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

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

President’s Remarks

The President noted that he will be delivering the convocation address tomorrow entitled "Judicial Independence in 18th-Century Britain and America."

He stated that he has been enjoying the many conversations he has had with faculty regarding the search for a new academic dean.

He noted that he will be announcing a new search committee for finding a new Vice President for Student Services in about a week. Jim Swartz will chair that committee.

Dean’s Remarks

The Dean reviewed the expectation of Council participation in the tenure-track faculty search interview process. He noted that there are two Council members who do so for each search, and generally with at least one of them from a different division than that of the searching department. Assignments for the known searches this year were decided.

He noted that the College has been fortunate to have two successive grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation that make possible the two-year appointments of postdoctoral fellows in the humanities and humanistic social sciences. These grants are drawing to a close and we must make one more appointment under the terms of the current grant which we hope to do next year. We have also received a third grant which will endow this program with funding for one appointment per year. He asked Council advice on when to send out a notice to departments. It was decided to send it now with a due date after fall break.

He reminded Council of their decision last year to have a Council member volunteer to review institutional publications prior to publication. The President stated that the Viewbook is the only major publication planned this year. No action was taken.

The Dean distributed a set of graphs showing the number of courses and number of students for fall and spring semesters since 1999 to assist Council in their discussion of the issues surrounding registration. He noted that generally the College has added courses equally at the introductory, mid- and upper-levels. S. Rebelsky noted that over time caps have come down resulting in more students being squeezed out of courses they want to take. There was a general feeling that the registration system is not able to provide students and advisers on-demand information on availability of courses. J. Meehan said she would like us to figure out a way for each student to get into at least one course that they want. All agreed. The President suggested that this objective should be within reach with certain mechanization of the registration system. He also noted that there are more courses in the fall than spring semester and that perhaps a better balance could be achieved by adding more introductory courses in the spring. The Dean pointed to a large number of tutorial courses which are included in the total count for fall semester. There was further discussion of important influential variables such as size of the student body, unexpected attrition from off-campus study programs, normal summer attrition, foreign student yield, and unknown impact of tuition increase. The Dean noted that the bigger picture plan was to grow the student body to 1500 while also growing the faculty, but a much more robust growth in the size of the student body than expected has unintentionally outpaced the growth of the faculty. K. Jacobson reported on a recent conversation with Clark Lindgren regarding concerns within the EKI Advisory Board that the appointment of new EKI faculty will not ease the situation at the introductory level. J. Meehan noted that the solution is not a simple as asking departments to add more courses at the introductory level because they have majors to serve and need to maintain depth and breadth in the curriculum. The President suggested that we might experiment with introducing some amount of randomization in group assignments. K. Jacobson suggested that improvement of the distribution of courses across time of day and day of week might also provide some slack. The discussion will continue at a later date.

Council Remarks

S. Rebelsky thanked the Registrar’s Office and all staff who volunteered at Registration.

J. Meehan requested that committee appointments be accompanied by a document which explains the reason for and mission of the committee, along with specific expectations of service on the committee. Rebelsky noted that this is the business of the Faculty Organization Committee and suggested that this issue be turned over to them.

Rebelsky noted with concern that there has been an unacceptably high number of false fire alarms being set off in the Noyce Science Center and that this may lull people into not reacting to a real emergency.

Expanding Knowledge Initiative

The Dean asked Council for recommendations of faculty who might be approached to serve on the EKI Advisory Board along with the four continuing members. It was noted that E. Willis would like to have at least one member at the assistant professor rank. There were several names suggested and they will be approached.

Faculty Voting

S. Rebelsky reminded Council that last year an ad hoc committee was formed to examine the issues of faculty voting and to make recommendations to the faculty for changes in the language in the Faculty Handbook in this area. The committee has concluded its work and the suggested revisions to the Handbook have been vetted by the College lawyer. Rebelsky noted that the committee did not feel comfortable writing Handbook language which clarifies “conflict of interest” in appointments, reappointments, salary recommendations, and promotion. There was discussion and agreement that this is an important area which the Handbook should address. The President took on the task of finding suitable language and bringing such model language to Council.

Agenda Items

The Dean distributed a memorandum written by Chris Hunter as he departed Council last spring which raises items for Council discussion which had not been dealt with by Council during his years of service. The Dean also distributed a list of additional items for consideration. S. Rebelsky added discussion of whether or not to regenerate the American Studies Concentration and whether Council service should be increased to three years from the present two-year term. K. Jacobson would like to see continued discussion of enrollment pressure. The President would like to discuss candidates for Academic Dean and a ranging discussion of the ideas that were identified by the Board of Trustees last summer which he shared with the full faculty at the first faculty meeting this fall. This conversation will continue next week.

The meeting adjourned at 5:50 p.m.

Secretary
Karen Wiese