A&S Dept. Chair Meeting Minutes

Department Chair Meeting Minutes
Date: October 28, 2003
Room: J 307 3:00-4:00 PM

Present:

Alan Gabrielli, Dean, Arts & Sciences
La Juana Cochrane, Department Chair, Social & International Studies
Joel Fowler, Department Chair, Mathematics
Russell Patrick, Department Chair, Biology, Chemistry & Physics
Ken Rainey, Department Chair, Humanities & Technical Communication

Enrollment: Gabrielli briefly discussed the state of our current enrollment which is up by 3% over last year. The largest increase is any one category is in freshmen, which is up 20% over last year.

Budget: Gabrielli updated the department chairs on the continuing budget issues. The top priority right now is to come up with ways to fund part-time faculty salaries for the spring semester. The VPAA is considering the budget line item information provided by the departments and will soon provide instructions for developing zero-based departmental budgets.

Advising: Gabrielli, with input from the department chairs, will build a framework for student advising for the School of Arts & Sciences. This will be based on the existing P&P 308.0 on Academic Advising and will help set guidelines that the individual departments will use to formulate their own advising plans. All departments will be expected to meet certain minimum expectations but will develop their own departmental plans. The goal is to improve academic advising. Problems with advising as it is currently were discussed and solutions suggested included modifying current Banner reports to give department chairs/advisors more information on the students they advise. Other suggestions included more Banner training for advisors. Gabrielli will work with Kelly Payton to see how this can be implemented.