State of the Campus Address : Indiana University Southeast

State of the Campus Address

2020 STATE OF THE CAMPUS ADDRESS

October 2, 2020

Dr. Ray Wallace:

Welcome to the 2020 IU Southeast Campus Update.

First, I would like to formally welcome everyone to another academic year at Indiana University Southeast. I am so happy to see our new and returning students and some of our faculty and staff back on campus. As we are all aware, this year looks quite a bit different than any other year in the history of this institution, so it’s fitting that this year’s Campus Update is very different as well. In the interest of keeping everyone safe while still keeping our campus community updated, we moved this event to a virtual format.

Today, you will hear from each of our vice chancellors as they update you on their various units, and you will also hear from our Regional Campus Chief Information Officer Nick Ray and our Faculty Senate President Joe Wert.

As you will soon hear, we have had a truly outstanding year despite the setbacks caused by COVID-19. I am proud of the entire IU Southeast community for coming together and acting quickly and efficiently during this crisis.

As we continue to navigate through this pandemic, we will likely face other challenges, but I am confident that if we continue to work together and treat each other with respect, we will prevail.

It is now my pleasure to introduce our Vice Chancellor for Enrollment Management and Student Affairs Amanda Stonecipher.

Amanda Stonecipher:

It should go without saying, but we have had quite an interesting year. Higher education, like the rest of the world, has faced many challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic. To be frank, back in March, when Indiana University made the decision to move courses and all student services to a virtual format, we did not know what to expect for the future of enrollment. The predictions of terrible enrollment for fall semester were seen in many headlines across higher education publications. Because of the uncertainty, all IU campuses made adjustments to their fall enrollment and budget predictions.

At IU Southeast, we took a conservative approach and reduced our credit hour goal for this academic year by 5%, which also adjusted our budget goal. I am pleased to share that we not only reached our adjusted credit hour goal, we exceeded it by 857 hours. For Fall 2020, we are at 53,206 hours with 4,678 students. We welcomed 1,087 new undergraduate students, 274 were transfers from other universities. This year’s incoming class had an average high school GPA of 3.31, which is the highest average GPA for an incoming class in at least 10 years.

Reaching our adjusted credit hour goal and welcoming over 1,000 new students did not happen by accident. The extraordinary work done by everyone on campus to reach these goals should not only be noted, but celebrated. So even though we are delivering campus updates in a recorded fashion, please take a moment, even in these uncertain times, to celebrate everything our campus has done to get to this point.

I want to thank all of our student service areas on campus for making necessary adjustments during spring and continuing to modify services for fall semester. With clear plans for fall, we were able to fully show our students that we are a caring and nurturing community, focused on their health and safety.

In the spirit of recognizing all of the great work our campus has accomplished, I want to share brief highlights from the past year:

Student Affairs collaborated with Academic Affairs on diversity events, including the Defamation Experience, American Democracy Project Global Civic Literacy initiatives, and IU Latinx Leadership Conference.
Received COVID-19 Learning Support Grant with Academic Affairs to develop Summer Bridge Program for Math, Writing, and Digital Skills for new students.
The strategic plan for the Office of Violence Against Women Grant was approved and initiatives are in motion that will include peer educators, hearing panel training, human trafficking awareness resources, law enforcement training, and Green Dot Bystander training.
Residence Life and Housing provided a variety of engagement opportunities by offering several programs each week, and remained in contact with students even after their departure in March.
Career Development collaborated with the Office of Institutional Effectiveness to deploy the IU First Destination Survey and our results were outstanding. 99% of the IU Southeast respondents are either employed or continuing their education on year after graduation. 83% of those graduates who accepted offers of employment, had starting salaries which are over twice the amount of the average student debt.
Last year, thanks to our 135 student, faculty, and staff mentors, we were able to provide one-on-one mentoring to 694 students. These mentoring relationships are vital to the persistence and success of our students.
Secured a combined $11,195 in grant funding from Women's Philanthropy at Indiana University and The Well House Society to expand Mental Health First Aid Training in the local community
Our Personal Counseling team provided over 3,000 hours of mental health and care management services to students.
Our student-athletes worked hard in competition and in the classroom, with an average spring semester GPA of 3.1.
And since we do like a little friendly competition, it is worth noting IU Southeast finished first among regional campuses in the IUPUI Regatta Bicentennial IU Campus Division.

As you can see, we are doing great work at IU Southeast and, even though we are working virtually, this great work continues, just in a different format.

I would now like to introduce Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Dr. Kelly Ryan.

Kelly Ryan:

To say Academic Affairs has had a busy year would be a giant understatement. While I won’t look back upon this year with undiluted pleasure, it’s fair to say that Academic Affairs has stood up to the challenge and has succeeded.

