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

Marci Sortor was in attendance at the request of Council.

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

The minutes and excerpts of 2/11/04 were approved as amended.

President's Remarks

The President noted that there will be a Board of Trustees meeting in Grinnell this week. It is expected that they will vote on CERA construction and to adopt the 2004-05 budget. M. Schneider asked what the faculty salary pool percentage was set at in the budget that will be presented to the Board. The President responded that it was not yet set but is targeted at four percent.

Dean's Remarks

The Dean updated Council on the status of faculty searches.

The Dean noted that the Committee on Academic Standing has been concerned with a practice inherited by the prior and current Registrar regarding recording a grade when a student drops a course for reasons beyond the student's control prior to the end of a semester. We have historically removed any record of a student ever having been enrolled in the course. The Registrar objects to this practice which is not practiced by peer institutions and suggests that we abolish the WP and WF codes and replace with W. There was discussion.

The Dean also noted that there is a proposal for a change in the deadline for emergency incompletes. At present the deadline is Monday and CAS is proposing the deadline be moved to Friday or the last day of classes at the end of the day. The rationale is that it is paradoxical that a student could start the incomplete process after finals had already begun. There was discussion.

Council Member Remarks

M. Schneider noted that the academic calendar is wrong this year and asked that the Registrar's Office follow the faculty legislation on this point in future.

S. Barber noted that several people from the college and wider community have approached him with questions about the schedule for demolition of Darby gymnasium and plans for salvaging some of the parts/materials of the gym. The President responded that demolition is scheduled to begin approximately one week after the alumni reunion. He also described the plans to salvage some particular architectural elements.

V. Brown, who was not in attendance at the last faculty meeting, asked about the free-speech discussion at that meeting. M. Montgomery noted that there was an announcement made that Brown would be heading up an effort to organize a panel discussion on the subject to take place this semester.

L. Gregg-Jolly asked what we need to do to lay the issue of Senior Faculty Status to rest. The President responded that the matter will be taken to the Trustee Budget Committee during this week's meeting-not for approval, but to inform them that the implications of changing SFS eligibility to an earlier date appear to be budget neutral. Having done that, we propose to move it to the legislative phase when it will go to the faculty as a proposal from the Executive Council and if approved will be presented to the Board as a proposed change to the Faculty Handbook.

V. Brown noted that Kesho Scott is submitting a final American Studies proposal for consideration of approval and asked the Dean what process will be followed. The Dean stated that both the Social Studies and Humanities Divisions will need to approve the proposal and then it will move to the Curriculum Committee and then to the full faculty for approval.

V. Brown she has received several expressions of disappointment from faculty of her division regarding the decisions made which will affect the Grinnell in London program next year. The complaints were centered on what is seen as a betrayal of the message that we preach to our students regarding their need to take responsibility for planning their course of study.

M. Schneider noted that he had asked to have a Council discussion on the details of the budget being presented to the Board of Trustees for approval and did not want this to be pushed aside.

He reminded Council that he had expressed serious reservations several months ago regarding the new Technology Center in terms of the potential for draining important human resources away from the faculty who need technical help. He noted that his reservations have become reality in terms of his recent experience trying to get a response from Information Technology Services and that this situation will become a problem for the faculty. The Dean responded that he wanted to hear specific concerns and things which are not getting done so he can try to improve ITS service. Schneider asked where the money came from to fund this new Center. The President responded that it comes from funds set aside in the base budget each year for special projects.

Schneider asked if there has been any progress on performing an enhanced analysis of the relationship between grades and athletic participation. The Dean said that Scott Baumler had completed his work on this project and that the Dean would be distributing the information.

Appendices to the Faculty Handbook

Marci Sortor reminded Council that the plan being proposed is to move much of the content of the appendices to various College websites for the purpose of being able to present information which is current which cannot be the case for a paper copy of the Handbook which is updated and printed every several years. She referred Council to a summary document distributed at the last meeting which outlines what information will change and be relocated to the web and what information will remain in the appendices. There was discussion of the preference for new faculty to receive information in hard copy instead of being directed to a URL which can be confusing to navigate. There was also discussion of the preference for archiving a paper copy of the Handbook each time it is produced.

