Academic Affairs Updates: January 2024

Dear NJCU Community,

I hope everyone is having a wonderful start to the Spring 2024 semester! It was wonderful to see so many of you on campus last week for the new student orientation. We have so much to look forward to this semester. Today, I want to share with you just a few highlights:

New Leadership in the Provost’s Office

Words cannot express how thrilled I am to announce the results of the two recent searches for Assistant Provosts.

First, Dr. Jason Martinek has agreed to serve as our Assistant Provost for Faculty and Staff Development. In this role, he will oversee the reappointment, tenure, and promotion processes moving forward. He will also oversee several initiatives that involve professional development for faculty and staff. For now, Jason will continue to help with the transition in the College of Arts and Sciences, and we hope to secure administrative support in the College soon. 

Second, Dr. Scott O’Connor has agreed to serve as the Assistant Provost for Academic Programming. In this role, Scott will oversee the Curriculum Inventory Management (CIM) system, scheduling, and several other academic initiatives. He will also help us identify a new Director of General Education.

In addition, in December we were able to add another administrative assistant to the office. Geordana Vasquez '11 joined us, and she has been an amazing addition. She is an NJCU graduate and was part of The Opportunity Scholarship Program as an undergraduate.

Our work together has allowed us to stabilize enrollment, and these appointments will help solidify and build upon this incredible turnaround by providing much needed capacity in the Provost’s Office.

Since fall 2022, the office has added all initiatives related to student success and retention, the Office of the Registrar, and all of enrollment management. We did this initially operating as a team of three, juggling the new units along with our original divisional structure. Thank you for your patience during that period. By keeping the office as minimally staffed as possible over the past year, along with the minimal administrative support in the colleges, we were able to save over $780,000 last year. Overall, even including these new positions, we have cut over $1 million in administrative costs in academic affairs since the declaration of a fiscal emergency in June 2022. Much like the Academic Master Plan, we have focused on mission-critical work and invested in roles to do that work.

New Leadership for the Lee Hagan Center 

We are thrilled to announce that we have a new director for the Lee Hagan Africana Studies Center. Mr. Lewis Spears has agreed to serve in this very important role. A self-described connector, Spears galvanized peers during graduate study at Harvard and continues to do so as the Executive Director of his Jersey City based non-profit organization, which supports Black adolescent males. His degree in African-American studies and exposure to Pan-Africanism supports his passion to develop people of the African diaspora.

New Artistic Director for NJCU’s Center for the Arts 

We are also pleased to announce that effective January 1, 2024, renown NJCU Professor Marc G. Dalio was appointed as Artistic Director of the Center for the Arts (CFTA) at NJCU.

Professor Dalio is an associate professor in the Department of Music, Dance, and Theatre (MDT) where he has led the Musical Theatre program since 2009. He is completing his Doctorate in Music Education at Boston University, and he is a member of Actor’s Equity Association. 

In addition to the many productions he has directed at NJCU, including most recently A Chorus Line, Pippin, and Sweeney Todd, his award-winning acting credits range from Les Miserables to Beauty and the Beast. 

In this new role, Professor Dalio will work with internal stakeholders at the university — especially in MDT, Art, and English — to develop new CFTA programming, grow relationships with external stakeholders, and otherwise work to burnish NJCU’s status as an arts destination in Jersey City.

Seeking a New Director for General Education  

With the promotion of Dr. Scott O'Connor to the role of Assistant Provost for Academic Programming which we celebrated earlier in this communication, that presents an opportunity for someone to serve as the new director for General Education at NJCU.

Please see the notice below and consider serving in this very important role:

General Education Director: Calls for Expression of Interest

Reporting to the Assistant Provost for Academic Programming, the General Education Director “shall coordinate with all relevant university bodies to implement the requirements, policies, and standards of the General Education Program” (University Senate Motion, February 13, 2023).

