Present: C. Hunter, E. Marzluff, S. Rebelsky, T. Roberts, J. Swartz, E. Willis

The meeting came to order at 4:15 p.m. in room 226 of the Joe Rosenfield Center. The minutes and excerpts of 1-24-07 were approved.

President’s Remarks

The President was traveling.

Dean’s Remarks

The Dean noted that there are a number of changes of federal visa regulations which were announced yesterday and which have raised issues for visiting professors (with J1 visas) from foreign countries on term appointments. The administration is trying to sort this out.

He distributed (earlier) a final memorandum from Tom Oosting (Theatre consultant to the College) regarding the tenure-track dance search being conducted by the Theatre Department. He expects a proposal from the Department next week.

The Gender and Women’s Studies Concentration has presented a proposal to make a term appointment next year. They would like to search for someone who could teach three courses in this area and two in a department.

Council discussed various staffing issues in the German, Russian, history, and political science departments.

The Dean noted that CFD, formerly CSMP, proposals will be received and must be reviewed and discussed by Council next week. Council will need to consider its priorities in this review. Previously, Council has determined that we need to find 1) the best person and then work out the mentoring situation, 2) the best mentoring situation and then the best person to fit that situation, and 3) the department with the best chance for making an opportunistic hire.

The Curriculum Committee has been working on several draft policy scenarios to govern students who request off-campus study without completing residency requirements. The Committee will be seeking feedback from the faculty at March Division meetings so that a formal proposal can be brought to the full faculty for a vote before the end of the semester.

He noted his growing concern with the need for departmental curricular flexibility which will be absolutely necessary if the EKI is to succeed. T. Roberts noted that it seems that the situation—departments making agreements in order to receive additional positions and then reneging on those agreements—needs a means of enforcement. E. Marzluff suggested that perhaps there is a way to make those agreements transparent to the community. E. Willis said that it has gotten to the point that she would strongly prefer position proposals to be signed by each voting member of a department before Council would give such a proposal consideration. This conversation was prompted by a situation which is developing surrounding the teaching of linguistics and statistics which was promised by certain departments as part of Council agreement with requests for additional or replacement positions and then later there seems to be a loss of institutional memory on the part of the involved departments.

Council Remarks

C. Hunter expressed frustration with the failure to successfully schedule a meeting, requested by the Trustees, to discuss the Trustees’ proposed Strategic Plan metrics prior to their February meeting.

E. Marzluff thanked the Dean for updating his report to the President.

E. Marzluff raised the issue of term staffing and inquired if the administration was contemplating a strategy of hiring fewer term faculty (and consequently decreasing course offerings) as a way to meet our goal of lessening our reliance on term faculty. E. Willis voiced her concern that as we deal with issues of term staffing we should always consider the level of need for those affected courses to be taught during that period of time. The Dean agreed that this issue is worthy of further discussion.

Public Relations and Campaign Planning

T. Roberts asked whether “No Limits” is intended to be a replacement for the previously articulated initiatives under Strategy 6. The majority sentiment was that it is so intended but there was agreement on the need for the President to make this clear. E. Willis offered to send a memorandum to the faculty urging them to attend the meeting on this subject to be held February 8th with an open mind. The process that was used to arrive at the No Limits theme must be made transparent. S. Rebelsky asked if the No Limits phrase is meant to be a public relations campaign theme or a branding strategy. There was discussion on the seriousness of publicly “branding” the College. Willis stated that she is less concerned with the concept of branding than with the brand itself.

Review of the Newly Revised Salary Process

S. Rebelsky distributed a memorandum in which he reflected on the strengths and weaknesses of the current triennial merit raise system put in place several years ago with a view toward making the review requirements placed on the faculty budget committee less onerous and the reviews themselves more reflective and predictive for the faculty members being reviewed. In this memorandum he commented on the serious flaws he sees in the merit scoring system which can create a demoralizing effect on those being reviewed from many points of view. He also suggests that the current system requires far more effort by the faculty under review and faculty writing letters than is necessary. He discussed these issues with Council. Major issues included the difficulty in assessing teaching quality, the importance of using review information as a developmental tool and the current lack of performance feedback beyond the score itself, and the importance of the reflective aspect of the context statement. E. Willis thanked Rebelsky for his thoughts and agreed that there are criteria and process issues to be worked out. Rebelsky called for a discussion of these matters with the faculty in early fall—which would be in time to effect the next round of reviews. The Dean reminded Council that while the Trustees expect some type of merit review system to be in place they have not participated in establishing the details of the system. Willis agreed to present these issues as part of her oral report to the faculty.

EKI Advisory Board Proposal

Council considered a proposal from the EKI Advisory Board which addresses curricular aspects of the EKI and is framed to complement the other goals of the EKI such as a reduction of the reliance of term faculty, the enhancement of student-faculty research opportunities, and the enhancement of the diversity of the faculty.

Marzluff briefly reviewed the activities of the Advisory Board which led to this proposal. There was discussion of the variations on a faculty member’s time and supporting resources which will be required for new interdisciplinary course development and that any successful incentive structure will need to be flexible to accommodate these variations. There was a brief discussion of incentives and rewards for this type of activity since there are significant implications for personal intellectual development of individual faculty members which will enable innovative curricular development. It was agreed that there is an urgency to Council deliberations on these issues since guidance will need to be provided soon to departments planning to submit position proposals in April. This will be a priority on Council’s agenda next week.

The meeting was adjourned at 6:30 p.m.

Secretary
Karen Wiese