The Faculty Senate learned about the continued development of the Cyclone Support initiative during its April 23 meeting.
The division of student affairs' Cyclone Support initiative aims to boost student success by "increasing student readiness to ask for help and streamlining their ability to connect to care," said Leif Olsen, co-lead of Cyclone Support.
Faculty play a critical role because they are with students in classrooms, labs, learning communities and many other areas, Olsen said. Students who trust their faculty may seek them out when they're in need.
Olsen said one of the most common concerns he hears from faculty is not knowing where to direct students in need and what resources best deal with their issue. The Cyclone Support website, launched in fall 2023, provides help for a range of issues -- for example, academic, mental health and food insecurity. The site has concise information to inform faculty, staff and students. An addition coming to the website will make it easier to coordinate care and define reporting responsibilities for faculty and staff.
"This website addition will help people understand what their responsibilities are and the steps that need to be taken to support students," Olsen said. "We are working to enable faculty to more effectively and efficiently refer students to care using technology that would require no more than 10 seconds."
Olsen said an asynchronous online module in development will help faculty and staff better understand Cyclone Support and practice using it in everyday scenarios.
Faculty and staff with any feedback or suggestions can email cyclonesupport@iastate.edu.
Game design
Senators will vote at the May meeting on a proposed bachelor's in game design in the College of Design. Students in the program would learn how to create and develop video and board games as well as interactive experiences. The degree would be multidisciplinary, incorporating art, storytelling, psychology and technology through courses in several colleges.
One of the "degrees of the future," Iowa State would become the first public, four-year university in the state to offer the major. It would require 63 credits split between core courses, a student's focus area and other areas of game design. Focus areas are: art and interactive media design, game computing, and game worlds, narrative design and society.
New degree
Senators also will vote next month on a proposed bachelor's in education studies in the College of Human Sciences. The degree would serve students focusing on education careers outside of the classroom in settings like museums, zoos or libraries. It would be a non-licensure degree. Coursework would include a semester-long internship.
Academic misconduct
The senate will vote in May on proposed changes to the student academic misconduct policy. The changes are:
- The course syllabus must have an instructor's policy for grading due to academic misconduct.
- Discipline for academic dishonesty is at the instructor's discretion.
- Removes mentions of college-specific policies in favor of a university policy.
College governance
Senators approved changes to the Faculty Handbook's section on college governance documents. Each college's budget advisory council or committee meets and advises the dean, so the council or committee must include the college's senate representative from the resource policies and allocations council in addition to faculty from multiple departments.
Elections
The senate re-elected two council chairs and a new secretary:
- Governance council: Matt Frank, industrial and manufacturing systems engineering
- Judiciary and appeals council: Steve Freeman, agricultural and biosystems engineering
- Secretary: Ryan Bhattacharyya, management and entrepreneurship
