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

The meeting came to order at 12:00 noon in the Nollen 2 conference room.

The minutes and excerpts from December 12, 2007 were approved.

President’s Remarks

The President noted that he had recently met with the leadership of the Board of Trustees Budget Committee in New York City and reported that the budget was developing in line with expectations.

Dean’s Remarks

In response to a prior Council discussion on classroom space the Dean reported that there are several very lightly used classrooms available for other classes in the Science Building next semester.

He updated Council on the status of faculty searches.

Council continued its discussions of issues which might present themselves by attempting to make and interdisciplinary appointment in a department where there is no strong intellectual connection. These issues include who decides what gets taught, what are the department’s and candidate’s rights and expectations, contributions to general education courses, voting rights in relation to curricular decisions within departments. J. Cummins urged that these and other issues be decided at the institutional level and not at the departmental level. The President stated that the parameters with regard to these types of appointments are to be worked out by the Dean.

Requests for Leave Without Pay

The Dean reminded Council of a discussion they had last week of requests for leave without pay from untenured faculty members. There was continuing discussion of the new policy and its application to specific cases and the need to grandfather them into that policy because of the “need to know by” date requirement. S. Rebelsky moved, J. Cummins seconded, approval of the now amended policy (the text of which follows this motion). The motion was approved.

Policy Statement-Leave Without Pay Requests from Untenured Faculty Members-adopted, as amended, by the Executive Council 12/20/08

The Executive Council received several requests from assistant professors for unpaid leaves to work on scholarly projects. Requests for leaves have been relatively rare in the past. Faced with a significant number this year, the Executive Council decided that it needed to engage in a policy discussion of such requests prior to considering individual requests. The Executive Council discussed the balance of supporting faculty scholarship, remaining flexible with respect to faculty schedules, staffing our courses with tenured and tenure track faculty members, and providing adequate time for pre-tenure faculty members to develop as teachers and construct a strong record prior to the tenure review. In the end, the Executive Council has recommended a policy of the following:

• We continue to provide Harris leaves competitively awarded and set as a goal to increase the number from two to three annually beginning in 2009-2010.

• We generally limit other pre-tenure, scholarly leaves to the one-semester research leave.

• If a faculty member has an unusual opportunity or project, the Executive Council will consider a proposal for an additional semester of leave. Under normal circumstances an additional semester of leave will require that the faculty member has applied for a peer reviewed fellowship or grant (including a Harris Fellowship) to support the leave and to have external reviews of a proposal indicating that it is high quality. The Executive Council may also consider whether the faculty member has the opportunity to take the leave in the subsequent year as well. In order to facilitate planning, faculty members should normally submit applications for such additional semester leaves in the fall semester with confirmation of the grant and leave no later than February 1. In the event that a candidate for an additional semester of leave has not received confirmation of the fellowship or grant by the February 1 notification date, the candidate’s absence from campus for the additional semester can be delayed until the next academic year, so that departments can make adequate plans for replacements.

As with a Harris Leave an additional semester of leave (beyond the one semester research leave) requires that the Personnel Committee has assured that the teaching up to the time of the complete review is of high enough quality that the additional semester of leave will not interfere with establishing a record of excellent teaching prior to the tenure review.

Council Remarks

E. Willis received a call from Amy Kalkbrenner (replacing Monica Chavez for the year) regarding the continuing ability of senior citizens in the town to take courses at the College. The will need to have this discussion with the Curriculum Committee.

S. Rebelsky noted that the Office of Interdisciplinary Studies Advisory Board does not have nominations for Interdisciplinary fellows to replace the two current fellows who are no longer able to serve in this capacity. The Board is considering decoupling the fellows from the second-year retreat would ease this situation.

B. Ferguson offered congratulations to the Vice President for Student Services search committee for being able to identify such strong candidates.

Candidates for Promotion to Rank of Professor

Council discussion of candidates for promotion to the rank of Professor continued. The Dean reminded Council that there is a higher performance standard for those in their earliest years of eligibility. S. Rebelsky asked why this is the case. E. Willis reminded Council that there must be significant peer-reviewed work that is beyond the scholarship completed at the time of tenure. There was continued discussion of the criteria for promotion to full, especially with regard to scholarship. It was decided that while successful peer-reviewed external grant proposals represent significant intellectual output they are not to be taken as surrogates for significant peer-reviewed scholarship.

The meeting adjourned at 3:00 p.m.

Secretary
Karen Wiese