Chair Talk 4.9-Some Good News

Two kinds of good news to report: first, there is increased interest in participating in shared governance.  Elections for faculty officers and other faculty governance roles are underway right now, and I urge all faculty to vote.  There is competition for some of the positions, including that of Chair of the Faculty, and one can hope that the presence of choice motivates as many faculty as possible to have their say at the ‘ballot box’.

As I think I have mentioned before, the Chair of the Faculty is an invited guest at the meetings of ICAC (Intercollegiate Athletics Committee), at which one gets to hear a lot about how our athletics program is doing, and how we try our hardest to ensure that academic values are maintained with integrity in the complicated world of big-time college sports we as an institution compete in.  Not everything goes according to plan or desire, but as I’m about to spell out, we can and should be proud of much of what we do at the UA.

At the most recent meeting of ICAC, Becky Bell (Associate Athletic Director, Cats Life Skills) gave a presentation on some of the ways in which the UA expresses its commitment to our athletes’ total success. The number of programs that are available is remarkable, providing life skills training in areas including personal development, career development and community service.  The fruits of these efforts have been clear over the years.  In the world of collegiate athletics there are various awards that one can win, including PAC12 Leadership, Sportsmanship and Woman of the Year Awards.  Since 2006, the UA alone has garnered 18 of these awards, the other 11 PAC schools combined got 44.  In the same time frame the UA has had 4 NCAA Woman of the Year winners, and 5 finalists.  USC has had 1 finalist, and that’s it for the entire PAC-12.  The UA stands alone in this regard.  Good results play out at the program level as well: we received a Gold Award of Excellence (2010) from NASPA (Students Affairs Administrators group) and were the first Athletics Department to partner with the Jefferson Awards for Service program that focuses on community service and public outreach.

These are challenging times in many ways, but as we head into Spring Break, and perhaps take off for distant places, it’s nice to take note of some of the successes we have had as an institution.  The CATS Life Skills Program is one of them.

PLEASE VOTE!
Lynn Nadel
Chair of the Faculty