Provost's Report to the Faculty for September 22 2010

As everyone knows by now, Gardner-Webb has begun the academic year with overall enrollment numbers greatly exceeding expectations. In our traditional undergraduate program we have the full time equivalent (FTE) of 85 more students than we did last year at this time. That number comes to 179 additional FTEs for the GOAL program and 188 additional in combined graduate programs. This, of course, is good news for the University’s budget since tuition revenue for the year will almost certainly exceed projections. It also means challenges for the University in a number of other areas, particularly in the availability of classroom space. Members of the administration are working closely with faculty leaders on the most acute of these challenges to find both short and long-term solutions. The stress on resources that comes with student growth can, of course, be frustrating at times. I am grateful for the patience of faculty and staff alike as we tackle these problems as best we can.

The 2010-11 Faculty Handbook is now available online. It may be accessed from the Homepage of the University website (toward the bottom under the heading “Faculty and Staff”). This current edition contains all of the changes approved by the Faculty and Trustees last year. We have also undertaken a major style revision, correcting minor errors throughout the document. We would strongly encourage those using hard copies from previous years to discard or archive them in favor of the current edition. If you need a hard copy of the document, it can easily be printed from your computer.

For nearly two years,The Center for Continuing Professional Education has assisted schools and departments in facilitating non-credit, continuing education experiences on the Gardner-Webb campus. While the Center was successful in coordinating a number of events, overall attendance numbers were simply not sufficient to meet expenses. Consequently, we are suspending further activity through the Center, at least for the present. I am grateful for the hard work and creative energy of Elizabeth Pack who has served as director of the center and who will continue in her role as special assistant to the Dean for Distance and Continuing Education. Ms. Pack will carry through with commitments on projects that were already on the calendar for this year. Meanwhile, Gardner-Webb will continue to offer a limited number of events to the public, which will be coordinated through our schools and departments as we have done in the past.

A few weeks ago, Dr. Bonner announced that the University was negotiating the purchase of a building in Charlotte that would replace our current leased space on Airport Center Parkway. That purchase is now final. The building is located just off the Arrowood Road exit of I-77 and is highly visible from the Interstate. The modern, office park building offers nearly twice the space of our current location and provides a more readily accessible location for Charlotte area residents. The new “GWU Charlotte” center will open for GOAL and graduate classes for the Fall 2011 semester.

The University has revised the student trip release form and placed it online (under “MyWebb” on the “Personal” menu for all users) where it will be accessible for students to download as needed. While the revised form denotes no changes in policy, this is probably a good opportunity to remind everyone that students must complete a trip release form (which is technically a “release of claim and liability waiver”) whenever they are involved in an official University activity away from campus. Faculty should plan on collecting the forms and maintaining them on file for at least a year after the trip or event (and longer, of course, if an incident occurs). As we all know, issues of insurance and liability are often complex. If you plan a student trip and have questions or concerns about potential liability related to vehicles or other matters, please contact our insurance specialist, Mr. Jeff Ingle, Assistant Vice President for Business, who will be happy to assist.

Dr. Tony Eastman, Professor of History, has announced his retirement effective next May. With 44 years of service, Dr. Eastman is the longest serving current faculty memberof the University. His career spans the growth of Gardner-Webb from 2-year junior college to doctoral granting University. Through this pivotal period of Gardner-Webb’s growth, Dr. Eastman has been a strong and consistent voice for academic integrity and the essential role of the liberal arts in higher education. He was also a pioneer in the development of the GOAL program and to this day has been one of its strongest full-time faculty supporters. We are grateful for Dr. Eastman’s dedication to Gardner-Webb University and her students and look forward to the opportunity to celebrate with him in the months ahead his many contributions which have made Gardner-Webb University a better place.

I have been asked to speak to our current policy regarding attendance in online classes and the use of the “administrative withdrawal” (or grade of “@W”). Specifically, the question has been raised whether counting a student’s first login to an online class is a fair and just way to count a student’s first attendance. The issue is best understood in light of the use we make of the administrative withdrawal at Gardner-Webb. The administrative withdrawal is a service that the University provides to students who for whatever reason are enrolled in a class which they never intended to take. Every semester there will be students who make the case that they were registered and billed for a class by mistake. The @W was created as a way of addressing these cases that does not require the University to investigate and adjudicate every claim. The administrative withdrawal gives the student the benefit of the doubt by in effect recognizing non-attendance as sufficient evidence that an error was made by the University. Consequently, when faculty tell us through enrollment verification that a student never attended class, we remove the student from the roll and credit the bill, no questions asked.

This is the sole purpose of the administrative withdrawal. If, on the other hand, a student does attend a class but for whatever reason has a change of heart and wants to remove it from his or her schedule, then the student has recourse to the drop/add policy which allows a student to drop a class the first week without academic or financial penalty. But the student is not eligible for an @W.

The same principle is at work in online classes. If a student is enrolled in an online class by mistake, then that student will never login to the class. Once that “non-attendance” is reported through Enrollment Verification, the student will be dropped from the class roll and have his or her bill credited. If a student does login to a class, even if for just a few minutes, it means at the very least that the student is aware that he or she is a student registered in that class. The student may still elect to drop the class through the drop-add period without penalty, but the student is not eligible for the @W in this case. Questions regarding these policies may be answered by any of our staff in the Registrar’s Office. The policies may be found in the academic catalogs.

I wish each of you the best for a productive and rewarding academic year!

Respectfully submitted,
Ben Leslie