Updates on New Academic Initiatives: Partnership with the Learning House

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On April 23, 2014, the President and Provost signed a 5-year contract with the Learning House (TLH), a for-profit company that provides a variety of services to colleges and universities that wish to develop or expand their online program offerings. We have contracted with TLH for the sole purpose of aggressively marketing and recruiting our existing and anticipated new academic online programs. Our goal is to increase the number of students in fully online programs from our current number of 500+ students to approximately 2,000 in the next five years. In only a few months, TLH has already demonstrated their ability to exceed our original enrollment goals. Their employment of success coaches ensures that Lesley students enrolled in online programs have all the tools they need (both academically and technologically) to achieve their learning objectives.

TLH brings a tremendous amount of expertise to the university. As a result of the implementation of this partnership, Lesley has been able to develop systems that streamline the online student application and registration process for online student.  As a result of discussions about streamlining student services, Lesley has expanded its book voucher program, allowing students to use federal financial aid to purchase textbooks and other materials through the university book store.  Although still in the early stages of our relationship, Lesley is already seeing significant benefits to this partnership.

Professional Developments Opportunities for November 2014

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Looking for Professional Development opportunities?
Be sure to check out the new Faculty Professional Development Calendar, which will share professional development opportunities from eLIS, CTLS, and the Creativity Commons.

November 2014 Faculty Professional Development Highlights Include:

NEASC Update

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Many thanks to all members of the campus community who have worked tirelessly on the NEASC self-study process thus far. The accreditation process offers an important opportunity for us to describe the status of our major initiatives, appraise and evaluate our efforts across multiple areas, and identify projections for focused improvements in the coming years. We encourage everyone to read the DRAFT self-study [Lesley Login Required] and provide input to the co-chairs, Lisa Fiore and Lisa Ijiri either by email, in person, or via the confidential survey. The visiting team will be on campus April 12-15, 2015 to meet with students, faculty, staff, and administration.

Fall 2014 CTLS Updates

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Dear Colleagues –

The semester is well underway, and the crispness and colors of fall are awakening the senses – any that aren’t already wide awake. The current tension in the changing weather reflects the tension we experience in our daily work – noticing and celebrating the joy in ordinary teaching and learning moments while balancing feelings of uncertainty and concern. Recognizing the strength in our collective wisdom and voice is so important. Together we can work toward authentic, collaborative decision-making that results in positive, thoughtful action. I encourage all of us to address the current challenges with compassion and curiosity – with resolve and commitment to the mission and community citizens of Lesley University. And I sincerely wish everyone a wonderful semester…

lisa

Lisa B. Fiore, Ph.D.
Dean of Faculty & Professor

Download the Center for Teaching, Learning & Scholarship Vol. 5, Issue 1, Fall 2014

Inside this issue you’ll find:

    • We’re looking for faculty who are interested in volunteering to read/critique one another’s work
    • Call for CTLS Grant Proposals (3 Available)
    • Congratulations to Associate Professor Liv Cummins! Her original musical theater piece, The Bridge, is debuting in workshop
    • The latest issue of The Journal of The Journal of Pedagogy, Pluralism and Practice is live

TLTech Updates

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The Teaching and Learning with Technology Committee (TLTech) is comprised of faculty representative from each of Lesley’s four schools, as well as a representative from IT (Charles Cooper), eLearning and Instructional Support (Eric Esteves), the Library (Constance Vrattos), and the Academic Achievement Center (Ruth Bork). The committee is co-chaired by Heather Tillberg-Webb and Michele Forinash.

This year, the faculty representatives from each school are as follows:

  • CLAS: Nancy Jo Cardillo and Bryan Brophy-Baermann
  • LUCAD: Brandon Strathmann and Tommy Matthews
  • GSASS: Nancy Beardall and Michele Forinash
  • GSOE: Susan Patterson and Rita Gordon

The agenda items that TLTech will explore and address in the coming year include student technology competencies and student technology orientation; FERPA and student privacy; accessibility and learning technology.

If you have agenda items or concerns related to technology, please reach out to one of your school’s representatives to ensure the item is addressed. TLTech meets on the 2nd Monday of each month.

New Online Programs

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Several new online programs have been approved by their school’s respective curriculum committee and the Provost’s office.

The following new online programs will be ready to launch in January 2015.

These include three new specializations in the undergraduate Business curriculum:

  • Accounting
  • Marketing, and
  • Non-Profit Management

As well as a new online Advanced Professional Certificate program in Literacy in the K–8 Classroom:

  • APC in in Literacy in the K–8 Classroom

Community College Partnerships

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Lesley’s Community College partnership initiatives welcome a new member to the team: Jennine Tambio!

Jennine joins us as the new Community College Partnerships Coordinator. Jennine and our Enrollment Management colleagues are recruiting this fall for two Bachelor’s programs to be offered on the BHCC campus — a B.S. In Business Management and a B.A. in Psychology. Lesley has always been pleased to serve BHCC students as transfer students, and we are delighted to be working on a pathway for more students from BHCC to have the opportunity to complete a Lesley degree.

Global Center Updates

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The Global Center at 7 Mellen is bustling with activity this fall. New exchange agreements with Centennial College in Hong Kong, SoGang in South Korea, and Osaka Commerce University in Japan, were recently signed — and we already expect several students from Sogang to join us in January. The Urban Scholars have a new home as part of the Global Center joining CLAS foreign language faculty and interns from the International Higher Education/Intercultural Relations program. The global center has become a multi-cultural, multi-lingual home for a community of global scholars, and we are eager to grow and expand our programs and supports. On Wednesday evening, October 8th the center hosted a social gathering for international students. In addition, we’re in the process of hiring a new Director of International Student Recruitment and Success for the Global Center. We look forward to extending our reach further for comprehensive internationalization.

Academic Catalogs Are Now Online and Searchable

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A truly “out with the old and in with the new” project was undertaken this summer to streamline the 2014-15 academic catalog production process. This work spanned multiple departments and involved the complete overhaul and installation of an updated web-based system. This area now houses all of the catalog data and is accessible via a much more user-friendly interface. Updates for later catalogs may now be made quickly and efficiently by the individuals who were trained on the SmartCatalog system. In addition, we now have access to online versions of the undergraduate and graduate catalogs, which are completely searchable.