EMAIL from Vice President Virginia Horvath:
This semester Academic Affairs is sponsoring an opportunity to help the campus community continue to be aware of what's taking place and to have a chance to share viewpoints and perspectives on how what's taking place makes a difference (or could make a difference) for ourselves, for our students, and for our campus. This first meeting is on Tuesday, Sept. 6, but meetings throughout the semester will be on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
Dick Reddy (Professor, Department of Sociology, Anthropology, Criminal Justice, and Social Work) has generously agreed to coordinate this series. He brings to that role not only his years of important university service and deep understanding of SUNY Fredonia but his extensive reading and reflection about issues related to student learning, faculty roles, and higher education in general. He has served for the past year as a faculty leader in the national AASCU Red Balloon Project, participating in national discussions of ways to address the challenges of higher education.
Here is Dick Reddy’s description of the conversations: “As the name suggests, we're very much aiming at a group-guided and group-directed experience. During their first meetings, each group will decide on the topics it would like to consider—what’s on your mind and the things that you're interested in and would like to talk about—and put together a tentative schedule for at least several sessions. We're hoping for (and expecting) lively, engaged discussions on things that matter to us.
Even though a particular session may have a topic or topics which have been identified ahead of time, as experiment, we may start out with a “go around” of “hot topics” since the previous session to help us get a sense of possible future discussion directions. If you're especially interested in a topic, you are more than welcome to volunteer to lead a discussion. There is no obligation to attend all sessions of your group. Come to either or both depending on your interests and schedule.”
