Present: V. Brown, L. Gregg-Jolly, D. Lopatto, W. Moyer, J. Swartz, R. Vetter, E. Willis

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

The minutes and excerpts of the 12/15/04 meeting were approved.

President's Remarks

The President was not present at the meeting but did call in during the meeting to say that he has been interviewing many candidates lately and he wanted Council to know that he was very pleased with the high quality of the candidates he has been meeting.

Dean's Remarks

He distributed an agenda for the faculty meeting to be held on February 7. There was brief discussion.

He noted that the Center reviews are underway and focus groups will be held on campus on Friday, February 11th which will be facilitated by Professor John H. Schuh, Chair of the Educational Leadership and Policy Studies Department at Iowa State University.

The Dean noted that at the end of last semester a committee was established to look at library planning issues. There is a library storage area becoming available soon. The committee is specifically looking at changes to the reference area. D. Lopatto asked if this committee is also looking into the intersection of library and audiovisual needs. The Dean said they were in the longer run planning.

The Council then considered personnel issues.

The Dean noted that there are many other searches underway at this time and we will try to deal with them by email, but if it turns out that there is controversy we will need to wait until the next meeting. E. Willis asked that Council's business in this regard would be facilitated if department chairs were reminded of the need to provide a full discussion of how the candidate could enhance the curriculum and what courses could be taught.

Council Member Remarks

D. Lopatto revealed irritation with the abrupt email dictate issued by Steve Briscoe late today regarding students needing to remove their cars from the East parking lots before tomorrow to make way for anticipated visitors to the basketball game, revealing a callous disregard for the rights of our students. L. Gregg-Jolly observed that in all matters to do with campus parking she has observed flippant disregard for members of the campus community in the issuance of parking policy edicts and that this issue is causing general unrest on campus.

Gregg-Jolly reminded Council that last year she had expressed concern regarding the gender difference with regard to leaves granted by the College. Over the break she asked for and received data to inform the question of whether there is a gender difference in the granting of course releases. She noted that these positions (i.e. named chairs, department chairs, division chairs, chair of the faculty, center directors, Rosenfield Program) are largely held by men. W. Moyer asked that this issue be placed on the agenda for discussion.

E. Willis noted that the diversity statement has been revised and discussed with the President who is asking Frank Thomas to make sure that it squares with the affirmative action statement.

Willis proposed a change in the order of today's Council discussion of agenda items, proposing to discuss Consortium for a Strong Minority Presence proposals before discussing Diversity proposals.

Consortium for a Strong Minority Presence Proposals

The Dean noted that while at the Associate of American Colleges &Universities meeting last week in San Francisco he heard many people talking about all the neat things that Grinnell was doing with regard to diversity enhancement.

It was agreed that Council would rank order the proposals without discussion.

Throughout most of the ensuing discussion there was a fairly consistent attempt to tie the proposed appointments to near future developments under the Expanding Knowledge Initiative. Other decision-making criteria in the consideration of the CSMP proposals included whether this appointment would be considered an add-on or replacement in terms of what might be possible in terms of a future more permanent appointment and whether the appointment would lessen dependence on term appointments. Council approved five of seven proposals for further action.

Lopatto confirmed that the Dean's budget included funds for only one CSMP appointment next year and reflected on the relatively high number of highly qualified candidates in this pool. He asked if there are not other pots of money that could be tapped to support additional appointments, specifically mentioning the Mellon Postdoctoral Fellows grant. The Dean conditionally agreed that that program might be able to accommodate several additional appointments, but further investigation would be required to determine whether Mellon would allow it.

Lopatto expressed frustration with what seems to be a chronic problem with departments providing personnel proposals which lack sufficient information to allow Council consideration. He asked if the Dean's office could provide a template to department chairs to show them how to write such a proposal.

Diversity Proposals

E. Willis began the discussion with an attempt to determine if there is indeed one additional position in the diversity initiative budget which could be filled. L. Gregg-Jolly stated that Council was never given a number. The Dean stated that in terms of his budget there is an additional position that could be filled, noting that we have already made appointments in physics, biology (neuroscience), political science, and sociology.

W. Moyer suggested that Council's discussion does not need to be bounded by budget issues since Council's realm of responsibility is to make recommendations to the President.

Expanding Knowledge Initiative

E. Willis noted that the faculty of the Global Development Studies Concentration are concerned about the EKI proposal and are having a meeting to discuss their position tomorrow. L. Gregg-Jolly congratulated the EKI Committee on producing such a fine document.

The meeting adjourned at 6:30 p.m.

Secretary
Karen Wiese