Present: J. Swartz, P. Smith, H. Scott, B. Grey, D. Kaiser, K. Kamp, J. Mohan, J. Mutti, B. Voyles.

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

The minutes and excerpts of 8/29/01 were corrected and approved.

Dean's Remarks

The Dean noted that there is a scheduled faculty meeting for September 17th, but that he is unaware of any pressing business which would warrant a meeting. B. Grey stated that he feels obligated to report on the Fund for Excellence and would like to do this soon. Council also discussed using the meeting as a way to involve faculty in its planning process.

The Dean asked Council to review the text of a full page display ad to be placed in the Chronicle of Higher Education within the next few weeks.

There will be a noon meeting on September 18th for department chairs and others who will be running searches in order to increase the likelihood that regular tenure-track and diversity searches will produce diversity candidates. He asked Council members to speak in support of the institutional goals for diversity.

A committee of the division chairs has met to discuss the process of allocating funds for speakers from the newly centralized speaker budget and will issue an announcement on procedure soon.

Over the past few months the College has been involved in discussions with Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan about including Grinnell as a formal off-campus study site. The Deans' Office worked with the Directors (outgoing and incoming) of the Center for International Studies, several faculty members, and the grant writing office on a letter indicating interest to Waseda. Waseda University representatives will be on campus this month for further discussions involving possibilities for collaboration between our two institutions.

The Dean suggested that Council may want to consider asking the Curriculum Committee to review the curricular aspects of the MAP program and report back to Council this year. B. Voyles asked what specific charge might Council give to the Committee. P. Smith suggested that they could look at participation levels, outcomes, the range of things that have been funded as MAPs, the quality of the experience as reported by our graduates. Basically, the question can be framed as "how does this program function as the other bookend to the tutorial?" They could also be asked to look at issues such as how many MAPs should a student be allowed to take, whether the MAP should appear on the student transcript and how, the magnitude of independent projects which the faculty are being asked to bear, etc. The Division representatives on the Curriculum Committee could then take such information back to the division. D. Kaiser moved, K. Kamp seconded that Council request a review of the MAP program to be undertaken by the Curriculum Committee this year. The motion was approved.

The Planning Process

B. Grey noted a conversation with J. Brand in which he reviewed his discussions with members of Council and suggested that there is concensus to move ahead with the process. B. Grey moved, J. Mutti seconded, approval for J. Brand to talk with possible planning consultants who would work with Council in a process of academic planning. D. Kaiser said that he would support the motion, but expressed reservations about the tone of _Prioritizing Academic Programs_, selections from which J. Brand had distributed to Council earlier. Kaiser urged Brand to make the process respond as closely as possible to the needs of Grinnell, and seek help from persons experienced with liberal arts colleges rather than large universities or marketing ventures. The motion was approved.

Scheduling Faculty Meetings, Division Meetings, and Regular Faculty Discussions

B. Voyles opened a discussion of the need for regularity in scheduling division meetings. He moved that Monday at 4:15 be reserved for division meetings. There was discussion. The motion was withdrawn pending a specific proposal regarding scheduling to be presented by the Dean at the next meeting.

Council Remarks

D. Kaiser asked what the College's privacy policy is and who oversees adherence to it. It was agreed to pursue this with the President and discuss it later.

The meeting adjourned at 6:20 p.m.

Secretary
Karen Wiese