Dean’s Message
Welcome to this first issue of an e-newsletter series that we will send periodically to keep you informed about the College of Applied Sciences and Arts at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.
During the 2013-2014 academic year, the College of Applied Sciences and Arts graduated nearly 1,000 master’s, undergraduate, and associate degree students. In this newsletter you will find highlights of the college within the last academic year, including student success stories, academic excellence and achievement, and community services. I am happy to report to you that the retention rate of our college has been consistently 10 percent higher than other colleges on campus for the last few years. Many factors contribute to this success -- dedicated faculty and staff, effective advisement, and selective admission, to name just a few. Not only is our college maintaining a high retention rate, but we are experiencing a continuous growth in our on-campus enrollment. In fall 2013 semester, CASA had a 3.1 percent increase in our on-campus enrollment compared to the fall semester of 2012. During the spring 2014 semester, our on-campus undergraduate enrollment had a 2.7 percent increase compared to the same period in January 2013. However, we had experienced a significant decrease in our off-campus enrollment in the past year due to several reasons, including tuition change and administration transfer. We have a strong and rich history in providing distance education to off-campus students, especially to military students. We are putting special efforts and resources in place to revitalize our distance education programs. Recently CASA had one of the two associate deans take charge of all distance education administrative responsibilities, and had a new academic advisor hired for both online and off-campus programs. I am sure we will see a positive change in enrollment, retention, quality, and student success in our off-campus programs soon.
We are committed to our guiding principles in alignment with CASA’s mission, strategic goals and the action plans as defined in our recently completed Strategic Plan 2013. The basis for excellence and success of all programs in CASA relies on the quality of people who work and study in the college. Our aspiration is to recruit and retain the faculty needed to carry out excellent teaching and scholarly activity, staff to support the mission, and students who are able to achieve academic excellence.
What sets CASA apart from other colleges? You may point to differences in degree programs, curricula, enrollment or retention. But if you drill down to the single most important difference, it’s people. CASA has a proud tradition of excellence. The student-centric culture at CASA is one of our most valuable and cherished assets. Moving from a Vocational Technical Institute (VTI), to a School of Technical Careers (STC), to a College of Technical Careers (CTC), then to a College of Applied Sciences and Arts (CASA), we have educated thousands of students, traditional or non-traditional alike, domestic and international. We have come up with a new CASA@2020 Initiative and launched a new series of programs to move the college to the next level. Those include summer research support; an annual ASA research symposium, and a peer-reviewed Journal of Applied Sciences and Arts (JASA). Another initiative, a new student success program called NEAT, has four milestones: No-show reports at the end of first week, engagement reports at the end of the fourth week, mid-point performances by mid-term grade reports and term performance reports at the end of each semester. Our faculty and staff have a true passion for student success, and our outstanding students are recognized regionally and nationally.
As we reflect upon the past year, I am proud of the achievements made by our students, faculty, staff, alums and industry partners. With contributions from more than 35,000 CASA alumni, the strong support from our industry partners, with distinguished faculty, dedicated staff and talented students, CASA will continue its mission. That is to maintain high quality programs, create and implement new degree programs, conduct high-impact research and creative activity that build on industry collaboration and regional need, and provide community and professional service that make a difference to the people of the state of Illinois and beyond. The future of the College of Applied Sciences and Arts is bright and exciting.
Thank you for your continuous support.
Andy Wang, Ph.D.
Professor and Dean