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DEANS COUNCIL 09-19-12

Deans Council Meeting

B 120

September 19, 2012

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

Members: Rich Cole, Tom Currin, Ruston Hunt, Thomas Nelson, Jeffrey Ray, Han Reichgelt, Zvi Szafran

Members Absent:

Guests:

Item 1. Updates

Dr. Szafran updated the Council on the following:

Minutes – at the request of one of the deans, the previous meeting minutes will be reviewed and approved at each meeting. All agreed and the minutes from September 5, 2012 were approved and adopted. Debbie will correct the members for Deans Council and Extended Deans Council.
Parking – part of the issue discussed previously has been resolved but the hill has not been fixed and is the only place with no sidewalk access. Steve Kitchen was to contact Jeff Ray and Tom Currin about this. Zvi will follow up with Bill Prigge.
I-Strategy – the deans want access to their departments’ budgets. Zvi will talk to Bill Prigge and Arthur Vaughn about giving the deans access to their departments’ budgets.
Transient students – Szafran sent the deans the data about the number of students taking courses as transients, and the number is approximately 20 per semester, which is relatively low
10-year Capital Budget forecast – Szafran emailed this to the deans yesterday and is trying to determine projects that need to be added. He asked the deans to discuss this with their chairs and to send items to him by Friday.
Class time blocks – Steve and Zvi worked on a proposed schedule. The deans stated that they want to review their departments’ schedules before they are published. Szafran asked the deans to review the time blocks and once approved by the deans he will move to implement other items such as authority to approve their departments’ schedules. The goals for adopting a class time block schedule:
- More efficient use of space
- To free up space for other classes
- More Friday classes
- Create threshold to meet BoR requirements
Senior Staff Updates:
- University events – what qualifies and who pays?
- Strategic funding FY 14
- Searching for legal counsel
- Polyday
- Weekend coverage for events/courses
Proctoring exams – Jeff Ray stated that the data is unclear and inconclusive. Other comments:
- websites offer to take online courses for students
- quality of test may determine cheat ability
- online courses may not be perceived as the same value as live courses
- make students register their ISP address
- proctoring is expensive and defeats “online”
- tests run through EU average of two exams per course
- data flawed – move on?
- Leave to departments to develop tests that are harder on which to cheat?
- “Proctor U” – service will proctor exams and is inexpensive
- Minimal level of security needed
- Perception of cheating in some classes/departments
- Have programs verify learning outcomes and that students are actually taking the exams
- No university-wide single response
- No course by course program assurance that student verification is being done
- Exams need to be revamped
- Jeff Ray agreed to draft a minimum set of guidelines to be used to assure that faculty and chairs are doing what is needed to ensure the integrity of the assessment process for live, online, and hybrid courses.
- The School of Engineering has instituted an additional assessment instrument to supplement the SIRs.

Item 2. Shared Governance

A discussion took place about a few issues encountered recently in Faculty Senate and how it should be determined which issues should be initiated by the Faculty Senate, which ones should be handled in the departments, and which are strictly administrative. Our P&Ps are often specific on small details but some do not touch on the major issues. Suggestions that came up included:

The moderator of the Senate should meet with the President to review the year’s agenda (as well as individual agendas) before they are published
Areas of primacy be determined for each P&P – this used to exist.
Have a faculty handbook in addition to the P&Ps; perhaps something our legal counsel could compile using information in the P&Ps, the law, etc., and where there are gaps in the P&P, present operating guidelines to the Senate to be used until the P&P is updated

It was noted that some of our P&Ps are in violation of federal guidelines and these need to be corrected.

Szafran agreed to bring these suggestions to the President.

Russ Hunt brought up a concern that there is not a P&P that discusses how the Institutional Research Board committee should be constituted and agreed to draft something to present to the Council and the President. If approved he will use it as an interim policy until an appropriate body (tbd) create a new policy.

Our policy on not granting credit for courses failed here and taken elsewhere was discussed. It was stated that this violates USG policy and is against ABET regulations (which states that we must accept transfer credit from all ABET accredited institutions).

Tom Nelson will draft a policy on transient credit for courses failed at SPSU that meets ABET and USG regulations for consideration by the President as an interim policy until the P&P is updated.

Action Item(s):

Debbie will correct the members for Deans Council and Extended Deans Council.

Zvi will talk to Bill Prigge and Arthur Vaughn about giving the deans access to their departments’ budgets.

Jeff Ray will draft a minimum set of guidelines to be used to assure that faculty and chairs are doing what is needed to ensure the integrity of the assessment process for live, online, and hybrid courses.

Zvi agreed to talk to the President about the Shared Governance suggestions.

Russ Hunt will draft an interim policy on constitution the IRB committee to present to the Council and the President.

Tom Nelson will draft a policy amendment on transient credit for courses failed at SPSU that meets USG and ABET regulations.

Future Agenda Item(s):