeavors, the College encourages openness to difference and a willingness to view the world from diverse perspectives.
 
As a community of scholars, the College engages in innovative research and professional activities in a spirit of collaboration across disciplines, in order to advance knowledge and solve real-world problems. It fosters and mentors student research to support the next generation of informed and articulate scholars, thinkers, and public intellectuals. College faculty lead national and global academic communities and demonstrate their commitment to the public good through scholarship and creative work.

As a community of educated citizens, the College responds to the Jesuit call to be  women and men for others by seeking to instill in its students a habit of service and a life-long commitment to social justice in their personal and professional lives.
 
We undertake this journey together -- exploring the complexities of the human condition, experiencing the wonders of artistic creation, investigating the intricacies of the universe, and reflecting on the mysteries of the sacred -- so that we may all do our part to promote a just and peaceful world.  In all that we do, the College of Arts and Sciences affirms the enduring importance of a liberal arts education in the Jesuit tradition.