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

Paula Smith was in attendance in her role as the new Dean beginning in July, 2008. Mark Schneider was in attendance in his role as the new Chair of the Faculty beginning in August, 2008.

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

The minutes and excerpts of April 2, 2008 were approved.

President’s Remarks

The President noted that the excavation for Athletics Complex-Phase II has begun. The College has received bids and intends to sign a construction contract within a week. It is anticipated the project will be completed in two years.

He also noted that the Board of Trustees will be meeting in Grinnell April 24th-26th.

Dean’s Remarks

The Dean updated Council on the status of faculty searches. At this time the only searches that are still underway are for term positions.

He noted that the Tutorial and Advising Committee had recently been thinking about how to facilitate better outcomes from the first-year student registration process next year. They have determined that there is inconsistency in departmental practice of leaving slots in introductory courses open to be filled by first-year students. They intend to talk with faculty at their next Division meetings.

He distributed a draft memorandum to the faculty which is intended to solicit their opinions on whether or not the College is fulfilling its mission with regard to the life preparedness of our graduating students. This information would be qualitative in nature and be solicited of advisers through a scaled rating system (to be devised) to be applied to each of their advisees. In addition to providing information to the faculty and administration regarding how effective we are at meeting our mission, it could provide a metric to our Board of Trustees who are now looking at this question and serve as input to the NCA Reaccreditation team. Mark Schneider volunteered his perspective on this issue for any who would listen outside of the formal Council meetings and Council uniformly agreed that Scott Baumler (Institutional Research) would be involved. E. Willis proposed the formation of a group consisting of Mark Schneider, Scott Baumler, and Henry Reitz to consult with the Dean. S. Rebelsky suggested using qualitative and quantitative measures.

The Dean distributed a set of charts which show relative enrollments in the languages offered at Grinnell since 1991 in preparation for the discussion of position proposals from various language departments.

Council Remarks

Nothing.

Faculty Voting

There was continued discussion of voting rights in relation to a new definition of “regular” faculty status. Of particular concern was partitioning the rights of those on Senior Faculty Status and language of a specific amendment to the Faculty Handbook. Council thanked S. Rebelsky for his tireless work on this issue and the language of the amendments.

Position Proposals

Since the criteria and procedures had been set for this process in the last meeting the Council embarked on its discussion of proposals. This first set of proposals had been categorized as requests for “Replacement”.

The meeting adjourned at 6:30 p.m.

Secretary
Karen Wiese