Action plans as a program director

In the workshop that I am attending, Kevin offered us 5 tips for approaching our first 100 days:

1. communicating our stories
2. conducting a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis
3. constructing a vision and strategic plan
4. understanding the benefits and limits of the honeymoon period
5. capacity building

He has just given us some free time to think about our action plans for the year, the application of the 5 tips, and the mid-point check in.  

I'm going to approach this through an integration of these tips.  

I know that my program has space for greater integration of technology in instruction and as tools to facilitate data collection and analysis.  We also have a need for recruitment of students (particularly students of color), growth in the number of scholarships, the writing and administration of successful grants, the building of partnerships that draw our communities in and connect us more closely with the community.  Finally, we have need of transparency in decision-making (including finances), clearer communication, and an increase in the ownership of decision-making (and the requisite effort that it takes to complete actions that the group has decided).  In addition, I need to grow in my ability to fully understand and write to program standards and make sure that all parties are clear on how we have matched to the CTC mandates.  

To that end, here is my plan for this year:  

Summer

1. Identify the tech tools that will be used in our Praxis Seminar class.  Arrange for tutorials in these tools.
2. Write a proposal for Apple in Education usage of tools in the SSTE program for candidates (which may allow us to write our own books and provide candidates with a tool that they can use for their course studies and in their classrooms).  This would be shared with the Instructional Technology Group on campus and the dean with a goal of getting collaborative funding for the initiative, most likely to start in the 2018-2019 Academic Year.
3. Identify key recruitment opportunities (used by the KSOE/SSTE) and otherwise.  Identify possible partnerships and request a review of budget that is given for sponsorships at conferences and recruitment events.  Meet with the dean to determine a recruitment path.   
4. Map how our partnership with Oakland International High School (one of several partnerships) will work in the Foundations class and the Humanizing Education Methods class.  
5. Write the CTC documents.  
6. Write and have reviewed the syllabus for the Advanced Education Methods class. 
7. Write and have reviewed the syllabus for the Jan Term and Spring Praxis Seminar courses.  
8. Get positions approved, posted, and staffed.  
9. Communicate professional development opportunities to all part time faculty.
10. Send out some questions to key educational leaders at some of our partnership school sites.  Schedule to meet with them on their responses (ideally submitted through Google Forms.  Questions are adapted from Kevin Kumashiro)

Questions include:  

1. What do you want me to know about you?
2. What do you think are the strengths of the SSTE program at SMC?
3. How can our program improve?
4. What are your hopes for our SSTE program?
5. What advice would you have for me as a new program director?

Fall

1. Attend at least two recruitment events.  
2. Review admissions applications of candidates
3. Meet with the dean/Alumni giving to identify how we might cultivate scholarships from teacher candidate alumni for future teachers
4. Meet with the grants office to identify specific grants that would be accessible for the SSTE program and have Spring deadlines
5. Write the agendas for the semester so that they include reflection/mindfulness practices, a process checker, space for conversation about innovation, student concerns, program concerns, alignment with vision, mission, and goals
6. At monthly meetings:  provide space for a review and refinement of the vision, mission, and goals of the program (review our program review documents and refine our vision for the future based on that document, our assessment document, the CTC mandates, and our previous visioning sessions).  Also, determine what our program story is and how we want to represent ourselves and function in the world?
7. Distribute tasks so that each full time, rank and tenure faculty member writes an observation and evaluation report for 2 part time faculty members. 
8. Write letters of strengths and areas of improvement as a director for these faculty members.  Plan to meet with these members to check in with them in the Spring.
9. Attend as many intern placement meetings as possible (ideally 4-6), particularly those that are new partnerships
10. Facilitate the writing of the new emergent bilingual/language support class for teacher candidates (Request of the Language and Literacy expert).  
11. Facilitate the writing of the new universal access syllabi for teacher candidates (Request of the Special Education Program).
12. Facilitate the writing of the new multiliteracies syllabi for teacher candidates (Request of the Multiliteracies expert).
13. Submit the syllabi for Advanced Education Methods and Praxis Seminars to the APC. 
14. Set up the meeting dates for the spring semester.

December

Mid-point check in with SSTE staff, faculty, chair, and associate dean/dean; ideally in two separate collaborative meetings (program specific and school specific) to identify strengths and areas of growth on my action plan for the program.  

Spring

1. Attend at least two recruitment events.  
2. Review admissions applications of candidates
3. Meet with the dean/Alumni giving to identify how we might cultivate scholarships from teacher candidate alumni for future teachers
4. Write the grants with spring deadlines with program staff.  
5. Write the agendas for the semester so that they include reflection/mindfulness practices, a process checker, space for conversation about innovation, student concerns, program concerns, alignment with vision, mission, and goals
6. Distribute tasks so that each full time, rank and tenure faculty member writes an observation and evaluation report for 2 part time faculty members.  
7. Write letters of strengths and areas of improvement as a director for these faculty members.  Plan to meet with these members to check in with them in the early Summer.
8. Meet with the faculty members evaluated in the Fall.  
9. Attend as many intern placement meetings as possible (ideally 4-6), particularly those that are new partnerships
10. Submit the syllabi of the new emergent bilingual/language support class, Universal Access class, and Multiliteracies class for teacher candidates to APC review.  
11. Do a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) for the program in anticipation of an interim director taking over while I am in sabbatical for a year (if granted the opportunity)

Also, in writing this, I wish that my position was full time instead of part of my faculty appointment that comes with course releases for administrative work, especially since I'm also teaching two new classes, serving on the Alumni Board, Seminar Governing Board, California Council on Teacher Education board, Curriculum Study Commission, and a leader with the Artists for Sustained and United Resistance, The Acentos Review, Cleave:  Bay Area Women Writers, serving on the AWP Latino Caucus organizing committee, etc. ... and I'm also applying for artist residencies, research grants, and hopefully a Fulbright this year (among other academic fellowships).  

Always busy.    

I feel like I need to break my work further down into smaller chunks of time.  

#twt, #28of52, #52essays2017