December 13 Staff Forum Recap
Staff gathered in person and online for a staff forum on December 13. The event’s moderator, Jamie Montgomery-Hyde (HR), started off by welcoming everyone and pointed out that the event was the first in-person forum in three years. He gave an overview of the agenda and then introduced the first speaker.
Doug Holloway, co-vice chair of the Board of Trustees, joined via Zoom to share an update on the presidential search. He noted that the search committee recently wrapped up its third search in two years. In the third round of the search, seven candidates were interviewed by the committee, from a field of more than one hundred comprised by the search firm. Three interviewees were female and four were BIPOC.
After narrowing the field to two candidates, one was recommended for approval to the Board of Trustees last week. The new president should be joining the College in June.
Next, Brooke Knight and Maria Koundoura (Academic Affairs) gave an update on the reaccreditation process with NECHE. Knight said that a visiting team came in September, and various staff members have contributed to a self-study report that highlights the College’s strengths and areas for improvement.
He explained that the next step in the reaccreditation process is for Interim President Gilligan and the visiting team chair to go before the Commission in March or April. Knight said it is very likely that the College will gain reaccreditation, and then NECHE will check our progress with regards to our areas for improvement in five years.
Koundoura spoke next. She thanked everyone for their assistance with the reaccreditation process. She gave an overview of our strengths and our areas for improvement and noted that overall the visiting team’s report was very positive.
Justin Sharifipour (Enrollment Management) gave a brief presentation on recent enrollment trends. He started off by saying that Emerson’s enrollment numbers have been strong, even during COVID. Last year, there were more than 12,000 applications with an acceptance rate of 43 percent. Approximately 1,700 new students joined the community this fall.
He explained that there is an industry-wide trend to make SAT and ACT scores optional for applicants. Emerson adopted a test-optional policy prior to the pandemic. In Fall 2017, 98 percent of new first-time undergrads submitted test scores. In Fall 2022, that number dropped to 28 percent. Over the past five years, the Enrollment team has tracked the difference in first-year GPAs between students who submit test scores and those who don’t, and it has found a negligible difference.
Sharifipour shared that there has been a steady increase of new first-time international and BIPOC undergrad students. The Fall 2022 class was 28 percent BIPOC and 16 percent international. Domestically, students hail from 47 states, with 24.5 percent being Massachusettsan or Californian. The foreign country sending the most undergraduate students was China, followed by India.
The first-year retention rate for undergrads has remained between 86 and 88 percent for most of the past six years. And the six-year graduation rate has dropped a bit from 80 to 77 percent. Sharifipour ended his presentation by saying that the College’s ability to weather the storm during COVID is a testament to our community.
Shaya Gregory Poku (Social Justice Collaborative [SJC]) started her presentation with a brief introduction about her background. She joined the College in August as Emerson’s new vice president for equity and social justice. She oversees the Elma Lewis Center, the Healing and Advocacy Collective, and the new HIVE (Hub for Inclusive Visionary Engagement). Poku said that she is looking forward to working with staff on the College’s commitment to equity.
Poku provided a recap of the process that the Beyond Racial Equity (BRE) consultants undertook to provide a strategic review and set of recommendations for promoting equity and justice on campus. First, BRE staff spent one year talking with community members, with a focus on the undergrad BIPOC experience. From this work, they wrote a report and recommendations, which can be found in the Community Equity Action Plan section of Emerson’s website. An email was sent out on October 24 that details the seven priorities that BRE recommends the College focus on over the next few years: values and culture, communication and collaboration, leadership, accessibility, retention, accountability, and community. Poku said that the community can expect to receive BRE progress updates in February.
Next, Brandin Dear (Student Affairs) provided an update on how COVID is being managed on campus. COVID monitoring has transitioned from external management by Tufts to internal management by Dear and his colleagues. He explained that COVID is now an endemic, like the flu: a virus that is always present. However, he reminded the audience that COVID is still more serious than the flu.
Current COVID policy on campus includes optional masking, no surveillance testing, and isolation in place for residential students. Dear said that 314 students self-reported infection last semester and there were no outbreaks and no students were hospitalized. He and his team meet regularly to monitor the number of cases on campus and go over any new developments regarding the disease at the local, state, and federal levels. They also meet with health directors at other local colleges to discuss trends and continue to stay in touch with epidemiologists at Tufts.
Dear said that he and his team are always available to answer questions about COVID-related issues, and they will continue to share updates with the community via email and social media. He wrapped up by sharing recommendations for the winter season: getting COVID boosters, flu vaccines, staying home when sick, and masking as needed during the holidays to help mitigate the spread of COVID.
Interim President Bill Gilligan was the final speaker of the formal presentation. He began by saying that he was glad to be there in person, as the last in-person forum had been December 2, 2019. He encouraged the audience to read his State of the College, which was emailed to the community recently.
He talked about having made a “flip card file” of memories from his 40 years at Emerson and said that the College has experienced amazing transformation since he started teaching here in 1982. For example, the campus location is completely different. The size of the student body, faculty, and staff has doubled.
He said that the community has put Emerson on a launch pad for the new incoming president and that the president will benefit from the wonderful report that the Future of Emerson committee is compiling. He remarked that it has been a great privilege to be at Emerson all of these years, and it was an honor for him to return as interim president. Recalling his retirement remarks, which were held on Zoom during the height of the pandemic, he closed with the William Butler Yeats’ quote “Think where man’s glory most begins and ends, and say my glory was I had such friends.”
Montgomery-Hyde moderated the final part of the forum. He invited every new employee since December 2019 to introduce themselves. Then he reminded the audience about the holiday open house happening later that week. He also asked everyone to confirm their address in Workday, as only 50 percent of staff had completed the task.
He then invited people to share general announcements. Cheryl McGrath (Iwasaki Library) reminded staff that they have access to the Washington Post and the New York Times through the library’s website. She also mentioned that staff can access a plethora of streaming video content by logging into the library’s website.
Next, the floor was opened to general questions. Someone asked if there were plans to hold a staff recognition event again, and Montgomery-Hyde responded that an in-person ceremony is in the works. Details will be shared soon. Another person asked for an update on the CBIZ salary survey. Montgomery-Hyde said that a memo would be sent out within a week (it was emailed on December 22). The salary survey results will be implemented once VPs and managers learn how to interpret the complex data. Then someone asked if there is a plan to update the College’s strategic plan. Paul Dworkis (Administration and Finance) answered that the Future of Emerson committee’s work will inform the next president’s process of creating a new strategic plan, which will lay the foundation for the College’s next 10 years.
Nancy Howell (Communications and Marketing)