Welcome to a new year – 2017! Over the last couple of years the University, School of Education, and IDD&E have been going through a world wind of changes. We see it in our built surroundings, procedures and processes, and personnel. IDD&E remains very strong in its foci, practices, programs, and research … and in our reputation for excellence and prestigious alumni’s success!
We thank all of you who have taken time to communicate with us about your successes and expressing thoughts in letters to the new provost and our dean about the value of this program. We so value our alumni, current students, adjuncts, field partners, emeritus faculty, and others who provide us with such great support and insight into our professional communities.
As we emerge from the winter break and enter into the spring semester we wish all of you great health, happiness, prosperity, and success in this new year. As this new year emerges there will be a change in IDD&E leadership. This is a good thing! I am stepping down as the chair of IDD&E so that I can focus more on working with the RIDLR team (Research in Designing Learning Resources). It has been a long held passion of mine to start this type of research. RIDLR began with several small seed projects over the last few years and then we brought them together into a coherent research team this past spring. It is a great effort supported with several doctoral and master’s students and faculty members from IDD&E, Higher Education, and outside of SU. Our discussions have been insightful and exciting and they suggest many opportunities to untangle and better understand the design of learning resources in digital environments… and we are beginning to draw interest from many different contexts and possible partners, both domestically and internationally. There is much to do!
With the responsibilities of chair I have been unable to spend the time I have wanted on the work of RIDLR in ways I think will help it to grow and thrive. I had made the difficult decision to step down as chair. I am NOT leaving IDD&E, just going back to the full-time role of professor. I have enjoyed the challenges of keeping our small AND powerful program lively and impactful… and growing. There certainly were some stressful days… however most were great successes.
I am happy to say Dr. Jing Lei (jlei@syr.edu) will take over as interim chair in January – June 2017. Please join me in welcoming Jing to the role of Department Chair and thanking her for taking on this most important role! We are all here to help and continue the successes of IDD&E past, present, and future!
Onward… and as we say, ‘Unless things change, they remain the same’ … given that we are about instruction and learning, ‘change’ is a critical part of our language 🙂 .
Let’s Welcome Dr. Jing Lei to the Role of Department Chair!
This article was contributed by T. Koszalka.
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