Already we have made strides toward this goal. Last fall first-time student enrollment increased almost 15 percent and first-time transfer students increased by almost 7 percent. At the same time, international student enrollment increased by more than 30 percent.

The trend continued in this spring, with first-time student enrollment increasing more than 7 percent, first-time transfer enrollment increasing nearly 7 percent and international student enrollment increasing 14 percent.

With the university entering into a funding period this fall—a period when enrollments will determine state funding for two years—we are seeking to build on this wonderful momentum. Earlier this month, the Board of Regents approved increasing to $2,000 from $700 the amount of tuition assistance that each employee will be eligible for each year. Now employees’ dependents also will be eligible to use some or all of this allotment to pay for tuition expenses at SFA. This is just one of a number of proposals aimed at helping us reach a goal of boosting enrollment by 5 percent this fall.

As part of this enrollment push, the Graduate School has accepted a challenge to grow the number of graduate students by 30 in the fall. Among ways that it plans to meet this objective are boosting the amount and number of graduate assistantships and offering graduate student scholarships for the first time. I invite you to read more about this effort in this newsletter.

Other planned initiatives include:

• Awarding financial aid earlier.
• Introducing Return to Learn, a program for adult learners desiring to take college courses for career advancement or self-enrichment.
• Continuing to use Phone Jacks to contact admitted students.
• Contacting previously enrolled students.
• Designating a block of rooms for first-time students in Lumberjack Village, the student housing complex to open this fall.
• Providing additional support for the Pathways program.
• Expanding online course offerings.
• Increasing undergraduate and international scholarships.
• Increasing school district cost-sharing commitment to encourage graduate enrollment.
• Reviewing and streamlining enrollment and payment processing procedures.
• Creating more upper division class offerings with community college partnerships.

Great things are happening here. As more talented students discover the academic quality and value that SFA represents and decide to make this their college home, we will strengthen our case for increased legislative support.

Want the scoop about life today in Russia from someone who has worked and lived there? Do you know that SFA researchers are studying the human brain? Are you aware that naturally occurring arsenic concentrations in East Texas far exceed the global average.

Inquiring minds can learn about these and a plethora of other topics at the university’s first Bright Ideas Conference, scheduled noon-6 p.m. Friday on the second floor of the University Center.

The conference will provide a forum for seven SFA faculty and the director of the Academic Assistance and Resource Center to showcase their important research, scholarship and artistic endeavors during 30-minute programs. It also will give more than 75 other SFA faculty and student contributors the opportunity to exhibit their significant work.

The event responds to the strategic plan initiative to “recruit, develop and reward well-qualified faculty and staff.”

“This conference honors and recognizes the very best current researchers and performance artists at SFA,” said Dr. Mary Cullinan, provost and vice president of academic affairs. “The event gives the university community a forum for the exchange of information and ideas, and provides recognition throughout the region for the high-quality work being done here.”

Beginning at noon, the campus community can view exhibits, with some faculty and student exhibitors on hand to meet the attendees. Posters, demonstrations and exhibits will line the UC Grand Ballroom.

Beginning at 1 p.m., a video will introduce the eight spotlight presenters. Their presentations are scheduled 2-4:15 p.m., with two to be conducted concurrently in different rooms.

The day will conclude with a reception and award presentations beginning at 4:15 p.m., during which Jason Grogan will be recognized as recipient of the William R. Johnson Outstanding Thesis Award for 2005 for his work, “Southern Pine Beetle Infestation Probability Mapping Using Weights of Evidence Analysis.” Grogan received his Master of Science degree in forestry in August 2005.

During the reception, the SFA Faculty Jazz Combo, composed of Dr. Gary Wurtz, trumpet; Dr. Jeff Jacobsen, bass; and Dr. Stephen Lias, piano, will entertain.

Cullinan hopes the conference will become an annual event and expand next year to include attendees from throughout the region.

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Dr. Tim Cherry, Arthur Temple College of Forestry and Agriculture: “Use of Coccidiosis Vaccines in Commercial Broiler Operations.” Cherry will discuss effects and outcomes on vaccinated birds.

Dr. Deborah DuFrene , Nelson Rusche College of Business: “Technology Mediated Instruction: Do Technology Tools Meet Learner Needs?” She will outline how successful classroom implementation of technology requires active professor support, adequate student computer proficiency, and development of easy-to-use technology that is directly related to course outcomes.

