SEHD Impact

Student Committee Meeting Notes (11/06/23)

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Student Committee Meeting Notes

11/6/23

 

Attending: Caron Westland, Sofia Chapparo, Joshua Martin, Jennier Camacho Taylor, Jim Christensen, Ron Tzur, Elena Sandoval-Lucero

 

  1. Guest: Julia (celebrating/recognizing students)
    • For each commencement the university requests student nominations from each school and college – 1 – 2 undergrads, 1 MA, 1 doctoral
    • University Communications manages this process, and they are asking for the students names earlier and earlier, likely before fall break and spring break each term.
    • Julia noted that the form the committee is using is an improvement on the previous one in terms of ease of use, but the committee noted that it has not increased the number of nominations, yet.
    • The committee noted that recognizing one student does not align with our equity and social justice mission and we raise this issue every year.
    • In addition, the current awards only recognize academic accomplishments. We think it should be a combination of academic accomplishments and community service.
    • The committee proposes the following:
      1. Faculty regularly send their program leader emails with information about successful students in terms of academic accomplishments, community service, and overcoming obstacles.
      2. At each faculty meeting before the university deadlines, departments will get time to discuss the emails/nominations that program leaders have received. By the end of the meeting, we should have a robust list of nominations.
      3. We can also ask students to nominate themselves for recognition.
      4. In addition to those graduates that are submitted for the commencement program, Julia will receive information on all the nominees to promote on social media and in university communications whether they are graduating or still in their programs.
    • Next steps:
      1. Julia is meeting with the Dean tomorrow. She will ask for time in faculty meetings for departments to discuss students that faculty have submitted to program leads.
      2. Julia will reach out to Sandy to see if there are any PhD/EdD or undergraduate students to highlight for University Communications.
      3. Caron is contacting Brie with regards to commendations from INSPIRE (the student reporting system). She will report back on that next month.
      4. We need to know the deadlines for graduation each semester to reverse map out plans. Sandy Mondragon can give us that information.
      5. We will also take a couple more weeks to try to get more nominations for this semester, even though it is past the university’s deadline.

2. SEHD Student Committee Meeting Notes (Location? Impact?

    • Elena is the current committee note taker. She submits the notes to SEHD Impact after each meeting.
    • As far as where the notes live after that, we do not currently know. Elena will investigate and get back to the committee with that information.

3. Outstanding Graduate Fall 2023 Nominations

    • Tasheka Norman (LEO) – Selected Student
    • Aryl Charlton (ECE)

4. Upcoming – Scholarship Review (Spring Semester) – questions, updates, timelines

    • Scholarship review will happen again in the spring semester.
    • Sandy will prepare the applications for review.
    • Each committee member will review about 20 applications.
    • If for any reason, a committee member cannot review in the specified timeline, the rest of the committee will do additional reviews.

5. Faculty Retreat Wednesday 11/29 – Student Committee on Feedback/Engagement –

    • We have 15 minutes to engage the faculty in a conversation about student feedback and engagement.
    • The committee discussed several options for this brief time and developed the following plan based on a recommendation from Ron:
        1. Begin with a snippet of data from Antwan Jefferson
        2. Aspects of effective feedback
        3. Pose three questions for discussion.
        4. Provide a case study at the end to be used for further discussion at the January 31, 2024 faculty retreat.
    • We know that staff will be there as well and we can either engage them in a similar, but related conversation (student committee focused).
        1. Elena will facilitate a discussion with staff about ways to increase student engagement and persistence.
        2. Jenn would like to help with this portion of the discussion.
    • Faculty meeting planning time
        1. The committee stated a PowerPoint presentation to be used for the feedback session at the faculty meeting.
        2. By next Monday 11/13/23 committee members will add content to slides and note the slides they will discuss at the meeting.
    • Additional steps for this initiative
        1. Sofia will contact Antwan about some data for us to share with the faculty for the presentation.
        2. Caron will contact JaNet and Marvin about time on the next Faculty Retreat which will be 1/31/24.