The Turner College held its September 2026 monthly faculty and staff meeting yesterday. Interim Dean Tesa Leonce opened the meeting by discussing the search for a new Dean of the Turner College. Leonce recounted that two listening sessions have occurred, and the CSU community has provided responses to an online survey. She also noted that TSYS School Chair Rania Hodhod has been approached to provide two or three names of computer science faculty who can be added to the search committee. Regular followers of Turner Business will recall that computer science faculty were intentionally passed over for committee membership due to Provost Dustin Anderson's desire to have them assist with the search for a new Director of the new Institute for Emergent Technologies. Leonce concluded her portion the meeting by discussing CSU's current enrollment slide, the new 2026 AACSB Standards, and the TSYS School's progress toward attaining ABET accreditation. Computer science professor Amjad Hossain assisted on the last of these items by reporting that all three CS undergraduate tracks have been aligned to ABET expectations, the TSYS School will submit a report to ABET in 2028, an ABET accreditation team should visit CSU in 2029, and the final determination on ABET accreditation will land in 2030.
At this point Interim Associate Dean John Finley reported on his recent trip to Arizona for the AACSB's associate deans conference. Finley focused his remarks on a new AACSB standard, "teaching effectiveness," that led to many discussions among the attendees of the conference. Finley noted that although the Turner College will be digging further into this new standard, discussions at the conference generated examples for measuring this new standard. These include (1) peer evaluations, (2) classroom observation, (3) student focus groups, (4) external student surveys, teaching portfolios, (5) faculty credentials and (6) external recognition, all in addition to results from in-house student evaluations. Finley concluded by reminding Turner College faculty that midterm grades are due on October 2, 2026, and that faculty should make use of Early Alerts to preempt problems with student learning from impacting final grades.
Next, the Turner College's new assessment coordinator, Gisung Moon, spoke to those in attendance about course-embedded assessments and learning competencies. He indicated that discipline coordinators in the Department of Accounting and Finance had concluded their work on learning competencies and that the Turner College should be in position by the end of fall semester to vote on their adoption.
Turner College faculty and staff were also introduced to two impressive new Turner College Ambassadors. One of these is Northside High School graduate Andres Urbina, who is currently a junior majoring in accounting in the Turner College. He also serves as the Social Relations Officer in the Honor College and as the President of the Turner College's chapter of the Financial Management Association. During spring semester of 2027, Urbina will complete an internship in tax accounting.
Joining Urbina was another new Ambassador, Grace McMillen, a junior double majoring in management and history, with a minor in dance. She currently works as a dance instructor at Toni's Dance School and plans to open her own dance studio in the future. McMillen remarked that, as a fun fact, she has attended almost 10 concerts by the Eagles, and that her favorite Turner College professor is management professor Phil Bryant.
Turner College Student Success Manager Talisha Lockhart took the stage to discuss changes to student advisement that are underway. She noted that faculty will no longer be advising students who are halfway toward degree completion, meaning that each Turner College faculty will now be advising five or fewer students. This is the culmination of a two-year process of shifting CSU students to academic success coaches for their advisement. Lockhart also noted that this fall's advising period begins September 28, 2026, and runs through October 23, 2026.
Turner College management information systems professor Jennifer Pitts followed Lockhart with a presentation about the Turner College's new Distinguished Speaker Series. This program kicks off at 11:00am on September 17, 2026, with a visit from Mike Harrell, who is the owner of both 11th and Bay Southern Table in Uptown Columbus and the New York Butcher Shoppe in North Columbus. Harrell will be speaking to Turner College students and faculty about entrepreneurship and servant leadership. Harrell's September visit will be followed at 11:00am on November 5, 2026, by a visit from Turner College grad Jason McKenzie, owner of Ride-on-Bikes in Uptown Columbus. Pitts explained that the change from "Executive" to "Distinguished" in the name of the program allows it to host both individuals from the business world and distinguished citizens from other professional arenas.
The meeting closed with a brief presentation by another Turner College management information systems professor. Insung Hwang provided an update on the Turner College's forthcoming study abroad program in South Korea, which runs from May 19, 2027, until June 2, 2027. Hwang stated that he hopes to accompany 10 to 15 students, and he is currently working to secure enough funding so that the students' costs will fall short of $4,000 each. The deadline for applications is October 16, 2027, and Hwang and others are still visiting classes to speak with prospective participants.
For those unable to attend or view the meeting, Turner Business has a few observations. First, in-person attendance was a little light, although there were some online attendees. This must signal that last year's then-new policy of disallowing remote attendance at monthly meetings is no longer in effect (last year those who missed had to access a recording of the meeting). Second, during the discussion about the search for a new dean, Leonce fielded another question about speculation suggesting that the initial intentional decision to leave computer science faculty off of the search committee is related to a plan for computer science to leave the Turner College and join the new Institute alongside CSU's robotics engineering faculty and the staff of the Coca-Cola Space Science Center. Lastly, neither Leonce nor Finley provided any additional information on the CSU administration's decision to prohibit monetary stipends to attach to faculty and staff awards in the four individual colleges.
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