Dr. Judith Lauter , College of Education: “The Human Neuroscience Laboratory: Opening New Windows on the Human Brain and Behavior.” She will explain how SFA’s Human Neuroscience Laboratory allows researchers to conduct non-invasive studies on living brains while people perform tasks. Research topics involve objective signs of hyperactivity, effects of such treatments as Ritalin and biofeedback, and explanations for dissimilar ways in which people read and learn.

Dr. Ernest Ledger , College of Sciences and Mathematics: “Regional Distribution of Arsenic in the Weches Formation of East Texas.” He will show how elevated levels of arsenic concentrations far exceed the global average in the Weches Formation. He will discuss the counties with the highest levels and how no adverse health effects are known to be caused by the naturally occurring arsenic, but that more research needs to be done.

Dr. Stephen Lias , College of Fine Arts: “A New Musical Composition Leads to Unexpected Places.” Lias will play a recording of his work, “Pursued,” discuss influences that contributed to its creation, and outline events that led to both Russian and American premieres of the piece.

Dr. Jeana Paul-Ureña , College of Liberal Arts: “Interpreting the Nueva Canciòn.” Nueva canciòn, an important communication form in Latin American, means “poetic song.” Through it, news, humor, ideologies, poems, instructions, literary, social and political messages are produced and dispersed among an audience of listeners, many times more than the number of readers who consume printed materials. She will discuss her work as an investigator and an artistic interpreter of this method.

Dr. Sharon Templeman , College of Applied Arts and Sciences: “Freedom is in the Eyes of the Beholder.” She will focus on her research of people in the Russian Federation and their experiences with drastic changes taking place there and how not all Russians view the changes as positive.

Robin Wright , Ralph W. Steen Library: “What Dr. Catherine Gale, in the 1960s Television Show, The Avengers, Taught Women: Long-Term Learning From Popular Culture.” She will explore the impact of the first feminist television character, Cathy Gale, from the 1962-64 British television program, and how the character helped women viewers reject traditional female roles to incorporate the character’s strengths and to seek out and learn from other feminist role models throughout their lives.

You’re standing in front of your class. One student is yawning, another just dozed off and few are making eye contact. You’ve covered this topic a hundred times, but this time is different: Most of the students simply appear uninterested.

Now help with this and lesser classroom predicaments is as close as the Ralph W. Steen Library and the Teaching Excellence Center. Opened this year on the library’s second floor—in one small office for the time being—the center is nurturing those who practice the art of teaching at SFA. The center answers strategic plan Action 50 and is part of the initiative to “recruit, develop and reward well-qualified faculty and staff.”

“Teaching is changing so much now,” says Dr. John Moore, professor of chemistry in the College of Sciences and Mathematics and center co-director. “It’s still an art. If it weren’t an art, you could have a definitive book about how to teach, and that would be it. When you’re in the classroom, it’s like you’re on a stage.”

Moore and fellow co-director, Dr. Lauren Scharff, professor of psychology in the College of Liberal Arts, may not have the definitive teaching book, but they do have a number of tools to prepare faculty for a classroom curtain call.

When students aren’t getting what a professor is teaching, there could be any number of reasons, Moore says. There may be a problem with students being engaged in the topic, which is more likely to be true in a freshman or survey course; the lecture style may not be working with a particular group; or the instructor may be using one technique, such as PowerPoint, exclusively—what Moore refers to as the “death by PowerPoint.”

Scharff attends the Teaching of Psychology Conference every year and has helped coordinate the event for the past 10 years. Eight years ago she helped start teaching circles at SFA and continues to coordinate that effort. Co-directing the Teaching Excellence Center is a natural outgrowth of those activities.

“It’s enabling me to do more of what I like—to help people across campus with teaching issues,” she says. “Doing it part time keeps me fresh: I’m more aware of what it’s like to be in the classroom.”

“We complement each other,” Scharff says of Moore, who also is dividing time between the center and the classroom. “It is so nice to have a partner, a sounding board. His set of experiences and skills are different from mine.”

The pair so far has conducted several individual consultations with faculty members, most self-referred, and is working with two regularly. At the outset, the co-directors and participants sign a confidentiality statement.

“We try to make it a very friendly, safe environment,” Moore says.

The help needed might be as simple as three faculty members who were unsure how to develop their poster presentation for this week’s Bright Ideas Conference. That was an easy fix. Others many need more in-depth assistance. As part of the consultation, the co-directors may arrange with faculty to observe them in the classroom and possibly videotape the class.

