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 2/22/06 were approved.

President’s Remarks

The Board of Trustees’ Building and Grounds Committee met to discuss moving forward with the plans for moving ITS into the Forum, however they are not ready to commit funds for a major renovation until planning for the Library is further along. The Dean noted that Holabird and Root has been engaged to assist in re-design of the Grille to serve as an interdisciplinary, creative computer lab.

Dean’s Remarks

The Dean noted that, after having completed a self-study recently, the Russian Department is undergoing an external review.

He also noted that, during their meeting in Grinnell last week, the Board of Trustees voted to approve changes to the Faculty Handbook that sever Mathematics and Computer Science. This change takes effect July 1, 2006.

He reported that the Curriculum Committee met this week and has recommended approval of the Neuroscience Concentration.

He noted that the Curriculum Committee has received a proposal from the Economics Department that proposes to change the Department’s curriculum with respect to Statistics. W. Moyer added that there is concern in the Committee that faculty who teach that course are not talking with each other. E. Willis noted that social studies departments may be moving toward developing their own methodology courses that might reduce their dependence on MAT 115. She mentioned that there is a perception among some that MAT 115 might not be serving the specific needs of majors in the social studies.

The Dean reported questions from some faculty about institutional policy with regard to automatically approving requests for extensions by students. Council was agreed that requests for extensions can be denied and were generally against the idea of granting extensions where those extensions would cause greater problems later in the semester.

Council Remarks

E. Willis noted that Clint Korver’s presentation was well received by the faculty and asked if it is possible to have video shared with other Board members so they can hear the good questions asked by the faculty. There was discussion.

T. Roberts noted that at the most recent meeting of the Humanities Division three or four faculty members voiced concern regarding the Second-Year Retreat who believe that, because the Retreat will become mandatory, there is a governance issue which requires the plan be brought before the full faculty for a vote. W. Moyer spoke in serious tones against taking the plan back to the faculty for a vote at this time, noting that the Retreat is an experiment at this time. In one or two years, if the Retreat proves successful in meeting the objectives set out for it, the issue can be brought to the faculty for a vote.

Roberts reported that Anthropology will increase the number of students in their introductory classes and this move will have implications for the classroom space in Steiner. He voiced a general concern with the sufficiency of classrooms capable of seating up to thirty students.

Marzluff noted that department chairs were recently sent a copy of the faculty/staff diversity report and they were encouraged to share that information with the department. She asked that the report be sent to all faculty and noted that it would be useful to have this information presented at a future faculty meeting.

D. Lopatto asked the Dean for the date by which science division faculty will be informed about student summer research stipends. The Dean responded that information will be available soon.

History Department Proposal

There was discussion of a History Department proposal.

Faculty Voting

The President stated that he has not yet had the time to trace the effects of proposed changes in the language of the Faculty Handbook governing faculty right to vote. He is looking for the opportunity to clearly and succinctly state the policy. E. Marzluff presented comparative information from the Faculty Handbooks of several similar institutions. E. Willis again brought the issue of the perception/expectation of equality among faculty on such a small campus. It was decided that the President would complete his review and then the new policy would be brought to the faculty.

Template for Position Descriptions

The Dean provided Council with three versions of position description templates which could be used by departments for tenure-track, diversity, and term searches. E. Marzluff believes that it is useful to have a statement that reads “Candidates should also address how they can contribute to diversity, a core value of the Grinnell College community” in both the diversity and tenure-track position descriptions. This would serve to affirm the commitment of the college to diversity in all searches, and also bring the templates for diversity and regular tenure track searches closer together.

There was discussion of the use of the phrase “general education” in position descriptions because it is not clear. The Dean noted that Council had discussed this quite a bit last year and had decided to keep it to the general dissatisfaction of all. There was agreement that the diversity position description should be fashioned to be more closely aligned with the wording of the tenure-track position description. Further, there was general agreement that departments should be asked to include more information than simply the preferred field of study in their individualization of these templates.

The meeting was adjourned at 6:15 p.m.

Secretary
Karen Wiese