Three major milestones stand out.

First, Academic Affairs led the successful campus-wide effort to gain re-accreditation through the Higher Learning Commission. Though work still continues in this area, we are pleased to be moving forward.

Second, when Covid-19 shut down the campus, the faculty made sure that instruction could continue, and students could finish the academic year. Faculty trained on new technologies and developed new pedagogies to meet the challenge.

Thirdly, after seven standout years as Executive Vice Chancellor, Dr. Uric Dufrene returned to the Judge Carlton E. and Sue Sanders Chair in Business and Economics. Dr. Dufrene guided the academic life of the institution through profound changes such as the growth of graduate and online education, and we thank him for his leadership in this role.

Over the past year, Academic Affairs has seen incredible accomplishments in its constituent units.

In trying to cull highlights of the past year’s activity, I was struck over and over by the sheer volume of effort, the intensity of focus and the dedication to top-notch scholarship and student success. Our faculty produced over 500 presentations, publications and creative works during the year.

Beyond the numbers, I am also struck by the quality of academic activity. We have a real culture of innovation. This is what makes our faculty so special, and what makes our students so fortunate.

Faculty use their research and creative programs to provide exceptional educational opportunities for IU Southeast students. In the last year, 71 percent of faculty worked one-on-one with students on research and creative projects, which is a high impact teaching practice and increases the likelihood that the student will graduate within 4 years. This last year, with the assistance of over 70 faculty mentors over 450 IU Southeast students presented their research and creative work at professional and student conferences. That is quite an impact.

This continued even in the middle of the pandemic, with faculty and students working together to learn new modalities for presenting research and creative work. When our annual Student Conference was forced to go online, 46 faculty mentors assisted 222 students to present their scholarly achievements.

It’s impossible to calculate how much that meant to our students. Especially to our graduating seniors.

Now I’d like to scroll through some of the achievements and initiatives to give you a small sampling of the breadth and depth of our academic life over the past year. What I think is incredible – is that all of these efforts were undertaken as we all faced the pandemic.

In the School of Arts & Letters, faculty developed participation agreements for a number of collaborative programs. These include undergraduate and graduate degrees and certificates in English, French, German, Spanish and communication. These collaborative programs enable students from across IU to have a more options in their academic experiences.

In the School of Business, there were also incredible outcomes.

IU Southeast business students scored in the Top 10th percentile in the ETS exit exam and the IU Southeast student chapter of the Society for Human Resource Management or SHRM was named Outstanding Chapter by the national SHRM organization.
The Digital Marketing Conference, organized and run entirely by students, turned four years old.
Another event that started small has also become a big part of the student calendar. I’m talking about the Speed Networking Event that in 2019-20 drew over 150 students and business professionals. This event not only gives students practice in networking, it forges bonds between them and community employers that in some cases lead directly to jobs. It’s worth noting that several of the employers present were actually IU Southeast grads.

In the School of Education there were significant individual and collective milestones.

Most importantly, the School has prepared their case for reaccreditation this year – an enormous effort for faculty and staff.
This year also saw the first Southern Indiana Regional School Counseling Conference, funded by the Lilly Endowment, organized by faculty from the School Counseling Program.
Education faculty were also wildly successful at shaking the money tree all for the good of our students, including:
Dr. Sumreen Asim, who earned a grant to update the STEM laboratory, while Dr. Carol Bartlett and Prof. Kathy Ryan scored money to support undergraduate and graduate scholarships in the area of special education certification.
Dr. Alan Zollman and his team received a grant award in the amount of $325,000 from the Indiana Commission for Higher Education 2019 STEM Teacher Recruitment Fund.

In the School of Nursing, there were positive signs at a time when nurses are among the heroes of our nation. In fact, numerous students and alumni of our programs have spent the last six months on the front lines in the battle to contain the novel coronavirus. The training they received at IU Southeast has literally saved people’s lives.

In addition...

The BS in Applied Health Science program, which started in 2017 as a consortium with three other regional campuses, is showing continued enrollment growth.
The Masters of Nursing Science program received a first-time full accreditation from the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education.
The Lakota Indian Reservation Project, directed by Dr. Julia Mattingly, received a $100,000 gift from the estate of Barbara Maxwell. Anyone familiar with this extraordinary initiative will appreciate what this may mean for its sustainability and impact on the lives of the poorest of America’s poor.
They continue to assist IU Southeast through the coronavirus testing program – a unique service learning experience and incredible effort

It has also been an exceptional year for the School of Social Sciences.

