Minutes of the

Academic Task Force Meeting

5 April 2007

1. Class Sizes:

We sought closure on the class size issue.

The statement “to increase efficiency at the University by increasing class sizes where appropriate” from Item 1 of the Academic Planning Steering Committee Minutes of March 28 was questioned. The faculty wanted to assure that the quality of teaching would not be affected.

• The Task Force agreed to replace the statement above with “to establish an overall strategy of appropriate class sizes.”
• All agreed that Schools and Departments would be the ones to determine what appropriate class sizes were.
• The VPAA stated that Departments and Schools that save money through finding greater efficiencies get to use that money.

2. Size of the University:

We agreed that the University does need to grow, and the consensus seemed to be for growth to about 6,500 in the next 10 years, particularly since the State University System is calling for an increase in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) graduates. However, we came to no firm agreement. This will be discussed further at the next meeting.