CSUDH President Thomas A. Parham . Photo courtesy of CSUDH/Jeff Farsai
By Jackson Cascio, Staff Reporter
The importance of faculty, staff and administration to own student success was the theme of the first-ever Mid-Year Forum yesterday.
Called and led by CSUDH President Thomas A. Parham, the forum reiterated the mission that dominated the Fall Convocation in September, an annual event in which the CSUDH president articulates the university’s chief goals for the upcoming academic year.
But student success and keeping every aspect of the university on point to promote it is so important, Parham said, that he didn’t want to wait a year to reinforce the message he laid out in the fall.
Parham said the forum was designed in part to keep faculty, staff , administration and himself accountable. by holding a general meeting when all members of the campus community, including students, could meet and discuss measures that have been enacted since the fall, including encouraging responsibility, personal accountability and self-empowerment.
“Student success is paramount,” to the university’s mission Parham said.
Provost Michael Spagna agreed.
“We have the solutions, they are in this room,” Spagna said, shortly before the audience of faculty, administration, staff and students broke into small groups to discuss ways to help student success.
Student success is a broad term that includes everything from student retention (keeping students in school), and improving graduation rates, to possible impediments to those goals, such as hard to understand financial aid forms and students dealing with basic needs issues like food and housing insecurity.
As a model of the kind of success that can be obtained, Parham mentioned the master’s program in occupational therapy. Dr. Terry Peralta, a professor in that department, was one of the main speakers yesterday.
=Peralta broke down some of the department’s methods that have resulted in a 98 percent graduation rate, and a 100 percent passing rate for graduates who take the National Board Exam in Occupational Therapy.
Last semester, the Occupational Therapy department earned the distinction, along with San Jose State, of being the first CSUDH program awarded a doctorate program in occupational therapy. Parham credited much of that to the work that Dr. Peralta and her faculty and staff have done with the master’s program.
Parham closed the forum with a challenge to the audience to come up with a plan to improve student success. The official posting of the challenge will be up sometime this week, he said.
