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Academic Council
Meeting Minutes
January 25, 2005
Present: Curtis
Johnson, Dean of the College; Stephanie Arnold, Dean of Arts
and Humanities; Gary Reiness, Dean of Mathematical and
Natural Sciences; Harry Schleef, Dean of Social Sciences;
Mervyn Brockett, Assistant to the President; and Terri
Banasek, Administrative Assistant and recorder.
Agenda Items
- Minutes of January 18, 2005, were approved as
written.
- Dr. Brockett reported that the enrollment picture for
spring semester is generally pretty positive. The
retention rate for first-year students from fall to
spring is 97 percent; the rate for sophomores returning
for their fourth semester is about 85 percent. In
addition, the enrollment projections for next year look
promising We are ahead by 8 percent on the number of all
applicants compared with last year at this time, but
early applicants are down by about 80. Generally, the
early applicant pool is stronger than regular admits in
terms of quality, and they yield better by about 3
percent. All things being equal, we would end up with 15
fewer students from that group than last year. With this
year's early applicant pool, there are fewer and they are
better; our yield may go down because of that. The
target first-year class is 500, with an additional 70
transfers.
- As Executive Council has not met this semester, there
no discussion about strategic planning.
- Dean Johnson met recently with a member of the Albany
Society (alumni who graduated 50 or more years ago). The
Society is interested in playing a more active role and
to raise more money for the College. The Society would
like to identify a week in the spring (2006) for an
annual event in which members would come to the College
and teach one class in his or her field - what their
Lewis & Clark education has meant to them and
practical advice about how they translated that education
into a career. Divisional deans were asked to explore
this idea with the department chairs. There was general
interest in exploring possible ways to engaging the
members of the Society with current students and faculty,
but some concern about the particular method that was
proposed. There are some downsides to a class visit:
If it is an intro class, you might get a small number of
students who are interested in pursuing careers in that
field; with an advanced class, you might get a small
subset of those who would be really interested.
Other ideas that were suggested in lieu of a class
visit:
- Have several different panel discussions occuring
simultaneously, with each panel led by an Albany
Society member..
- Involve faculty and students and Society members
in the planning of several panel discussions in
different fields over the span of a week.
- Any activities planned outside the normal classes
would compete with other demands on student and
faculty time. What would be sufficient incentive for
students to attend?
The divisional deans will look for faculty and
students who would be interested in planning this event
(one-two faculty per division). It was also suggested
that the Pamplin Society might be interested in taking
this on; Dean Johnson will speak with them.
- Dean Reiness asked about scheduling of candidates to
come to campus. Two searches are bringing candidates at
the same time, and he won't be able to make it to all
presentations. It was decided that it is important for
him to attend at least some of these presentations, and
one or the other candidate may have to be rescheduled in
order that he can see their presentation.
- The faculty retreat will again be one day only, with
an evening event off-campus.
Next meeting: Tuesday, February 8, 2005, 1:30 p.m.
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