The School finished its rollout of career preparation courses for all undergraduate disciplines to give them an edge in the workforce once they graduate.
The Indiana Latinx Leadership Conference brought 260 guests from the larger Midwest and Kentucky to the IU Southeast campus for a day of scholarship, music, and empowerment.
Dr. Jean Abshire was awarded a Global Civic Literacy Grant from AASCU’s American Democracy Project, and used part of it to organize a Campus Summit, alongside colleagues from Student Affairs.
Dr. Jennifer Ortiz was named one of the “Top 20 under 40” by the Southern Indiana Business Magazine. She also was awarded a grant from Kentucky’s Department of Corrections to evaluate a new workbook for incarcerated individuals re-entering our Kentuckiana community.

Some exciting news from the School of Natural Sciences emerged as well.

New Collaborative degrees were launched in Data Science and Sustainability, two degrees of major importance for Indiana that will impact us positively.
The pollinator garden pilot project is attracting many insects and birds that thrive on native plants. The garden and the data derived from it are already being used in courses, with students monitoring the number of migrating monarch butterflies that visit our campus. This work sounds fun but it’s also important, as pollinator populations are in decline, and the race is on to save them, and the other species that depend on their services, including humans.

The IU Southeast Library team, like the campus as a whole, transformed the entire library operation from March to August.

They maintained an open space for people to access the internet and other learning tools during some of the most terrifying parts of the pandemic, when we did not know as much as we do now about how the coronavirus spreads.
They also maintained their outreach, including hosting a two-day residency with political cartoonist Dwayne Booth (AKA Mr. Fish), an exhibition of works by New Albany artist Larry Basham, and a screening of his documentary, "Waystation to Freedom," about the history of New Albany's 2nd Baptist Church and its role in the Underground Railroad.

I am thrilled to report that IU Southeast’s graduate programs are growing by leaps and bounds.

Every school now has graduate degrees. This is a quantum leap in our academic culture, and almost every single graduate degree is seeing at least 15% growth in credit hours with others having increases as high as 100%. The work of our graduate directors and faculty have secured us a more stable place in these uncertain times.
And to ensure that newly admitted graduate students have the information they need to enroll and succeed, we have created a Nonsynchronous Virtual Graduate Orientation, like that developed for undergraduates during the pandemic.

Other units also rose to the challenge of this extraordinary year.

The Registrars Office and all of our campus record specialists and staff have undertaken super-human efforts to change schedules and assign rooms in this very fluid environment.
ILTE has been extremely busy meeting the demands of faculty training, with 1583 independent consultations with faculty since March. Among ILTE’s highlights:
72 faculty have completed training – 60 for teaching online and 12 for hybrid/hyflex
Another 19 faculty are working to complete training for hybrid/hyflex or online teaching
We have added nine new Quality Matters-certified courses since the beginning of March, bringing our total number of QM-certified courses to 37, with another 13 courses in the pipeline for QM certification. That’s far and away the highest number for all IU campuses.
Despite being closed to on-campus visitors for four months, the Student Success Center still managed to proctor 2531 tests and support 75 sections with supplemental instruction, as well as conducting online and peer tutoring to hundreds of students.
Advising has helped acquaint new students with IU Southeast and helped students register for classes in this unprecedented environment – connecting them with resources and cheering them on!
The Office of Institutional Effectiveness continued to do incredible things to help us become more self-aware. The data they provide is truly the foundation of a culture of constant improvement, enabling us to better monitor and assess our performance, and to translate that into actions that make us more successful, accountable and impactful. Besides providing the numbers for campus and School of Education accreditation, OIE applied its research to help predict student retention and admission, registration, and orientation timing, to better help predict student success.

As impressive as all this may sound, in fact I am only scratching the surface.

I am simply so proud and honored to be part of this amazing group of individuals.

But I am not surprised. Throughout its history, IU Southeast has weathered challenges by virtue of the grit, hustle, determination, and genuine goodwill of its community. We believe in this campus and will do anything to ensure that it succeeds.

This past year has been hard, but we’ve learned some really great lessons that will make this year a springboard a more flexible, future-forward, and student friendly campus that will thrive.

It is now my pleasure to introduce our Faculty Senate President Joe Wert.

Joe Wert:

I’d first like to thank Chancellor Wallace for the opportunity to lend a faculty voice to the annual state of the campus talk. I believe this may be the first time this has happened, and the faculty are appreciative of this chance.

I wanted to focus on two points in my brief time: Faculty response to the pandemic, and faculty response to the protests going on around the country and indeed around the world, after the killings of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd.

As the pandemic worsened through February and into March, President McRobbie made the decision that in person instruction on all IU campuses would cease and everyone should finish the semester online. We remained fully online over the summer. We are currently mostly online through at least the Fall semester, with some in person classes done a hybrids or splitting classes, meeting half at a time in order to maintain proper social distancing. The faculty did an incredible job at responding to the myriad issues that suddenly sprung up- like getting trained to teach online or hybrid classes, how to effectively employ the many and varied tools made available to us through ILTE. It also meant dealing with enormous amounts of stress with their students who were perhaps taking online classes for the first time, in addition to dealing with their own stresses. I saw the faculty pull together and get done what needed to be done, and to help out their colleagues and students at the same time. If I ever had any doubt that this campus might not be able to handle crises, they have been dispelled.

