Present: Dean Swartz, Associate Deans H. Scott and P. Smith, Special Assistant to the President Jonathan Brand, E. Dobbs, R. Grey, M. Pillado-Miller, L. Sinnett, D. Smith, and B. Voyles

The Dean called the meeting to order at 4:21 p.m. in Windsor House.

The minutes of September 9 were corrected and approved.

Remarks by the Dean

Display advertisements including all faculty positions to be filled will be published in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Black Issues, and Hispanic Outlook. The Dean has sent notes to the deans at Iowa colleges within commuting distance of Grinnell, such as Coe, Cornell, Central, and Drake, suggesting that we combine display adds for positions at our colleges. In an effort to improve our pool of minority applicants, the dean has asked several minority alumni who have been working closely with the Development Office to play an active role in recruiting minority candidates into our applicant pool for faculty positions. Roberta Atwell, Affirmative Action Officer, has put us in touch with a group of higher educational institutions in the Northwest working to promote a greater minority presence in higher education. That group has agreed to distribute our descriptions of faculty position to be filled. The Dean requested that Council members send him any strategies they might have for improving the numbers of minority applicants in our pools.

Trustee-Faculty Relations Committee Member Selection

Up until this year, the President appointed faculty members of the Trustee-Faculty Relations Committee. Council has now been asked to make that selection. Since the Board of Trustees plans on forming an Academic Affairs Committee, Council discussed dissolving the Trustee-Faculty Relations Committee and forming a new structure to facilitate faculty communication with the trustees.

D. Smith made the following motion:

That the Executive Council, knowing that the Board of Trustees plans on establishing an Academic-Affairs Committee of its own members, propose the following:

1. That the existing Trustee-Faculty Relations Committee be discontinued, and
2. That, to further and amplify the Trustees' understanding of the academic affairs of the College, members of the Academic-Affairs committee of the Board of Trustees may meet on a regular basis, e.g. at meetings of the Board, with a group of members of the faculty. The group will be composed of the chair of the faculty, the two at-large members of the Executive Council of the Faculty, and two other members of the faculty selected for each meeting by the chair of the faculty. The chair of the faculty in selecting the two "other members" of the faculty will bear in mind the value of having a group of five that reflects the diversity and variety of the faculty.

The motion carried by unanimous vote. If this recommendation is accepted by the Board, it will require a change in the revised by-laws to be submitted to the Board prior to its February meeting.

Coordination of Department Student Learning Assessments

For the past two years, David Lopatto, Psychology, has served as coordinator of our self study for NCA and for department student learning assessment plans. Now that our NCA self study has been completed, the management of implementation of department student learning assessment plans will move to the Office of Institutional Research. Carol Trosset, Director of IR, will work with an advisory committee consisting of Lopatto, Paula Smith (Associate Dean), and Gerald Adams (Registrar). Departments will report to this advisory committee which will in turn report periodically to Council. At the end of this academic year, this committee will evaluate this system of managing the student learning assessment plans.

Leaves for Writing Lab Faculty

The 1997-98 Executive Council considered a request from the Writing Lab for sabbatical leaves for lab instructors. After lengthy discussion revolving around the desire for writing lab faculty to have opportunities for professional development to become even more effective in teaching writing, the need to treat all lab faculty equitably, and the recognition that there is no expectation of continued scholarly productivity from lab faculty, last year's Council made no recommendation on the proposal but identified three questions which would need to be addressed prior to making a formal recommendation:

1. Are there alternatives to sabbatical leaves which can accomplish the goal of continued professional development for lab faculty?
2. Do lab faculty believe that they would benefit from rewriting their job descriptions with an expectation of continuing scholarly productivity?
3. Does the College see a benefit from rewriting the lab faculty job descriptions with an expectation of continuing scholarly productivity?

The Writing Lab staff responded that they are not aware of any satisfactory alternatives and that they do not think that recasting their job descriptions would benefit the lab or the College. They did request, however, that any further judgment on their eligibility for sabbatical leaves be based on an understanding of their work for the College and its students and that it be considered in the context of their place in the College's organizational structure. They asked for clarification of the latter, i.e. of where they are located in the context of college and faculty legislation about eligibility for sabbaticals. They made reference to p. 41 of the Faculty Handbook which cites the Trustee by-laws referring to the "policy of the College to encourage faculty members to have occasional opportunities for extended leave of a kind which will refresh them, add to their professional stature, or contribute to the public interest." On that same page, another passage lists lecturers among those eligible for sabbatical leaves after six years of service. The Handbook also lays out for the faculty an expectation of scholarly productivity. This requirement, however, as presented on page 33 of the Faculty Handbook, clearly applies only to those seeking tenure and promotion, and both of these are precluded to lab faculty by the terms of their present contracts.

[Scott left the meeting at 5:30 p.m.]

The current Council discussed the issues raised by this response from the Writing Lab. Council began by discussing the relationship between the revised by-laws, which will be submitted to the Board of Trustees for approval prior to the February meeting, and the Faculty Handbook. The new by-laws no longer specify information on sabbatical leaves, relegating this specification to the Faculty Handbook. The unrevised trustee by-laws describe a rationale for sabbatical leaves which does not tie them to a formal expectation of scholarly productivity.

Members of the Writing Lab staff sometimes publish pedagogical articles, but they are not required or expected to do so. These accomplishments may well improve and contribute to their professional performance, yet the college has viewed such scholarly activity as optional rather than expected. Lecturers in the learning labs do not hold a terminal degree in an academic field of study, and the position of the Writing Lab is that it would not be appropriate to institute an expectation of scholarly production such as publication.

The Faculty Handbook does state that faculty members at the rank of lecturer who have been in full-time service at Grinnell College during at least six years preceding the academic year in which the leave is to occur are eligible to submit to the Dean of the College a proposal for sabbatical leave. D. Smith inquired whether the Dean is asking Executive Council to propose or recommend a more receptive attitude on his part toward meritorious proposals from full-time lecturers in the learning labs.

Council members then wanted to know the number of lecturers to whom this recommendation would apply. Full information on this point was not on hand, but the estimate was that seven or eight lecturers teach full-time on campus.

Dean Swartz stated that a recommendation from the Council would be helpful. He reminded the Council that resources would have to be shifted from another part of the college budget to cover replacements and costs associated with paid leaves. Since there is no research expectation for these faculty members, their proposed projects would logically be structured to make a direct contribution to Grinnell's teaching programs rather than to an individual's record of scholarship.

On one occasion (1988-89), the Dean granted a paid leave to the long-time Director of the Writing Lab so that she could develop a curricular project on rhetoric. The Council briefly discussed whether "professional development leave" or "temporary re-assignment of professional responsibilities to work on a project of value to the college" would be a more appropriate term than "sabbatical leave" for lecturers in the learning labs, given the differences in professional expectations.

L. Sinnett offered to work on the language for a recommendation to the Dean and circulate this draft to Council members in preparation for the next Executive Council meeting.

Council Faculty Remarks

E. Dobbs asked Council members to consider how this year's list of agenda items for the Council ought to be ranked in order of priority.

The meeting was adjourned at 5:58 p.m.

Helen Scott/Paula Smith
Secretaries