Faculty Senate anticipated hiring new deans and the incoming accreditation process at Tuesday’s meeting.
Campus updates
University of Idaho Provost and Executive Vice President Torrey Lawrence said there isn’t a new update for COVID-19 at UI. The university will continue the recent change of no masks required in campus buildings. Although faculty maintain the option of requiring masking in during their classes.
“Right now, numbers continue to either improve or be the same as they were prior,” Lawrence said. “But we continue to watch things.”
Lawrence said one of the main items on the administration’s agenda is hiring a dean of the College of Education, Health and Human Sciences and the College of Engineering. Interviews for the position are being conducted and the plan is to select two candidates before the summer break.
UIdaho Bound will start this weekend with 1,300 potential students on campus Saturday, according to Lawrence. The event includes campus tours, registration for classes and a kickoff event at the Idaho Central Credit Union Arena.
Accreditation process
The curriculum accreditation starts in the next two weeks. The Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities carries out the process at UI.
Dean Panttaja, interim vice provost for academic initiatives, said the accreditation process will examine different initiatives to fulfill department and college goals.
“The overarching purpose of an accreditor is to make sure that we’re fulfilling our mission as an institution,” Panttaja said.
The three main areas of UI’s mission are student success, institutional effectiveness and continual progress through data collection.
“Student success and achievement is institutionalized and ongoing,” Pantajja said. “It has to do with factors such as retention, persistence, scholarships, recognitions and awards. As well as what happens with our students at those graduation externship opportunities.”
The second part of mission fulfillment, institutional effectiveness, was submitted last March.
“We are basing our allocations to all our units on data-driven reflection,” Pantajja said.
The last factor, continual improvement, measures ongoing assessment and analyzes the curriculum.
Sierra Pesnell can be reached at [email protected]