Anisa Jibrell – News Writer
President Mary A. Papazian held a student and faculty discussion last week to give students, with questions and or concerns an opportunity for their voices to be heard.
Papazian said students could expect to see a lot of intentional work around academic advising.
The university will be doing a formal launch of the strategic plan—which is focused on student success—at the beginning of next spring. Though a name for the plan has not yet been created, Papazian welcomes ideas.
“We’re a student-centered institution and we’re committed to increasing the success rate of our students–what that means is it’s not enough to bring students to campus,” said Papazian. “We’re glad to have you all here, but we really want you all to graduate in a timely way with a meaningful degree with the ability to move into gainful employment when you graduate.
Much of the work surrounding advisement will be led by by vice president of student affairs, Tracey Tyree, associate vice president for enrollment management, Terricita Saas, and dean of arts and sciences, Steven Breese, according to Papazian.
Papazian actively engaged students in discussion towards current topics on campus, providing the latest development on topics such as the third floor of the Buley library.
Other updates include: the university is actively looking for an architect for a new health and human services building that will replace Pelz Gym, and the cafe in the library is scheduled to open before calendar year is over.
Brandon Soley said, “there’s no enumerated list of intended outcomes as to why they’ve included those course offerings.”
“It’s gotta’ be somewhere but it’s clearly not as accessible as it should be,” said Papazian. “It’s helpful for students to know why they’re taking their classes and what the expectations are, that just seems reasonable.”
Another student inquired about the recent change made to food lot, where students are no long allowed to use two meal swipes in within the same hours, in which another student took the liberty to respond to.
The mind-set behind the change is that the university is encouraging students to use their food loot for a coffee instead of an entire meal-swipe, which would be more cost-effective for students.
The $300 meal plan was switched to $150 with 25 meal swipes at the start of the Fall semester.
Juan Carlos Barranco, sophomore pre-nursing major inquired as to whether the expected expansion of the school of health and human services will that also mean an expansion of choices in available programs of study as well as increased admission into certain programs like nursing.
“That’s the goal, the goal is to really continue to align the program offerings with the opportunities and the needs in our state that’s evolving and changing as we speak,” said Papazian. “Clearly we know and its painful to all of us that we are frankly turning away some very qualified students into some high-demand programs like nursing, communication sciences and there’s a number of others.”
The university is also working with the mayor of Hamden to think about ways connect differently to Hamden in addition to Westville.
“We’ve created internships, partnerships that are really for the benefit of all of you and that will continue as we move forward, and we’re looking forward to it.”
Photo Credit: Staff Photo