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

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

The minutes and excerpts of 3/15/06 were approved.

President’s Remarks

The President welcomed Council back from Spring break.

He noted that he, the Dean, and Brad Bateman had been working to revise the old Affirmative Action policy, turning it into the new Diversity policy. After comment from several others around campus he will bring it to Council for comment.

Dean’s Remarks

The Dean noted that he will be sending a memorandum to the faculty this week calling for nominations for the position of Director for the Center for the Humanities and the Center for International Studies Center to begin in 2007-08. The deadline for nominations is April 17th.

He noted that there is a compliance issue in the guidance given to the faculty on the faculty recruitment process. The document states that candidates must give a public scholarly presentation. T. Roberts urged that this be modified to allow for teaching a class during their on-campus interview. It was agreed.

The Dean updated Council on the status of faculty searches.

He noted that he, along with other Deans, will be at the Mellon Foundation offices on Monday to review with them the progress made on the various campuses resulting from Mellon’s significant funding of their faculty career enhancement program.

Council Remarks

E. Willis noted that the Diversity Committee speaker, Anthony Farley, will be on campus next week. On behalf of the Committee she is working to pull together, in one document, the diversity activities already in place on campus. She has been positively impressed by the range and magnitude of these activities.

Staffing Proposals

The Dean’s Office has received 12 proposals for replacement or new faculty positions. Seven of these may have an EKI related component. Those seven have been given to the EKI Interim Advisory Board for comment. They will meet this Friday and will provide their comments on the EKI aspects of the proposals for the next Council meeting. Marci Sortor will attend the next Council meeting to present these comments.

The President asked how many of these 12 proposals represent new faculty positions. The Dean replied that American Studies (3), Biology (0.4), Chemistry (1), Geography (2), and Mathematics (1) represent new additions.

The Dean asked Council how they would like to proceed with the review. He noted that previous Councils have reviewed them one at a time and then ranked, performed triage on the group at first to identify which needed further discussion, and have focused their discussion around new additions and replacements. W. Moyer asked for brief discussion of each proposal before ranking and further discussion. The Dean noted that Council will be receiving Diversity proposals on Tuesday and he will get copies to Council on Wednesday.

Expanding Knowledge Initiative Issues

The first item was discussed as the first point under Staffing Proposals above.

The Dean noted that the Interim Advisory Board members were appointed for one year. He asked what the structure and process should be from next year on. E. Willis noted that the learning curve is steep and this fact should argue for continuity to the extent possible. Whereas the current structure allows the Chair of the Faculty to be a voting member of the Board as well as member of Executive Council, she would argue for more arms length between Council and the Board to avoid representational conflict. It was agreed that Board members would remain largely the same next year. Rotation would then be scheduled to cycle one-third of the Board members out each year, leaving two-thirds continuing to provide stability. President Osgood suggested that a member of the Executive Council should at least be present at the EKI IAB meetings. W. Moyer suggested that it either be the Chair or one of the members at large of the Council.

Eligibility to Vote

The president asked for more time to consider this issue before bringing a proposal to the faculty.

Faculty Meeting Agenda

The next faculty meeting agenda will include presentation of proposed changes to the Faculty Handbook, approval of the athletics schedule, Faculty Organization Committee election, a presentation on the Diversity Report by Brad Bateman and Frank Thomas, and a presentation of information on health insurance premiums by the President.

The meeting was adjourned at 5:30 p.m.

Secretary
Karen Wiese