NOTE: At times, issues of confidentiality may require that some items discussed in meetings be excluded from these minutes.

ALC MEMBERS: Charles Bachman, Tom Ball, Bill Barnes, Richard Bennett, David Caudill, Lance Crimm, Tom Currin, Venu Dasigi, Ameen Farooq, Alan Gabrielli, Jo Galle, Steven Hamrick, Ruston Hunt, Andrew McMorran, Joyce Mills, Julie Newell, Mark Nunes, Jeff Orr, Nikki Palamiotis, Phil Patterson, Dawn Ramsey, Jeffrey Ray, Nancy Reichert, Han Reichgelt, Ronny Richardson, Khalid Siddiqi, Sandra Stone, Denise Stover, John Sweigart, Zvi Szafran, Margaret Venable, Andy Wang, and Tim Zeigler

ALC Members Absent: Richard Bennett, Joyce Mills

Guest: Priscilla Velasquez - Bookstore

Item 1. Updates

Dr. Szafran introduced Priscilla Velasquez from the Bookstore. Priscilla announced that there will be information sessions for faculty on November 12^th at 11:30 and 2:30 in the Student Center. These short, 30-minute sessions will show faculty how to submit textbook adoptions, etc. Priscilla will be sending out additional information soon.

Dr. Szafran announced the following updates:

Supervisor Training Part II (mandated by the Board of Regents) has been scheduled for November 20^th. All chairs, deans, and vice presidents (and possibly directors) must attend either the morning or afternoon session. Mary Ellen McGee will be sending out more information.
Jo Galle distributed a handout with assessment deadlines and step by step instructions for the chairs and deans. After a brief discussion it was decided to change the due date for the chairs’ annual reports from March 31, 2009 to May or June.
Board of Regents announced that reappointment letters will no longer be given to faculty. Dr. Szafran is inclined to add a sentence to the cover sheet that states that a signed cover sheet is notice of reappointment. Faculty not approved for reappointment will still receive a formal letter.
Board of Regents no longer needs to approve rehires of retirees.
Budget – no news
Georgia Tech – no news
Education Programs – Discussions with Lynn Weisenbach and the System Office have been positive and they are supportive of our pursuing this and have offered help securing grants, etc. to help offset costs.
Dave Caudill and Zvi Szafran are working on SPSU’s end of a budget for the TSCG articulations.
Degree Programs – no news on those at the Board of Regents
The Letter of Intent for Gaming from Han Reichgelt is under review.
Construction on the parking deck is scheduled to begin on November 24^th; the ETC construction will begin soon thereafter. Building I construction will begin around the same time and the ETC.
An AJC article implied that the budget cut system wide would only be 6%, but in truth this is most likely the starting point.
Operating funds have been transferred to Division of Engineering and Academic Support Center.
The campus should be prepared for parking issues once the construction of the parking deck begins. It was suggested that a plan outlining where faculty/staff should park needs to be sent out campus-wide.
Dawn Ramsey announced that mentors are needed (engineering faculty/students) for Future Cities as well as sponsors for special awards. The competition is January 24, 2009. Volunteers are also needed for Science Olympiad (February 28), Boys Scouts Merit Badge day, Girl Scouts, and First Robotics.
Becky Rutherfoord reminded the Council that the external review of our self-study should be back by mid November and that our campus review will be on March 23-25, 2009. She also reminded everyone to remember that our QEP focus is Learning Communities. Dr. Szafran also reported that SACS considers our Psychology program a substantive change and requested more information.

Item 2. Assessment Schedule

Discussed above under updates.

Item 3. Implementation of Electronic Approval

Dr. Szafran talked about the new procedures for electronically submitting travel and expenditure requests. He stated that because of the limited number of electronic approval authorities, faculty will enter their travel requests, print them out and send them through the same chain of command as they do now. Once he receives the paper copy with all of the required signatures, he will electronically sign off on the requests. It was suggested that it may be possible to send through email approvals in lieu of paper approvals for the requests to travel, which would save time. Dean Reichgelt agreed to work on this. Dr. Szafran emphasized the need to get requests to travel in before travel occurs or the faculty member will not get reimbursed. The anticipated starting date for the new procedures is November 1, 2008.

Item 4. Graduation Petition Procedure

Steve Hamrick talked about problems with getting graduation petitions reviewed and turned into the Registrar’s Office in time to order diplomas without having to pay late penalties. After much discussion, it was decided by consensus that Steve would pursue changing the graduation petitioning procedure to the following:

Registrar’s Office will be the point of initiation for graduation petitions
Registrar’s Office will collect graduation fees
Registrar’s Office will forward names of petitioning students to their academic departments
Registrar’s Office will send students to the departments

Item 5. Academic Affairs Travel Policy

Jeff Ray distributed the revised travel handout for discussion. One change was recommended and approved by all. In the sentence, “Faculty are expected to seek external funding for scholarly activities and travel.” expected will be changed to encouraged.

Item 6. New Business

Szafran asked the Council for items to be included on the outstanding issues list. He stated that as items are completed, they will be closed and moved to the bottom of the list.
Becky Rutherfoord announced that she will be meeting soon with Ron Koger’s staff and Patrick McCord’s staff regarding our QEP. There will also be two town hall meetings on November 18^th about the QEP, which she reminded us is “Learning Communities.”
Dr. Szafran asked the Council whether faculty teaching 5000 level courses need graduate faculty status since these are transition courses not graduate courses. This led to a discussion about workload issues that may be affected by a decision on this question. This topic will be continued.
Szafran stated that there will be a second open forum on the academic plan and will send details out by email.
Szafran talked about the new Pay for Print policy adopted by IT for their labs and how this may adversely affect departmental labs if they don’t adopt the same policy. Szafran encouraged the Council to contact Bill Gruszka with questions or concerns.

Meeting adjourned at 3:50 P.M.

Outstanding Issues Template