Minutes of the Meeting of the Executive Council
March 5, 2003
Excerpts
Present: S. Barber, D. Kaiser, J. Mohan, M. Montgomery, J. Mutti, R. Osgood, M. Schneider, J. Swartz.
The meeting came to order at 4:20 in the Nollen House Conference Room.
The minutes and excerpts of 2/26/03 were approved.
President's Remarks
The President made no prepared remarks.
Dean's Remarks
The Dean updated Council on the status of faculty searches.
M. Schneider moved, J. Mutti seconded, approval of a position description for a one-year temporary position for Reader Services Librarian. The motion was approved.
The Dean reviewed the status of the Philosophy Department's self-study, external review and staffing situation.
Council Remarks
M. Schneider reported on the results of application of the faculty salary budget figures, as approved by the Board of Trustees, to the Schneider-Montgomery salary raise model.
D. Kaiser joined the meeting at 5:00 p.m.
M. Montgomery thanked M. Schneider for his very valuable work on this issue. Montgomery thought that this information should be presented to the faculty. D. Kaiser noted that the Faculty Budget Committee has as its duty to make recommendations to the Dean and President, and that therefore a presentation to the faculty on its work might best wait until the actual outcome of these recommendations is clear.
J. Mutti noted that a member of the Noun Committee asked him for guidance on submitting proposals for regular positions. The Dean pointed Mutti in the direction of the Dean's website. The Dean remarked that the Noun Chair is an unusual case in that there is no underlying budgeted position in the base budget. There was discussion of whether it was the intention of Louise Noun or Joe Rosenfield to have the Chair filled consistently. The President assured Council that it was not the intention of either to bind the College. D. Kaiser noted that there was a review of the Noun program conducted a year ago and asked for a copy of the report of the Committee. M. Montgomery asked that Council discuss this issue further to decide whether or not the Chair will be filled following Mary Lynn Broe's departure.
Theatre Proposal
There was brief
discussion of a proposal from the Theatre Department regarding the position
in modern dance and the matter was deferred to next week's Council meeting.
The President left the meeting at 5:50 p.m.
Department Leave Proofing
The Dean distributed a document titled "Some Investigations of Leave Proofing the Faculty at Grinnell College" prepared by him and dated 3/4/03. In it the Dean presents information on the concept of leave proofing by comparative cost, numbers of leaves of tenure-track/tenured faculty and the number of leaves taken by department over the past five years, and the number of faculty in term positions by department over the past five years. The cost comparison shows that the addition of an additional regular faculty member to a department for the purposes of leave proofing is approximately $46,000 more per year when compared to a term appointment. When comparing the number of faculty in regular positions to the number of leaves taken over a five year period by department the analysis suggests that only five departments have a situation where leave proofing could be considered prudent. In those cases, such a decision would be viewed by many faculty as having the effect of making large departments larger.
D. Kaiser noted that another way of looking at this is that for the additional financial cost the College would have better control of the quality of instruction and would, in fact, save considerable administrative costs associated with constantly searching to fill temporary positions.
The meeting was adjourned at 6:10 p.m.
Secretary
Karen Wiese