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Academic Council
Meeting Notes
February 1, 2000
Announcements:
Dean Johnson reported that the search committee for the
Dubach chair has completed two rounds of interviews. The
committee will convene again this week to deliberate.
Music search candidate Forest Pierce is interviewing on
campus today. Two more candidates will follow in the next
two weeks.
There are currently 16 candidates for the Japanese
Language and Literature position.
The Geology search committee will bring four candidates
to campus, the first candidate is scheduled to arrive later
this week.
Dean Keedy said that he has received assessment reports
from all of the MNS departments.
Dean Jones said that in response to our $800K grant
proposal, Keck Foundation representative Mercedes Tally will
be visiting later in the month to get a first-hand look at
the campus and the plans for remodeling and adding staff in
computer science.
Dean Jones said that Capital Equipment requests (over
$5K) are due from departments today.
Dean Atkinson said that the Council is setting aside time
to review the first drafts of assessment reports submitted
by each of the academic departments. The report for the
accreditation team will be prepared next fall, in
preparation for the NWASC visit in Spring 2001. She
explained that the focus should be on the process of
departmental assessment, not on gathering large amounts of
data. The deans may decide to have a consultant speak to
them about the goals for the report. Dean Atkinson will call
an all-chairs meeting soon to discuss the next step in the
process.
Agenda Items:
Dean Atkinson said that the law and grad deans were not
as enthusiastic as she had hoped about the CAS proposal to
award parental leave to fathers, but they are speaking to
their faculties about it. The law and grad faculties may
have a different demographic than the undergrad school.
Dean Jones proposed another possible idea for faculty
leave:
- All faculty would accrue 1
course release every 2 years up to a maximum of 3 course
releases.
- During the faculty’s career
release-time could be used for any reason that qualifies
under the FMLA Act.
IA Teaching Evaluations. Dean Atkinson reported that a
junior faculty member has expressed concern that the
inclusion of the Inventing America teaching evaluation
results compromises the comparison data calculated for all
courses and all faculty. He requested that the evaluations
for IA be tallied separately and not included in the same
comparison data as the courses in the faculty’s area of
expertise. He suggests that it is unfair to collate
statistics for a course over which the instructor has less
control than for those in his/her discipline. He feels that
if the data reports are referred to by a department chair,
dean or by the CPT, the faculty who repeatedly teach in IA
are at a disadvantage. He wants written assurance that the
IA teaching evaluations will not hurt the participating
faculty. The Dean will review the agreement made by the
faculty, outlined in the Faculty Secretary’s Report on
the Status of the Teaching Evaluation Discussion (February
1996) and report back to the Council.
Dean Dodds distributed a memo from Gil Seeley regarding
compensation for the Music Department chair. He outlined the
extensive responsibilities and expectations imposed on the
chair and asked that the Council consider increasing the
chair’s compensation to 2 course releases per year.
There will be more discussion later.
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