COMMUNICATOR

Greetings everyone. This month's chair's corner will mainly be devoted to the curriculum for the coming academic year. But before I get to that, a couple of congratulations are appropriate. First, a tip of the hat is in order to Cristy Jensen, who recently was elected chair of the CSUS Faculty Senate for 2004-05. This is a sign of the respect Cristy has earned throughout the campus. Her vision and expertise will definitely be helpful in crafting University decisions during a period of real challenge. Also, congratulations to Kate Boyd, who's finishing up her degree, not only for being awarded a Presidential Management Fellowship but for obtaining her highly desired position as a budget analyst in the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.

With respect to the curriculum, the main initial point is that thus far we've come through the budget cuts well. While we've needed to make some changes that I'll detail in a moment, we've preserved the core graduate courses and most of the electives, while maintaining the PPA undergraduate minor with only a small modification. Given that on some CSU campuses graduate programs are being eliminated, we're most pleased that ours continues to thrive.

Nevertheless, dealing with the budget cuts has required some changes. Most notably, various of our faculty will be teaching undergraduate courses in other departments, thereby allowing those departments to reduce the need to hire part-time faculty (and thus reducing University personnel expenses). Naturally, this has meant faculty have to cut back on the number of graduate section offerings.

More specifically, here's what will be different next year:

• Single sections will be offered of most core courses, rather than the double sections we have tended to use in the last few years. As of now the exceptions are PPA 207 and PPA 200; it is possible that even these courses may be moved to single sections, but currently that is not what we are anticipating.

• We are planning to offer the existing, two semester collaborative decision making sequence in the fall and spring. PPA 296H will be renumbered as PPA 270 (a permanent rather than experimental course number). We will add it to our official schedule for Thursday evenings in the fall as soon as the course is formally approved by the University, which we expect to happen shortly. Early next academic year we will also move to make the second semester course permanent and renumber it as PPA 271; we will add it to the spring 2005 schedule as soon as it is approved. We are very grateful to the Center for Collaborative Policy for funding the courses in the coming academic year. Absent this commitment, we would not have been able to offer both courses. This is another sign of the strong, highly valued partnership the Department has forged with the Center in the last few years.

• We are pleased to offer a new fall elective on "Higher Education Leadership" (PPA 296K), taught by Miguel Ceja. This course has been on the books and in the works for a couple years, but for a variety of reasons it hasn't actually been taught.

• We will continue offering the well regarded "California Land Use Policy" elective course (PPA 250) taught by Peter Detwiler in the fall. However, we will not be able to offer "Working with Legislatures" (PPA 260), or "Higher Education Policy (PPA 296I). It as yet uncertain if "Urban Politics and Policy" (PPA 284) will be taught in the spring; as of this moment it's not in the schedule.

• We are likely to make some significant changes to the thesis seminar, PPA 500. We will be discussing this topic at a department retreat in late May. Those of you nearing the thesis stage should pay close attention to further e-mail messages. Regardless of the changes we make, it will still be in the interest of any students who are able to advance to candidacy to do so as soon as possible.

It is also worth a reminder that if the budgetary situation worsens, further departmental cuts may be needed.

Finally, as many but perhaps not most of you know, I will be on sabbatical leave this fall. Rob Wassmer will be acting chair. While I will not be teaching courses and will be on campus infrequently, I am planning to continue working with people who have begun theses with me (and with anyone for whom I am the second reader).

Let me know if you have any questions about anything related to the curriculum or other topics.

Ted Lascher
PPA Department Chair

We welcome your contributions to the Communicator! Contact the Department Chair, Ted Lascher, or the Department Secretary (916) 278-6557, in the PPA Department Office.

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