UWP Lecturers Update on Lecturer Concerns
Lash Keith Vance
lashv at ucr.edu
Thu Oct 16 09:16:17 PDT 2008
Greetings Fellow NSF Members,
<= /B>
Last week, Julie and I sent out an invitation for
you = to email us about any concerns you might have
for the upcoming year= , especially regarding the
transition to the new UWP administration.&nbs= p; We
then held a very productive, two-hour meeting with
Cynde Sanchez, = Cheryl Brusuelas, and John Briggs
on Wednesday, October 8th.
Understandably, many people have = been anxious
about the transition to the new program. As many of
t= he recent emails from administrative staff and
from John Briggs ind= icate, the last four months
have been very, very busy. They have m anaged--without too many snags--to sucessfully
launch a very large progr= am. This is no small
feat.
</P= >
The salient impression that Julie and I both had
after the meeting= was how dedicated Cynde, Cheryl,
and John are to facilitating lecturers= and making
the program work--and by extension, Regina, who did
not atte= nd the meeting.
Many= of the issues we brought up in the meeting
they were already aware of, = but they simply had
not had the time to directly address them. Ind eed, we were surprised to find out that both Cynde
and Cheryl have a cou= ple of initiatives in play
designed to really help lecturers in their da= ily
teaching lives; these depend, of course, on finding
money for these = initiatives, which is a real task
in this economy. Cynde is a real= fighter on our
behalf, and she no doubt annoys the personnel at the
bud= geting office.
The short an= d the long of it is that
administratively Cynde, Cheryl, and John are al= l
working very hard, and they want to do what is
necessary to facilitate= lecturers. Julie and I
were not aware of half of what they have b= een up
to.
<B= >
While we were no= t able to fully discuss every
topic--one topic that is of great importan= ce is
the potential impact of WAC on lecturers--, we did
get through the= majority of them. The
solutions/actions taken are listed in blue = below
the topic. You have received emails from various
folks about= many of these issues already, but I
thought we could condense them into= one long email
with attachments included.
</B= >
------------- ---------------------------------------
Keys to the E= nglish Department
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: = 0pt"><FONT
color=#0000ff = size=2>Because we are a separate
entity from English now, we simply do= n't have the
right to retain keys to their xerox room. Lecturers
w= ho would like to have or keep a key to the
English Department library ca= n go on an individual
basis to ask for a key. The English Departme= nt, I
am told, is amenable to this, but they need to keep
track of those= keys.
Access t= o Common Space
· </SP= AN>Lecturer meeting space</o= :p>
· = Scheduling of room
<FONT= color=#0000ff size=2>We now have three
possible meeting areas (HMNS= S 1103-- fill out
roster will be posted in 1103; the UWP Conference
Room= --by appointment with Cynde; and a smaller
tutorial room--by roster).&nb= sp; This is great.
Our first= annual Royal Pedagogigical Society will
meet in the UWP conference room= Wed, Oct 22nd from
2-3:30PM.
 = ;
Location of Supplies
*
Letterhe= ad
*
= Other supplies
</UL= >
Letterhead will be located with Ter= i Carter,
Aline Messer, Kathy Moore, Linda Strahan, Cynde
Sanchez, Chery= l Brusuelas, and Regina, so
there are many ways to get it. There i= s a
legal issue, apparently, in having letterhead
out in common areas.</= FONT>
<SPA= N style="COLOR: black">Other supplies ( markers and such) can be had with Aline, Teri,
and Regina.
Fax Machine
</= SPAN>
<SPAN= style="COLOR: black">We do have a fax machine located in Cheryl's office, and all
lecturers are welcome to fax= documents. We did
ask about having a common fax machine in HMNSS 1102 installed, but such a fax would cost
upwards of $50.00 a month plus= the installation
costs. Apparently, UCR has to put in a separate
= data line for the fax, so a normal, dedicated
phone line will not work.&= nbsp; We agreed that
if there was a real need exhibited for fax usage
ab= ove and beyond what Cheryl could reasonably
accomodate that we could ret= urn to this issue.
