Published August 23, 2024
Greetings Staff and Faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences,
It has been a fun week to meet our incoming students during Saddle Up events. Students are engaged and excited to start the school year. I appreciate everyone who has worked to make Saddle Up a successful event for our students. Besides some responses of “it was too busy,” the overall response I received was that students had a productive week.
On Wednesday, the Dean’s Office hosted our annual Department Head retreat. The theme of the meeting was enrollment in terms of recruiting and retention for our degree programs and enrollment in individual courses. The discussion was engaging and valuable. A&S must continue to prioritize our efforts on recruiting and retaining students for our degrees, and we discussed ideas for involving the entire college in the process. We need your help in this process. A robust student body is essential for the success of our college and degrees. We also discussed under-enrolled courses (less than 10 students per undergraduate course) and low enrolled courses. Our college continues to have too many under-enrolled courses every semester. We also offer too many sections that have just enough students to make minimum enrollments. With the department heads we discussed ideas for curricula review to address these concerns. Ultimately, we must use our college resources efficiently. I understand the challenges departments are facing, and I think department heads are understanding the need for changes. You can expect department level discussions regarding recruiting, retention, and course enrollments. Your curricula are in your control, and I am confident that if we work together to address these concerns, we can solve them together.
Additionally, as part of the Neltje Center, the Jentel Artist Residency is currently accepting applications from visual artists, writers, and composers. For more information about the program and application deadlines, visit https://jentelarts.org.
I have also had the opportunity to see many of our new faculty during their orientation this week. This talented group of teachers, researchers, and creatives are the future of the College of Arts and Sciences. I am looking forward to getting to know them and their work. We want to support them as they begin their careers at UW. Please help me welcome them to our campus.
Have a great start to your semester. This is a wonderful time of year.
Most sincerely,
J. Scott Turpen