“When you’re observing someone, it’s more useful to focus on specific behaviors,” Scharff says, “because you can change behaviors.”

The observer also might take notes during a lecture, she says, to determine “can you actually take notes at the pace that they’re going?”

“Neither John nor I think that we’re the only people on campus who can do this kind of stuff,” Scharff says. But there’s benefit in working with an objective person who’s not in the faculty member’s department or college, the two agree—“outside of tenure, promotion, merit raises, any of that,” Moore notes.

The library also provides a central and neutral location.

Earlier this month, the SFA Board of Regents approved moving the Office of Instructional Technology, now in the Boyton Building, next to the Teaching Excellence Center in the library. This is a natural pairing, Moore says, because OIT teaches “the nuts and bolts” of online teaching, while one of Moore’s and Scharff’s goals is to help faculty determine their own style of teaching and how to incorporate technology into that style.

“Some teachers prefer face-to-face contact. Some prefer distance learning,” Moore says, and determining one’s style involves a lot of listening and questioning. “The faculty member will find their own answers.”

Future plans call for the center to have individual consultation rooms and a simulated classroom, with props from a chalk board to the latest electronic teaching aids to provide a non-threatening environment in which those not familiar with the technology can give it a try.

The center also will continue to offer workshops. An advising session was conducted in March and one is planned on incorporating writing assignments into a class while still handling the grading load.

“There are ways to do that and not kill yourself,” Scharff says.

A workshop for new faculty is planned July 1. It will include course syllabus and grade book creation, classroom management, academic dishonesty by students, reasonable grade distribution for different disciplines and how to begin faculty research.

Moore and Scharff are working closely with the new faculty orientation committee in planning for the approximately 50 new faculty expected at SFA this year.

“There are some experienced teachers coming in. There’s a significant number that this is their first teaching experience,” Moore says. “We hope to soften the waters a little bit.”

The duo also is working with a teaching associates group as well as deans and department chairs. They’re working to identify faculty experts in various areas, for instance faculty who manage large classrooms well or others who lead cooperative learning groups.

Other plans are to revise the faculty handbook and include “a survival guide” to integrate new faculty into the university and the community as quickly as possible. The center also will continue to schedule speakers on topics of interest to faculty.

Not only tenured faculty, but also teaching assistants and part-time faculty can take advantage of the center’s offerings. For more information or a schedule of activities, go to http:www.sfasu.edu/teachingexcellence/.

To date, “the response has been wonderful. I’ve never been associated with a project at SFA that has such complete support,” Moore says. “What we want is a one-stop shop for faculty.”

The Graduate School has set a goal of increasing the number of graduate students in fall 2006 by 30. Increasing the amount of graduate assistant stipends and the number of assistantships offered are among strategies to reach this goal. This month the Board of Regents approved raising the stipend to a minimum of $9,225 from $8,100.

“It helps us with recruiting because we need to keep up with other similar institutions,” said Dr. David Jeffrey, associate vice president for graduate studies and research. “Our graduate students work very hard and fulfill an important role for the university. We want to increase the stipend as a means of showing what an important part they are of the academic community.”

The number of assistantships offered by the Graduate School also will increase by five, to 200 from 195. Another 60 to 75 graduate students are paid out of other funds—typically grant funds, Jeffrey says, and most are involved in research.

Offering graduate scholarships for the first time is another strategy to increase graduate enrollment. The Graduate School has allocated $25,000 for the scholarships and will offer a minimum of 25 this fall. The Graduate Council meets this week to finalize criteria for the awards.

“We think that having $1,000 competitive scholarships available to students will make a difference in our recruiting,” Jeffrey says. “This is an important part of the enrollment initiative this fall.”

The Graduate Student Association, organized last year, also is enhancing the experience of graduate students at SFA.

The first year the members revised the Graduate School Web site. This year the group’s activities expanded. Friday the association will host the winner of the outstanding thesis award at a luncheon in conjunction with the Bright Ideas Conference, and the first student to graduate from the new master’s in creative writing and her short story were highlighted in The Pine Log. The group also hosted a recent graduate student information session that attracted approximately 25 prospective graduate students.

“This year we found the right mix of people and enthusiasm,” Jeffrey says. “We were able to give the association the boost that it needed to get it in front of the campus community.”