Present: C. Hunter, E. Marzluff, J. Meehan, R. Osgood, 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 5-1-07 were approved.

 

President’s Remarks

 

The President updated Council on the status of several administrative searches in progress. He also mentioned that he will begin thinking about the position of Dean which will involve an internal search over the next year. Council asked to meet with the President to provide input to his thinking before the end of this semester. Council discussed the merits of an internal vs. external search for a new Dean.

 

The President thanked members of Council for their service to the College.

 

Dean’s Remarks

 

The Dean updated Council on the status of faculty searches.

 

E. Willis noted that the situation of automatic extensions of term contracts happens so often that she believes Council should see some information regarding the proposing department’s assessment of that person’s teaching before being asked to recommend an extension to their contract.

 

The Dean reported that the Curriculum Committee has made progress toward their objective of assessing MAPs but has not finished. E. Willis brought up the issue of the term of appointment to the Curriculum Committee being too short to be effective.

 

There was further discussion of a situation that has developed regarding the education program at Grinnell. It was decided that the Council would write a memorandum in response the one received by Council from the Teacher Education Committee that would appear in its entirety in the excerpts and minutes of the next Council meeting so that the information it will contain will be accessible by the entire community.

 

Council Remarks

 

S. Rebelsky noted that the Faculty Voting Committee met today and completed their recommended language changes to the Faculty Handbook. The President thanked them for their work and said that he would consider the proposed changes carefully and discuss with the Trustees.

 

E. Willis reported that she has met with the students who are working on selecting next year’s commencement speaker and let them know that the schedule will be sharply accelerated and a speaker must be identified and agree to speak by next fall.

 

Willis thanked Rebelsky for his help in her presentation on the faculty salary process at the faculty meeting.

 

Involvement of Council in Interviews for One-Year Term Positions

 

Although Council has recently decided that members will not be involved in interviewing persons for one-year replacement positions because of the opportunity cost to them, questions have arisen requiring Council to revisit this issue. The Dean noted that there is recruitment/”sales” value in having candidates meet members of Council. T. Roberts thinks that there can be good value in Council members’ feedback to the departments on their interviews with candidates only if that occurs early enough in the period of time that the candidate is on campus for the Council members’ information to be useful (in a formative way) to the department as they move through the process. The President suggested that the Dean think about how an Associate Dean could be useful (as in triage) in this process.

 

Faculty Position Proposals

 

Council continued the discussion of faculty position requests.

 

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

 

Secretary

Karen Wiese