Faculty Retreat
From Curriculum Advisory Committee
A Faculty Retreat was held on Friday afternoon October 26, 2007. The retreat was facilitated by Maureen Sullivan and attended by a variety of full-time and adjunct faculty members as well as faculty and staff from the GSLIS Administrative Offices and at least two current students in the masters program. Minutes were taken by Lisa Woronzoff-Dashkoff.
The retreat consisted of a review and discussion of seven curriculum development proposals submitted by members of the faculty in response to the following "exercise" circulated by Dean Cloonan prior to the meeting:
Scenario: We will hire 13 new faculty by 2013, in addition to replacing any retiring faculty.
Assignment: Here's your opportunity to shape a program! Select an existing area that could be strengthened or suggest a new area in which we could excel and have national impact. Write a one-paragraph description of the area. Describe why this area is, or could become, critical to GSLIS. Why would it bring GSLIS national/international visibility? How many faculty would we need to hire in the area? If you could select a "dream team," who would be on it? (Feel free to identify junior and senior faculty from anywhere and from any discipline.) What other resources might be required to assure the success of your proposed area (technology, staff, bibliographic resources, and so on)?
Proposals are listed below with a summary of each and brief description of initial reactions/consensus among retreat participants.
1. Doctoral Studies
Summary: The proposal suggests a need to strengthen and increase doctoral level offerings without specifying subject areas (beyond the need for faculty leadership in the MLIP program). The authors note that "...the direction of the College as a whole suggests that we should improve support for doctoral studies, and that we should position ourselves to take advantage of opportunities for collaboration."
Participants' Initial Reaction: Attendees recognized that the Simmons community itself is a competitive landscape and that GSLIS developments in the area of doctoral studies and especially doctoral reseach with faculty involvement and oversight would be necessary to maintain or enhance our position within the Simmons community (not to mention the LIS community and the global information management community). No matter what subject areas we choose for development at the doctoral level, we will need "...senior level faculty researchers who can teach doctoral courses, serve on or chair doctoral committees, conduct (funded) research with doctoral students, and supervise independent inquiry." [from the proposal]
2. Cultural Heritage Preservation
Summary: Describes LOC commitment to conservation and preservation and Simmons GSLIS inability to take advantage of LOC funding through NDIIPP program due to inadequate faculty staffing in this area. Describes competitive landscape with continued stronghold at University of Texas and digital preservation specialities developing at University of North Carolina and University of Michigan. Points out that Simmons is strategically poised to respond to growing (and increasingly digital) needs of historic institutions situated in the Northeastern United States. Points out that at least one full-time faculty person would be needed to consolidate latent strengths in this subject area.
Participants' Initial Reaction: Strongly positive. All indicators point to a market opportunity stemming from GSLIS's +20 year involvement with preservation studies and proximity to significant U.S. history collections.
3. Visual Resources Area
Summary: This proposal is fairly closely linked to the Cultural Heritage Preservation proposal above in that both discuss the growing demand for digitization of art/historic collections. This program has a slightly different aspect however in that it seeks faculty resource development in the area of human-computer-interface (or how we see things presented digitally).
Participants' Initial Reaction: Favorable. Sarah Heartt suggested to the proposal author (Gerry Benoit) that there might be some overlap with the School Library Teacher Program. Students in that program serve and work closely with "digital natives," who seem to have different atttitudes towards and expectations of visual information than text-centric adults.
4. Organization of Information Specialization
Summary: This proposal suggests the presence of a content gap in current LIS programs. "In general, LIS education is not meeting the needs of those interested in organizing information or those of institutions wishing to hire catalogers and metadata librarians. In today's LIS education environment, cohesive, comprehensive cataloging, organization of information and metadata programs are almost nowhere to be found." The authors point out that cataloging was once a perceived strength of the GSLIS program and that we could with relatively small investment "...position GSLIS as T*H*E metadata and cataloging school in North America..." attracting students both nationally and internationally. Proposal includes an outline of coursework and an extensive list of "dream team" faculty and faculty candidates. [Quoted material is from the proposal.]
Participants' Initial Reaction: Strongly favorable.
5. Health Informatics Area
Summary: This proposal briefly describes the necessary credentials and interdisciplinary nature of medical informatics and bioinformatics. Potential collaboration with other universities and with hospitals is mentioned.
Participants' Initial Response: Significant up-front (essentially speculative) investment would be needed to determine a credible niche for Simmons GSLIS in this locally crowded arena.
6. Globalization, Multiculturalism, and Diversity (including digital development) [Yes, that is the actual title of the proposal.]
Summary: This one-paragraph proposal, reflecting a uniquely strict interpretation of Dean Cloonan's assignment, argues the need for increased curricular focus on (and faculty support for) the impact of information digitalization on countries with varied norms and information policies.
Participants' Initial Response: Students in all GSLIS courses should be encouraged to consider the impacts of information technology on diverse user populations. This is not so much a curricular focus area as an attitude and approach to be embraced and reflected by every member of the GSLIS faculty. All faculty hiring should include consideration of candidate readiness to perform (with generosity and sensitivity) in and among diverse user communities.
7. Theories of Information Area
Summary: This is a subject area that looks at the premises and consequences of information management behavior and the impact of information management on how we learn and how we live. A lecture series is proposed with outreach to philosophers at area schools.
Participants' Initial Response: Faculty, especially junior faculty, were strongly supportive of curriculum development in this area. Two masters students expressed concern that the area was too theoretical for masters-level pursuit, but that it would be appropriate for doctoral students.
These notes were prepared by Sarah Heartt, a member of the Curriculum Advisory Committee. Concerns or complaints should be directed to Ms. Heartt at heartt@simmons.edu