Faculty response to the movement to achieve racial justice and equality has been equally as impressive. Shortly after protests against the killing of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor began, President McRobbie and James Wimbush, Vice President of Diversity and Multicultural Affairs, came out with statements denouncing acts of racism and bigotry and affirming IU’s commitment to a university free of discrimination on the bases of race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, national origin or political beliefs. Chancellor Wallace followed very quickly with a similar statement. In an emergency meeting shortly after these statements were made, your faculty senate met and approved a resolution in support of these powerful statements and support for their ideas. I am proud to say that the IU Southeast campus was the first campus (not the first regional campus, but the first IU campus) to pass such a resolution. And our resolution became the model for the resolutions of other regional campuses and for the University Faculty Council.

But we didn’t stop there. Faculty in the School of Social Sciences have highlighted classes where race and racism are of major importance in the content. And that list has been published. Schools from around the campus, as well as staff in Student Affairs are planning several programs throughout the academic year dealing with race and racism. And workshops have been held to give faculty tools for dealing with these issues in the classroom, such as learning ways to have difficult and uncomfortable conversations with our students.

Faculty response to both of these issues have been remarkable. There are many reasons to be proud to be a part of the IU Southeast faculty. How we have responded to both of these crises are just two of them. And let me close by just saying I am doubly proud to be serving as IU Southeast Faculty Senate President. Thank you.

I would now like to introduce our Regional Campus Chief Information Officer Nick Ray.

Nick Ray:

Hello! A lot of work has been done over the last year, I’d like cover some highlights and talk a little about future projects.

One major accomplishment last fall was the upgrade, replacement of over 50 network switches on campus. This is part of our 10-year Network Master Plan which is meant to provide a reliability, and secure network environment for campus.

Also, in support of the newly created Student Central, the Student Technology Center known as the Reg Lab has been relocated to the top floor of University Center by the IT Helpdesk.

Obviously, with COVID a lot of work has been done to help with Business Continuity. In the spring, the Campus turned to both learning and working at a distance. A big thanks to the IT Support staff helping everyone make the transition. In support the faculty, staff, and students (along with the community) the Network Team installed a Wireless Hotspot covering the parking lot in behind Knobview. This allowed community members to drive up and connect to Wi-Fi during the spring and summer. The Hotspot is still available, but is now located by the Multipurpose building in behind the Physical Science buildings.

In working with the Academic Restart Committee and ILTE, UITS was able to determine, order, and install the necessary equipment in classroom space for Fall. These upgrades (like additional webcams, microphones) allow faculty to hold classes over Zoom or Microsoft Teams; and gives the ability to record classroom lectures.

Speaking of capturing lectures, UITS in partnership with the IU Office of Online Learning, ILTE, and Southeast Facility Operations, the Campus now has a Media Studio for faculty who can capture lectures and demonstrations to use with their online courses. We ask that you reach out to ILTE and Robin Morgan’s team for help.

The last project I want to mention. IU continues to migrate away from Box. While almost everyone’s personal box files have been moved. The University is now to ready to move group accounts. If you created a Box folder with a group account, you should have received an email requesting a response by October 10th. So please look for that email or reach out to the Helpdesk if needed.

Once again, I want to thank the UITS staff on campus for all they’ve done over the last in the last 8 to 10 months. I know that life has been different for all of us. Also, thanks to all faculty, staff, and students that have found creative new ways to use the technology to keep teaching and learning.

I would now like to introduce Vice Chancellor for Advancement Betty Russo.

Betty Russo:

Greetings IU Southeast community. As Vice Chancellor for Advancement, I am proud to update you on the progress made during the past fiscal year and our outlook for the coming year.

First, let me begin with the Indiana University Bicentennial Campaign, the $3 billion fundraising campaign that will soon be ending. Final results will be available shortly, but as of September 1st, I am proud to say our campus raised $17.1 million dollars, exceeding our $14 million goal. While there have been many successes that we can and should be proud of, the one that stands above all others, the one with extraordinary results, is the funds raised through non-governmental grants. Our goal for non-governmental grants was $300 thousand dollars and I am proud to announce that we raised three times this amount, or $900 thousand dollars! This accomplishment is primarily due to the dedicated faculty at IU Southeast who went above and beyond to secure these essential and critical funds for the extraordinary work they do for our campus. This effort earned us the ranking of top IU regional campus for highest percentage over our goal.

