{"id":5748,"date":"2019-02-25T09:51:04","date_gmt":"2019-02-25T14:51:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/?p=5748"},"modified":"2025-08-13T19:29:55","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T23:29:55","slug":"keep-the-suggestions-coming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/2019\/02\/25\/keep-the-suggestions-coming\/","title":{"rendered":"Keep the Suggestions Coming!"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Ray Rice<\/p><\/div>\n

I remember when I was first asked to serve as interim vice president of academic affairs back in February 2014, the president at the time let me know that I might be receiving \u201cemails\u201d from Dr. Lowman\u2019s PCJ 215 class.\u00a0 Actually, the emails were to the president, sent by members of that class as part of a specific communication assignment, but they were going to be forwarded to me if they dealt with academic issues.\u00a0 One of the very first emails was one about online classes, in fact.\u00a0 Interestingly, the email wasn\u2019t over the issue of whether we should have more or fewer of them, but about the way communication occurred in such classes and that it wasn\u2019t always the same from one to the next!<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve tried to figure out the number of emails I received over the past five years, but, not being a computer programmer or CIS person, it was too much of a challenge. \u00a0(I can tell you that my Gmail account tells me that I received 1638 messages from Dr. J in about 10 years, but that\u2019s as far as my talents will take me, ha ha!)<\/p>\n

What I *can* tell you is how valuable such communication is.\u00a0 Many of the emails, as you might imagine, express concerns or suggestions about how to make the college experience at UMPI better in one way or another.\u00a0 They can range from course scheduling suggestions, to snow removal (you can imagine how serious that topic is this year!), to the quality of the dining hall food, to suggestions for new programs or courses, to upgrades to equipment and computers, all the way to very specific concerns about the price of college tuition.\u00a0 They range from course- or program-specific suggestions to remarks upon the general culture and environment for living and learning here at UMPI itself.\u00a0 They come from students who are new to college, in their first year, to those who are returning after many years and have a wide range of comparison about how processes and programs worked at other institutions.<\/p>\n

All of them are important.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re valuable for different reasons.\u00a0 Sometime, they show trends in educational programming, such as that very first email on online course offerings.\u00a0 Five years ago, people wanted to know why and how we selected certain courses to be offered online, and they wanted to know how we could provide consistent experiences for students taking those courses.\u00a0 They still do.\u00a0 And we still need to continue working on providing consistent experiences and making sure that we\u2019re always using best teaching and learning practices to ensure the best experience we can.<\/p>\n

They can show other kinds of trends as well.\u00a0 Dietary habits have changed dramatically on college campuses since the late 1980s when I was an undergraduate and all anyone worried about was the \u201cfirst year 20\u201d or however much weight you might gain from simply eating as much as you want for breakfast, lunch and dinner.\u00a0 Today, as those who attend college are more informed and concerned about their own choices, we need to be aware of how we can ensure that our food service provider can best meet those needs.\u00a0 (Of course, on another level, some things don\u2019t<\/strong> change\u2014as the quality of food is always going to be pretty high on the Maslow\u2019s Hierarchy of Needs!)<\/p>\n

Such information can help over longer institutional planning as well.\u00a0 It took years, for instance, to recognize that a commuter lounge in Folsom\/Pullen was essential, and more time to figure out the best place for a lounge.\u00a0 And more<\/strong> time as to what should be in such a lounge.\u00a0 Our current campus master plan includes considerations for updating the entire west entry area as a result.\u00a0 And the suggestions I\u2019ve received this month include ones for desks and workspace areas for commuters doing academic work between classes.\u00a0 To me, that\u2019s a brilliant suggestion, but something that simply wasn\u2019t on the radar of those planning the furniture for the lounge several years ago.<\/p>\n

Even more important, such feedback tells us the directions we need to go in offering new programs and how current ones can even better meet the need of students.\u00a0 We get endless lists of \u201chigh need\u201d programs for colleges and universities (Cybersecurity, which we add this fall, is right at the top of the list, for example). \u00a0But it\u2019s even more helpful, quite often, to hear directly from what our current students want to see.<\/p>\n

And, finally, such suggestions are most helpful of all in making this the sort of campus and environment that we need so that we can best support all <\/strong>of us.\u00a0 A university must always be a place of transformation, and that means that it itself must always be in transformation.\u00a0 It must always be getting better<\/strong>.\u00a0 (Because the only other option is the opposite.)\u00a0 It must always be getting safer, more welcoming, more inclusive, more caring, more responsive.<\/p>\n

So keep the suggestions, the compliments as well as the concerns, coming.\u00a0 As they tell us not just what we do well, but what we need to do better.\u00a0 And send them anytime, not just when (if!) you\u2019re a student in Dr. J\u2019s PCJ 215 class!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I remember when I was first asked to serve as interim vice president of academic affairs back in February 2014, the president at the time let me know that I might be receiving \u201cemails\u201d from Dr. Lowman\u2019s PCJ 215 class.\u00a0 Actually, the emails were to the president, sent by members of that class as part […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":218,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7381],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archives","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/218"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5748"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5748\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8524,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5748\/revisions\/8524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}