Deans
Council Minutes
August 8 & 10, 2001
At
times, issues of confidentiality may require that some items discussed in
meetings be excluded from these minutes.
Bill
Barnes, Dick Aynsley, Joel Fowler, Alan Gabrielli, Mike Murphy, Sandy Pfeiffer,
Dawn Ramsey, and Judy Waits.
Deans
and programs need improved communication about Journey, JET students, and all
types of advising to better serve the students. Also, we need to order more
signage for the ATTIC. Both the Records
Office and the Financial Aid Office will be open 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. on drop/add
days (except 8/17—with 9 to 4 hours).
Also, the Records Office will be open until 8 p.m. on orientation day. The Business Office will be open until 9 p.m.
on August 14 (night orientation), until 6 p.m. on August 15–17, and until 7
p.m. on August 20-21. Program offices
should be open on August 15-21 until 7 p.m.
ACTION: Large, clear signs will be ordered for the ATTIC.
ACTION:
Academic Affairs will draft a list of open hours for support operations during
registration and drop/add.
All
student appeals should begin with the faculty member and then go to the program
head before progressing, if necessary, to the dean.
ACTION:
Pfeiffer will review the policy on grade appeals.
Pfeiffer handed out copies of P&P 306.0
(Academic Program/Unit Review), which is currently under review by the BOR, and
a table listing all System degree programs currently being considered at the
BOR. Pfeiffer noted that we are awaiting
the BOR response before proceeding with internal program reviews this
year.
Faculty will be informed on the status of the
review. It was decided that perhaps
outside consultants should do the study, with input from the deans and other
parties as to reliable external sources for salary information. This item will be discussed in later meetings
of the Deans Council.
ACTION:
Pfeiffer will ask HR and the Enhancement Team for consultant suggestions.
ACTION:
Pfeiffer will ask faculty for available studies.
The program heads and then the deans have the responsibility to review special topics courses, since these courses have not been reviewed by the appropriate faculty committee. If there are questions or possible problems, the deans should contact Pfeiffer before the schedule is printed.
Pat Garrett’s
Visits to School Meetings
Pat Garrett has requested 5 minutes at school/EU meetings for Foundation business.
ACTION: Garrett
will visit school/EU meetings on August 13, or shortly thereafter.
Remaining
End-of-Year Requests
Pfeiffer returned all department requests that were not funded or processed with end-of-year funds. Because of a miscalculation by the Business Office, the amount available was not as much as had been anticipated. Nevertheless, a good deal was available and was spent. The Deans Council agreed that we need a more methodical way to plan for responding to end-of-year requests. Each program will set up a plan and prepare DRs relative to the plan. The DRs can be revised each semester to keep the plan current. Ramsey reminded everyone to build in a technology plan.
ACTION: Deans will ask
program heads to develop a plan/list of priorities and prepare DRs.
The Council discussed the purpose of emeritus status and the procedure for applying for it. It was agreed that one purpose should be to encourage faculty to continue to be involved with the campus. Emeritus status is now a local decision that does not involve the BOR.
Pfeiffer said that the Biochemistry and
Global Technology degrees are on hold until the Enhancement Team submits its
report in September. Other proposals
were discussed.
ACTION:
Pfeiffer will confirm the on-campus status of the QA and MBA proposals. The Interdisciplinary Studies proposal was
given to the deans, to receive comments from the program heads and faculty.
Fowler and Pfeiffer have met with Bill
Gruszka, the new Chief Information Officer. A major topic was centralizing
support services for laboratories.
ACTION:
Pfeiffer will ask Gruszka to set up meetings with the deans, as a group.
There was much discussion as to the composition of program/school and campus-wide peer committees. While interim guidelines are in place and unless there is good reason to do otherwise, every effort will be made to keep structures similar to those used last year—until a new P&P is approved. All tenured associate and full professors are eligible to be elected to the program/school peer committees, as in the past. The size of the committee will be no less than 3 members. Program heads that fit the above criteria are eligible for being elected to the program/school peer committees (and also will be consulted separately in their role as program heads, even though they don’t have a separate vote in the process). The peer committees will select their own chairs. The composition of the campus peer committee has not been determined.
ACTION: The school
deans will address the issue of program/school committee composition at their
meetings on August 13.
ACTION: Pfeiffer will address the issue of the composition of the campus-wide peer committee in the Academic Affairs meeting on August 13.
Pfeiffer has drafted a revised P&P for
hiring faculty (802.01)—mainly to correct errors and conform to the new
organizational structure. Also, he
handed out the current P&P 803.01 (Employment of Temporary Faculty) and
reminded the group that deans and/or program heads are responsible for the
orientation of new faculty.
ACTION: Deans
will look at P&P 802.01 and send comments to Pfeiffer.
ACTION: Deans
will make sure there is an orientation of some kind for adjunct faculty.
Pfeiffer soon will appoint a committee to
begin the search for dean of the
Drafts of the program head and dean job
descriptions were distributed. The next
step is to seek opinions of the faculty.
ACTION: The
school deans will hand out drafts of the program head and dean job description
at school meetings on August 13.
There was not enough time for discussion so this issue will be placed on a future agenda. There was a draft handout of “Criteria for High Scholarship.”
There
was a handout of a draft related to procedures and forms for evaluation of
faculty. Deans are to review the
material, discuss it with the faculty, and be prepared to make the process
applicable to all four academic schools.
ACTION: Deans will start the
discussion at the school meetings on Monday, August 13.
Fowler
told the deans that the Academic Affairs office will pay for searches,
including advertising and travel expenses.
However, those programs that have money in an advertising budget line
will have that money transferred to the vpaa’s budget.
ACTION: Fowler will
coordinate the transfer of the advertising budget lines.