Even though our fundraising campaign is coming to a close, the work we’re doing in development to secure essential funding to support campus needs will continue; despite the challenging circumstances we currently face. We have made tremendous strides these past few years in developing relationships with community organizations, current and former faculty and staff, and our alumni, demonstrating the need for their support of our campus and our students. They have responded and I am confident that we will continue to earn their support in the coming months and years. They believe in our mission, and see the tremendous results of our students living and working throughout the community.

In the March of 2019, the IU Southeast Office of Alumni Engagement and Annual Giving was tasked with unifying the two entities in our service region that represent the Indiana University Alumni Association. The campus faction was represented by the IU Southeast Alumni Association, and the geographical faction represented by the Louisville/Southern Indiana Chapter of the Indiana University Alumni Association. The goal was to merge the two groups into one unified entity focused on advancing alumni engagement outcomes in our service region. The benefits for unification included; reduction of duplicated efforts in favor of a unified messaging and programming of alumni engagement; realization of the financial benefits of combined funding allocations; increase in prospective donors from a larger donor pool; local staff member to serve IU alumni and IUAA members in relevant ways that align with Indiana University, Indiana University Southeast, and Indiana University Alumni Association priorities; and maximizing alumni engagement efforts through a volunteer board representing the more than 32,000 Indiana University alumni from each campus that live in our service region.

In order to ensure that both groups were represented, a unification committee was created with volunteers from each group that guided the unification process. In July of 2019, the unification committee began to meet monthly to begin the process of unification. After a year-long process, the culmination of the committee’s effort was realized by both groups voting to approve the unification and forming the Indiana University Alumni Association, Kentuckiana Region. This move to unify the IU alumni organizations within our region strengthens our presence within the community and exemplifies the model of One IU!

The newly formed group had their first virtual unified board meeting in July of 2020 at start of the fiscal year and are now in the process of getting to know each other, coalescing as a team, and creating goals and strategies that will benefit all Indiana University alumni and IUAA members in our service region.

This past year has been extremely busy and challenging in marketing and communications. The pandemic brought on heightened need for communications across our campus and throughout the community to keep everyone informed of the changing landscape. Sometimes these changes occurred daily, sometimes hourly. The only consistency was change. It meant being nimble and being able to pivot to a new direction at a moment’s notice. We ramped up new methods of communications using more video and more media channels that are non-traditional, to reach the audiences we needed to reach. We worked in tandem with the IU Studios to coordinate messaging on COVID-19 and to recruit and retain students. We were everywhere—social media, television, digital networks, talk shows, creating and updating new websites—we put our university and our message where our audiences are living, working and relaxing to make sure they were up-to-date on the latest IU Southeast has to offer. While we had solid credit hour enrollment for summer and fall, we will not pause. COVID-19 has changed how we communicate with our students, alumni and campus community and we are proud to be a leading example utilizing the latest techniques and innovations among the regional campuses of IU.

Lastly, for those of you who have not been on the IU Southeast campus recently, I invite you to stop by the lower level of University Center to experience our Bicentennial timeline. This permanent installation, funded by an IU Bicentennial grant, is the result of months of research into the rich history of Indiana University and IU Southeast by one of our students and visualized by the marketing department as we approach our 80th year. We hope to have a dedication of the timeline as the pandemic recedes.

On behalf of the Office for Advancement, I wish you all a productive and successful year. We know it will be a busy but rewarding one for all.

I would now like to introduce Dana Wavle, Vice Chancellor for Administrative Affairs and Chief of Staff.

Dana Wavle:

Thank you, Betty.

I will provide an overview of the fiscal 21 general fund operating budget and then I will provide highlights from each of the units within administrative affairs. In the prior fiscal year, our fall and spring credit hours were down 4.5 and 2.8 percent, respectively. The shortfall in credit hours was offset by budget savings from vacant positions and spending reductions. As a result, we ended fiscal 20 with a small surplus relative to our total reserves. The surplus was created from temporary savings, so it does not roll over to this year or help our current budget. It does increase campus reserves that can be used for capital projects or strategic initiatives in the current year and subsequent years.

To build our fiscal 21 budget, we had to first lower our credit hour projections to fiscal 20 levels. Then in the middle of budget construction, COVID-19 hit and the University enacted several responses to prepare for the financial impact. On April 10, President McRobbie announced a 5% reduction to the general fund budget for all campuses. In total, 12,000 credit hours were removed from the fiscal 21 budget. In order to maintain a balanced budget, total expenses needed to be reduced by $2.5 million dollars. To accomplish this challenging task, the chancellor formed a Budget Reduction Planning Group, comprised of the academic deans, faculty senate president, director of library services, fiscal officers, vice chancellors, and chancellor. The group met five times in April and May to review all facets of our operations – all general fund accounts – and identified approximately $2.5 million dollars in budget reductions. The primary goal of this process was to identify budget reductions that would minimize the impact on instruction, retention, persistence, and completion. This collaborative and inclusive process worked well, and we achieved the goal established by President McRobbie.

