Class 38: Discussion with Toni Torres, Director of Strategic Initiatives and Institutional Effectiveness + Interview project

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For our thirty-eighth class on October 30, 2017 we met at 2pm in 901 NAB.

In the first half of class we'll be visited by Antoinette (Toni) Torres, the Director of Strategic Initiatives and Institutional Effectiveness. She is a new addition to the President's Office and as mentioned in Laura's Welcome (Back) Message, Toni will co-chair a Diversity and Inclusion Task Force along with Sam Keene, Professor of Electrical Engineering who was also a part of drafting new mission language and involved in ongoing Middle States Accreditation.

In the second half of class we'll discuss and workshop a prompt for the coming two weeks.

See below for the conversation assignment, with 3 pages of synthesis due November 13.

Projects -- Conversation.pdf
Some possible conversation questions.pdf

Photos

📸 More photos (Dropbox 🔒)

Emails

Hi Projects class 🍂,

We'll meet today at 2pm in room 901 NAB. In the first half of class we'll be visited by Antoinette (Toni) Torres, the Director of Strategic Initiatives and Institutional Effectiveness. She is a new addition to the President's Office and as mentioned in Laura's Welcome (Back) Message, Toni will co-chair a Diversity and Inclusion Task Force along with Sam Keene, Professor of Electrical Engineering who was also a part of drafting new mission language and involved in ongoing Middle States Accreditation.

In the second half of class we'll discuss and workshop a prompt for the coming two weeks. 

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Reminders:

📣 If you have any announcements for the class email, feel free to write to Vic, Casey, Harry & Walid. We are happy to send them around! 

📝 If you haven't submitted your initial 2 pages and related materials, Vic is collecting those files — please email her at v.g.sobel@gmail.com. Once we have everybody's files in we will share them with the class.

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100&Cooper applications due Nov. 19

If you missed Mary (Dwyer)'s info session on 100&Cooper on Friday, the slides are attached, and Mary can say a bit more in class and answer any questions. In a sequence of two new HSS classes organized by Mary, Ariana, and 4 other students in collaboration with Laura students will study the landscape of higher education in the United States and apply, as a class, for a $100 million MacArthur Foundation grant, "that promises real and measurable progress in solving a critical problem of our time." Classes will be taught by Nicholas Tampio and Andrew Sparks, as well as Peter Buckley (who will also review applications and select participants).

Applications to be part of the 100&Cooper class are open through November 19 at 11:59pm to dwyer@cooper.edu, Subject: Application Request.

Mary Dwyer presenting on 100&Cooper.jpg
100 & Cooper Info Session.pdf

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Last week (10/23/17):

We had a wide-ranging two-and-a-half hour conversation with Richard Stock, Dean of Engineering. We discussed Richard's history at Cooper as professor and former union president; the current dean search and past dean searches; the day-to-day of running a school, as well as the larger work of "cleaning up", examining systems and trying to streamline them, and implementing policies where they're missing; similarities and differences between the School of Art and School of Engineering, from governance, to curriculum, to admissions; missions and culture, or what makes Cooper "Cooper"; what the future holds for the school of engineering, with modernization of curriculum and teaching styles to reflect a changing world; and we also debated two approaches to getting out of debt, at length: slow and steady vs. an immediate and drastic reformatting to operate within one's means.


See attached for the conversation assignment, with 3 pages of synthesis due November 13. 

Also attaching some interview questions generated by the class today. 

Everybody please be in touch with your interviewee to schedule a conversation outside of class in the coming week.

Also, a quick reminder: no class next week on November 6.

If you missed today and have questions, feel free to be in touch with Casey/Vic/Harry/Walid to ask any questions.

Chalkboard of some questions for interview assignment.jpg
Projects -- Conversation.pdf
Some possible conversation questions.pdf