President Lamont Repollet gives a message of cooperation to the University Senate

By Chelsey Jaipersaud | Published by November 19, 2020

Since his transition into the role of presidency, Dr. Lamont Repollet addressed the University Senate for the first time and offered faculty and staff a message of cooperation to make Kean the best it can be.

Dr. Repollet sits in and attempts to ease the minds of many professors. He provided insight into his plans for Kean that he reiterated involves the help of university faculty and staff. His goals, he said, is to keep the University community well informed and construct relationships built on trust in order to keep students a top priority.

“It’s about our students, then collectively it’s about the faculty and staff and then it’s about the larger Kean University community stakeholders,” said Dr. Repollet.

Dr. Repollet reiterated this idea of collectivism and how important it is for him to build a relationship with the faculty and staff. He aims to have a positive, professional relationship where individuals know he will be fair above everything else.

Dr. Repollet said that he has made the effort to meet with the Dean’s and put much emphasis on leading their respective colleges. He ensured that each Dean has a conversation with their faculty and staff and supports them to create a working program.

“It’s not just hiring full time faculty for the sake of hiring them, it’s full time to develop and grow them along the way,” Dr. Repollet said.

Dr. Craig Donovan, University Senate president, questioned Kean’s needs for increased staffing in general so that enough people support the students and their needs in areas such as admissions, financial aid, and advising.

Dr. Repollet has asked the deans to provide an analysis of their colleges and staffing needs. He said he knows that there is a need for help in advisement and therefore an advisement center will be created.

A separate division of student support is being created with additional staff members that will be hired to assist students. The University will be mindful of the ratio of faculty and staff to ensure that they support the University.

Dr. Christopher Lynch, associate professor of Communication, questioned the many requirements Kean is imposing on faculty to teach on Blackboard that has done little to create a connection with students.

“That system is very rigid and there isn’t a lot of flexibility for faculty to do what they do best,” Professor Lynch said.

Dr. Repollet assured professors that he realizes these circumstances have never happened before and everyone is still learning what works best for everyone.

Dr. Repollet is throwing himself into the professor lifestyle by teaching a course on Blackboard for the remainder of the semester. This will help him have an understanding of where the faculty is at with remote learning and truly be able to assess what can be improved.

“You have to be in it, you have to be involved to truly understand what are some of the concerns and I think that is where we start to really look at different modalities of instruction and we’ll start to pick out what’s the best qualities and practices for each,” Dr. Repollet said.

The university is further trying to create a professional learning center with employee relations for individuals to receive the support they need. The goal is to support the faculty, which will allow them to become the best online, remote and digital professors Kean has ever had, he said.

“I am going to give you the tools, teach you how to use the tools and then I will tell you now you can go out there and hold you accountable, but that is not going to come till later,” Repollet said.

Dr. Repollet understands the circumstances everyone is under and does not expect everything to go perfectly at this point. He asked for the faculty to continue to work with the University Senate and their respective deans to gather as much information about the remote space as possible.

Dr. Repollet further addressed concerns involving staff growth. A new employee relations division led by the Senior Vice President of Administration has been created. Similar to student affairs, there is a plan to create an office for employee affairs. This will give employees a chance to grow and move up in their career.

Kean is also looking to renovate East Campus and make the space upstairs available as a wellness center for faculty and staff to regroup and refresh.

“We want to move towards the direction of everyone being felt, whether it’s mental, social health or professional growth,” Dr. Repollet said.

---