P&A News for November 2016. Highlights include Spotlight on Meaghan Thul, who manages the University's Parent and Family Program.

In Ng’s view, she was a part of University governance from day one. Every faculty at UMM is a part of the campus assembly, the campus­wide governance body. And, Ng adds, “UM­-Morris is a very egalitarian campus, and so technically, I became involved in shared governance when I started as a regular faculty.”

Ng admits that when she was a brand new faculty, she was very naive. “I had some weird notion that college administrators made lousy professors,” she says. A few years years later, a chief administrator retired and there was some shuffling of campus leadership. Several faculty, including Ng, were asked to take on administrative duties as part of their appointments. Ng asked her then boss, “Why do you take all these award­ winning and excellent teachers from the classroom and make them administrators?”

The response was, “Would you rather I choose lousy teachers to lead academic affairs?” That, Ng says, changed her perspective ­ and stereotype ­ of administrators. In turn, Ng says she has learned much by being on system­wide committees and considers herself lucky to be able to serve. “I am a better faculty and a more mindful academic administrator for having served on system­wide shared governance,” she says. Ng says when a solution presents itself or is arrived at, she asks if that solution solves more problems than it creates.

An essential skill, Ng notes, and one that she continues to hone, is learning how to balance the “Big Picture” and the detailed ramifications of policies. She said, “Finding a healthy balance between being consultative and moving forward is also another key to how I usually approach governance.” 

P&A News for October 2016. Highlights include Spotlight on Alyssa Maples, academic advisor, School of Kinesiology.

The Spring 2016 University Senate Semester Update is now available to download. 

Here's a preview of what you'll find inside:

• Governance Working for U - Updates from the Faculty, Student, P&A, and Civil Service Consultative Committees
• Recognizing Outstanding Service to University Senate Governance
• A View from the Inside - Peter Haeg, Director, Professional Education, College of Pharmacy
• Meeting Updates
• Senate Committees Collaborate on Issues
  • Restroom and Locker Room Access
  • Retirement Plan Fiduciary Governance Structure
  • Order of Status Quo Limits Some Committee Work
• Adjourned - A message from Collin Campbell, chair of the Senate/Faculty Consultative Committees

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What is your role at the University of Minnesota?  What do you do in a typical day/week?

I partner with faculty and staff at the U to conduct systematic assessments of the impact of educational innovations.

How does your work impact the University community?

I try to contribute to the growing body of knowledge about what works in post-secondary education and encourage faculty members to think of their teaching as a scholarly endeavor.

What do you enjoy most about your role?

Probably the best thing is having the chance to discover new things about teaching and learning. Sometimes the conclusions that my colleagues and I reach are relatively small, in the sense that they are bound to a particular time and place, a certain group of students, etc. But they are often things that no one knew before, and I think that sharing these findings with colleagues, and adding them to the larger tapestry of what is known about education, are valuable contributions to the academic enterprise. 

What would people never guess you do in your job?

I do a surprising amount of consultation with faculty and staff from universities around the world, who want to undertake projects similar to those we've done at the University of Minnesota. With respect to two of our projects - the long-running student and faculty technology surveys, and our multi-year research on new learning spaces - I have consulted with faculty and staff from universities in China, Taiwan, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Sweden, The Netherlands, England, South Africa, Lebanon, Pakistan, and the Cape Verde Islands.

What do you like best about working at UMN?

One of the very best things is having the opportunity to collaborate with faculty and staff from such a diversity of disciplines across the University. Before working here, I was a professor of philosophy, and I never associated with anyone who works in engineering, or chemistry, or educational psychology, or agricultural economics, or veterinary medicine. And so I never knew how many interesting topics are studied by such a wide array of intelligent, interesting people in such a wide range of academic disciplines!

Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

My larger agenda is to promote a scholarly culture of pedagogy at the University, which means elevating teaching and learning to the status of an academic pursuit that can be undertaken by instructors whose disciplinary expertise lies elsewhere. So in 5 years, hopefully I will be working in much the same capacity that I am in now, but with a larger group of researchers who collaborate with faculty members from many disciplines at different organizational levels in the University - departmental, program, college, etc. - helping to advance the scholarship of teaching and learning. 

What is one thing you couldn't live without?

Badminton, biking, beer, and hot sauce! And my two little dogs. OK, that was six things. 

What do you like to do in your spare time?

Brew beer, play badminton, ride my bike, and spend time with my two little dogs.

What was your best vacation?

Probably a recent trip to Turkey with my partner and two close friends. It was my first trip to a majority-Muslim country, and it was wonderful to see how kind and welcoming the vast majority of Turkish people were, along with the way in which very religious and very secular Turks lived side by side in Istanbul. We also traveled to parts of the country without many tourists. I think it's a very useful, and very educational, experience for the members of a majority ethnic group - like white Americans - to visit a place in which they are very much in the minority. 

The June 2016 issue of the P&A Senate Newsletter is now available for download.

In this issue:

• Message from the P&A Senate Chair - Susanne Vandergon
• Announcements
  • P&A Outstanding Unit Award
• May 6 Meeting Notes
  • Office of Public Engagement
  • P&A Senate Subcommittee Reports
  • Strategic Planning Update
• P&A Employee Spotlight - J.D. Walker

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