However, we were notified the week of June 15 that the State Budget Agency would hold back 7% of this year’s state operating appropriation. For the Southeast campus, this amounted to $1.2 million dollars. We have a placeholder in the fiscal 21 budget that shows the holdback, with an offset that keeps the budget balanced. Our hope is that we will be able to cover most of holdback with budget savings throughout the remainder of this year.

It seems to be the natural order for things to happen in threes – good or bad. Our budget construction process was no exception this year. The third major event occurred the week of August 3, when we were notified that our fiscal 22 and 23 budgets must be prepared with a 15% reduction in state operating appropriation. For the Southeast campus, this equates to $2.9 million dollars. We are awaiting further information and guidance from University Administration.

While the financial pressure will continue into the foreseeable future, we do have some good financial news to report. Because of the dramatic reduction in budgeted credit hours for fiscal 21, actual fall credit hours came in slightly higher than budget, as Amanda mentioned in her comments. That’s much needed good news! For today’s purposes, our budget is stable, with the understanding that we have additional work that must be done to prepare for the 15% reduction in appropriation in fiscal 22. We must continue to look for budget savings with the least impact on instruction, retention, persistence, and completion.

For the remainder of my time, I would like to provide a short list of fiscal 20 highlights from each of the units within administrative affairs.

Accounting Services helped the campus community transition to BuyIU and deal with the widespread financial ramifications of COVID-19. Melissa Hill and Ashley McKay were both instrumental in helping the campus prepare for the fall opening. They continue to work with my office on the administration of the student and institutional grants to all IU campuses from the CARES Act.

Rob Poff and the facility operations team worked tirelessly to make extensive physical modifications to classroom and service spaces prior to the fall opening. The Central, Dogwood, and Woodside Parking Lots received a long-overdue renovation. The project involved the installation of underground storm water systems, medians that provide green space and water channels, new asphalt, and LED lighting. Updates to our entrance brickwork and signage will soon be completed.

Ray Klein and the Human Resources team coordinated the second biennial staff engagement survey in fall 2019. The survey results indicated high levels of staff engagement at the Southeast campus. The HR team provided uninterrupted service to the campus community throughout the COVID-19 disruption to campus operations.

Chief Miller and the Campus Police department kept vigilant watch over the campus during the COVID-19 disruption. In July, Nadia Hasan became our environmental health & safety AND emergency management coordinator. Nadia has worked closely with the School of Nursing on the symptomatic and mitigation testing programs. Chief Miller and Nadia have developed a point of distribution plan that will be used for fall flu shots and eventually a COVID-19 vaccination.

As auxiliary units, the Ogle Center and Dining Services were both hit hard by the COVID-19 disruptions between March and August. The Ogle Center suspended season programming and remains in an extended intermission. Kirk Randolph and the Ogle Center team have adopted a new academic mission to support the School of Arts and Letters and its extensive portfolio of fine arts, music, and theatre programs.

Dining Services continues to adjust its services to meet a much lower level of campus density. The campus did a great job reducing the number of in-person classes for the fall 2020 semester. This also reduced the demand for on-campus dining services. Julie Ingram and her core team will continue to serve the campus community with their trademark style of hospitality.

This will conclude the unit highlights within administrative affairs. If you have any questions regarding the fiscal 21 budget, please call or e-mail our office and we will remain available to assist you as needed.

At this point, I’d like to turn the presentation back to the chancellor for his concluding remarks and the presentation of awards.

Chancellor Wallace:

This has been a year of political and social unrest, but IU Southeast continues to do well. We continue to recruit and retain great students. We continue to grow our academic programs. We exceeded our goals during this pandemic, and I want to thank each and every one of you for the job you do to keep this institution so strong. We still have a lot of hard work ahead of us as we continue to recover from this pandemic, but I have no doubt that we will emerge from this stronger than ever. The work that you all do is inspiring, and I could not be more proud to be your chancellor.

We will now announce the 2020 Distinguished Awards, but first we will welcome our new Faculty and Staff as well as recognize those who have retired since September 1, 2019.

Our New Faculty are:

Molly Baugh
Assistant Professor of Music Education/Instrumentalist - School of Arts and Letters
Perry Blair
Acting Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychology - School of Social Sciences
Christy Burge
Lecturer of Accounting - School of Business
Christie Clare
Clinical Assistant Professor of Nursing - School of Nursing
Brian Schaefer
Assistant Professor of Criminology & Criminal Justice - School of Social Sciences
Ashley Thomas
Assistant Professor of Marketing - School of Business
Jeremy Weremeichik
Assistant Professor of Geoscience - School of Natural Sciences
Michael Wieck
Acting Assistant Professor of Accounting - School of Business
Paige Williams
Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychology - School of Social Sciences

Welcome to all of our new New Faculty.

