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Meeting Minutes, Wku University Senate

Faculty Senate

Meeting regarding the Faculty Senate constitution, COSFL meeting, administrative evaluations, layoffs and meeting with the Legislature.

Ua12/2/1 College Heights Herald, Vol. 61, No. 10, Wku Student Affairs

WKU Administration Documents

WKU campus newspaper reporting campus, athletic and Bowling Green, Kentucky news.

• Humphreys, Mack & Jackie Hutcherson. Fewer Farmers Entering Field
• Givan, Steve. 2 Players Arrested for Drugs – Football
• Jones, Paige. Airstreams Are a Way of Life for a Faithful Few
• Barnhart, Rebecca. Artists Begin Humor Paper – Asylum Komix, Eric Lindgren
• Hoppes, Lynn. Hilltopper Days Draws Record Crowd
• Opinion: Students’ Help Needed to End Book Thefts
• Knapp, Kevin. Students Tackling Thief Editorial Cartoon
• Radio Station Wins Awards – WKYU-FM, WDCL-FM
• McCelvey, David. Supports City Voting
• Proffitt, James. Don’t Drop the Bomb – UCAM, United Campuses Against Nuclear War
• Pontrich, …

Meeting Minutes, Wku Council Of Academic Deans

Council of Academic Deans

Meeting regarding television station and class schedule conflicts.

Ua77/1 Western, Wku Alumni Association

WKU Administration Documents

WKU alumni newsletter.

• Anderson, Lucinda. The Alumni Annual Fund/Student Phonathon
• Western Yearbook is Tops In Nation – Talisman
• T.T. Knight Memorial Scholarship Fund
• Annual WKU Fish Fry Features Service Awards
• Western Wins American Advertising Federation College Chapter of the Year Award
• Thanks to Smiths Grove Women’s Club
• Community College Enrollment Up 21%
• Machine Queen II at Kentucky Museum – Quilt Exhibit
• Teachers Find Dante’s Day Like Our Own
• Physicist Organizes World Gathering on Coal – George Vourvopoulos
• Student Newspaper Inducted Into Hall of Fame – College Heights Herald
• WKU Senior Heads Regional Biology Honorary – Charlotte Gill, Beta Beta Beta …

Ua1b5 Introducing The New Faculty & Administrative Staff 1985-86, Western Kentucky University

WKU Administration Documents

List of new WKU faculty and staff.

Administering The Small College Program: An Introduction, Bonnie Wilson Buzza

Association for Communication Administration Bulletin

This introductory essay outlines the emergence of a coordinated national effort to strengthen speech communication programs at small colleges. It contextualizes the 1985 curriculum conference at Hope College as a significant point in the ongoing development of these programs. The essay explains that earlier initiatives established a foundation of shared concerns and collaborative activity through committees, conferences, and informal professional networks. The 1985 meeting marks a transition toward more deliberate work on curriculum design, faculty development, scholarly engagement, and improved relationships between small college programs and graduate institutions that supply future faculty. The introduction further summarizes the structure of the …

Administrative Style And The Small College Context, Joseph W. Macdoniels

Association for Communication Administration Bulletin

This essay examines the distinctive administrative challenges faced by leaders of small college communication programs and argues that prevailing managerial models are poorly suited to the values and structures of these institutions. It begins by distinguishing administration, management, and leadership, noting that contemporary higher education privileges managerial thinking oriented toward efficiency, control, and product driven outcomes. The discussion contends that this framework conflicts with the interpersonal, process oriented commitments of communication faculty and with the collegial traditions of small liberal arts colleges. The essay outlines the limitations of the management oriented model at the departmental level, where chairs are expected …

Departmental Administration Within The Small College Environment: Analysis And Extension, James E. Roever

Association for Communication Administration Bulletin

This response essay evaluates preceding analyses of small college administration and extends their implications through a methodologically oriented lens. It begins by addressing the definitional challenges surrounding what constitutes a small department or small liberal arts college, noting that existing definitions remain imprecise and often subjective. Using Allan Tucker’s framework of chairperson responsibilities, the essay proposes a structured means of comparing administrative roles across institutional types. It then examines the claims raised in earlier papers, including the influence of managerial models, the limited authority of departmental leaders, the prevalence of informal communication networks, and the extensive teaching and service commitments …

