Letter from the dean
Dear alumni and friends,
Our new College is now eight months old!
And like any eight-month old, it is growing, changing, and developing daily.
Just as we “birthed” this new being together, so we are all now serving to
“parent” it to maturity. It’s an awesome experience!
Our team of associate deans is now in place: Jean Quam, Heidi Barajas, Mary Bents, and David R. Johnson. You can read more about each of them and their roles in this issue of Connect! In addition to the associate deans, the leadership of our College also is in the hands, minds, and hearts of our department chairs, center directors, and administrative directors.
As the team has coalesced, we have taken on the vital task of defining what our new College is about, in order to organize what we do as a faculty, staff, and students. We have organized around the principle of “neighborhood themes.”
So, what do I mean when I use the term “neighborhood”? A “neighborhood” in our new College is a strategy for pulling together our enormous talents and strengths toward a common and shared vision and mission. I have worked with our College leaders to solicit input from across the College to draft a preliminary set of three, overarching “neighborhood themes.”
The themes have evolved from several important sources: a natural clustering of our nationally and internationally recognized faculty and staff; the work of two task forces, established as part of the University’s strategic positioning process in 2005-06; and our new vision and mission. The themes are as follows:
Teaching and Learning: The focus of this theme is integrating evidence-based teaching, learning, and assessment practices into classrooms; creating, analyzing, and improving organizations and strategies to enhance the E–14 (early childhood through grade 14) school years; promoting positive youth development and leadership; advancing productive citizenship and service; promoting school completion and successful transition from school to postsecondary education; and developing new models of lifelong learning.
Psychological, Physical, and Social Development: This theme advances knowledge and applications of evidenced-based practices that promote psychological, physical, and social development; and health and well-being experienced by children, youth, families, and the elderly.
Family, Organization, and Community Systems and Contexts: This theme creates understanding of the interrelationships between and among families, organizations, and communities from a systems view by examining the influences local, state, national, and international relationships and policies have on the quality of life of all citizens.
To return to my original analogy, every young being spends important time learning to reach out and engage with others. In just that fashion, I will continue to meet with our alumni and other individuals and groups who are friends and friends-in-the-making throughout Minnesota and across the nation. I also am eager to spend time with many of our 8,000 alumni outside of this country. I anticipate these contacts as opportunities for deep listening, for honoring existing traditions and establishing new ones, and for exploring all of the exciting possibilities for continuing to develop our new College.
I hope you will find all of this as exciting as we do! Once again, please know how honored I remain to be a part of this “us.” An incredible amount of thoughtful work, care, and time was needed and was given to get us to where we are now. I truly believe that, together, our vision, mission, and neighborhood themes not only lay out our strategic direction but effectively position our College to transform the way higher education serves the world.
Best regards,
Darlyne Bailey
dean and assistant to the president