Our New Staff are:

David Apple
HVAC Mechanic - Facility Operations
Sarah Barger
Academic Advisor - School of Natural Sciences
Tara Carty
Office Services Assistant Sr. - Alumni Affairs
Jamy Coulson
Office Services Assistant, Sr. - Student Affairs
Carol Gardella
Student Services Assistant - Student Central
Karri Hamlett-Bedan
Instructional Technology Consultant - ILTE
Nadia Hasan
Regional Environmental Health and Safety and Emergency Management Coordinator Specialist - University Police
Lily Anne Morphis
Simulation Laboratory Coordinator - School of Nursing
Charles Nasby
Technical Director/Theatre - School of Arts and Letters
Beccah-Marie Nesbitt
Student Account Assistant - Student Central
Brandon Reams
Financial Analyst - Accounting Services
Kimberly Roby
Office Service Assistant, Sr. - Athletics
Jessica Sarver
Student Persistence Coordinator - Student Affairs
Amy Schneidau
Student Services Assistant - Student Central
Luke Westmoreland
Residence Life Coordinator - Housing
James Joseph Wilkerson
Director of Staff Equity & Diversity - Office of Equity and Diversity
D’Andrea Williams
Graduate Licensing Advisor - School of Education

Welcome to all of our New Staff.

Retired Faculty since September 1, 2019 are:

Janet Arnold
School of Natural Sciences - 23 years
Crump Baker
School of Natural Sciences - 40 years
Delaine Cochran
School of Natural Sciences - 30 years
Bob Corum
Office of Marketing and Communications - 15 years
Robin Fankhauser
School of Education - 16 years
Richard French
School of Business - 32 years
Linda Haskins
School of Business - 19 years
Fred Jackson
Facility Operations - 10 years
James Kauffman
School of Business - 31 years
Judy Meyer
School of Nursing - 22 years
John Ramey
School of Arts and letters - 13 years
Cliff Staten
School of Social Sciences - 30 years

We certainly wish our retired Faculty and Staff all the best.

Now I would like to introduce our new Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Dr. Kelly Ryan.

Kelly Ryan:

Thank you, Chancellor Wallace.

I would like to first start by recognizing our 2020 FACET Inductees. Barbara Kutis and Adam Maksl.

FACET is an Indiana University Presidential Initiative to promote and sustain teaching excellence. Each year approximately 20-25 candidates from across the IU campuses, and representing a wide range of academic disciplines, are selected as new members. Once selected into FACET, members are expected to contribute their experience and skills to FACET activities and programs, advancing Indiana University’s Faculty Teaching Mission.

Congratulations!

Chancellor Wallace and I will now present the 2020 Distinguished Award recipients.

Diversity Award recipient: Dr. Donna Albrecht

I am exceedingly pleased to present the 2020 Diversity Award to Dr. Donna Albrecht, Associate Professor in the School of Education, Director of the New Neighbors Center, and Coordinator of ENL/ESL Programs.

Since arriving at IU Southeast, Dr. Albrecht has revamped and re-energized the New Neighbors Center. She has also leveraged her broad and deep connections across the state of Indiana to bring experts and events to campus. As the Higher Education Representative on the board of the Indiana Teachers of English to Students of Other Languages, she is helping to elevate the voice and status of IU Southeast, helping our campus respond to demographic changes in the region, and helping our students learn to advocate for diversity at higher levels.

Congratulations, Dr. Albrecht!

Faculty Innovator of the Year Award and Distinguished Research & Creativity Junior Award: Dr. Sumreen Asim

It is now my pleasure to present the ILTE Faculty Innovator of the Year Award to Dr. Sumreen Asim, Assistant Professor of Elementary Science and Technology.

The award recognizes Dr. Asim’s drive to cultivate a mindset of continuous innovation not only in her own classroom, but in the classrooms of her student educators.

She has made sure that her students are exposed to cutting edge conversations in the field by hosting leading practitioners of technology education, and she has leveraged resources of the IU whenever possible to benefit her classes.

In acquainting her teacher candidates with the latest tools, she is not just helping them use gadgetry. She is teaching them to become innovators by expanding their skills in areas such as communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity.

This year’s Distinguished Research & Creativity Junior Award also goes to Dr. Asim.

