Present: S. Barber, V. Brown, L. Gregg-Jolly, M. Montgomery, R. Osgood, M. Schneider, R. Vetter

The meeting came to order a 4:20 p.m. in the Nollen House Conference Room.

The approval of the minutes and excerpts of 12/17/03, 1/7/04, and 1/21/04 will be held to next week.

President's Remarks

The President made no remarks.

Dean's Remarks

The Dean was not present at this meeting but did convey his remarks electronically prior to the meeting. They follow.

Karla Erickson has an offer from the U. Michigan-Ann Arbor and we were able to attract her to Grinnell. I think that we should feel very good about that.

I also wanted you to know that through the budget process, we needed to decrease expenditures compared to requests by several hundred thousand dollars. The academic subcommittee of the Budget Steering Committee took the responsibility for a small fraction of this overall decrease in expense and has recommended that we delete the salary of the position vacated by Millian Kang for 04-05. We had hoped to allocate this to a second CSMP position, but we found that to do so would have required even more painful cuts in other places. I hope that, over the next few years, we will be able to find ways to increase our income to allow us to reinstitute this position, but the situation for next year made that quite difficult.

I expect the Math Department to make a recommendation for an offer to be made either late on Wednesday or early on Thursday. Val will forward that to you as soon as it arrives.

Next week we will consider CSMP applications as the major agenda item.

Council Remarks

M. Schneider noted that at the end of last spring semester the mood of the campus community was not good. The College's response was to reduce the pressure on students. He asked whether we have made systemic changes that will reduce similar pressure on our students permanently. The President suggested that Council invite Tom Crady to talk with them about this issue.

L. Gregg-Jolly noted that we have several faculty needing information about the status of SFS and early retirement discussions. The President responded that he is in favor of reducing the SFS eligibility age, but that he would like to see it fixed at five years or less. He thinks that this should be an Executive Council action. M. Schneider clarified that the Benefits Committee has discussed early retirement but not SFS. L. Gregg-Jolly asked to put this on Council's agenda in the near future. The President stated that after Council resolution of this issue an amendment to the language found in the Faculty Handbook (Part Three, Section VI-A) must be made. S. Barber seconded Gregg-Jolly's suggestion by asking that this issue be on the agenda for meeting after next. It was agreed. R. Vetter asked if it were to be decided to lower the SFS eligibility age to 61 when it would be implemented. The President stated that it would probably be phased in over a few years due to cost considerations.

V. Brown noted that Council is not getting a favorable response to its call for faculty volunteers to participate in a free speech debate and asked if Council should rethink its approach to meeting the letter of its mandate from the faculty. She suggested a panel discussion might be easier to arrange. M. Montgomery stated that he is in favor of moving in this direction to fulfill Council's obligation to the faculty and College community.

V. Brown noted that she and L. Gregg-Jolly have compiled basic statistical information on the issue of gender imbalance in regard to research leaves and the Harris fellowship, stating that they will be meeting with the Dean.

Strategic Planning

M. Montgomery distributed a list of faculty and others who are willing to participate in further strategic planning which has been distributed among four working groups. The Chair of the Board has asked that final conclusions and recommendations be available for presentation to the Board by the end of the semester. He noted that these committees must begin work immediately with the aim of producing their committee reports to him by mid-March. He will be the final author of the document that goes to the Board. He stated that the charge to the committee chairs is to not allow discussion of items that have already been decided during previous discussions, but to move the process forward.

Jonathan Brand entered the meeting at 5:10 p.m. at the request of Council.

The President and Brand left the meeting at 5:25 p.m.

Faculty Salary Process

M Montgomery noted that Council needs to approve the October 29, 2003 draft of a policy memorandum addressed to the faculty regarding changes to the faculty salary process and get it to the faculty soon. The Council members made some additional final edits to the document and it was decided to approve it at the next meeting and send it to the faculty.

The meeting was adjourned at 6:00 p.m.

Secretary
Karen Wiese