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.

President’s Remarks

The President regrets that he will be unable to attend the Council meeting next Wednesday because he will be just returning from the POSSE Presidents’ meeting in New York City.

He remarked that he would be making some brief remarks at the next faculty meeting regarding implementation of the Strategic Plan.

The President stated his happiness with the decision to merge student, faculty, and staff phonebook.

He encouraged all to go to the Art Gallery to see the new impressionist exhibit.

Dean’s Remarks

The Dean noted that last Friday was the deadline for departmental requests for term replacements. The Academic Subcommittee of the Budget Steering Committee will be considering these requests, prioritizing them, and begin to fit them into the overall 2006-07 budget.

He distributed a revised 2005-06 Executive Council faculty position interview teams. E. Marzluff noted her preference to have candidates interviewing on campus meet with faculty from outside their division to get a better sense of the liberal arts nature of the campus. It was agreed.

He also distributed the College Residence Requirement policy from the current College Catalog. He noted that current policy states that the only off-campus program that can be counted toward residency for second-year and third-year transfer students is the Grinnell-in-London fall program. Several students have made requests to the Committee on Academic Standing to broaden this to include the Grinnell-in-Washington program. CAS would like Council endorsement of this change. There was discussion. E. Willis moved, W. Moyer seconded, Council endorsement of a change in residency requirement policy to include all Grinnell College operated off-campus programs. The motion was approved.

The Dean noted that three Oberlin faculty will be on campus on Friday to discuss collaboration on our Grinnell-in-London program. They have had to close their program.

Council Remarks

E. Marzluff asked about advertising position openings. She noted that during the current search process in Chemistry someone in the Dean’s Office stated that the policy is to place ads electronically, with the exception of the Chronicle of Higher Education ad. This is not acceptable to the Department. The Dean stated that there was no such policy, and he would look into the matter.

C. Hunter noted that during a recent Social Studies Division meeting there was a question raised regarding the disposition of the 2004 Curriculum Committee report on compensation of faculty for MAPs and Independent Study. The Dean noted that report prompted last year’s Council to decide to commission a study which was conducted and reported on by David Lopatto earlier this semester during Council. Hunter also noted concern expressed by members of his Division regarding the process and criteria for promotion to full professor and the desire of some faculty to make these criteria more widely and generally known. The Council recognized that this was consistent with a concern earlier raised by T. Roberts.

Expanding Knowledge Initiative

W. Moyer discussed guidelines for proposals under the Initiative which were developed by the Interim Advisory Board. The President suggested that the guidelines should better reflect the language of the Strategic Plan and Mission Statement, specifically “social commitment” to “common good”. He would also like to see the other purposes of the EKI included in the guidelines, specifically reduced dependency on term appointments and improved diversity. There was discussion. Moyer noted that the guidelines being discussed do not constitute a call for proposals…which will come later in the semester. He also noted that the Office of Interdisciplinary Studies will organize lunch meetings for faculty groups to discuss areas of common interdisciplinary interest and make the results of those discussions known to the IAB to help in setting EKI curricular priorities, which the IAB will bring to the Council for discussion.

Center for International Studies

The Dean noted that the College started a process of collecting information and conducting external reviews over a year ago in relation to the operations of the three Centers on campus. We now have the Center responses to those reviews for discussion. The Dean noted that he and W. Moyer have offered four questions to frame these discussions.

• What are the major contributions that the center is making and how important are they to the mission of Grinnell College? Are they essential, important, or unimportant?

• Are these contributions distinct?

• Are there important contributions that the center could make which it is not now making effectively?

• What adjustments should be made in the operation of the center?

A discussion ensued.

The meeting adjourned at 6:25 p.m.

Secretary
Karen Wiese