This week, 28 January – 1 February, i=
s "Staff Resumption Week" here at Divine Word University. So =
far both Cindy and I have been assigned office space and met the rest of=
our colleagues in the Mathematics and Computing Science Department (MCS=
). …

A terminology note: what we North Americans might =
call "faculty" is here more termed "academic staff."=
What we called "school" or "college" is here calle=
d Faculty, and the person — our boss — that we used to title Division =
Chair is locally known as a Head of Department.

Our Head of Dep=
artment slot is a bit of a delicate balance, due to the departure of a s=
taff member last year. There being no one considered senior enough in t=
he MCS Department to fill the role, the head of the Information Systems =
Department is temporarily "filling in." This makes him the He=
ad of Department for two departments, IS and MCS, and it is too big of a=
job for anybody. He looks forward to grooming someone to take over MCS=
very soon.

We also have begun our regular staff return-to-scho=
ol meetings. Yesterday and today we were briefed by a number of higher =
ups of the University concerning the current strategic plan and where th=
is year fits into that. DWU's President states we are in the Second=
Decade Strategic plan, wherein DWU hopes to move in ten years from a &q=
uot;good" University to a "great" University, one that is=
internationally recognized. We also learned about what are the long-ra=
nge emphases to be worked on this year. One of the major ones is review=
ing (or, as they like to call it, "refreshing") the Department=
s' Program Specification Documents. In North American parlance, the=
se collectively would form the University catalog.

In addition,=
we also had our first meeting of the Facult of Business and Informatics=
. Our Dean introduced the two-dozen or so academic staff of the whole f=
aculty. These comprise five departments. Besides the already mentioned=
Departments of Information Systems, and Math and Computer, there are al=
so departments of Business Studies, Tourism and Hospitality, and finally=
Finance and Management. The reason there is a Department of Finance an=
d Management, apart from Business Studies, is that this one is new in th=
is faculty. The University is realigning how their adult continuing edu=
cation system (locally called "Flexible Learning") … so does=
this sound familiar to anyone with a background in education?

=
The meetings continue tomorrow and for the rest of the week, and the ter=
m officially starts next week with Lecture Week 1, on 4 February. Welco=
me to DWU!