Publications Committee
Annual Report for 2019-20
2019-2020 Annual Report
Committee Members ‘19-’20: Aviva Geismar (Health, Physical Education and Dance) (Chair) (HPED), Vazgen Shekoyan (Physics) (Secretary), Kwang Hyun Kim (Math and Computer Science), Faustino Quintanilla (QCC Gallery), Kerri-Ann Smith (English), Christina Manzo (Business)
Steering Committee Designee: Philip Pecorino (Social Sciences)
President’s Liaison: Stephen Di Dio (Marketing)
Committee Members ‘20-’21: Kerri-Ann Smith (Chair) (English), Vazgen Shekoyan (Secretary) (Physics), Patrick Byers (Social Sciences), James Geasor (Marketing), Kwang Hyun Kim (Math and Computer Science), Christina Manzo (Business)
Steering Committee Designee: Aviva Geismar (Health, Physical Education and Dance)
President’s Liaison: Stephen Di Dio (Marketing)
The Publications Committee spent this year recalibrating how we could best fulfill our charges. After consultation with the Director of Web Services, we decided to discontinue the Award for Best Departmental Website which the Committee had been running for several years.
The two major tasks that the Committee worked on instead were: 1. Revision of the Faculty Handbook into a format that will consist predominantly of links to existing web pages, so as to streamline future updates which are required for accreditation and for accuracy.
- Working in conjunction with the Director of Web Services and the Academic Departments in order to design recommendations for best practices regarding the Academic Aspects of the college website which was agreed to be confusing to navigate.
Revision of the Faculty Handbook
Liza Larios, Martha Aspromatis from the Office of Human Resources and Labor Relations and Lois Florman, the College attorney, attended the December meeting to discuss the legal aspects of the Handbook and the work that the HR/LR Office was doing on the Handbook. Phil Pecorino led the revision of the handbook starting with a close examination of the current handbook. The Committee created a survey for faculty about the Handbook which the FEC sent out in February. Christina Manzo is analyzing the results of the survey during the summer of 2020. Phil Pecorino presented a first draft plan for a revision of the Handbook to the Committee which the Committee preliminarily approved in February. Phil is continuing to work on that revision with assistance from Aviva Geismar. The projected completion date of a proposed revision of the Handbook is the end of the fall semester 2020.
Guidelines for Best Practices for Academic Aspects of the College Website
David Moretti, Director of Web Services, consulted with the Committee a number of times regarding the issues that make the Website difficult to navigate and difficult to manage. The Committee decided to establish a Sub-Committee on the Academic Aspects of the College Website. Members of the S-C were recommended by Dave as the most competent departmental web coordinators.
Sub-Committee Members: Arthur Adair (Chair) (Speech, Theater, Communications), Lorena Ellis (Foreign Languages), Aviva Geismar (Secretary) (Health, Physical Education and Dance) Kwang Kim (Math and Computer Science), Kam Tim (Heather) Ou (Social Sciences, CLT), Jun Shin (Chemistry), Meghamala Tarafdar (English)
Student representative: Jenny Qu
The S-C met three times (November, December and February.) In consultation with Dave Moretti and Linda Evangelou, the S-C identified: 1. the audience for the website (prospective students and their families, current students, faculty, staff, accrediting bodies, other colleges, HS guidance counselors and faculty, prospective employers.) 2. the central confusion / redundancy in the site (what goes in the department webpages versus programs of study pages versus academies pages), 3 some of the most effective kinds of materials to be included in the site when targeting different audiences.
Plans: The S-C plans to address the issue of recommending which information should be included in each of these pages (department, programs of study, academies) during the fall semester 2020.
