Dear College Faculty and Staff,

L’Shanah Tova!

Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, is upon us, culminating in next week’s Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement). May you be inscribed in the Book of Life!

Since last year, we have experimented with a bit of a different format for College Notes at the end of every month during the academic year. Instead of a College Notes with a recap of faculty, staff and student activity in the College, I offer up a Notes from the Dean, with some reflections and commentary.

This is the first Notes from the Dean for the 2022-23 academic year, so I'd like to take this opportunity to reprise some of my comments from this year's Fall Convocation – focusing especially on strategic goals for the College – and also share a bit of new writing.

As I wrote to the Chairs earlier this month, I am grateful for the tremendous engagement that you have offered over the last two years. Our many conversations, your extraordinary teaching, research and service, along with your grace and compassion, have taught me a great deal.

Many in the College have an entrepreneurial mindset and come to me with new initiatives they would like to pursue. These include research funding, new curricular initiatives, stepped-up student recruitment and scholarships (especially in relatively under-enrolled majors), and small to larger capital projects.

Below the signature, I have gathered together your aspirations and ideas, first into a Vision Statement, and second, a set of goals and priorities that support the vision by emphasizing improvements in our academic work environment. I believe that, at this moment in our history, fostering a more supportive College and campus will best spark the energies of our colleagues and students. Each of these goals and strategies will require many different kinds of efforts, on different timelines, so we know we will make progress on some of these at a different pace than others. I very much look forward to working on these with many of you over the next several years.

I would also like to share with you a piece I wrote with my four AJCU arts and sciences dean colleagues from the 2020 cohort. It offers a little bit of perspective on being an arts and sciences dean at a Jesuit university today.

Finally, I hope to see many of you next week at the inauguration of our wonderful new president, Julie Sullivan!

Onward!

Daniel

Vision:

As a central part of our Jesuit and Catholic University, the College of Arts and Sciences advances the fundamental knowledge and addresses the fundamental challenges of society by promoting discovery, deepening  knowledge, and fostering artistic expression. Using the lens of social justice, we focus on the sustainability of our common home, and address humanity’s problems, such as inequity, poverty, and health. The College will evolve into an ever more welcoming academic community where faculty, staff and students flourish in a climate of mutual respect, celebration, and compassion.

Strategic Goals:

The departments, programs, centers, and initiatives in the College of Arts and Sciences contribute to this vision through the following interconnected goals.

Goal #1 - Fostering extensive engagement between undergraduates and faculty

• Actively engaging students in their majors and the Core curriculum
• Conducting research and creative activity
• Mentoring students and peers
• Providing opportunities for vocational discernment
• Advising undergraduates
• Ongoing innovation in pedagogy and curriculum

Goal #2 - Creating a learning and working environment that prioritizes justice, equity, diversity and inclusion (JEDI)

• Increasing faculty development opportunities in JEDI
• Developing JEDI curriculum and inclusive pedagogies
• Recruiting and supporting diverse faculty, staff, and students so that they may thrive at Santa Clara University
• Gauging and responding to changes in the classroom climate among students and with their faculty

Goal #3 - Providing engaged, experiential learning with connections to our local communities in the context of a global world

• Offering meaningful internships
• Conducting well-supported field studies
• Engaging with communities
• Providing hands-on lab and studio experiences
• Leading deeply engaged capstone experiences

Goal #4 - Supporting faculty and staff in their professional development

• Providing greater support to Associate Professors and RTLs for advancement to Full Professor and Senior Lecturer, respectively
• Expanding the Faculty Collaborative into a Center for Inclusive Teaching and Learning
• Ongoing training and skills acquisition for staff advancement
• Meaningfully rewarding service excellence

Goal #5 - Defining the liberal arts Teacher-Scholar Model at SCU in the 21st Century

• Supporting faculty as they distinguish themselves in the disciplinary/interdisciplinary fields of study and artistic expression
• Identifying the optimal blend of teaching, scholarship and service for each faculty member
• Collaborating on scholarship and creative activity with undergraduates
• Defining a wide range of research and creative activity so that all faculty, staff and students may personally flourish in their disciplines

Vision and Strategic Goals web page

College of Arts and Sciences Calendar