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Deans Council

Deans Council Meeting

B-120

February 15, 2012

 

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

 

Members:  Bill Barnes, Dave Caudill, Tom Currin, Steve Hamrick, Ruston Hunt, Joyce Mills, Thomas Nelson, Jeff Orr, Nikki Palamiotis, Jeffrey Ray, Han Reichgelt, Zvi Szafran

 

Members Absent:   David Caudill, Tom Nelson, Han Reichgelt, Jeff Ray

 

Guests:  Dawn Ramsey for Dave Caudill, Julie Newell for Tom Nelson, Venu Dasigi for Han Reichgelt, and Ronny Richardson for Jeff Ray

 

 

Item 1. Updates

Dr. Szafran updated the Council on the following:

  • BoR – 2% budget cut this year and will continue into next year – formula funding is expected although may be modified
  • Undocumented students – less than 10 here at SPSU – the USG has a policy in place
  • Visiting Audit Team looking at various issues:
    • Malfeasance – p-card issues are still being monitored
    • Concern that faculty are not reporting sick time when they are out and this make a difference for those faculty if they are members of TRS since sick time counts as accumulated time toward retirement.
  • Honorary degrees – BoR is looking at this and will be putting limits on the number allowed
  • Need-based financial aid in Georgia – State received a donation from AT&T for this purpose and will apply in five years in three counties only – Cobb is not one.
  • Conflict of Interest Audit F 2011 – supposed to supply us with guidelines for preparing our P&P – we must meet deadlines for Federal funding or risk losing funding.
  • Complete College Georgia – State is gearing up to implement this program.  Each campus is supposed to send a 5-person team to the next event.  This will be discussed at the February 22, 2012, RACAA meeting.
  • Space Pilot Study – no report to date.  Working to collect date and update Ad Astra.  Szafran stated that this is critical because new money for funding won’t be available if we are not using our space efficiently.
  • System continuing Social Business Venture – inviting teams to compete
  • Website – all faculty will have web pages – working with Stephanie to determine what should be on every web page – suggest everything in the catalog plus office house and a faculty picture to start.  Eventually should contain a brief statement of research interest, links to syllabi, etc.  Will bring this up at a general faculty meeting.  Training will be provided for faculty.  Could the cost of training be offset by a data entry person to do it all?  Lack of uniformity has been an issue in the past but a common template will eliminate some of that.  Becky will look at this more closely and will talk to Stephanie. 
  • RACAA agenda:
    • Complete College Georgia
    • Cleaning up data
    • Discussion groups
    • Consolidation updates
    • Comprehensive program review
    • New program review
    • Georgia’s academic workforce – analysis research data system
  • Events – Exhibits in Architecture Gallery – Africa Culture Exhibit – opened last night in Building N; smaller exhibit in I2 – Istanbul Center on the Ladino Jews
  • Cross-Cultural Committee getting underway – many volunteers from faculty, staff, and students.
  • Open House is on Saturday.
  • Teacher of the Year – lecture and reception is on March 1, 2012.

 

Item 2. Academic Program Review P&P 306.0

Becky distributed the P&P for discussion.  There was a question about changing the date when these are due but the consensus of the Council was to keep the due date at November 30th.  Need to add the BoR policy number to the preamble.  All programs have a 7-10-year cycle except general education – can use accrediting body review cycle.  Outside evaluators (applies to promotion and tenure as well) documents will be forthcoming.  Should we identify a peer institution and invite them to visit and evaluate our programs?  Send them a report?  These should be comparable to the scrutiny given by accrediting agencies.  After discussion it was decided to send the evaluator the report early and have a short visit later.  The department chair will suggest an evaluator and the dean will approve.  Becky will make all changes to the P&P and redistribute at the next meeting.

 

Item 3. Graduation times for Schools

CET moving into the School of ETM this semester threw the numbers of graduates out of balance enough that this needed to be discussed.  After discussion it was agreed that Arts & Sciences and Engineering Technology and Management will have graduation in the morning and Architecture & Construction Management, Computing and Software Engineering, and Engineering will have graduation in the afternoon.  This will continue to be monitored each semester.  It was noted that the morning graduation has a large turnout of faculty whereas the afternoon graduation tends to appear underrepresented by faculty and department chairs.  Szafran will send a memo encouraging faculty to attend both ceremonies. 

 

Item 4. New Business

Russ Hunt asked for permission to pay students with special skills working under grants more than what HR normally allows.  Deans Council didn’t see any problem with doing this, if the funds came from grants.