Present: C. Hunter, D. Lopatto, E. Marzluff, W. Moyer, R. Osgood, T. Roberts, J. Swartz, E. Willis

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

The minutes and excerpts of 2/15/05 were approved.

President’s Remarks

The President had no remarks.

Dean’s Remarks

The Dean announced that Kim Maphis Early, representing the Lilly Endowment, visited campus this week to speak with various constituencies about the implementation of the Lilly grant on Theological Exploration of Vocation.

He updated Council on the status of faculty searches.

In response to Council requests for consideration of making two CSMP appointments this year, the Dean announced electronically earlier in the week that as a result of evaluation of proposals from seven departments plus the Executive Council (for an addition of a CSMP position), the Academic Subcommittee of the Budget Steering Committee recommended that we initiate term positions in Political Science and in Computer Science. Council has now approved the Political Science and Computer Science ads. In addition we recommended some part time staffing and some switching around of Tutorial and Math 115 staffing to assist with the needs. The committee thought that the second CSMP position was a lower priority than either full time position (similar salary cost).

Council Remarks

E. Willis announced that the Convocation Committee has given a slot to the Diversity Committee for a Convocation address next year. Willis reported that a faculty member in social studies had expressed concern about the criteria used by the Convocation Committee in allocating Convocation slots. The faculty member suggested that it would be desirable to have more transparency in the process.

C. Hunter reported on his participation in the POSSE retreat which took place last week. Over one-hundred students, faculty, and staff were in attendance. He judges the retreat to have been a very valuable experience. The trainers were very good. He is sending a message to Marci Sortor and the Expanding Knowledge Initiative Fellows urging them to consider elements of this program when planning the Second-Year Retreat for next year.

Process for Dealing with “Open” Faculty Diversity Slots

There was discussion of whether Council should re-open a campus-wide competition for possible diversity appointments in light of recent personnel action and extend the deadline for the diversity proposals (beyond the April 1 date for regular departmental position proposals). It was agreed that April 11 would be the new departmental deadline for these new search proposals. The Dean will draft a memorandum for Council electronic approval with the intention of getting it to all department chairs by Monday.

Promotion to Professor

T. Roberts opened a discussion of promotion to professor by distributing a memorandum regarding comparative research on policies held by similar institutions. He suggested some revised language for use at Grinnell. There was discussion, continuing from previous weeks, of alternative phrasing for the existing adjective (“excellence”) modifying scholarship. The President pointed out that it is not intended to change the standard as applied, but is intended to stimulate interest in being considered for promotion to professor. The language that was adopted to describe the process for promotion to professor is:

“Associate Professors may remain in rank indefinitely; hence, promotion to the rank of Professor is not automatic by virtue of time of service and only those persons will be promoted to the rank of Professor who have demonstrated continuing excellence in teaching, have continued to serve the College well, and have continued to produce professionally reviewed scholarship of high quality in the form of publication, performance, exhibition, or other final form usual to the discipline.”

Faculty Voting Rights

E. Marzluff distributed a written summary of a recent meeting with E. Willis and the full Faculty Organization Committee about various issues surrounding faculty eligibility to vote. The Dean noted that the departments are governance organizations, whereas majors are curricular units. D. Lopatto asked for an articulation of the basis of this discussion…which departmental votes are we talking about…hiring, tenure, curriculum? The President asked where the drive for this issue came from. The Dean stated that he brought the issue to Council because there have been contradictory stands on this issue in the Faculty Organization Committee over recent years leading to differing practices. He believes there should be clarity in our policy.

The President asked to table this discussion until he has had time to thoroughly think about the various issues. There was further discussion to inform his thinking.

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

History Department Proposal to Offer an Appointment

There was discussion of a proposal from the History Department.

Faculty Meeting Agenda

It was decided that Marci Sortor would address the faculty regarding progress with the Expanding Knowledge Initiative and the Dean would discuss the new diversity search.

The meeting was adjourned at 6:10 p.m.

Secretary
Karen Wiese