In this refocused role, the Director will work with the General Education Committee and Office of Institutional Effectiveness to develop and implement assessment protocols for the revised General Education Program, intentionally integrate Orientation to College into the first-year General Education Experience, and coordinate with the General Education Committee and Assistant Provost to implement the revised program. To add Orientation to College to the Director’s portfolio, other work pertaining to General Education, including, but not limited to, schedules, articulation agreements, dual enrollment programs, and faculty development will become the responsibility of the Provost’s Office. 

The Director receives six (6) credits of release time in the fall semester, six (6) credits in the spring (pro-rated for Spring 2024), and six (6) credits during the summer. Further details about the required qualifications and term of the appointment can be found in the relevant motion approved by the University Senate on February 13, 2023:
 

1. The General Education Program Director shall be a current full-time tenured faculty member nominated by the Provost to the University Senate. The nomination will be made to the University Senate President in writing, and the nomination will be voted upon at the next Senate meeting following the nomination.
2. The General Education Program Director shall be a standing voting member of the General Education Committee (GEC) and is responsible for convening the first GEC meeting each academic year, during which a chairperson is elected among standing members. The Director may call emergency meetings of GEC.
3. The General Education Program Director shall coordinate with all relevant university bodies to implement the requirements, policies, and standards of the General Education Program.
4. The Director shall be appointed for an initial term of three years, renewable upon successful nomination and confirmation.

Interested candidates should send their resume and a one-page letter to provost@njcu.edu describing their overall vision for first-time students’ first semester’s experience and the role they envision Orientation to College playing in that experience. The deadline for applications is February 5, 2024.

Join us on January 31st for a Lee Hagan Center Speaker

The Lee Hagan Center is hosting a special talk in the Gilligan Student Union Multipurpose Room (MPR) on Wednesday, January 31.

Dr. Laura McNeal will join us that day. Laura is a Harvard-trained law and policy analyst who has served as a legal correspondent, news anchor, and host. She has appeared on MSNBC, the Dr. Phil Show, CNN, and C-Span. She also served as the Chief Legal Correspondent for BNC Network during such key events as the Derek Chauvin trial and the impeachment of Donald Trump. 

She will present “Dream Fulfilled: Achieving Equality in the 21st Century.” In her talk, Laura will discuss Dr. King’s legacy and what it means today. She will address the current state of affairs including gender inequality, attacks on the LGBTQI+ community, housing discrimination, and other topics. She will address what we can do as individuals and as a community to ensure that Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream is fulfilled.

Lunch will be served at 1:30 p.m. followed by presentations. Please RSVP to the event using the following link or the QR code at the bottom of the page.

Register for the Hagan Center Talk with Dr. Laura McNeal

Implicit Bias Training 

In addition to her campus talk, Dr. McNeal will also provide two training sessions on implicit bias on January 31st and February 1st for faculty, staff, administrators, and guests. The session on Wednesday, January 31 will be offered from 11 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. The second session will be offered on Thursday, February 1 from 10 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. Both sessions will be held in GSUB's MPR.

Please register for the event using the following link or the QR code at the bottom of the page.

Register for the Implicit Bias Trainings with Dr. Laura McNeal

Show 💚💛 NJCU 💛💚 the Love

February is Valentine's Month! Share what you love about NJCU. We are creating a tribute video with your stories about why you love NJCU. Please use the following link or the QR code at the bottom of the page to make a brief video describing why you love our university:

Show Us Why You 💚💛 NJCU

Show Your Colleagues Your Appreciation

You can also show your appreciation to your colleagues! We’re going “old school.” We will have flowers and chocolates that you can send to your colleagues on campus. Stay tuned for the details. Each gift will be $2 and will be delivered on February 14th to your designated recipient(s). All proceeds will be donated to the NJCU Student Emergency Fund. Stay tuned for more details!

Sincerely,

Donna Adair Breault, Ph.D.
Interim Provost and Executive Vice President of Academic Affairs 
New Jersey City University