Instructional Support Committee

Attending: Chris Johnston, Cecilia Knight, Keri Kornelson, Kara Lycke, Anatoly Vishevsky, Jon Chenette, Bill Francis, Richard Fyffe, John Kalkbrenner

Minutes of 14 February approved.

Fast track approvals reported to committee

• ANT 240 "Intentional Communities" and Hum/Sso 295: Food, Identity, Culture, Power" field trip to the Amana Colonies $736
• ENG 325 Transnationalism Seminar field trip to Marshalltown to meet
  diasporic people involved in Swift meatpacking plant raids $186

Draft EKI Curricular Development Guidelines Update

Chenette reported that the Advisory Board of the Office of Interdisciplinary Studies discussed the Feb 14 ISC feedback on the draft guidelines and has revised them. He sent the revision via email after today's meeting, and ISC members raised no objections. The guidelines are appended at the end of these minutes.

Curricular development proposals
The Committee approved $1,300 for a faculty-to-faculty tutorial on music composition and creative writing in preparation for course collaboration.

The Committee approved $950 for a physics faculty member's summer travel to the University of Pittsburgh to learn about efforts there to replicate some of Galileo's scientific experiments. This is in preparation for a course on how space space, time and motion were understood from the 17th century to 20th century, to be offered in conjunction with a philosophy faculty member. The Committee would like to see the full plan of support needed for the development of this course.

Creative Computing Lab reservation guidelines
The Committee discussed proposed guidelines governing the use of the Creative Computing Lab and saw no problems with them. These guidelines limit the total number of reservable hours per week to 15. There will be a follow-up policy governing use of the Forum computer training lab. Committee members believe an announcement about use of the CCL at an upcoming faculty meeting would help build awareness of the facility.

Language houses
CFFLS met to discuss language houses yesterday, but the immediate issues they were concerned about - possible relocation of language house functions to different houses from those currently in use -- appear to have been resolved satisfactorily. Still, the situation raised concerns about the decision-making process concerning language houses and resentment at the need to repeatedly defend the curricular importance of language houses. Students continue to request more theme houses, making it essential for Student Affairs to deflect those demands because of the important curricular function of language houses.

Guidelines for stipends for course development related to the EKI

February 28, 2007

The Office of the Dean of the College has made available funds for a number of different course development efforts linked to the Expanding Knowledge Initiative in response to the Advisory Board's recommendation to encourage and facilitate faculty involvement in the Expanding Knowledge Initiative through the following:

• Summer stipends $3,000 to individuals to develop and offer a new collaborative and interdisciplinary course. Course development may follow a summer workshop.
• Expanded travel funds and student assistant funds to develop and offer a new course or a new unit in an existing course.

For the summer of 2007, we have funds for up to fifteen summer stipends. Teams are welcome (e.g. two individuals planning a team-taught course could each request s stipend to develop a course together).

All proposals for interdisciplinary and collaborative curricular projects are invited, but special emphasis will be placed on the latter. Collaborative projects can take a number of different forms, including various models of team teaching and shared-theme courses. For more information on models of collaborative teaching, please visit http://www.grinnell.edu/offices/dean/eki/lunches/includes/Team.doc.

Applications for summer stipends must include an expressed commitment to teach the proposed course within the following academic year, and a letter from their departmental chair confirming the feasibility of this commitment. Applications for expanded summer travel funds should follow the guidelines for applications for support for curricular development put out by the Instructional Support Committee (see http://www.grinnell.edu/offices/dean/supfac/oncampusopportunities/curric_dev/curric_dev_projects/).

The deadline for EKI course development stipend applications is the first Monday after Spring break. Interested individuals should also consult with Marci Sortor.

Respectfully submitted,
Terri Phipps