Committee's welcome message on eZineGreeting from the Academic Affairs Committee!
Academic Affairs Committee (AAC) is composed of 9 members from both 2009 and 2010 classes, representing both evening and weekend cohorts:
Co-chairs:
Josh Han (2009 Weekend)
Kiran Prabhakara (2009 Weekend)
Members:
Joshua Sivaslian (2010 Evening)
Kadarnath Poduri (2009 Evening)
Renu Motwani (2009 Weekend)
Sarah Milstein (2010 Evening)
Srinivas Avasarala (2010 Evening)
Veronika Belokhvostova (2010 Weekend)
Executive Officer:
Jasmin Young (2009 Weekend)
Our mission is to help improve our students' academic experience at HAAS, inside and outside the class. A bridge linking the students to Program Office as well as other HAAS academic officers, AAC listens to students’ voices, collects students’ concerns, considers students’ suggestions, and seeks best solutions meeting students’ best interests.
Since the beginning of the year, AAC has been taking steps to fulfill this mission. The following is a list of major projects that AAC has accomplished or is working on.
1. Selecting 2007-08 recipients of the Cheit Awards for Excellence in Teaching and the Outstanding GSI Award (Completed)
2. Sharing course bidding experience with the first years (Completed)
3. Supporting New Center for Instructor Training (On going)
4. Organizing happy hours with faculty (On going)
5. Collecting qualitative feedbacks on courses and instructors (On going)
The full descriptions of these projects are summarized as follows.
1. Selecting 2007-08 recipients of the Cheit Awards for Excellence in Teaching and the Outstanding GSI Award (Completed)
Each year, Haas recognizes outstanding faculty instructors and graduate student instructors (GSI) in each degree program. For EWMBA program, Academic Affairs Committee is in charge of the process of nominating two Cheit Award recipients for evening and weekend cohorts each, and one recipient for Outstanding GSI Award. This year, within a two weeks time frame, AAC successfully conducted the online nomination survey that attracted about 25% of EWMBA students’ participation. After a careful selection, AAC members unanimously nominated three winners who will be announced on Friday, May 9 at the Dean’s end-of-the-year reception, with a “ceremony” beginning in the courtyard at approximately 4:30 PM.
2. Sharing course bidding experience with the first years (Completed)
To the first-year students, elective course bidding process appears mysterious and thus generates heavy anxiety among many students. To relieve their anxiety level, AAC were involved in recruiting 2nd and 3rd year students to share knowledge and experience with the bidding process for electives and help answer questions at three information sessions. Working with the Program Office, we managed to have student representatives at all sessions (Thanks to Vince Wu, Preston Smalley and the AAC co-chairs).
3. Supporting New Center for Instructor Training (On going)
This year, to improve the teaching quality at Haas, Adam Berman (Senior Assistant Dean and Executive Director of Institute for Business Innovation) and Jay Stowsky (Senior Assistant Dean for Instruction) planned to launch the New Center for Instructor Training that would address, but not limited to, a few notable initiatives: 1) how to approach faculty about incorporating guest lecturers and real-world examples without making them defensive; 2) how to train instructors teaching with the case method; 3) how to help faculty who receive a score of 4.5 or lower on their courses; 4) how to evaluate new instructors’ teaching quality before their being hired. To facilitate these new initiatives, AAC has volunteered to participate and created a dedicated 3-member team (led by Sarah). By far the team has already attended two meetings with the center officers. Going forward, we may also need to recruit student volunteers to get involved into these initiatives.
4. Organizing happy hours with faculty (On going)
Do you feel our tie with instructors is too narrowed to inside-class interaction? If so what about more informal chatting with instructors outside the classroom? We believe a more intimate bond with faculty fosters better class experience. AAC is collaborating with Social Committee to invite instructors having happy hours with our students. To spin the wheel, AAC has created a dedicated 2-member team (Renu and Veronika) who are now coordinating with Social Committee to send invitations to instructors. As a consequence, the social committee has already put together events for the rest of this year. We will work on a list of faculty members who would draw students.
5. Collecting qualitative feedbacks on courses and instructors (On going)
The existing score-based faculty evaluation system helps students making informed decisions on bidding elective courses. But more and more students are reporting its weakness, lacking of qualitative feedbacks or comments from past course takers on a course and its instructor. In addition, it is really awkward to access the database. To solve the unmet needs, AAC is in the process of working with Communication Committee to conduct a comprehensive survey on all EWMBA courses and instructors. We will collect students' qualitative feedbacks for each pair of course/instructor, and post the result onto a secure website that is easily viable to all students. As a result, students will make more informed course selection and bidding decision, which in turn will also help filter out non-popular courses.
We hope now you have a clear picture of what role AAC is playing. In fact, we have far more items to work on. The more volunteers, the better! If you are willing to contribute to HAAS community and are interested in joining AAC, please contact any of our members you like. For more information on this committee, please visit
https://mail.haas.berkeley.edu/owa/redir.aspx?C=a294f28af2004f20ae8df47c1ca95d32&URL=http%3a%2f%2fhaasewmbaa-academicaffairs.blogspot.com%2fSincerely,
Academic Affairs Committee
EWMBAA