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

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

The minutes and excerpts of 4/14/04 were amended and approved.

President's Remarks

The President made no remarks.

Dean's Remarks

There was discussion of several personnel issues.

The Dean distributed a set of graphic representations of courses and enrollments by department since the 1990-91 academic year. There was discussion.

The Dean distributed a memorandum dated 3/4/03 which he wrote on the subject of leave proofing. The document presents a comparison of per year costs of a one-year appointment vs. a tenure-track appointment and the historic information on leaves and term positions in each department. There was brief discussion.

He noted that the new Chair of the Board of Trustees has made it a priority to empower various Board committees to focus on their charge. This emphasis resulted in members of the Council meeting with the Academic Affairs Committee at their last meeting. That Committee now wishes to follow-up by meeting again on April 30 to develop a plan of work. He has asked M. Montgomery, L. Gregg-Jolly and V. Brown to represent Council at this meeting.

The Dean noted that the Curriculum Committee has approved a document (on a split vote) that asks that we count most independent study as part of a faculty teaching load. If enacted this proposal will increase the number of temporary faculty appointments. He noted that the estimated cost of this proposal would be between $500,000 to $1 million per year. M. Montgomery voiced his strong opposition to the recommendations that will come to Council for consideration.

Council Remarks

L. Gregg-Jolly noted that there has been a faculty request that M. Montgomery send out the models used in the presentation of the new faculty salary process.

L. Gregg-Jolly relayed faculty concern about the format and content of the advisee information which faculty receive from the Registrar and recommended that the form be printed in a double-sided format.

Faculty Salary Process

The Dean noted that he had solicited information from Departments about their recommendation of which faculty would be selected for review in which years. When he receives this information he will provide it to the Faculty Budget Committee so that they can determine if the distribution matches the three year cycle. There was some discussion of proposed truncation of the Faculty Activity Report which would be used in the first two years of the review cycle. M. Schneider and V. Brown agreed to review the draft guidelines and forms for the new review process.

Faculty Position Requests

There was a brief review of the discussion of these position requests which was held at the last meeting for the benefit of V. Brown who could not be present.

There was an interesting and significant discussion of faculty goals and duties.

The meeting adjourned at 6:30 p.m.

Secretary
Karen Wiese