Welcome back to Humboldt! ¡Bienvenidos a Humboldt! Today, Monday, August 23 is the first day of classes at Humboldt State University. You are back and our students are also back and ready to engage in a positive and meaningful educational experience. Please remember that all classes are online the first two weeks of the semester.

As you know, public health conditions are changing as we speak, so we remain ready and flexible to adapt to new circumstances. This is a year of change and transition in our institution. We have cautiously increased our face-to-face course offerings by about 12% more than last year, from 30% to 42%. This year we are also opening all our college office department hubs to F2F to best facilitate this transition and provide in-person direct services.

This year our college is reorganized in several ways. We have 11 administrative units, 11 chairs, 11 program leaders, 4 graduate program coordinators, and 8 department office hubs with 8 ASCs and 6 ASAs. Please see attached organization sheet. 

In addition, currently we are conducting two administrative support searches:

• English/Philosophy (.5 timebase) and Communication/Journalism (.5 timebase) ASA II 12/12 

• Internal permanent search - https://hraps.humboldt.edu/sites/default/files/vacancy_announcements/21-42_vacancy_announcement_revised.pdf

• Application Deadline - August 24, 2021

• Dance/Music/Theatre (1.0 timebase) ASA II 12/12

• External permanent search - https://hraps.humboldt.edu/sites/default/files/vacancy_announcements/21-40_vacancy_announcement_revised_1.pdf)

• Application Deadline - September 2, 2021

Also, our budget analyst, Gina Pierce, retired over the summer. We would like to thank her for all the excellent services she consistently provided to our college and the institution at large. Thank you Gina!  René Smith (ASC in Anthropology/Geography, Environment and Spatial Analysis/World Languages and Cultures) has graciously agreed to provide interim support to our college in all matters related to the college budget. Thank you René! Soon we will conduct a search to find our next college budget analyst.

Last week was packed with meetings and events to mark the opening of this new AY 2021/22. We had our first College Leadership Retreat on Tuesday, August 17 and our College-wide Welcome on Thursday, August 19. We have set up a comprehensive agenda for this year that includes, but it is not limited to the following main areas: 

• Strategic college alignment with the Academic Affairs Division goals and priorities (Lead: Chairs’ ad hoc committee TBA).

• Development of new Student Learning Communities (Lead: Maxwell Schuner)

• Implementation of college level outreach and student recruitment (Lead: David Heise)

• New Curriculum and Program Development (Lead: Heather Madar)

• Implementation of college level communication plan to best serve our college community (Leads: Ryan Rasmussen and Shannon Collart)

Please consult with your chairs and program leaders about details and how to engage in these critical priorities for your program.

Part of our college communication plan is the creation of our “CAHSS Group Communication Drive” that will house relevant documents related to the above priorities for you to be fully informed at all times. Make sure to set up this particular drive with an automatic email notification that will let you know when new documents are added to the drive. If you have any issues connecting to the drive, please email Ryan.Rasmussen@humboldt.edu. 

Similarly, we are also providing you with direct access to the interim dean and the two associate dean fellows as part of our ongoing communication efforts. We have set up virtual office hours for you to make direct contact with us when necessary:

Deans Virtual Office Hours, fall 2021:

• Rosamel Benavides-Garb: Fridays, 10:00-11:00 am

• Waiting Room Zoom Link: https://humboldtstate.zoom.us/j/83239863604 

• Heather Madar: Fridays 11:00-11:50 am

• Zoom Link: https://humboldtstate.zoom.us/my/heathermadar

• Reserve a meeting time slot at: https://calendar.google.com/calendar/u/0/selfsched?sstoken=UUVjeHYxQkVMR...

• Dave Heise: Thursdays 12:00-1:00 pm

• Waiting Room Zoom Link:  https://humboldtstate.zoom.us/j/81264771212

In addition, please see attached the current list of clearly delineated duties and responsibilities of our associate dean fellows.

We are learning more about the new budget centralized process implemented this AY. As we transition to this new process, we are discovering that the new college allocation comes with significant reductions in all categories. Accordingly, we will need to reduce the travel call too. Shannon Collart, our College Analyst, is in charge of this area. Soon she will send a modified travel call.

In closing, I want to wish each one of you a fulfilling semester. I, and my entire office team, Shannon Collart, René Smith, Ryan Rasmussen, Dave Heise, and Heather Madar, are thankful for all you do to foster and support our students' success. Please let us know how we can best support you. Muchas gracias,

Sincerely,

¡Sí se puede! ¡Avanzar! 

Rosamel