Concerns, Questions, And Changes In Small Colleges, Dale M. Jackson

Association for Communication Administration Bulletin

This essay analyzes the distinctive concerns facing faculty and administrators at small liberal arts colleges and considers the curricular developments likely to shape the communication discipline through the remainder of the decade. It argues that although faculty share universal issues such as salaries, tenure, and job security, the small college environment introduces unique pressures. These include heavy teaching loads, broad course preparation, intensive committee work, and heightened student expectations generated by close faculty student interaction. Faculty also express anxiety over the expanding influence of vocational demands and the potential displacement of liberal education, even as they work to help students …

An Exploration Of Some Problems Confronting Speech Communication Faculty, Sandra Manheimer

Association for Communication Administration Bulletin

This essay examines three persistent problem areas faced by speech communication faculty at small colleges that result from limited institutional resources. The analysis focuses first on the staffing of the basic communication course, noting that small institutions lack graduate teaching assistants and therefore must consider alternative instructional formats, technological delivery systems, undergraduate facilitators, part time instructors, communication across the curriculum initiatives, or the retraining of faculty from other disciplines. The essay then evaluates the challenges of offering upper level communication courses with low enrollments, particularly courses that require a minimum number of participants for effective skill development. It outlines strategies …

Staffing The Basic Course And Still Having Flexibility To Meet Program Needs, Alan Lerstrom

Association for Communication Administration Bulletin

This article analyzes the use of undergraduate assistants as a strategy for staffing the basic communication course in small colleges while preserving faculty capacity to meet broader programmatic needs. It reviews literature across disciplines to identify recurrent considerations in employing student assistants, including selection criteria, training, laboratory activities, grading practices, and compensation. The analysis highlights pedagogical benefits associated with laboratory based instruction, particularly increased student participation, enhanced opportunities for practicing communication skills, and improved peer level feedback. It also addresses concerns about consistency and evaluation by describing an approach that standardizes laboratory activities while allowing individual assistants to shape group …

Approaches To The Basic Curriculum In Small College Departments, Roger Smitter, Joseph W. Macdoniels

Association for Communication Administration Bulletin

This article examines required course structures in small college speech communication programs in order to determine whether curricular patterns reveal shared organizing principles for the major. Drawing on catalog data from sixty one institutions that are either small in enrollment or limited in speech communication faculty, the analysis categorizes required courses and identifies their frequency across programs. The findings demonstrate substantial variability in required curricula, with little consistency in course titles, sequences, or theoretical foundations. Public speaking emerges as the most common requirement, yet it is mandated at fewer than half of the institutions studied. Introductory courses vary widely in …

Burnout Syndrome: Fighting The Battle Between Inspiration And Desperation, David C. File

Association for Communication Administration Bulletin

This article examines the concept of burnout as it affects administrators of small college theatre programs and identifies the structural and psychological conditions that make these individuals particularly vulnerable. Burnout is defined as an emotional safeguard that emerges when the energy required to meet goal expectations exceeds an individual’s capacity, creating an imbalance between effort and perceived reward. Drawing on Freudenberger’s work and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the article argues that burnout develops when persistent striving toward unrealistic goals erodes the sense of self worth and shifts behavior from creative engagement to defensive self protection. The analysis explains how limited …

Integrating Forensics Into The Curriculum, Jay G. Verlinden

Association for Communication Administration Bulletin

This article argues that intercollegiate forensics should be treated as an integral curricular component within small college speech communication programs rather than as an expendable extracurricular activity. Drawing on comparisons to laboratory requirements in the natural sciences, the discussion contends that forensics provides an essential laboratory experience through which students learn to select, analyze, and organize material in pursuit of varied rhetorical strategies. The article explains how tournament participation exposes students to diverse critical perspectives, motivates higher levels of performance, and develops confidence, poise, and credibility. It assigns primary responsibility for curricular integration to the director of forensics, who must …

Disciplinary Integrity, Credibility, And Scholarly Activity: Small College Revisited, Peter L. Settle

Association for Communication Administration Bulletin

This article reexamines the conditions under which small college communication programs establish and maintain disciplinary integrity and credibility, focusing on the tension between teaching and research expectations. It argues that integrity depends on curricular fidelity, defined as the alignment between a program’s scope, content, and goals and broader disciplinary developments. Because small colleges often face limited personnel, financial constraints, and restricted access to professional networks, they are at increased risk of drifting from disciplinary trends or relying on outdated knowledge. The article identifies traditional mechanisms for staying current, including scholarly reading, conference participation, and engagement with colleagues, but notes that …

The Clinical Supervision Of Teaching In The Small College Communication Department, Ellen Hay

