Present: C. Hunter, E. Marzluff, J. Meehan, R. Osgood, S. Rebelsky, T. Roberts, J. Swartz, E. Willis
Acting Secretary: Jon Chenette

The meeting came to order at 4:15 p.m. in room 226 of the Joe Rosenfield Center. With four minor changes, the minutes and excerpts of 02-14-07 were approved.

President’s Remarks

The President noted that he is traveling more than usual to visit with alumni this spring. In part, he wishes to hear what people are saying about major recent developments for the College such as the EKI, completion of the Joe Rosenfield Center, and the tuition increase. On Monday, he, M. Munley, and B. Bateman attended the largest of these events, with 100 attendees, in New York City. Approximately one-third of attendees had been inside the JRC already and were impressed. Many also expressed pleasure at the imminent completion of phase two of the Noyce Science Center and the improvement of pedestrian circulation on campus once the major north-south hallway through Noyce opens up (early summer, 2007.) B. Bateman gave an excellent and well-received presentation on liberal education at Grinnell.

Dean’s Remarks

The Dean distributed a chart outlining the status of the 16 tenure track searches taking place this academic year.

He handed out information requested by Council concerning the Harris Faculty Fellowships. The packet included the fellowship guidelines, a chart of applicants since 1992-93 (indicating recipients, two-year applicants, and subsequent tenure status), charts indicating the number of faculty members eligible to apply and actually applying by gender and division from 1999-2000 to 2006-07, and the results of oral surveys of Harris applicants conducted by R. Cleaver and K. Wiese and summarized by A. Gansemer-Topf. The President will investigate the donors’ stipulations, and Council will discuss the Harris Fellowships later this spring.

Council Members’ Remarks

E. Willis reported that H. Rietz has requested an opportunity to attend the March 14 Council meeting to talk about the NCA accreditation self-study; the Dean will not be present at that meeting. She noted, as well, that the recent visit of Stephen Kuusisto as part of disability awareness week revealed serious ADA compliance problems with Burling Library. The President indicated that the book stacks at Burling are load-bearing, making it impossible to widen aisles to conform to the ADA. Plans are moving ahead to make the front door and one bathroom at Burling handicapped accessible. Turning to other campus facilities, an architect is looking at the feasibility of an addition to 1205 Park St. that would include an elevator, making it a relatively accessible space for campus offices. Almost all campus offices would then be accessible. To make all campus offices accessible, we still need to add an elevator at Nollen House and at Carnegie Hall. It is not feasible to make South Campus and North Campus accessible, but all units in the Cowles renovation will be accessible, including two units that are super-accessible.

E. Willis reported on a meeting several Council members had last evening with faculty in the Education Department.

S. Rebelsky endorsed the idea of not listing candidates’ names on public advertising in connection with candidate talks. All agreed that this should be standard operating procedure. S. Rebelsky also reported that a faculty member asked how the College is responding to the US Education Department’s proposal for “Huge IPEDs” – an initiative that would require institutions to report on the accountability measures they use and the scores they receive.

S. Rebelsky distributed a handout updating Council on the proposal under development by the Ad Hoc Taskforce on Voting. The proposal should be ready for consideration at the March 5 faculty meeting. The Taskforce has learned that relatively few institutions elect department chairs directly; most often the Chief Academic Officer appoints chairs after consultation with department members. At Grinnell, there is considerable variety in voting practices among departments. The Taskforce will make no recommendations concerning voting privileges of term faculty. The Taskforce is likely to recommend ballot voting for department chair, division personnel committee representative, and faculty contract renewal and promotion recommendations. They plan to recommend that Associate Professors and Professors vote by ballot on contract renewal and promotion. They will recommend voting by tenure track faculty and long-term lecturers for the three stages of hiring: first-round interviews, second-round interviews, and prioritization for offers. After the March 1 faculty discussion of the proposed guidelines, the Taskforce will draft appropriate language to be considered for the Faculty Handbook.

EKI Position Proposals

The Dean noted the need to move quickly to distribute a memo outlining the process for submitting EKI-related position proposals. For the most part, this can be based on last year’s memo with the diversity search language excised. The memo would remind faculty of the deadline for proposals, the standard process through which proposals are considered, and the need for proposals to assume that EKI appointments will be in specific departments, since there is no structure for non-departmental appointments. He distributed a handout with proposed language describing how position proposals should address commitments to teaching non-departmental courses such as tutorial, humanities courses, statistics, and concentration core courses. S. Rebelsky suggested that the language should explicitly describe the need for non-departmental groups of faculty proposing positions to also indicate the level of commitment to non-departmental courses that the proposed appointment would enable. Council discussed options for deciding which proposals are to be considered by EKI. Last year, M. Sortor read the submitted proposals to determine which the Advisory Board of the Office of Interdisciplinary Studies should look at; Council also had the opportunity to refer specific proposals to the Advisory Board for comment. Council will decide on the appropriate procedure at its next meeting.

E. Marzluff expressed her concern that we will be unable to make substantial progress on the EKI-related goal of reducing reliance on term faculty. The President agreed that progress is unlikely to be dramatic. He anticipates growth in the faculty by approximately sixteen tenure track position during the period of phasing in the EKI (12 EKI positions and four non-EKI-related faculty additions); reliance on term faculty may fall by the equivalent of approximately three positions. He suggested that we need to articulate what our philosophy is on term faculty; some reliance on term faculty is desirable. E. Willis suggested that we encourage departments to think about the costs of searching for and relying on term faculty in the hopes that more departments might get by without replacing every faculty member on leave. We could also encourage departments to plan farther ahead so that they can undertake searches for multi-year replacements rather than one-year term positions.

The meeting adjourned at 6:07 pm.

Respectfully submitted,
Jon Chenette, acting secretary