NOVA News You Can Use

As promised in last Friday’s NOVA Operations Weekly, two Monday Messages each month will bring short updates on questions/topics raised by the NOVA community. This is the first for November. Look for a link to the anonymous question portal in the Daily Flyer about a week before the “NOVA News You Can Use” update.

NOVA has been selected by VCCS as one of the Direct Enrollment Phase 2 colleges.

Eight VCCS colleges were in the Phase 1 pilot, and our cohort will learn from their experience and best practices. We join Central Virginia, Dabney Lancaster, Danville, New River, Patrick Henry, Thomas Nelson and Virginia Highlands. The roll-out of Direct Enrollment aligns with the VCCS’s move away from the Virginia Placement Exam and impacts students’ guided self-placement in English and Mathematics. Our leads on this project are interim CAO Sheri Robertson, Dean Jen Daniels (English), and Dean Alison Thimble (Mathematics); they will engage faculty throughout this work.

In Spring 2021, the VCCS Phase 2 colleges will review pre-requisites, adjust enrollment processes, adopt learning support courses (e.g., co-requisites), plan other student learning support strategies and provide professional development for teaching and professional faculty. NOVA students enrolling for Fall 2021 will use Direct Enrollment placement.

NOVA’s Chief Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer Search is progressing.

The CDEIO search committee is completing its interviews of semi-finalists and anticipates advancing the finalists’ names to me this week. Many thanks to the committee for their diligence and commitment to this important work. Each finalist will be scheduled for an open forum with the NOVA community (before Thanksgiving break) and faculty and staff will have an opportunity to provide their feedback. Candidates will also interview with me, and my goal is to have the CDEIO appointed prior to the winter holiday.

New Diversity, Equity and Inclusion training will begin in January.

In January, NOVA will roll out a 70-minute training program consisting of three modules that will be loaded into Canvas: Workplace Diversity, Inclusion and Racial Sensitivity; Unconscious Bias and Microaggressions in the Workplace. The modules have been tested and recommended by the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Council. Look for more information in the new year.

You also may be interested to learn that the CDEIO search process included a search advocate—a first for NOVA. This is a trained, external search committee member who promotes equity, validity and diversity in the process. This role is recommended by VCCS and has been in use at the system-level for some time; VCCS included a search advocate on NOVA’s presidential search committee. The feedback about the search advocate from the CDEIO committee has been very positive, and NOVA intends to include search advocates in our processes going forward.

The Chief Academic Officer and Vice President Search is beginning.

I received and integrated the College Senate’s feedback on the draft description for NOVA’s first-ever Chief Academic Officer and forwarded the final version to Human Resources to begin the process. A national search for NOVA’s CAO will be conducted, and once the position is posted, I hope you will reach out to internal and external candidates to encourage them to apply. The application process will conclude in late January. Look for more updates in the Daily Flyer.