Beginning of meeting

Fran opens the meeting, introduces LISSA, introduces common goals, introduces Prof. Claire McInerney and Dean Schement

Schement:
a few minutes to give some background
initiated the name change to celebrate our unique status - only school to combine comm and information
combination draws every person in this school together
celebrate, communicate our uniqueness
discussed beginning last fall with: library opinion leaders, leaders in journalism, advertising, PR, corporate, our colleagues at peer universities
first time aired publicly at faculty meeting retreat - UMich and UWashington also included
communicated our actions to a number of publics - not perfect, we did a good job in some areas and not others
feel badly that we embarrassed some of our friends - will submit written apologies
mixup of communications - I take responsibility
bottom line: name of dept remains, name of program remains, name of master's degree remains, name of Ph.D program remains
at a difficult time economically, we're growing: students, faculty, putting resources into the program - some of our peer institutions aren't
again, we are unique in taking an aggressive view to growth
served on team with Obama administration (missed some here) - glad to have had opportunity
who are we to our students? a journalism school, a PR school, an advertising school, a library school
we care about every one - thousands and thousands of students
we would like them to understand that we're an intellectual community, a learning community grounded in comm and information
those together give us our competitive advantage