Instructional Support Committee

Minutes of April 26, 2006
Noon
Faculty House

Attending: Christopher McKee, Kara Lycke, Cecilia, Jon Chenette, Justin Abramson, Mark Schneider, Bill Francis, John Kalkbrenner, Katya Gibel Azoulay, Anatoly Vishevsky, Margarita Pillado, Megan Goering, Terri Phipps

Minutes of last meeting approved.

Fast track approvals:
Russian field trip (Czech museum) ~ $100
Religious Studies field trip to Fairfield & Maharishi ~ $345 (but trip was cancelled)

Faculty-Faculty Tutorial proposal: Biology/Statistics -- $1,300
ISC considered an earlier version of this proposal and had asked for more information. The faculty revised and resubmitted the proposal.

The question arose of whether or not the project fell outside of the faculty member's regular work duties. It is highly unusual for a statistician to have specific training that could lead to creating departmental examples for classwork. The ultimate goal of this work is to create a new statistics course. This work does have scholarly impact for the tutee. This impact is secondary. Nearly all curricular development has some impact on and benefit to faculty scholarship.
Proposal is approved.

Forum Computing Lab space: Holabird & Root will not be coming to campus to discuss the Forum as previously planned. Any exchange of ideas will be done electronically. The Planning Committee would like feedback sooner rather than later on plans.

• There are a wide variety of spaces planned. Most furniture will be movable to allow even more flexibility. The booths will be stationary. Current placement of booths offers a view of the "beach," but also cuts off the users from the rest of the computing space. Can they either be moved or made to be open on both sides?
• The architects and committee need to be conscious of the view looking in the windows as well as the view looking out.
• An earlier plan had a laptop computer countertop, which has been dropped from the current plan. Can that be re-incorporated?
• How many plasma screens does the space really need?
• Question on traveling art display placement. Could it be moved to a higher-traffic location? This was considered previously, but there are accessibility issues that have ruled it out.
• The Welcome Desk area will be a satellite Help Desk for those unable to reach the Help Desk area.
• Computer Lab space: Suggest placing computers around periphery of room rather than in rows to help facilitate the teacher getting around to see computer monitors and provide assistance.

Summer workshop: The Peace Studies workshop has added another participant, bringing the number up to four. ISC approves co-funding the workshop with Peace Studies.

Wireless Survey: Results of the wireless computing survey received so far have been compiled and distributed to the committee. Spaces rated as highest priority overall include study rooms/lounges and presentation spaces. Labs, practice rooms, and studios also had only high priority or no opinion votes. Since schedules involving FM and other support for this summer have already been somewhat arranged, it will be difficult to allocate time for additional projects such as adding wireless access points. Expansion of wireless access in the dorms has already been planned for this summer.

Faculty Resource web/listserv: Mark distributed a draft of preliminary ideas for this resource. Some ideas include using the site to share knowledge, not only pedagogically, but in terms of support -- for instance, types of support available to faculty teaching and research initiatives and how to apply for them. This site could also include a list of visitor-friendly classes so that faculty can observe a variety of teaching techniques, teaching approaches for a variety of topics (such as dealing with inflammatory material), innovative pedagogy, or assessment. The site could also include a bulletin board-type posting page that would allow faculty to ask for and receive advice related to teaching, as well as a list of faculty resources on and off campus.

ISC agreed that this would be worth a trial period. The site will be created over the summer and implemented in the fall, beginning with two or three major starting emphases and growing as we see how interest develops.

Draft Guidelines for Workshops, Courses, and Seminars to Develop New Teaching Competencies: Upper limit of no more than $2000. Per diem guidelines will match those advertised in the Faculty Travel Guidelines of the Dean's Office for travel to professional meetings related to teaching (currently $50 per day). Project must fall outside of normal job requirements.

ISC will consider these guidelines more fully at the next meeting.

Classroom AV Interfaces: ISC will provide guidance to developing a standard setup of the interface. Bill will generate a list of questions for discussion at a future meeting.

Respectfully submitted,
Terri Phipps