Present: V. Brown, L. Gregg-Jolly, D. Lopatto, W. Moyer, 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 3/2/05 were held for approval until the next meeting.

Marci Sortor was in attendance for the purpose of guiding a discussion of institutional assessment later in the meeting.

The President and Dean are traveling by car from a meeting at Macalester at the time of this meeting and established phone contact for long distance participation during part of the meeting.

The President made no remarks.

Dean's Remarks

The Dean updated Council on the status of faculty searches.

Council Remarks

V. Brown noted that the History candidate for a Mellon postdoctoral fellow appointment is on campus today.

E. Willis asked on the status of a proposal to replace the departing Rabbi. The President responded that Tom Crady has proposed the position be filled by a person who can perform the duties of Rabbi at least half-time and that the remainder of the time would consist of performing counseling or other duties as suited to the person's interests and capabilities.

After having attended the forum on Race issues on the Grinnell campus last week, L. Gregg-Jolly followed up on an email from a student regarding the failure of Grinnell College to capitalize on opportunities to achieve curricular diversity through opportunistic hiring of faculty on temporary appointments. She expressed her concern for an unfortunate level of misunderstanding about how positions are created, allocated, and filled and believes that steps should be taken to clarify the College diversity policy, objectives in faculty hiring processes, and achievements to date. There was discussion of the role of the Executive Council in such matters and what specific steps might be taken.

Gender and Women's Studies Proposal

There was discussion of a proposal from the Gender and Women's Studies Concentration and the Philosophy Department for the appointment of a faculty member in a tenure-track position.

Faculty Grievance Board

The Council discussed the process for appointing a faculty grievance board in the event that a potential grievance is filed.

The President and Dean signed off at 5:00 p.m.

Institutional Assessment

D. Lopatto began the discussion by telling Council it is time that they be brought up-to-speed on the history of institutional assessment, what has been happening, and briefly update Council on recent events. He reminded Council that in 1997 the North Central Association published a guide for assessment of student learning that they wanted to see adopted by schools in their accreditation purview. Grinnell College ignored this prior to the reaccreditation process, however in order to come into compliance the College decided to adopt a departmental-level learning assessment model. As it turns out, that way of doing things was not very successful.

He noted that the NCA is coming back in 2008 and self-study process must begin two years prior (2006) which is almost upon us. So, whatever we do we need a data trail of at least two years and in order to accomplish this we need to begin now. Several years ago we implemented a college-wide writing assessment and we have data for 2003-2004 in hand. The writing assessment catches students at the tutorial, sophomore, and senior levels. Data are collected for all incoming freshmen, from which 100 are selected to track through their careers here. These students are selected according to a stratified random sample method. The stratification criteria include such things as our desire that no one professor be unduly burdened and the acknowledgement that some classes do not have a heavy writing component. We are hoping to extend this type of assessment to research skills (broadly defined to include use of information, judgment of information, and independence of thought). A pilot has already been undertaken. We also hope to implement a third assessment track which looks at our students' global outlook which would utilize pre- and post- surveys. We will also undertake transcript analysis.

Lopatto reviewed the issues by calling attention to the fact that we do not have a culture of assessment at Grinnell. There is a strongly held belief among faculty that it can't be done (i.e. teaching is an art and art cannot be assessed). He argued for more of a collaborative relationship between the Office of Institutional Assessment and the faculty. It was noted that some departments continue to do some assessment work while others are doing nothing. R. Vetter asked about the detailed and constraining guidance we received from NCA during the last reaccreditation process. Lopatto noted that the principal person behind that has now left the NCA and they have subsequently relaxed their expectations.

Sortor noted that during her time in the Dean's Office she has come to believe that it is both helpful and necessary.

D.Lopatto noted that we have, from time to time, been approached by other institutions regarding collaborative assessment activities. He updated Council on a recent development involving an invitation to collaborate with Carleton, St. Olaf, and Macalester on a Teagle Foundation funded initiative to implement a particular computer-based test instrument to carry out "value added" assessment of student learning. This test would be administered to a rather large group of students several times over their four year careers. It is a performance-based test that would be scored by someone else with the institution simply receiving a report, but not retaining the data. Lopatto noted little interest in undertaking a lot of work for something that is risky and primarily benefits an institution outside of academe.

Lopatto reminded Council or their responsibility for oversight of institutional assessment at Grinnell. L. Gregg-Jolly asked what action should be taken. Lopatto suggested that a priority would be to mandate a service relationship between the Office of Institutional Research and the faculty.

Sortor underscored the need for the Executive Council, President, and Dean to publicly endorse this effort. W. Moyer asked how to proceed with consensus building among the faculty. Sortor suggested that we urgently share the assessment plan with the faculty. E. Willis stated that she believes it is important to have more detailed informational meetings at lower levels (division or department) first, to make sure that faculty are informed before they meet as a group for a general discussion.

V. Brown left the meeting at 5:55 p.m.

W. Moyer suggested the faculty meeting take place during the first meeting in April.

The meeting adjourned at 6:05 p.m.

Secretary
Karen Wiese