Discussion centered on the issue of how Ohio Wesleyan portrays its message to prospective students at the Monday faculty meeting.
President Rock Jones announced that MindPower Consulting, based in Atlanta, will visit campus next week to meet with faculty and tour the university.
“MindPower is a sharp, clean, forward-thinking firm,” said Susan Dileno, vice president for enrollment.
The goal in bringing in the consulting company is to better present the message of Ohio Wesleyan to prospective students, especially the OWU Connection. Such programs include Theory-to-Practice grants, Travel-Learning courses, Course Connections and student individualized projects.
Jones said this campaign should focus on developing a comprehensive message of what we [the university] are promising students. He said they need to find a way to better present the opportunities in the OWU Connection, especially the student individualized projects (SIPs) because they are more compelling.
Amidst concerns from faculty members about the effectiveness of hiring an outside firm to better tell the message of OWU, Jones said this company will provide expertise and creative thinking and it is not unusual for universities to pursue this route.
He added it has been 10 years since such a comprehensive look from a consulting firm has happened at OWU.
Professor of English David Caplan brought up the concern of cost for hiring MindPower.
Jones said outside of the normally printed publications and yearbooks, the range would be around $200,000.
“I appreciate the candor and depth of thought,” Jones said at the end of his report.
Changes to classes
The Humanities-Classics department split into the comparative literature department and classics program at the end of the spring semester last year, but the course designations stayed the same.
The Academic Policy Committee approved the transitions of formally addressed HMCL classes to the new designation of CMLT and CLAS at the faculty meeting.
Anne Sokolsky, associate professor of comparative literature and head of the department, added that the previously labeled HMCL 124 Love and Sexuality classes will now be four separate course numbers, which allows students to receive credit for taking the class with different professors.
She said each class is completely different from the other and focuses on different locations and literature.
Previously cross-listed courses between botany/microbiology and zoology, such as ZOOL/BOMI 120, will now be addressed as biology courses, BIOL 120. These classes will still count as both botany/microbiology and zoology classes in terms of distribution, according to Paula White, professor of education and chairperson of the Academic Policy Committee.
The faculty also approved the addition of four new permanent additions to the curriculum.
Memorials
Three deceased members of the OWU community were remembered through memorial resolutions.
Verne Edwards died in November 2014. He taught journalism at Ohio Wesleyan for 34 years and was the advisor for The Transcript and had an impressive resume of journalism work in the field.
Chaplain Jon Powers honored Reverend James Leslie who died in October 2014. Leslie was the first full-time chaplain and director of religious life at OWU for 28 years and helped support numerous clubs and organizations at OWU, such as founding the Student Union on Black Awareness (SUBA).
Catherine Schlichting was an honorary alumna who died in July 2014. She worked her way up from a reference librarian at Slocum Library to being the curator for the Ohio Historical Collection. Catherine Cardwell, who read her memorial, commented that she was a source of knowledge for anything about OWU, and the phrase “ask Cay” was often used.