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

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

At the request of Council, the Directors of the Centers for the Humanities (Schrift), International Studies (Armstrong), and Prairie Studies (Andelson) joined the meeting in order to have a discussion of the proposed process for review of these Centers. Jon Chenette was also invited for this discussion since he had participated as a member of the subcommittee that drafted the review guidance. The Dean noted that the Council subcommittee working to identify a structure and process for conducting the reviews of the Centers wanted to share their thinking and elicit comment from the Center Directors and have invited them to this meeting. The President noted that since he has been in his position since the inception of all three Centers and he has never just thought of them as curricular or faculty structures in that there are features that might be more encompassing in terms of outreach and participation of those beyond the campus community. Council members were sympathetic with this view. There was some discussion of elements of the review guidance such as how "participants" is to be defined, what documentation would need to be made available, the pros and cons of the paper survey instrument and facilitated focus groups, and the lack of Center identity in relation to occupying specific physical space. Alan Schrift noted that there is a disconnect between assessing the efficacy of a specific event and assessing the performance of a Center. Jon Chenette noted that there is strong desire on the part of the Council to have this process completed by May when the decision-making process regarding elements of the Strategic Plan will be underway. Schrift expressed concern regarding this timeframe citing numerous departmental duties that had fallen to him to accomplish during this year. V. Brown noted that the Center Directors need to understand that the strategic planning process is moving forward and if the Center reviews are not completed in a timely way the future of the Center(s) may not be part of those critical resource allocation discussions. The Directors left the meeting at 4:55 p.m.

The minutes and excerpts of the October 13 meeting were approved.

President's Remarks

The President made no remarks.

Dean's Remarks

He noted that no diversity proposals had been received but that he expects to have proposals from political science, sociology, physics, and chemistry next week for Council review. V. Brown noted that there will also be one from Gender and Women's Studies.

He noted that last weekend Marci Sortor attended a successful meeting of the Midwest Mellon postdoctoral fellows at Carleton College. He also noted that last week-end he, Jon Chenette, and Gail Bonath had attended a conference of 82 institutions focused on teaching with technology at liberal arts colleges which was funded by the Mellon Foundation.

L. Gregg-Jolly reported on the first meeting of Scholarly Women's Achievement Group this past weekend. She gratefully acknowledged the assistance of Marci Sortor and the support by the Mellon Foundation Faculty Career Enhancement grant. She mentioned that Kathleen Skerrett had done a fabulous job of walking the faculty in attendance through the process of career planning. She reminded Council members that last year Council was alerted to the fact that women faculty members were not submitting proposals or being awarded grants to support their scholarship in the same proportion to their male colleagues. The formation of this group, initiated by L. Gregg-Jolly, L. Sinnett, K. Skerrett, and V. Brown, is intended to address this and other issues facing our women faculty as they move through their career here. She thanked L. Sinnett for all her work coordinating this effort.

The President noted that next week Grinnell will be hosting the ACM Presidents and Deans meeting.

Council Remarks

W. Moyer noted that he received a call from Frank Thomas who told him that on Wednesday, December 8 some members of the Board of Trustees' special Committee on Diversity would like to have dinner with the Executive Council in Grinnell House following the regular council meeting. This group of Trustees would also like to meet with the faculty subcommittee separately.

E. Willis noted that the faculty diversity subcommittee is continuing to meet and she has written a draft definition of diversity at Grinnell College and how it relates to the curriculum and the timetable for meeting our objectives and hopes to have it out next week.

Center Reviews

He discussed the benefits of rotating the Center Directors fairly regularly. E. Willis agreed noting that great teachers are taken out of the classroom for too long. L. Gregg-Jolly offered a counter argument stating that the learning curve is quite steep and should be taken into account in determining the length of the appointment.

The President left the meeting at 5:30 p.m.

Counseling Task Force Report

There was discussion of the final recommendations of the Counseling Task Force (June 8, 2004). Four of 13 recommendations were slated for action by the Academic Dean's Office and were discussed at this meeting.

L. Gregg-Jolly asked if the report had been presented to the faculty. D. Lopatto responded that it had not. Gregg-Jolly asked Council if they believe these recommendations important enough to ask the now disbanded Counseling Task Force to present its findings to the full faculty. The Dean responded that the recommendations are currently being discussed by the Curriculum Committee. E. Willis urged full discussion among the faculty. J. Chenette noted that Joyce Stern and Judy Hunter had presented ideas for stress reduction to the new faculty this year. There was considerable discussion of the issue of the apparent variation in faculty practice regarding provision of a course syllabus to their students and reported changes to the syllabus mid-way through the term which increase the workload and change the expectations of their students. There was also discussion of how to obtain information on what proportion of classes have final exams, final papers, or both.

The meeting adjourned at 6:10 p.m.

Secretary
Karen Wiese