B= usiness Cards
· </SPA= N>Feeling of lack of editing
cont= rol over cards
· </SPA= N>Lack of knowledge of how to
get= cards
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: = 0pt">
We can order business cards, and the form to do
so= was sent to everyone on the listserv.
Because all card orders nee= d to go through a
common UCR program accessible only by staff,
turn in t= his form (and your $42.55) to Cynde
Sanchez, who will input your informa= tion from
the form. Every department on campus has no
centralized = this function. The .pdf file is
included wit= h this email.
<P = class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0pt"> Lack of Knowledge of Whom to See about Issues
= Because ther= e were so many things to be
dealt with the first months of the program, specific duties were somewhat unclear. The l ist of duties of staff is also included here as
an attachment. </= FONT>
<SPA= N style="COLOR: black"></= B>
Copier .pdf
· <= /SPAN>Lecturers want to create .p dfs on the copier
<P = class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0pt"> Some lecturers have asked about the abili= ty to
scan .pdf files using our UWP copier (HMNSS
1102). Happily, = it does have this ability,
and all of your email addresses should have b een entered into the machine now. To save the
staff some time, I h= ave prepared a short .pdf
orientation (with pictures) on how to operate the scan function. A photocopy of these
instructions has also been= placed on the copy
machine as well. This is= included as a .pdf
attachment with this email.
<= SPAN style="COLOR: black">Anxiety about
Using Blackboard
A fe= w lecturers have indicated some misgivings
about transitioning to Blackb= oard. For those
who want one-on-one training, just contact me,
Kei= th Vance, at lashv at ucr.edu.&nbs= p; I am
including here a brief orientation to usin= g
Safe Assignment for those of you who might not
have received it.</FONT= >
<o= :p>
Gatekeeper Function
· &nb= sp; Distinct dissatisfaction and
perceived unavailability of = Cynde and Cheryl
because of Regina gatekeeper function<= /B>
· &nbs= p; Unrest about the power dynamic
this sets up</B= >
In pr= evious years, there was not enough money
to create a position like Regin= a's. As the
"Staff Functions" document indicates, Regina is
there = to facilitate the flow of lecturers to
the proper person to address the = issue, not to
gatekeep. This was the intent. So, with the
ne= w "Staff Functions" document, everyone
should know where to go for what = issue. Both
Cynde, Cheryl, and John indicated that they are
availa= ble most times during every business day
for discussions with lecturers.
<S= PAN style="COLOR: black">
</= P>
<SPAN style="COLOR: = black">The following
issues were not dealt with at= the meeting. It
was deemed that these were more issues that the
U= niversity Writing Committee should deal with:
<P = class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0pt">=
<SP= AN style="COLOR: black">Involvement with
Exams and Student-Related Iss= ues
Scheduling and Courses: Anxiety about<= o:p>
<S= PAN style="COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY:
Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family:= Symbol;
mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol;
mso-bidi-font-weight: bold"><SPAN style="mso-list: Ignore">· = Number of courses people receive
· = Rank order list (if= people know of
it)
</B= >
So, Julie and I hope this email finds you well.
W= hile the sky may be falling in the economy,
some good things are ha= ppening within the
confines of the UWP.
K= eith and Julie
Lash Keith Vance, M.A., Ph.D., M.Ed
Director of Computer-Assisted Instruction
Lecturer Representative
University Writing Program
University of California, Riverside
Office: 1103C HMNSS
Email : lashv at ucr.edu
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.ucr.edu/pipermail/englecturers/attachments/20081016/37d943c1/attachment-0001.html
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Staff Functions in the University Writing Program.doc
Type: application/msword
Size: 26112 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.ucr.edu/pipermail/englecturers/attachments/20081016/37d943c1/attachment-0001.doc
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Bus Card Order Form doc.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 38216 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.ucr.edu/pipermail/englecturers/attachments/20081016/37d943c1/attachment-0003.pdf
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Scanning PDF Files with the UWP Copier.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 2126961 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.ucr.edu/pipermail/englecturers/attachments/20081016/37d943c1/attachment-0004.pdf
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Safe Assignment Orientation Vance.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 3017382 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.ucr.edu/pipermail/englecturers/attachments/20081016/37d943c1/attachment-0005.pdf
More information about the Englecturers
mailing list