Academic Retreat – Directors
January 17, 2013
The York Room
Attendees: B. Barnett, E. Daffron, L. Chakrin, S. Perry, S. Rosenberg, E. Siecke, E.
Saiff, T. Lamprey, A. Lorentz, M. Cammarata, L. Weems, P. Chang, B. Levy, S. Perry,
G. Tabback, P. Campbell, J. Jeney and G. Khaneja.
B. Barnett opened the meeting and explained the idea behind the Academic Affairs
Retreat and what she expected to accomplish. Two are currently held each year in
January and June.
Planning – The university mission has been refreshed and will be put out for review by
the entire community.
There is still an emphasis on the four areas that used to be called pillars, still focused on
academic excellence. Ramapo remains a public liberal arts college that prepares students
to be contributing citizens and successful in their lives.
Economic factors that have impacted the college:


Amount of funding state and donors can give
Amount of tuition and fees students can afford to pay
Population – the number of high school students in NJ is declining as it is in every state
surrounding NJ except Delaware.
Traditional pools of students are becoming smaller making recruitment of high achieving
students more competitive.
Hispanic/Latino high school graduates are the only group that is growing.
Information Technology – G. Tabback – The mission statement or goal of IT is to keep
abreast of technology and assure overall quality and security of data and networks.
These measures are based on budget and end user satisfaction.
Overall – focused on servers, networks and security; Banner has been updated to Version
11.6 (Oracle)
Technology seems to be moving towards tablets or smaller type devices which require an
upgraded network.
Ramapo Apps continue to be developed.

Educational Technology – transfer of management - Jennifer Mazza has taken
over as Director of the Instructional Design Center.

Technology is starting to move into cloud servers.

Would like to identify applications that can run in the cloud, especially Banner.
M. Cammarata and P. Chang – Student Affairs –
Eight different areas within Student Affairs and four goals:




Enhance Student Engagement
Foster Student Autonomy, leadership and personal development
Engage in strategic planning and assessment
Facilitate scholarship and professional development
Goal 1 – Established key points of engagement (25) to be completed in student’s first and
second year.
Major initiatives are tracking these key points of engagement through the co-curricular
transcript. Completing this creates a benefit that can be applied to housing or parking.
Cahill Center - Different career fairs are now created for different majors.
Conducted large number of career seminars and fairs during the past semester.
Cahill Center has restructured the Archway – making it easier for students to seek out
employment
Counseling Center – Saw over 1000 students over the past semester. There were 1296
Health related appointments in fall 2012. There are more students on medication with
complex psychological issues.
Center for student involvement and residence life - challenge is trying to get students
more engaged – 50% of students now live on campus – therefore we need to offer more
services and activities around the clock for students.
Four new initiatives have been developed:

Equity and Diversity Programming



Civic and Community Engagement
Violence prevention
Commuter Affairs and Student Leadership Program
Employee Relations – E. Jeney - Maintaining a 97 – 98% compliance rate on all
training and forms that are submitted.
Have updated the Annual Performance Assessment form (APAS).
Adjunct contract not yet ratified. Did start working on guidelines for hiring adjuncts, the
next step is the hiring process.
Sedona – Vitas are up to date with current hires. In spring 2013 there are plans to work
with small convening groups to input all their materials. Hope to train unit secretaries in
the summer so they can assist with Sedona in fall semester.
Degree Completion – T. Laprey
Designed to attract students who do not fit a traditional day-time program.
Its a fully mapped out program, a cohort-based program.
Looking at what is already in place and looking at what can be repackaged or repurposed.
Currently offering a major in Social Science looking to attract more majors.
The students attend class year round.
College Honors Program – P. Campbell
Program is growing – challenges are in streamlining program goals.
Success in improving the number of applicants.
Just started part-time assistant director of Honors Program.
In process of doing 4 years plans for each major.
Living and Learning Communities – Aaron Lorenz
Mission is to provide 1st students with holistic, curricular and co-curricular program
which is directed at student success
Every student takes social issues and first year seminar
Design of LLC is to get undeclared students to declare majors.
No drastic changes planned for 2013-14.
2014-15 – Calls for a larger nimber of students involved and a broader program involving
more faculty across the college.
EOF – L. Weems
L. Weems opened with a review of students profiles including GPAs and SAT scores.
He would like to enhance the Academic Intervention Component by utilizing automated
student progress reports.
Advisement Strategies – Looking to develop and strengthen advisement strategies.
Alumni Advisory Board – comprised of about 15 alums who serve as professional
mentors and student/program advocates.
Supplemental Instruction program includes support in courses that have been historically
challenging to EOF students. This program is open to all students not just those in the
EOF program.
Grants/Scholarships – This year revised the freshman scholarship to provide more
financial aid to second year students. Graduate Professional School Preparation – There
has been an increase in student participation in the EOF graduate school preparation
program. These prep programs are expensive.
EOF is preparing a newsletter that will be distributed to everyone in the near future.
Institutional Research –G. Khaneja
The IR focus is on Graduate Student survey and majors.



Developing plans for tracking alumni.
Trying to contact students through their regularly used emails; must find ways to
gather these emails.
An alumni survey will be used to capture the employment trends for Ramapo
students. Will offer prizes or raffles to ensure high response rate.
The National Student Clearing House currently has data on where Ramapo students
attend graduate school and what area of study they are pursuing. A list of 10 cohorts was
submitted to the Clearing House; IR received information back but is still working on
results.
A new website for Institutional Research agenda should be up the end of spring.
Office of Fellowships/Scholarships - A. Lorenz
Mission is to make students aware of prestigious fellowships, scholarships grants for
graduate school and undergraduate scholarships.
Currently working with graduating seniors
Provide academic support to help students with the application process.
Currently advising about 110 students.
Student faculty research – how can student demonstrate that they are scholars and not just
students. Faculty student research is one of those ways.
Recruitment – Have tried to work with the living learning communities to try and recruit
students at the first year and even second year so they can plan ahead.
Have been able to meet with the Honors Society.
For 2013-14 there are events with Cahill and some with Kaplan Test preparation. Trying
to get students more aware of how prestigious these scholarships are.
Roukema Center
International Education Committee up and running with full membership.
Reestablished the Honor Society with Susan Hangen as advisor.
Trying to create a greater visibility on campus.
Will start student survey on international education in about 2 weeks.
In fall of 2013 there will be a new Asian Studies program in Japan.
There is also a new direct affiliation with University College Dublin in Ireland which is
an AACSB accredited business school.
Meeting with a number of administrative units to strengthen immigration procedures.
Study Abroad – Committee extremely active last year in clarifying and strengthening
operations.
Student Engagement
Have been in planning and implementation for three years. First and second year plans
for student engagement have been developed and implemented. This year, the needs of
transfers was studied. A retreat will be held to discuss the integration of transfers into the
existing plans. Third year engagement will be the next area of focus.
Intention to develop a plan for students based on their class year.
There is a steering committee, and there have been retreats with wide participation from
faculty and staff.
KPE’s key points of engagement – are used to identify key experiences and events
students should experience while in college.