Dr. Asim integrates her research and teaching, using her research to formulate the education of STEM educators. Her active research program focuses on science and technology education. She has actively shared her research at regional, national and international conferences and published both articles and book chapters. Dr. Asim has received numerous awards for her research presentations. She has also been selected as an Emerging Leader for 2020 by the National Technology Leadership Summit. She is one of only TWO scholars to be so honored this year.

Well done, Dr. Asim!

Distinguished Research & Creativity Senior Award: Dr. Alan Zollman

This year’s Distinguished Research & Creativity Senior Award goes to Dr. Alan Zollman, Associate Professor of Mathematics Education.

Dr. Zollman has a very active research program in the area of student learning, curriculum development and classroom implementation in mathematics education. He has authored and co-authored a significant number of publications, including articles and book chapters and conference presentations, developing in the process a national and international reputation for his research.

Dr. Zollman has also been active in seeking and acquiring internal and external funding. Most notable is the Growing Tomorrow’s STEM Teachers Project, a grant of $240,000 to increase the quantity and quality of STEM teachers. Because of the outstanding outcome of the first grant, this grant was renewed by the Indiana Commission for Higher Education for $325,000.

Congratulations, Dr. Zollman!

Distinguished Teaching Award, Full-Time: Dr. Sridhar Ramachandran

I am honored to present this year’s Distinguished Teaching Award, Full-Time, to Dr. Sridhar Ramachandran, associate professor of informatics.

Dr. Ramachandran’s work and dedication towards his profession as a scientist and educator are often recognized. Most recently, he earned the Service Learning and Community Engagement Faculty Award in 2019. He has earned both the junior faculty and senior faculty Distinguished Research and Creativity Award here at IU Southeast. He was inducted into the Faculty Academy on Excellence in Teaching (FACET) in 2019.

Dr. Ramachandran established the first Informatics Research Lab at IU Southeast in 2007, which has since overseen the work of 43 undergraduate and 5 graduate research assistants. His research lab has also helped 13 local nonprofit organizations.

Well done, Dr. Ramachandran!

We do not have a 2020 recipient of the Distinguished Teaching Award for Part-Time Faculty.

Distinguished Service Award for Clerical Staff: Michelle Clements

And now we have the recipient of the Distinguished Service Award for Clerical Staff. The recipient of this award is Michelle Clements, program analyst in the Office of the Registrar, where she monitors curriculum and course changes approved by IU, and incorporates them into the degree audit.

In this role, she serves as a critical link and quality control between the Registrar, UITS and Marketing, helping to make sure that Academic Advising Reports, department websites, degree maps, the online Bulletin, and the online viewbooks are all current and consistent.

Michelle's unique skill-set enabled her to serve as project manager of the development of both the 2017-2019 and 2019-2021 Bulletins, as well as the inaugural Graduate Bulletin for 2019-2021, drafting and editing much of the content, but more importantly developing the philosophy behind an online Bulletin.

Congratulations, Michelle!

Now I want to hand it over to Vice Chancellor Dana Wavle to introduce the Distinguished Service award recipient for Service/Maintenance.

Dana Wavle:

Distinguished Service Award for Service/Maintenance Staff: Danny Wilson

Thank you, Kelly. This year’s Distinguished Service Award for Service/Maintenance Staff goes to Danny Wilson! Danny has a high standard of quality and it shows in all the areas he cleans. He is very knowledgeable in all aspects of custodial work, especially in floor-care procedures, and has been instrumental in performing floor care services in several areas throughout campus and especially in the Knobview/Ogle buildings. He reports to work every day with a positive attitude and he is always willing to help wherever he is needed. Danny is dedicated, dependable, polite, and kind. He exemplifies distinguished service!

Congratulations, Danny!

Now I want to invite Vice Chancellor Amanda Stonecipher to introduce the Distinguished Service award recipients for Professional/Technical Staff.

Amanda Stonecipher:

Distinguished Service Award for Professional/Technical Staff: Joe Glover

Thank you, Dana.

This year’s Distinguished Service Award for Professional/Technical Staff goes to Director of Athletics Joe Glover.

Joe has proven himself to be a thoughtful professional both on and off campus as he represents the university.

In addition to leading a successful athletic department, Joe is also a very active community member and is involved with the Rotary Club of New Albany and the Baptist Health Floyd Foundation. He not only provides excellent service on campus, but is very committed to giving back to the larger community. Quite simply put, Joe is beyond deserving of this recognition. He is incredibly loyal, not only to the Athletic Department, but to the entire institution. Additionally, Joe is an advocate for student success and continually inspires our student-athletes to be champions of character through his own example.

Congratulations, Joe!

I would now like to hand it over to Chancellor Wallace for a few concluding remarks.

Chancellor Wallace:

This concludes the recognition portion of the program. Thank you for joining us. On behalf of the entire campus community, congratulations to all of the award recipients!