Student Learning Assessment

The Dean reviewed the history of student learning assessment in regard to the most recent North Central Association reaccreditation process. He noted that the plan for departmental assessment which was proposed during the last review has not been working well for many departments so he has asked Marci Sortor to work with Carol Trossett to articulate and examine our institutional goals for student learning in relation to our mission statement and to come up with a plan to restructure our institutional approach to the issue of assessment in order to be prepared for the next NCA review. M. Sortor also noted that the plans devised in 1997 will not continue to be acceptable to the NCA as they have shifted their approach to looking not only at assessment data, but how those data are being used to improve teaching and learning.

We would like to propose a revision of the self-assessment plan that would emphasize college-wide assessment of college values and goals as they are outlined in our Mission Statement. Since we have recently revised our Mission Statement, it behooves us to revise our assessment plan accordingly.

We propose the following, which will be discussed in more detail below:

Departments would be advised to continue with current assessment activities as they prove useful to them.

V. Brown made the point that performance or the lack thereof in this regard exposes the institution-not just individual departments-to great risk.

R. Vetter suggested that measurement of assessment goals is not something that the typical academic is good at and that it should be done by assessment professionals.

What is being proposed is to establish an Assessment Team which is consistent with David Lopatto's 1998 recommendations in response to the NCA evaluators' response to the 1997 assessment plan (please see the Executive Council minutes for Oct. 7, 1998 regarding the establishment of an assessment advisory committee to assess student learning). This committee was never established. Although it seems appropriate for the Executive Council as a whole to review assessment activities and results on a periodic basis, it is expected by NCA that assessment oversight will be done by a group having this as its primary focus.

M. Schneider asked if there were any cost estimates associated with carrying out such an institutional assessment. The Dean responded that those institutions that are most successful in this area seem to use material and information that already exists and incorporate things that we are already doing-with the implication that additional cost would be nominal.

A Council member asked what the role of the Executive Council would be in this process. M. Sortor responded that she would, at the outset, expect the Council to respond to this plan because it is at the core of the academic program and mission of the College. S. Barber noted that the timeframe eclipses the term of appointment of any member of Council and asked how Sortor saw the issue of continuity of memory. It was discussed but not resolved.

The Dean suggested that the essential role of Council will be to help identify the critical learning outcomes to be assessed, but would not suggest participation at an active level. The information developed from the assessment work would feed back to the Council's future discussions and decision-making frameworks and their larger visioning of the academic program.

M. Montgomery noted that many faculty believe that they are being made to do busy work by an agency that needs to justify its existence. What would be most helpful is for Council to devise a way to convince the faculty that what they may be asked to do is helpful to them.

V. Brown offered clarification on the role of the faculty in carrying out the assessment plan-that when an assessment measure is determined the faculty will be asked to provide the information needed by the assessment team for analysis.

M. Schneider suggested that while there are a majority of department experiences with assessment which might be considered negative, there are those (such as the Biology Department) that have useful outcomes. He argued against becoming mired in pre- and post-testing and urged departments to discuss the overarching pedagogical and curricular questions each department is facing at any given time. The role of the College in this process would be to provide resources to the departments necessary to work through the issues.

V. Brown asked for some insight into what the new NCA approach to institutional review is. The Dean responded that the new NCA approach is to ask whether the plan is current and organic and whether the information gained from assessment is being fed back into planning processes. Brown asked that George Drake brief the faculty as a whole on the NCA approach.

L. Gregg-Jolly asked that diversity be added as an item for assessment in order to keep it as a priority item on the institutional agenda.

M. Sortor noted that some items appear to take us a bit away from student learning outcomes (e.g. self-governance), but that these seeming marginal issues are in realilty part and parcel of the student learning process.

M. Sortor left the meeting at 6:15 p.m.

Diversity and Faculty Recruitment Process

The Dean distributed a draft document he had prepared on the faculty recruitment process. He highlighted the diversity related actions/procedures followed by various departments. The President stated that he is very concerned with the lack of a paper trail which documents the procedures used and the decisions made in the faculty hiring process and worries about legal issues. R. Vetter suggested that the paper trail should include documentation of the ranking of the pool of candidates before invitations are extended and then documentation of the decision. S. Barber suggested that this process should begin, before a department begins a search, as a proposal which lays out a search plan and explicitly articulates the effort to identify minority candidates.

M. Schneider asked to have time to study the issue.

The meeting adjourned at 6:25 p.m.

Secretary
Karen Wiese