Association for Communication Administration Bulletin

This article examines the applicability of the clinical supervision model to the evaluation and improvement of teaching in small college communication departments. It argues that traditional supervisory practices often fail to support instructional development because they emphasize identifying incompetence rather than fostering growth among capable instructors. Clinical supervision is presented as a structured, five step process consisting of a pre observation conference, classroom observation with systematic data collection, analysis of observed behaviors, a post observation conference, and a concluding critique of the supervision cycle. The article details how this model encourages cooperative goal setting, focuses attention on specific teaching behaviors …

Anatomy Of A Self-Study, Jane Kennedy Dale

Association for Communication Administration Bulletin

This article provides a detailed account of the self study conducted by the Department of Communications, Speech and Theatre at Fairleigh Dickinson University, situating the process within university wide mandates for program evaluation. It outlines the administrative origins of the initiative, beginning with Senate guidelines that emphasized collegiality and established a strict timetable for departmental review, consultant selection, and report submission. The narrative documents the extensive data gathering required for the study, including faculty vitae, course syllabi, curricular rationales, library assessments, enrollment trends, facilities reports, and analyses of departmental programs such as internships, media operations, and theatre activities. It also …

Directing The Combined Speech And Composition Course: A Practical Perspective, Raylene Tapia

Association for Communication Administration Bulletin

This article examines the administrative and pedagogical challenges of directing a combined basic speech and composition course, emphasizing the structural and interpersonal obstacles that shape program coordination. It argues that successful collaboration between speech and composition instructors depends heavily on institutional organization. Programs housed within the same division or school benefit from clearer lines of authority, shared goals, and greater ease in establishing common objectives. By contrast, when instructors are drawn from multiple departments or schools, coordination becomes more difficult, particularly when the course director lacks formal authority over participating faculty. The article also stresses the importance of voluntary participation, …

Interfacing Of English And Speech In A Basic Course, Marion Sitzmann

Association for Communication Administration Bulletin

This article proposes a combined basic course in English composition and speech for small colleges and justifies the model through demographic, curricular, and historical considerations. The argument begins by noting that significant declines in the eighteen year old population will likely force reductions in faculty and require the consolidation of foundational courses. The combined course is presented as a pragmatic response that can preserve curricular flexibility while allowing students additional space for electives or internships. The article then establishes a philosophical rationale by tracing the shared origins of writing and speaking in classical rhetoric, emphasizing the relevance of invention, arrangement, …

Teaching The Basic Course From A Theme Perspective, Kathie A. Webster

Association for Communication Administration Bulletin

This article proposes the use of a common materials approach to strengthen the basic public speaking course and to develop higher order cognitive and communication skills. It argues that contemporary demands for information processing, problem solving, and issue analysis require instructional strategies that integrate communication abilities with critical thinking. The common materials approach provides students with a shared body of content drawn from a curated set of books, articles, and reference materials organized around a single theme. The article explains how this method supports systematic library instruction, guided research practice, and problem solving group discussions that precede speech assignments. It …

The Community Service Class At The Small College: A Medium For Discovery, Joe Ortiz

Association for Communication Administration Bulletin

This article argues that community service classes provide small college communication departments with an important means of serving external audiences while simultaneously advancing internal departmental goals. It defines community service classes as credit or noncredit offerings open to campus and community participants, typically organized around practical concerns such as family interaction, workplace communication, or managerial effectiveness. The discussion emphasizes that these classes attract voluntary participants who seek immediate application of communication concepts, creating favorable conditions for engagement and for shaping informed public perceptions of the discipline. The article contends that such offerings can function as laboratories for curriculum development, allowing …

Strange Bedfellows: The Small College And The Community Theatre, Pamela S. Wegner

Association for Communication Administration Bulletin

This article examines the potential for sustained collaboration between small college theatre programs of limited size and local community theatre organizations. It argues that cooperation can alleviate structural pressures common to small programs, including limited faculty, constrained production schedules, homogeneous casts, and insufficient opportunities for advanced students to apply theoretical training. The analysis identifies three foundational assumptions necessary for meaningful collaboration. First, small college directors must recognize the expertise and creative value present in community theatre, accepting that students benefit from exposure to multiple directing styles and production practices. Second, because most students become lifelong amateur participants rather than theatre …

