Present: J. Cummins, B. Ferguson, K. Jacobson, J. Meehan, R. Osgood, S. Rebelsky, J. Swartz, E. Willis

The meeting came to order at 4:15 p.m. in room 226 of the Rosenfield Student Center.

The minutes and excerpts from February 13, 2008 were approved.

President’s Remarks

The President noted that because both he and the Dean will not be in town next Wednesday there will be formal no Council meeting. E. Willis called for an informal meeting on that date. The President also noted that because the Dean will not be present on March 5th he would like to take time at that regularly scheduled meeting to talk to Council about capital projects planning.

The President noted that the men’s swim team has won the Conference Championship for the 7th year in a row and the women’s swim team has won the Conference Championship for the 10th year in a row and congratulated them all for a wonderful season.

Finally, the President noted that Mark Edwards is on campus and in the process of developing a communication plan.

Dean’s Remarks

The Dean noted that last weekend Grinnell had sent a team of faculty and administrators to St. Paul to participate in the first Mellon 23 Assembly. Our team included Vince Eckhart, Keith Brouhle, Larry Aspler and Marci Sortor met with those from other participating liberal arts schools and worked to develop a project relating to the environment to be carried out over the next year at Grinnell.

The Dean noted that the Registrar is making progress on designing a new process for fall registration for new students. The Curriculum Committee will be distributing a memorandum which will explain the new process.

Council Remarks

E. Willis suggested that at the informal Council meeting scheduled for next week she would be prepared to repeat the presentation she recently gave to the Trustees.

S. Rebelsky noted that the EKI Advisory Board is reconsidering not only the role of the Interdisciplinary Fellows but whether that aspect of the EKI should continue at all.

Faculty Appointments and Term Positions

The Dean updated Council on the status of faculty searches.

Faculty Position Proposal Instructions

The Dean distributed the latest version of a draft document entitled “Instructions for Preparing a Position Proposal”. As Council undertook a second line-item edit of that second draft there was further discussion.

The President left the meeting at 5:20 p.m.

Part-time Faculty—Policy and Reviews

The Dean began this discussion by stating that the College has never had faculty governance policies which include this fairly large group of faculty (of which the majority are associated with the Music Department) and that the Faculty Handbook does not recognize (is silent with regard to) this class of contract employee. Several members of Council asked why and why now? The Dean responded by reviewing issues associated with the long-standing practice of entering into continuing part-time commitments with faculty without review, such as the following.

• If we consider these people as faculty what are the scholarly expectations of them?
• What kind of review process should we have for part-time faculty members?
• If performance reviews are introduced, should the College lengthen its contractual commitment to them for more than one year at a time?

The Dean suggested that Council appoint a small committee to look at the current practices surrounding employment of part-time faculty. He believes that such a committee could study, make assertions and recommendations to Council and, after deliberation, new governance language could be drafted for consideration of amendment of the Faculty Handbook.

The meeting adjourned at 6:00 p.m.

Secretary
Karen Wiese