February 24, 2023
Summary
Have you tasted your Cornerstone treat yet? Mine was medium-bodied, not-too-dry, juicy, with hints of sweet plum, red currant, graham cracker and licorice. Oddly reminiscent of a 2018 Ravenswood Cabernet Sauvignon (because you know I wouldn’t have known to say “graham cracker” in a list of flavors – I got it off the Ravenswood website.) Nothing like marketing for wine and paint (arsenic, careless whispers, startling orange, snugglepuss, spill the wine, dead salmon – I got those paint colors off the internet too).
Full Description
Dear all,
Have you tasted your Cornerstone treat yet? Mine was medium-bodied, not-too-dry, juicy, with hints of sweet plum, red currant, graham cracker and licorice. Oddly reminiscent of a 2018 Ravenswood Cabernet Sauvignon (because you know I wouldn’t have known to say “graham cracker” in a list of flavors – I got it off the Ravenswood website.) Nothing like marketing for wine and paint (arsenic, careless whispers, startling orange, snugglepuss, spill the wine, dead salmon – I got those paint colors off the internet too).
OK, now down to business. Where to start? A long, busy week, sunny with hints of dead salmon and…..oh, never mind.
Steering Committee for Computing, Data and Applied Sciences Initiative The committee met this week to discuss progress so far. We have been meeting with individuals and groups around campus to gather thoughts and feedback (including from students and alumni), and we held an informative town hall on Wednesday evening. Thanks so much to those of you who came and shared their views and questions. The survey on questions you would like the steering committee to address is open until Monday, so please respond by then so your suggestions can be incorporated into our work. So far, questions are broadly focused on the following categories: Logistics; COLL curriculum; the Liberal Arts & Sciences; Admission Processes; Finances; Impact on Arts & Sciences. Members of the committee are currently engaged in reaching out to universities around the country to learn more about their organizational models as a way to figure out what would work best at W&M and for our particular brand of undergraduate and graduate education in A&S. We will be sharing some of those models with you after spring break, and asking for your feedback. To learn more about the committee, offer online feedback, or request a meeting, please visit our webpage, www.wm.edu/provost/cds.
External Review of Psychological Sciences Department The external review team for Psychological Sciences was on campus at the beginning of this week, meeting with faculty, students and staff and visiting labs and classrooms. We look forward to their report. This coming week is the turn of English, and then we can go back to bed (as far as external reviews are concerned) and not wake up again until early 2024 (also as far as external reviews are concerned. You may have to rouse yourselves for other reasons before then).
Hiring We have a number of searches going on, and the Vice-Deans have much enjoyed meeting the excellent candidates you are all bringing in. We know this is an incredibly busy time of year and we are really grateful for the effort you are putting into these searches. They’re exciting and stressful and time-consuming and all I can recommend to relieve your stress are intermittent tastes of Cornerstone, with its hints of…..oh, never mind.
Pre-med advising working group As I mentioned, we have constituted a working group to explore different models for pre-med advising at W&M. I am very grateful to Assistant Dean Shelly Laurenzo for chairing the working group, and to Lindsey Love (OUAA), Randy Coleman (CHEM), Wanjiru Mbure (A&S, DEI), Tom Linneman (SOCL), Evie Burnet (KINE) and Cheryl Dickter (PSYC) for agreeing to serve.
Fall 2023 schedule Big shout-out to Keanen McKinley, who created an amazing app to help us analyze data on enrollment needs, and extra big shout-out with lashings of Cornerstone to Assistant Dean Ben Boone, who has worked long hours this week with Keanen’s data and the results of the sustainable curriculum analysis, to come up with targeted recommendations for course adjustments for the fall schedule. We aren’t all the way there yet, especially with COLL, but we’re in good shape now, partly because of the wonderful support and co-operation of so many of you, especially the Chairs and Directors. We’ll be eager to get your thoughts on how well this process worked once it’s over. I am really happy that we already know we have good alignment between student needs and course capacity even before the schedule has gone live.
That’s it for this week. Off to do my Cornerstone training (again, because as with the hard hat and neon vest I wore last week, once was not enough). Happy weekend!
Take care, Suzanne
Suzanne Raitt
Acting Dean of the Faculty of Arts & Sciences
Chancellor Professor of English
Pronouns: she/her/hers
