Education

Commencement: T-minus 6 weeks. Into my hands, my assistant Jan places a black three-ring binder. In it, in 14-point font, triple-spaced for easy reading, are the names the registrar has determined should be read at commencement: students who are expected to complete their requirements either by the end of the semester or, in a few cases, the end of the summer. My hands begin to shake. The notebook feels like it weighs 12 pounds. It becomes, in an instant, The Notebook. How I ended up with the job of reading the names at commencement is one of the many quirks of history that make up Wheaton College, the small liberal arts institution in Massachusetts where I work. My predecessor did it to great acclaim during her 23 years in the post I now occupy (dean of students), so when she retired and I stepped in, I am not sure anyone gave it a second thought. "You read the names at commencement!" I was told repeatedly as my first year wore on. At first I was baffled, then a little freaked out. At every other institution I'd been at, the dean of students was lucky to sneak into the faculty procession, or occasionally get onto the platform if none of the academic deans minded. But his or her part in commencement, the most academic of academic ceremonies, was minimal. I think what worried me most was a singular experience I had witnessed at another small liberal arts college where I once worked. The new provost was given this task, and so thoroughly butchered even the easiest names (I think she suffered from severe stage fright, because she was normally not an inarticulate person) that she never quite recovered her credibility with the community and was gone after her second year. What I learned from that disastrous day was an obvious lesson: when a student has chosen a small college where being known is an expectation, when a family has paid a small fortune for a student to attend a small college, there is simply no excuse for a mispronounced name at the most public of ceremonies. It doesn't matter if that name is seven syllables long, is Chinese, Thai, Croatian, Arabic, if it looks utterly different than it sounds, if the middle name is so obscure and tongue-twisting that you think it had to have been the result of a bet the parents lost, or an inheritance they hoped to secure. You'd better get it right. And thus it begins. Five minutes after receiving The Notebook, I send out an e-mail to the senior class, asking them to send me the phonetic pronunciation of their names, even offering examples of popular faculty whose names they will recognize, or to call the "pronunciation hotline" I created two years ago that allows them to record their names for me to hear. I sign the email, "Dean Will-yums." Seven minutes after receiving The Notebook, the first of about 75 e-mails arrives in my inbox. In my e-mail, I have encouraged them to challenge me, that I am pretty decent at accents, and if they give me their best description of the way their name is pronounced in their non-English language, I will do my best to master it. They take me up on my offer. Students with complicated names take great care to coach me, giving me examples of words their names sort of rhyme with. One student with the last name Dikicioglu writes, "It's like three men's names: Dicky, Joe, Lou." Over the next few weeks, the e-mails continue to trickle in. They often involve a back-and-forth exchange. "What about your middle name?" I ask, if they have not mentioned that in their pronunciation coaching. "You don't have to say it." "But what will make your parents happy? Will they want to hear it? It will be printed in the program." "No one will care." But someone may care. Someone may take my omission of a middle name as an indication that Wheaton College does not know, or care, about their student. They will be so stung by this apparent lack of singular affection that they will discourage

The Student and Exchange Visitor Program released long-anticipated draft guidance about conditional admission and bridge, or pathway, programs on Thursday. Students admitted to the growing numbers of these programs typically have to complete an intensive English sequence or, in the case of bridge programs, a combination of ESL and academic coursework, prior to being fully admitted into a regular degree program. In such cases, many colleges have made it a practice to issue an I-20 -- a document that prospective students present in applying for visas – certifying a student's admission to a regular degree program even if that student starts out in ESL. However, the new draft guidance suggests they will no longer be able to do this, as an I-20 can only be issued for a program for which a student meets all admission requirements. "School officials may agree to admit a student into a program of study pending satisfactory completion of admission prerequisites via another program of study (such as, a bridge program or English language program of study)," the draft guidance states. "However, a student must meet all admission requirements for the first program of study and then transfer to the next subsequent program of study upon successful completion of the prerequisites. At all times, the student must meet all admission requirements for a program of study prior to...issuance of the Form I-20." The draft guidance also outlines acceptable standards for bridge programs, which some universities run in cooperation with other entities. The guidance would require all schools involved in delivering a bridge program to be SEVP-certified. And while a university may contract with another SEVP-certified institution -- such as an ESL school -- to provide English training or other nonacademic aspects of the program, all academic coursework must be governed by the university issuing the I-20. "We are going through it very carefully. It is quite an extensive document," said Patricia Juza, the director of global programs at Baruch College and vice president for advocacy for the American Association of Intensive English Programs. "We’re impressed by the level of detail and the amount of legal foundation for some of the explanations." "There are a couple of things that might require some institutions to change business practices slightly, such as with bridge programs, I don’t believe from the research we’ve done that all colleges and universities that have bridge programs issue distinct I-20s for those currently," she said. A few outstanding questions she has include how this new guidance would affect graduate students, specifically, and the impact on students who are admitted into a degree program but are found to need additional ESL training after arriving on campus. “ We’re not clear whether that school has to issue a new I-20" in that case, she said. Ad keywords: International

New education major at Colorado College, a thriving liberal arts college, challenges whether sector should still be defined by traditional disciplines. Editorial Tags: College administrationEducationLiberal arts colleges

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In today’s Academic Minute, Chapman University's Brennan Peterson explores the psychological challenges surrounding the issue of infertility. Peterson is an associate professor of psychology and the Director of the Marriage and Family Therapy Graduate Program at Chapman, in Orange, Calif. Find out more about him here. A transcript of this podcast can be found here. Section: Academic MinuteFile: 5-24-13_chapman_stress_of_infertility.mp3

As the Ph.D. threatens to replace the M.F.A. as the requisite degree for arts professors, Daniel Grant explores the pros and cons. Job Tags: Fine and Performing ArtsAd keywords: FacultyEditorial Tags: ArtsShow on Jobs site:

As budget cuts prompt elimination of more non-revenue teams nationwide, strategic fund-raising for those Olympic sports becomes a matter of survival. Editorial Tags: Athletics