Deans Council Minutes
September 21, 2005
ABSENT: Joyce Mills, Dawn Ramsey
GUESTS: Yongli Ma for Joyce Mills, Burt Matthews for John Mills
Item 1: Update from Facilities
Burt Matthews presented a brief update on current campus projects and will also make sure the website is up-to-date as well. Matthews noted that funding is available for renovating the temporary office space in Building J (J 161 & J 163) after the completion of the HVAC system on the third floor. After some discussion, it was agreed that the space will be renovated to include two large classrooms and six small offices that may be used to accommodate adjunct professors.
Item 2: Role of Deans & Chairs
VPAA Szafran reported that all budgets are now up to date. He will meet with Rob Whitaker to review the current signature authority procedure to see what changes can be made to simplify this process. Szafran was also asked to find out where indirect costs associated with special projects are being deposited.
The Deans made suggestions and a few changes to the general responsibility list for Deans and Chairs previously distributed. All agreed that duties for chairs should be emphasized as “operational” and for deans it should be “strategic.” The VPAA will make the noted changes and prepare the document for distribution.
Item 3: Update on
New Positions
The VPAA has submitted a list of faculty positions needed to the President and is awaiting approval. Szafran noted that there is an advertising and interviewing budget in place and that there should be standardized procedures for structuring campus interviews.
Item 4: Faculty Compensation Committee
The committee is meeting every two weeks. Many issues are being discussed, especially how to assign value to prior experience and/or related experience for compensation purposes. The Deans agreed that if and when this is implemented, salaries should not be determined by a campus committee but rather by the Department Chairs, Deans, and the VPAA, who could also use the guidelines established by the Faculty Compensation Committee.
Item 5: Hiring of Part-Time and Temporary Faculty
The VPAA asked for input and clarification on the hiring process for part-time adjuncts and temporary instructors. There is also need for consistency in the titles used for these positions. There are few restrictions on hiring part-time faculty. They must have at least 18 graduate hours in the field they are being considered to teach. When positions are approved for temporary one-year instructors, many of these are filled from the pool of existing part-time adjuncts. Currently there is no requirement to do an official search for these two types of temporary faculty positions.
The VPAA suggested that we might consider conducting searches in the future for one-year temporary instructor positions to make it easier to convert these faculty into permanent positions when they become available. The Deans pointed out that instituting such a policy would be time consuming, costly, and would produce a large number of searches. It was also noted that most of these positions are approved at the last minute and would not allow sufficient time to do a full search. The VPAA will need to meet with Mary Ellen McGee to review EEO issues if changing hiring practices in this category is considered for the future. It was agreed that we would continue to fill these temporary positions as they have been in the past.
Item 6: New Business
The Deans asked for clarification on the activities planned for Alumni Day and the Board of Regents visit. The Board of Regents will be on campus October 11 and 12 and will be touring the campus on the 11th. Some departments will be hosting events on the 11th to coincide with this visit. The VPAA asked the deans to submit potential classes for the Regents to visit. Alumni Day is scheduled for October 22nd and is part of an alumni reunion weekend. The VPAA was asked to find out about the day’s schedule of activities and specifically if departments are to host open houses as was mentioned. Szafran will follow up on this and is also working with facilities to update the campus signage.
Szafran asked the Deans about the possibility of creating a master plan for scheduling courses. This plan would give students an overview of when and how often classes will be offered. The Deans agreed this might be possible and will discuss it with their chairs.
Future Agenda Items
Meeting adjourned at 4:30 p.m.