The Future of Emerson: Faculty and Staff Collaboration
In 2020, former President Lee Pelton tasked faculty with using the challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic to lead a collective imagining of the College’s future, with the goal of creating a foundation of shared knowledge and ideas for Emerson’s current and future presidents. Referred to as the Future of Emerson, the initiative was launched in Fall 2020 when faculty participated in two virtual town-hall style discovery workshops and grouped the ideas generated into three categories: Programs & Pedagogies, Structures & Spaces, and Access & Affordability. In Spring 2021, academic staff joined the conversation as part of three additional town-hall style conversations, one for each of the above categories, and the Emerson community was invited to a listening session on April 23, 2021, at which a draft of the recommendations was presented.
In Spring 2022, Interim President Bill Gilligan asked that the Future of Emerson project continue with the addition of more community members, including students and additional staff. The original three categories were expanded into the five current committees: Classroom of the Future, Institutional Growth, Academic Structure, Student Experience, and Physical Plant, as well as a Steering Committee that oversees the five committees. Staff from all areas of the College are heavily involved in these committees; each committee is composed of seven or eight community members and has a staff co-lead. Staff at all levels are included, including those represented by the Emerson Staff Union. Staff participation on these committees was determined through nomination and self-nomination forms during Spring and Fall 2022.
Staff Committee co-leads are: Alayne Fiore (Social Justice Collaborative, Classroom of the Future Committee); Justin Sharifipour (Enrollment Management, Institutional Growth Committee); Shaylin Hogan (Graduate Studies, Committee on Academic Structure); Sharon Duffy, (Student Success, Student Experience Committee); and Jessica Butler (Facilities Management, Physical Plant Committee). Duffy said of the experience, “This exercise has been a wonderful opportunity for students, faculty, and staff to come together to listen and learn from each other; discuss values, vision, and goals; and consider the possibilities and opportunities of the Emerson of the Future. I have truly enjoyed the ‘what if’; ‘what about’; and ‘what might be’ conversations, and I am excited to see how these thoughts and ideas come to take shape.”
The expanded committees will develop a series of next steps based upon the 2021 recommendations, with the goal to present Emerson’s next president, Dr. Jay Bernhardt, with a list of options for where to take Emerson next. “The goal of this second iteration [of the Future of Emerson] is about implementation,” said Brooke Knight (Academic Affairs), chair of the Future of Emerson Steering Committee. “Our goal is to outline the resources needed and demonstrate [that the College] can execute any of [these] options.”
Knight emphasized that these committees “recognize the critical [role] that staff play in the institution and create a platform for staff voices to be heard. A key part of this process is that staff at all levels are integrated into the process and are playing a crucial role in the future of Emerson.”
Diana Potter (Office of Research and Creative Scholarship)