CSUN President Harrison Gives Keynote Address at Annual Faculty Retreat

  • Vocal Percussion Radio, a student musical organization composed of six performers singing and playing drums. Their performance kicked off the 2013 Faculty Retreat on Jan. 14 after the opening remarks made by Faculty President Steven Stepanek and retreat co-chair Greg Knotts. More than 170 faculty attended the two-day retreat held in the University Student Union.

    California State University, Northridge kicked off this year’s Faculty Retreat on Jan. 14 with a performance by Vocal Percussion Radio, a student music organization, after Faculty President Steven Stepanek ’73 (Math), M.S. ’80 (Computer Science) and retreat co-chair Greg Knotts welcomed the attendees. More than 170 faculty attended the two-day retreat held in the University Student Union.

  • President Dianne F. Harrison giving the keynote address. Her speech, titled “Accelerating Success and Shining Brighter: Lessons from Innovators,” expressed her desire to find ways to help “CSUN shine more brightly” through strategies for accelerating the success of students and faculty.

    President Dianne F. Harrison gave the keynote address. Her speech, titled “Accelerating Success and Shining Brighter: Lessons from Innovators,” expressed her desire to find ways to help “CSUN shine more brightly” through strategies for accelerating the success of students and faculty.

  • Five panelists talking about “CSUN Faculty and Community Partners: Mapping Pathways to Success Through Student Internships.”

    Alumni and faculty served on a panel titled “CSUN Faculty and Community Partners: Mapping Pathways to Success,” which discussed the importance of faculty developing meaningful relationships with students that could result in future internships and jobs. On this panel, leaders in the College of Business and Economics talked about how they have nurtured a 20 year relationship with alumni who have worked at 20th Century Fox Television Distribution that has resulted in internships and jobs, and faculty from the College of Health and Human Development talked about how alumni have assisted in developing scholarship and intern opportunities with the Roy and Roxie Campanella Foundation and the Dodgers Dream Foundation. From left: Sylvia Alva, dean of the College of Health and Human Development; Aimie Kachingwe, faculty Department of Physical Therapy; Justin Primo ’04 (Marketing) and associate director for worldwide marketing 20th Century Fox Television Distribution; Michael Bessolo ’80 (Marketing) M.S. ’83 (Marketing) and former senior vice president of marketing at 20th Century Fox Television Distribution; Colleen Owen, CSUN marketing senior and intern at 20th Century Fox Television Distribution; and Judy Hennessey, interim dean of the College of Business and Economics.

  • Chicano studies professor Fermin Herrera playing the Mexican harp with his daughter singing and son playing guitar. His presentation titled “Reworking Mexico’s Musical Heritage: A Chicano’s Experience” focused on the embrace of traditional Mexican music by Mexican American culture.

    Chicano studies professor Fermin Herrera demonstrates the Mexican harp during his presentation, “Reworking Mexico’s Musical Heritage: A Chicano’s Experience.” He is joined by family members demonstrating instruments and vocal styles inspired by Mexico’s musical heritage.

  • Provost Harry Hellenbrand presenting his lecture titled “New Metrics for a New Age.” His speech concluded the retreat the afternoon of Jan.15.

    Provost Harry Hellenbrand closed the event on Jan. 15 with a lecture titled “New Metrics for a New Age.”

While acknowledging that MOOC’s—massive open online courses—are not the solutions to all of public higher education’s problems, President Dianne F. Harrison encouraged campus faculty to consider using technological tools and teaching innovations including Apple’s iPad and educational apps to help prepare students for the 21st century.

“The design of a typical classroom course is now ripe for innovation,” said Harrison at California State University, Northridge’s annual Faculty Retreat. “I encourage you to find and discover the most effective formats for our students. Rethink how to better use classroom time and space.

Harrison, who titled her speech, “Accelerating Success and Shining Brighter: Lessons from Innovators,” said part of her job as president is to find ways to help “CSUN shine more brightly” by describing possible strategies for accelerating the success of students and faculty.

The president urged faculty to consider participating in a pilot initiative that would provide training on how to use and incorporate the iPad and other educational tools into the classroom and how faculty might use iBooks Author to generate dynamic, low cost e-textbooks. She said the initiative would provide California State University, Northridge faculty access to Apple’s infrastructure, including global capacity and their 24/7 educational innovators team. She hopes to negotiate a plan for discounts for faculty and a proposal that would make it possible for every full-time student to purchase an iPad for as little as $75 a semester for two years, a cost that most financial aid packages would cover.

Harrison’s remarks were made during her keynote address on Jan. 14. She said her call for consideration of “new innovations” was spurred in part by the deluge of recent articles on the topic and an educational conference sponsored earlier this month by the 20 Million Minds Foundation at UCLA. She noted that Gov. Jerry Brown has set aside $10 million in his proposed CSU budget for online courses to enable more students to complete “bottleneck” courses.

More than 170 faculty attended the two-day retreat held in CSUN’s University Student Union and ended on Jan. 15. The event was opened with a welcome from Faculty President Steven Stepanek ’73 (Math), M.S. ’80 (Computer Science) and retreat co-chair Greg Knotts.

The retreat included a variety of panels and presentations including “CSUN Faculty and Community Partners: Mapping Pathways to Success Through Student Internships,” “Modern Teacher’s Toolkit: Simple Technologies You Can Incorporate Into Your Teaching Today,” and “Student Pathways in an Artistic Milieu.” Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Harry Hellenbrand offered the closing remarks.

During President Harrison’s presentation, Deone Zell from Academic Technology provided a tutorial on how faculty can use the iPad to create e-textbooks and Department of Biology’s Cheryl Van Buskirk demonstrated how she uses the iPad to teach.

Event organizers said the retreat provides an opportunity for the president to offer insight on campus priorities and for the faculty to exchange ideas and showcase their work.

“This is an opportunity to really highlight some amazing parts of our university,” said Greg Knotts, co-chair of the retreat and faculty in elementary education.

Several of the deans and others expressed an interest in using the iPad and other technology in their colleges. S.K. Ramesh, dean of the College of Engineering and Computer Sciences, said he is working on a pilot project funded by the U.S. Department of Education HSI-STEM grant to provide iPads to transfer students and the faculty who will be working with these students to “enhance communication, engagement, collaboration and creativity.”

At the end of the event, Emily Thom a professor in the Department of Child and Adolescent Development, said the retreat provided a “wonderful opportunity” to learn more about CSUN.

“It’s made me really proud of this university and the great things we are doing,” Thom said.