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

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

Remarks by the President

The President commented that he is pleased with the thoughtful responses to the Campus Master Plan. SGA responded positively to the plan in its discussion with the President yesterday.

Remarks by the Dean

The Curriculum Committee and the Tutorial Committee will be bringing to the full faculty at the next faculty meeting a recommendation to change the transcript entry for tutorials from individual tutorial titles to “First-Year Seminar” for all students.

In response to a request from the Academic Computing Committee and given increasing demands for classrooms well equipped for the use of technology in teaching, the Curriculum Committee and the Registrar will be looking at how we assign these classrooms. In addition to the remodeled ARH 124 and the new teaching facility in the library, the Fund for Excellence is funding the mechanization seven more classrooms. Work will occur on some of these in January. These classrooms will all have fixed computer projection systems.

Approval of Faculty Position Descriptions

Pillado-Miller moved and Dobbs seconded a motion to approve the description from the English Department for a tenure-track position in 18th and/or 19th century American literatures, similar to that previously occupied jointly by Jared Gardner and Beth Hewitt and approved last spring. The motion carried unanimously.

Pillado-Miller moved and B. Ferguson seconded a motion to approve the description from the Art Department for a tenure-track position in sculpture approved last spring. Merle Zirkle moves to Senior Faculty Status at the end of this academic year. Her position will be filled by this tenure-track position in sculpture.

Pillado-Miller moved and Dobbs seconded a motion to approve the description from the Chinese Department for a senior-level position in Chinese language and literature. This position, resulting from the late resignation of Y.K. Lo, was approved this fall.

Continued Discussion of East Asian Proposal

Council continued its discussion of the revised and expanded Fund for Excellence proposal from the Chinese Concentration Committee and members of a summer workshop on Japanese/East Asian Studies to add Japanese to our curriculum and to create a department of East Asian Languages and Culture.

The proposal recommended the implementation of a program in East Asian which would ultimately result in two-tenure track positions in Japanese to be housed along with Chinese in a Department of East Asian Languages and Culture and a third tenure-track position in another department to be determined at a later date.

Council was unwilling to endorse the implementation of a full-fledged program in East Asian Languages and Culture prior to a thorough discussion of departmental, concentration and overall curricular needs. A majority of Council members were, however, willing to explore the possibility of an experimental term appointment in Japanese, to be funded through the Fund for Excellence.

Council members emphasized the experimental nature of this position; if enrollments are not good and if this addition does not have a beneficial impact on the curriculum both in Chinese and more broadly in East Asian studies, we can make the decision to end the experiment after the trial period.

Dobbs moved and Pillado-Miller seconded a motion to search this year to fill a temporary two-year position in Japanese (2000-01 and 2001-02) to be funded by the Fund for Excellence. On a divided vote, Council approved the motion.

H. Scott, Acting Chair of the Chinese department, was asked to bring a position description to Council for approval.

The issue of the change of the name of the Chinese department to the Department of East Asian Languages was left unresolved. Council will return to this issue when it discusses the position description for a term appointment in Japanese.

The discussion of both the senior-level position in Chinese and the experimental term position in Japanese this fall and the staffing discussions last spring raised broader issues which Council discussed at length as it begins the task of discussing overall departmental, concentration, and curricular needs in the context of long-range academic planning.

Remarks by Council Faculty Members

Dobbs asked Chairs to urge colleagues, especially newer ones, in their divisions to attend both division and faculty meetings. We are a liberal arts college with a great deal of self-governance. The first part of that description means we should each be concerned with the entire curriculum and College, not just our corner of it. Division and faculty meetings are the chief places in which we exercise self-governance.

The meeting was adjourned at 6:15 p.m.

Helen Scott
Secretary