The Small College Director Of Forensics, Deborah S. Ballard-Reisch

Association for Communication Administration Bulletin

This article reports findings from interviews with directors of forensics at fifteen small colleges in the Midwest in order to document the scope of responsibilities associated with administering active forensics programs in limited size institutions. The study identifies programs through national tournament participation and enrollment criteria and provides descriptive data on team size, coaching assignments, release time, and travel frequency. Analysis reveals that small college forensics programs are highly active, with directors overseeing individual events and debate squads, organizing extensive tournament travel, and managing teams that range widely in size. The article details the substantial teaching and coaching loads carried …

Small College Debate: A Termination Decision, Peter L. Settle

Association for Communication Administration Bulletin

This article analyzes the decision by a small liberal arts college to terminate a long standing intercollegiate debate and forensics program despite strong institutional tradition and prior administrative support. It argues that the decision emerged from converging personal, departmental, and institutional pressures rather than from deficiencies in funding, staffing, or attitudes. At the personal level, the director of forensics faced an unsustainable conflict between full time teaching responsibilities, full time program direction, and the delayed completion of doctoral work. Departmentally, rapid growth in the communication major and the expansion of organizational communication created competing demands that could not be met …

Empirical Needles In Curricular Haystacks: Finding Research Opportunities In A Small College Program, David Droge

Association for Communication Administration Bulletin

This article examines the structural and cultural conditions that limit research activity in small college communication programs and outlines strategies for generating empirical research opportunities within such environments. It identifies heavy teaching loads, extensive service commitments, limited institutional support, and the dominance of introductory oral communication courses as primary barriers to sustained scholarly engagement. These constraints reduce time for research, inhibit collaboration with disciplinary peers, and restrict access to adequate computing and funding resources. In response, the article describes four strategies developed to integrate research into routine academic responsibilities. The first involves embedding empirical projects within existing seminars and creating …

Integrity In The College Curriculum: A Report To The Academic Community, Staurt Byham

Association for Communication Administration Bulletin

Reviews the book "Integrity in the College Curriculum: A Report to the Academic Community" by the Association of American Colleges Project on Redefining the Meaning and Purpose of the Baccalaureate Degree.

Speech Communication Departments And The College Of Character, Roger Smitter

Association for Communication Administration Bulletin

This essay examines the role of speech communication programs within undergraduate liberal arts institutions and argues that their long term vitality depends on articulating a clear connection between communication study and the distinctive character of each college. The discussion responds to broader critiques of undergraduate education that identify fragmentation, excessive professionalism, and a diminished sense of intellectual coherence as threats to the liberal arts. The essay outlines several guiding questions for departments seeking to define or strengthen their educational mission. These include clarifying why communication belongs in the liberal arts, identifying principles that organize a coherent curriculum, and determining how …

The Small College Environment, Bonnie Wilson Buzza

Association for Communication Administration Bulletin

This essay analyzes the distinctive characteristics that shape the work of faculty in small college communication programs. It argues that the small college environment differs from larger institutions not only in scale but in fundamental qualitative ways that influence teaching, organizational structures, and professional expectations. The discussion identifies four interrelated features of this environment: a primary institutional emphasis on teaching, the expectation that faculty assume multiple roles and responsibilities, the predominance of informal communication channels, and strong institutional loyalty. The essay explains how these conditions shape faculty experiences, including the need to function as generalists, the challenges of replacement hiring, …

Developing An Anglo-American Communication Program, Terence Jackson

Association for Communication Administration Bulletin

This essay analyzes the development of an American style communication program within a British educational context. It begins by describing the structure of further and higher education in England and Wales and explains how traditions of vocational training and liberal education intersect within these systems. The discussion outlines the limited presence of communication as an academic field in Britain, noting that research in interpersonal, organizational, and mass communication exists but remains dispersed across sociology, psychology, and management. The essay then examines the challenges of creating a comprehensive communication curriculum at Warnborough College, including the scarcity of disciplinary resources, limited availability …

The Small College As A Career Option: Teaching At A Small College, Ellen Hay

Association for Communication Administration Bulletin

This essay reports findings from a survey of small college communication programs and examines the professional conditions experienced by faculty in these institutions. Drawing on responses from nearly half of the departments surveyed, the analysis identifies typical institutional characteristics, including small enrollments, limited departmental staffing, and heavy teaching responsibilities that require faculty to manage multiple course preparations. The essay documents the breadth of communication curricula, noting the ubiquity of the basic course and the variable presence of offerings in interpretation, media production, public speaking, interpersonal communication, and organizational communication. It also reports the extensive non teaching obligations that shape faculty …