Minutes of the Meeting of the Executive Council
May 13, 2003
Excerpts
Present: S. Barber, J. Chenette, D. Kaiser, 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 5/7/03 were approved.
President's Remarks
I want to close
this productive year of the Council by thanking all of you for your service
and also by noting with sadness but also with appreciation John's absence. He
was a gentle and eloquent advocate for the heart of what we do. He was gracious
to me, always
thoughtful and understanding to everyone, and a pleasure to work with.
Dean's Remarks
The Dean distributed a personnel proposal from the Psychology Department.
The Dean updated Council on the status of faculty searches.
He updated Council on the student reaction to the recent student deaths on campus by noting that there have been 10 students who have applied for S/D/F status and Joyce Stern reports that 10 more have applied for incompletes.
The Dean reported that Jack Harris has died. He was a member of the Board of Trustees, benefactor of the Harris Leave Program, the Harris Center, and who more recently has made a significant contribution to the athletic facilities.
Council Member Remarks
D. Kaiser made mention of a recent article in the New York Times written by Teri Berg, Writing Assistant and Lecturer, about Tanya Harding. He thought it quite well written and a credit to the College.
D. Kaiser asked why the power to central campus was turned off at 12:30 p.m. when residents were given only one hour notice. He believes that the College should have a more generous policy of notification of pending power outages in non-emergency situations.
Faculty Position Requests
Executive Council considered proposals from the departments of Art, Chemistry, Chinese and Japanese, Classics, Economics, Education, Mathematics and Computer Science (2), Philosophy (2), Physics, Religious Studies, and the Library. The deliberations will result in recommendations to the President for his action.
J. Chenette brought up the issue of creating new boilerplate language regarding the expectation of new tenure-track faculty to teach tutorials which was discussed in a prior meeting. J. Chenette suggested that this new boilerplate language, if required by all Departments in tenure-track searches, will not be welcomed by all. It was generally agreed that this new language be used only for tenure-track searches and that all departments must commit to it. Further discussion yielded a solution where a sentence insert would be needed only in cases where candidates might not naturally be expected to teach in the general education program.
The President left the meeting at 5:19 p.m. to fulfill obligations elsewhere.
The Dean noted that staffing proposals will likely be forthcoming quickly from several departments for Council consideration.
The Dean thanked all members of Council for their very hard work this year and especially thanked those members D. Kaiser and J. Mutti who will be leaving Council at the end of this year.
The meeting was adjourned at 5:55 p.m.
Secretary
Karen Wiese