Present: President Osgood, Special Assistant to the President J. Brand, Dean J. Swartz, Associate Dean H. Scott, B. Ferguson, T. Moore, M. Pillado-Miller, D. Smith, B. Voyles

The meeting was called to order by the President at 4:18 p.m. in Nollen House.

The minutes and excerpts of the meeting of December 8,1999 were approved.

Remarks by the President

The President remarked that he was very pleased with the reaction to the budget presentation to the full faculty this year. He has been thinking of constituting a working group composed of faculty members of the Campus Budget Advisory Committee and several other faculty members to discuss how the College can improve the mix of its revenues.

The Dean commented that in addition to the revenue mix there are other large academic budget issues that could also be discussed by such a group.

Remarks by the Dean

The Dean reported that Jackie Brown and Jenny Anger have been awarded Harris Leaves for next year. Jackie Brown has requested that his Harris be delayed to the following year and that this has been approved. He reminded Council that Ed Gilday will also be on Harris Leave next year.

The Dean presented two position descriptions from the Biology Department. One is for a two-year leave replacement for an ecologist and the second is for a cell physiologist which is a continuing term appointment.

B. Voyles remarked that the rationale for the cell physiologist is that the biology and chemistry departments are beginning their new major next year.

B. Voyles moved, and M. Pillado-Miller seconded, approval of the two Biology Department position descriptions. The motion carried.

M. Pillado Miller moved, and B. Ferguson seconded, approval of the art historian replacement position description. The motion carried.

Promotion to Professor

Four faculty members will be brought forward for consideration by the Personnel Committee for promotion to full professor.

Grievance Procedure

President Osgood noted that he believed this current draft to be a solid document now that the informal and formal adjudicatory structures and procedures had been spelled out.

J. Brand pointed out that the text from the bottom of page two through page three was the most crucial for the faculty to review. A brief discussion ensued centered on the issue of tie-breaking in the selection of panel members. It was decided that J. Brand would draft language to address this issue and return the document to Council for a last review.

President Osgood and J. Brand left the meeting at 4:55 p.m.

Political Science Department Review

The Dean noted that the Executive Council agreed last spring to take on the responsibility of evaluating regular departmental reviews now conducted as part of our most recent reaccreditation plan. The Executive Council is responsible for discussing the department's self study, the outside reviewer's report, the department's response in order to provide appropriate feedback to the department through the Dean and Division Chairs. A lengthy discussion ensued.

The Dean stated that he thought the Department self-assessment, the review and the Departmental response was done well throughout. He further stated that he agreed with D. Smith that many issues raised by the reviewers mirror issues that the institution as a whole faces.

Council Remarks

M. Pillado-Miller noted that she had received several complaints from faculty regarding the College Catalog on the College website not being maintained and updated. He stated that the administration has taken corrective action which will solve that problem.

She also raised the issue of recent computer viruses and the resulting damage and asked if the administration could alert the campus when they know of the existence of these viruses in advance. The Dean stated that viruses have become such an omnipresent aspect of computing that such a system would be impractical. The best solution is for everyone to store their data and documents on the file server which is backed up every day. There was an issue of quota raised, but the Dean stated that this is not a real quota, but is established so that an inordinate amount of unused space is not reserved without purpose at any given time. All anyone needs to do when they reach their quota is call Computer Services and ask for an increase which will be done immediately.

The Dean adjourned the meeting at 6:02 p.m.

Secretary
Karen Wiese