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

The meeting came to order at 4:20 p.m. in Room 226 of the new Rosenfield Student Center. The minutes of September 13, 2006 were approved.

President’s Remarks

The President was traveling.

Dean’s Remarks

The Dean noted that the display ad for various searches underway was placed yesterday.

He followed up on questions raised by Council members at the last meeting.

Enterprise charges us a fixed fee for one trip to the Des Moines or Cedar Rapids airport assuming that the car is out of the lot for a short time for this trip. Thus, they do not allow the car to be out of their possession (which includes in the Security lot) longer that the time that it takes to drive to the airport. It is possible that individuals, if they feel that they cannot pick the car up the morning of the airport trip, may rent the car for an additional day, but there will be an additional charge for this additional time. Jim Mulholland will work with Enterprise to see if we can devise an appropriate system.

Dining Services has filled its vacant staff position, and this should assist them in responding positively to more catering requests as well as in the dining hall. They still have not filled all of the student positions, and if they cannot do that soon, they will investigate hiring additional staff to carry out the needed duties. They do keep track of time in line at each meal and there has been no line after 12:20 at any lunch for the past few days. They will look at the number of meals eaten and the wait times further in the near future. They have revised policies for taking food out of the dining halls to allow single pieces of fruit, etc. to be taken out when exiting.

The Curriculum Committee, after consulting the divisions, has agreed to try an experiment involving not requiring instructors signatures before the first day of classes on add cards for courses which are not closed and not holding Sunday registration. The Registrar’s office will manage balanced courses so that they remain balanced.

The Diversity Policy is ready save one question about the justification for not following the policy. It does not require approval by the Council or the Board, but President Osgood seeks your advice on this issue. He is ready to approve the document once he makes a final decision on that statement.

The Instructional Support Committee today talked about copyright policy and agreed upon what they heard from the faculty meeting discussion and will send that on to the copyright task force. Dan Reynolds has agreed to serve on the copyright task force and there will be an attempt to add a social studies division member as well.

The Curriculum Committee will be requesting that departments do some assessment of the department’s work on independent study and MAPS.

There was discussion of the staffing situation in the Theatre Department.

Council Remarks

E. Marzluff noted that the Expanding Knowledge Initiative Advisory Board is working to revise the guidelines for position proposals released last year in its initial form. When completed they will recommend them to the Council for approval. Marzluff asked Council members to re-read that earlier document to prepare for this discussion.

Marzluff asked about the progress in making revisions to the annual reports of the Dean and the Office of Interdisciplinary Studies. The Dean responded that there has been no progress to date.

S. Rebelsky reminded the Dean of the need for “sample” or “template” letters for the department chairs for their guidance in preparing personnel review letters.

Rebelsky noted that only seven Grinnell faculty are members of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP). He announced his intention to try to recruit more participation in this organization on the part of Grinnell faculty.

Rebelsky also noted that many departments in the Science Division are complaining about the lack of ITS assistance in servicing their computing needs. The Dean noted that the ITS Green and Blue teams has been permanently reduced by one position with a commensurate reduction in duties in each team, with the resulting two positions being reconfigured to other duties.

C. Hunter noted that he had recently eaten dinner at the new Rosenfield Marketplace and had experienced no problem with lines at 6:00 p.m. He also noted that he and his faculty colleagues did not experience the type of scrutiny paid to students leaving the dining hall.

E. Willis suggested that Council discuss the metrics suggested for evaluation of the Strategic Plan as part of the Board of Trustees examination of institutional effectiveness in future. It was decided that it would be wise for Council to take advantage of Clint Korver’s presence on campus while teaching a short-course later this semester to talk through any issues associated with the proposed metrics.

Task Force on Faculty Voting

Last year the Executive Council decided that there is an issue with the lack of consistency and enforcement of faculty voting policy and with the very delineation of eligibility to vote in which situations. This year Council will appoint a task force to look into these issues and provide concrete suggestions to Council to move on this issue. E.Willis proposed that Sam Rebelsky serve on this task force because he has served previously on the Faculty Organization Committee and is conversant with these issues. Rebelsky agreed to serve. She also suggested that the FOC recommend someone to serve from its ranks. She noted that the task force will also need someone who is good at drafting policy and that the untenured faculty should be represented on this task force. There was discussion.

The Dean asked Council to define the charge to be given to the task force. Several members of Council suggested that practices in departments with a variety of types of employees/instructors be examined, as well as defining the variation in current practice and recommending to Council what the rules governing practice should be. Willis suggested giving the task force members the documents produced by last year’s Council and by the Dean this year as background.

Promotion to Professor

There was continuing discussion, of an editorial nature, of the draft Faculty Handbook language governing promotion to professor. All draft discussion was concluded and the existing version will go to the College lawyer and back to the President for final approval prior to discussion with the full faculty which will happen later this semester.

Faculty Meeting Agenda

There was continuing discussion of scheduling of discussion items on the faculty meeting agenda for the remainder of the semester.

The meeting adjourned at 6:15 p.m.

Secretary
Karen Wiese