Academic Excellence at NLU

It seems like I think about NLU all the time in this role, and meet NLU stakeholders everywhere I go. I was recently in a video store, and it turned out that a clerk is in the elementary education program. He is just about to start student teaching, and in fact had just got the call about a placement interview when we talked.

He told me that he really valued the preparation he was getting at NLU, and praised the faculty again and again. In fact, he told me that he had transferred from Northeastern because our program met his needs much better than theirs. His enthusiasm and outstanding preparation bode well for the students he will serve during his student teaching and his entire teaching career. Schools need all the bright, motivated, enthusiastic, caring teachers they can get!

This anecdotal evidence shows again what we already know and has been borne out in Marketing's new research on NLU--a prime reason students choose NLU is because of strong personal relationships with faculty. Alumni affairs is also building strong relations with alums (which will lead to increased giving) by leveraging faculty relationships and building them over time. For example, the university is now webcasting faculty presentations to alums, starting with a presentation by Fletcher about his new book on academic rituals. That presentation got an excellent response from alums.

As we move forward into challenging times, we need to ensure that we retain the vigor and vitality of our programs and continue to ensure that students form strong, positive relations with faculty.

The Academic Planning Task Force is one way to ensure that faculty have a strong and vital role in academic planning, that programs remain vigorous, and that students are achieving our learning outcomes. The Promotion and Tenure Policy is a good way to ensure that an outstanding faculty will be here now and in the future.

Faculty needs to continue to monitor teaching load as well as service load to ensure that we have enough time to do our work of serving students and building strong programs. Faculty have too many non-faculty responsibilities right now, which makes doing our jobs a real challenge.