On Thursday, March 1, the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) held an open
forum in the University Center (U.C.) for students to engage and ask questions to
faculty members from various departments on campus.
Faculty members in attendance included the intensive term taskforce of President Lesley Hallick, Interim Dean Sarah Phillips, Associate Dean & Director, School of Social Sciences Jessica Ritter, Associate Professor Ramona Llea and Vice President
of Enrollment Management and Student Affairs Mark Ankeny.
Students brought up many questions regarding the rumors of the January term changes, which was what Hallick was hoping would happen.
“We want the forum to be a time for meaningful input while the faculty in CAS are coming together with a proposal to make the short term more useful,” Hallick said prior to the forum.
Hallick added that she would love for the intensive term to include more courses that are integrated into pathways toward a degree, rather than including mostly two
credit elective courses.
The taskforce of faculty members for the intensive term spoke about the potential
changes at the forum.
“What we are trying to do is figure out what kind of calendar supports the students most here at Pacific,” they stated. “We have seen enrollment decline because we have stopped offering full credit courses in Jan term and our research has found that students perform better with a permanent faculty versus the short term professors.”
At the forum, Hallick discussed the two phase process currently in place for the intensive term. Phase one being curricula, faculty, content and what will work best for effective learning, which should be finished by the end of this semester. Phase two will be focused on curricula development and will hash out details of course offerings and what will make the intensive term most effective.
“We will collect content from the financial aid office and faculty to understand
and help the flexibility,” Hallick said. “We very much want student input and suggestions.”
Another topic discussed at the forum was the concern of sexual assault and
harassment on campus. Dean of Students and Associate Vice President of Student
Affairs Will Perkins, spoke on all the ways the Campus Wellness Center is working to eliminate sexual assault and harassment on campus.
“The Campus Wellness office has frequent U.C. tabeling, has looked at
partnering with the larger community, such as working with the Forest Grove high
school, residence assistance and orientation programming and survivor support,” Perkins said. “Our goal is to support the student body as much as possible.”
Hallick and the rest of the CAS faculty hope to have more open forums in the future
to spark discussions between faculty and students.
“One of the nice things about these open forums is that although they are sometimes random, it allows people to speak on anything they want; there’s no
restrictions,” Hallick said. “A lot of students are really comfortable speaking publicly
and for those students who aren’t, I would encourage them to email us with questions.”
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