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

PRESENT: Bill Barnes, Richard Bennett, David Caudill, Tom Currin, Venu Dasigi, Ameen Farooq, Joel Fowler, Alan Gabrielli, Steven Hamrick, Ruston Hunt, Andrew McMorran, Joyce Mills, Mike Murphy, Julie Newell, Mark Nunes, Jeff Orr, Nikki Palamiotis, Phil Patterson, Dawn Ramsey, Nancy Reichert, Ronny Richardson, Khalid Siddiqi, John Sweigart, Zvi Szafran, Andy Wang, and Tim Zeigler

ABSENT: Charles Bachman, Nikki Palamiotis

GUEST: Phyllis Weatherly

Phyllis Weatherly, Career & Counseling Center, came to today’s meeting to talk about Career Week and the Career Fair. Flyers have been distributed to and around the campus. Students attending will need to bring a resume and dress professionally.

Richard Bennett, Director of International Programs, introduced Professor Jiadong, Vice Chair of Architecture, North China University of China. Professor Jiadong will be on our campus for the next three months.

Item 1: Updates

Academic Affairs has received additional funds of which $100,000 - $200,000 may be available to cover unmet needs in the schools. The Council may submit proposals for equipment, travel, etc. to Dr. Szafran. Equity adjustments for faculty will be funded from a separate pool from this allotment.
Hiring – Because of the small pool of applicants for the two deans’ positions, 11 for CSE and 19 for ETM to date, a second ad was placed in The Chronicle of Higher Education. Additional ads were also placed for the faculty positions in Business Administration.
New Programs – No additional news since Dr. Szafran followed up with the Board of Regents regarding the Systems Engineering proposal. Chemistry and Psychology letters of intent seem to be fine and all three should be on the March agenda. The Board of Regents is negative about whether we can offer the DPS. Dr. Szafran will be responding.
Master Planning – models of the portal project are available for viewing as well as the facilities master plans which include three different versions for space allocation for the campus. Input from the campus is welcome.

Item 2: Curricular Separation of ET from Engineering

Today’s agenda was changed slightly to allow sufficient time to discuss this important topic. The engineering technology faculty met recently to begin talking about engineering and engineering technology with a goal of helping faculty, students, and staff identify attributes of each program. Tom Currin is putting together information from that meeting to share with the Council. Some issues include establishing and developing curricula for engineering, reviewing the existing curricula for engineering technology, deciding what needs to be in both, what is unique to each and what they have in common. Many ideas/concerns were exchanged which included:

need to change perception that engineering is better than engineering technology – this includes faculty, students, staff, industry, etc.
poll industry to see how they perceive the differences between the two and see what their needs are, what the market value assessment is for both, and see how industry would feel about hiring a student with an engineering degree versus a student with an engineering technology degree, especially if they have hired our graduates in the past
concern from faculty about sustaining engineering technology programs
need a reasonable means for students to change from one program to another
entrance requirements – should they be the same for all programs or different depending on the program?
don’t create programs just to meet students’ needs – choose programs carefully and know why we are choosing them; diversify offerings
come up with curricula for both and keep them differentiated
look at accreditation requirements for both
look at the reasons students choose one program over another, ease of program, cost, etc.
choose program names carefully so that they are easily understood
have clear marketing brochures
most universities keep programs totally separate and do not overlap departments or faculty
keep engineering and engineering technology separate from the very beginning to include faculty, students, etc.
share faculty in the beginning, separate in the future
trend in country is doing away with engineering technology and replacing it with engineering
accreditation requires that at least three faculty in each program be identified as engineering faculty
how to handle organization of units, i.e. chairs, faculty, space
identify faculty that could teach engineering and be involved in planning curriculum
decide structure in the future, define engineering and engineering technology faculty
have engineering faculty start developing curricula and differentiating the engineering curriculum
as we add engineering and refocus engineering technology, need to have math and sciences departments communicate with each other about how they will be impacted
CSE should be involved in all aspects of engineering planning because of the computer component

This discussion will continue.

Item 3: Evaluations

The Council began a discussion on faculty evaluation and what can be done to establish common criteria on the categories that are used for assessment. Areas of concern include:

setting a benchmark to identify “superior” rating
finding a common understanding of each category and defining them so that all who evaluate faculty will be using the same criteria
evaluating faculty who are not performing
documenting faculty who are not carrying out basic responsibilities such as early warning submissions, mid-term grades, etc., and who should be doing this documentation

Meeting adjourned at 4:15.