Present: R. Osgood, J. Swartz, P. Smith, D. Caulkins, 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. Approval of the minutes and excerpts from the 2/21/01 meeting was deferred to the next meeting.

President's Remarks

The Board's Campus Planning Committee members are meeting in Grinnell on March 9 and have extended a dinner invitation to members of Council in order to continue the discussion begun on February 17.

The President noted that the College has been approached by the Freeman Foundation with a new initiative in support of broadening Asian studies in the United States. This opportunity is unique in that they are apparently not requiring that we make a commitment to do something which we might begin under a grant ad infinitum.

Dean's Remarks

The Dean passed out a draft memorandum to the faculty on the centralization of the academic speakers budgets following Council's agreement last meeting.

The agenda for the next faculty meeting includes:

• The continuation of the 2001-02 budget discussion and the resolution on the table;
• A set of guidelines for use by the faculty in teaching tutorials which has been developed by the Tutorial Committee at the request of the faculty; and
• A presentation by Bill Francis of major new information technology initiatives which are in the planning stage and will require further consideration.

The Dean passed out a paper being submitted to Academe which talks about collaboration in the process of long-range academic planning which he thought would be useful to Council in their work. He also handed out an article written by Todd Linden, Board member and Chief Executive Officer of Grinnell Regional Medical Center, regarding the role of Boards of Trustees.

He noted that he will travel with B. Grey, P. Smith, and H. Walker to Chicago to meeting with Oberlin faculty and administrators who together comprise the steering committee for implementation of the Mellon Foundation's grant to the two schools plan for faculty career enhancement. They will be discussing the following issues and will return to their campuses to form subgroups of faculty to work on them.

• Cultivating faculty leaders and mentors;
• Intensive work with students;
• Faculty evaluation; and
• Renewing professional vitality.

One of Grinnell's major objectives is to examine the nature of and contributing factors to faculty "burnout".

Diversity Proposals

The Dean updated Council on the status of diversity searches. There was discussion of the process which Council will use in making decisions on departmental hiring proposals.

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

B. Grey moved, B. Voyles seconded, approval of the Sociology Department's proposal to have the Dean make an offer of a full-time, tenure-track position to their diversity candidate. The motion carried.

Issues of Faculty Status

There was a lengthy and spirited discussion of a range of faculty status issues.

D. Caulkins and P. Smith left the meeting at 5:55 p.m.

Council Remarks

B. Grey stated that he has been receiving numerous complaints about the draft mission statement which has recently been circulated. He will address this at the next meeting.

The meeting was adjourned at 6:30 p.m

Secretary
Karen Wiese