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

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

Item 1: Updates

The NSF grant we applied for was not approved. The proposal received a good rating (excellent was required for funding) and we will try again in the future.
The Honors Program is trying to establish an Honor Society.
Letters of Intent for Chemistry and Psychology have gone to the Board of Regents for review.
The Doctorate of Professional Studies will be presented at the faculty meeting on November 30 for approval, as will the Bachelor of Science in Engineering with a concentration in Systems Engineering.
Faculty Searches – The individual ads have been edited for consistency and Human Resources is preparing the combined ads for The Chronicle and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The VPAA’s office will try to help with specialty advertising costs if possible. All specialty advertising costs to be paid by the VPAA must be approved by the VPAA before ads are placed.
Capital Equipment – The capital equipment list has been finalized and the funds distributed to the departments.

Item 2: Department Strategic Planning/Academic Planning Process

Dr. Szafran distributed a handout on the University’s strategic goals to be used in developing departmental strategic plans. The focus will be Objective 1.3 – Develop an Academic Master Plan. The first step is to establish a taskforce and to decide who should be on it. Dr. Szafran asked the Council for input and received the following comments:

have the chair or a faculty representative from each department
have schools develop their own plan
need guidelines, basic principles, etc. before starting school planning,
the Deans Council should come up with the framework then share with the chairs
the Undergraduate Curriculum and the Graduate Programs Committees could be used as a good structure with good representation from the faculty
need to include Extended University
have smaller group establish guidelines and have larger group work on plan
the Curriculum Committee is used to dealing with interdisciplinary issues
how much extra work would be involved for the Curriculum Committee? Dr. Szafran responded that the committee usually meets once per month so would probably have one or two additional meetings per month to deal with academic planning.
Deans Council could be the body to establish guiding principles and serve as review board
have an expanded Deans Council of about 10-15 with representative from each school as the steering committee
need faculty representatives willing to think outside their own area
chairs, deans, and VPAA will all be giving input along with members of the Academic Planning Taskforce to assure we will address University versus departmental needs
keep outside programs in mind
have meetings open to non-voting attendees
each department should be envisioning what their department will look like in the future

Dr. Szafran summarized the consensus of the group by stating that we should establish a steering committee (Expanded Deans Council) made up of additional members (1 representative from each school and Extended University) that would develop the charge and be part of the larger committee, the Academic Planning Taskforce. Each school and Extended University should submit the name of their chosen representative to Debbie so they can be invited to the Expanded Deans Council meeting. The Expanded Deans Council will meet once per month in place of a regular Deans Council meeting.

The Academic Planning Taskforce would be made up of the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee, one member per department of the Graduate Programs Committee, and the members of the ALC. The Expanded Deans Council will review the annual plan developed by the Academic Planning Taskforce. The academic plan, if done properly, becomes part of the budget and gets funded.

Meeting adjourned at 3:55 P.M.