Present: R. Osgood, J. Brand, J. Swartz, H. Scott, P. Smith, W. Ferguson, B. Grey, K. Kamp, T. Moore, M. Pillado-Miller, B. Voyles.

The meeting came to order at 4:20 p.m. in the Nollen House Conference Room.

The minutes and excerpts from the 11/15/00 meeting were approved.

President's Remarks

The President noted that the Board of Trustees had approved, with minor clarificatory language changes, the revised Personnel Appeals Procedure. He thanked all members of this and last year's Council who worked so hard to accomplish this needed revision.

B. Voyles moved, B. Ferguson seconded, that Executive Council accept (as a friendly amendment) the revised Personnel Appeals Procedure with the language changes suggested by the Board. The motion was approved.

Dean's Remarks

The Dean noted that the Curriculum Committee approved the change in status of American Studies from a department to a concentration on 11/28/00. He handed out a note which he proposed to attach to the faculty meeting agenda. H. Scott noted that the Social Studies Division raised two substantive issues with regard to this change: 1)concern that the concentration continue to be adequately staffed; and 2)concern that the concentration be officially formed as soon as possible following the dissolution of the department.

Discussion of the Process to be Used for Long Range Planning

The Dean noted the need for Council to discuss the roles of the faculty in long-range academic planning and in institutional planning.

K. Kamp asked if the President could provide information on how FFE money was spent to aid in long-range planning as the college makes decisions about which FFE initiatives should be incorporated into the base budget and at what level.

B. Ferguson stated that his primary concern is with the process that Council will use and how within the process Council will endeavor to involve the full faculty in long-term decision-making. K. Kamp suggested using the post-divisional meetings as the springboard for further discussion. H. Scott mentioned that the Instructional Support Committee has been looking into building issues for some time. K. Kamp suggested that the Committee might be used to facilitate these discussions. B. Grey noted that much of this process problem is rooted in poor communication and in the lack of transparency regarding the good work of various committees and what the whole faculty is aware of at any given time. It was suggested that since B. Grey, as Chair of the Faculty, must sit on all the major faculty committee (except the Faculty Organization Committee), that he use his experience to inform the faculty of important issues being addressed by the various committees at full faculty meetings. This was decided to be a useful model for communication and will be adopted.

B. Ferguson stated that he had three avenues in mind for continuing the process of long-range academic planning: 1)divisional meetings with the President; 2)follow-up discussions to the special Council dinner meeting prior to meeting with any Trustees for this conversation; and 3)in these and other meetings discuss how to more extensively involve other faculty in discussion of these issues.

A lengthy discussion of the nature of faculty governance at Grinnell ensued. The President suggested that the Council needs to meet with various senior administrators in order to have a necessary exchange of views.

Since the President was about to leave the meeting, B. Voyles asked to change the subject of discussion to the diversity process. He noted that two diversity position papers had been written and released dealing with faculty hiring and administration. He suggested that it was time to write an academic diversity position paper and asked if Division Chairs would be willing to find faculty who would be willing to work on a draft. It was generally agreed upon that this would be an appropriate and useful endeavor, although no specific process was laid out.

The President stated that long-range institutional planning needs to be broadly based, but that he has not seen a college like Grinnell (one without a sharply defined focus) suceed in strategic planning. He stated that he believes that the best hope for this college is to work within the existing committee structures. He agreed with pursuing the three process avenues suggested by B. Ferguson.

B. Voyles suggested that the faculty have not yet adequately discussed and decided how best to present the "face of the college" which, if undertaken, might help provide a framework for long-range planning.

The President and J. Brand left the meeting at 5:30 p.m.

Dean's Remarks

The Dean's remarks were truncated in order to accommodate the President's schedule. The discussion resumed.

The Dean noted that he had received a proposal from alumni and development regarding their interest in "piggybacking" alumni functions on planned faculty travel. He asked Council whether they believed the faculty would be interested in such activity. The general response was positive.

He noted that a number of departments are now involved in bringing candidates to campus for interviews and several would be needing a quick response from Council regarding their recommendations.

B. Voyles noted that, contrary to all expectation, the Computer Science and Math Department has identified three strong candidates.

B. Grey noted that when he met with the Science Division to talk about the diversity hire initiative he was asked whether a woman candidate in physics would be considered a diversity hire since women are extremely underrepresented in this discipline. B. Grey noted that this was not how Council was defining diversity for the purpose of this initiative.

Continuing Discussion of End-of-Course Evaluations

The Dean noted that as a result of discussion by the faculty in the last faculty meeting Council now has a motion and an amendment to that motion on the table, and there is a need for Council to discuss how to effectively pursue this discussion in the next faculty meeting.

Once again there was a lengthy discussion of various issues surrounding the use of the end-of-course data.

The meeting adjourned at 6:50 p.m.

Secretary
Karen Wiese