Dear Colleagues,

On July 16th, the academic affairs deans and I gathered for a day-long retreat to attune our thinking and plan our strategy for the short and medium term. The day was designed to alternate between broad, long-term divergent thinking and focused action planning. Your partnership and contributions will be instrumental as we move from dialogue to design. 

We began by acknowledging the high level of uncertainty and volatility we face. Only by acknowledging that reality can we seize the opportunities and avoid the risks.

Jessica Murphy led exercises imagining possible futures over a 5-10 year horizon. Using an Institute for the Future’s framework, and ten years of curated data shared by Klavdiya Hammond, we examined patterns and reflected on assumptions we often take as immutable,  about student demographics and expectations, the nature and purpose of education, our structures and organization, and the socioeconomic and technological environment in which we operate.

Change is disruptive because it conflicts with long-held, often implicit, assumptions. The difference between seizing opportunities and succumbing to perils lies in our collective ability to identify obsolete assumptions and our agility to redesign the systems that rest on them.

We shifted gears towards the immediate and medium term. Kyle Dobbeck facilitated a conversation around our collective processes to ensure that we are successfully building towards our four institutional goals we have been orienting ourselves around since their launch:

We reaffirmed that these four goals serve as our enduring anchor. While our assumptions about how to achieve them may shift, our commitment to these outcomes remains steadfast. 

A central theme of the day was the necessity for a design-oriented approach to transformational problems,  an approach that leverages the intellectual depth and breadth of our faculty’s expertise. It is our duty to capitalize on this intellectual wealth and come together to rethink and redesign our structures, our processes, and our systems so that we continue to thrive. 

President Koppell joined us to discuss the intellectual capacities and the organizational infrastructure we need to develop. Over the coming weeks, deans and I will be engaging with all of you to seek your input on the structures that will enable us to co-reinvent Montclair State University.

For now, I invite you to reflect on one question: What assumption about your department, your students, your classes keeps you up at night? There is no form to fill out yet, just hold that thought. In September, we will launch formal opportunities for you to share your insights and help shape what comes next. 

Best regards,

Fatma

Montclair Unbound invites faculty teaching in a Montclair Online program this fall to participate in Montclair Teaching Foundations for Faculty, a new asynchronous, one-week training designed to strengthen your online teaching practice. Complete the training in fewer than eight hours and gain practical strategies you can apply immediately. Sessions are offered August 17-23 and August 24-30. Given limited seats, this offering is only available to faculty teaching this fall or spring. Register to reserve your space in one of the available sessions using this form.

The Office for Faculty Excellence remains open throughout the summer, offering virtual and in-person support for faculty. Resources include:

Congratulations to the Office for Hispanic Initiatives on welcoming 184 students to campus earlier this summer for the Hispanic Student College Institute (HSCI), which celebrated its 10th year. To mark the occasion, the HSCI Catalyst Award was presented to Senior Director of Undergraduate Admissions Jordanna Maziarz for launching the Institute. Other awards were presented to notable partners, including two Legacy Partner Awards presented to State Farm sponsors, Board of Trustees Member Mary Comito and Hugo Gonzalez, as well as the Investing in Futures Award presented to longtime sponsor Deloitte. Photos from this summer's Institute can be found here.

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