Instructional Support Committee

Attending: Albert Lacson, David Romano, Roger Vetter, Leslie Gregg-Jolly, Karen Shuman, Shuchi Kapila, John Kalkbrenner, Bill Francis, Richard Fyffe, Ian Athanasakis (STAC), Terri Phipps Minutes of 10 September approved.

Fast-track Approvals:

• Intro to GIS (SST 295) field trip to CERA ................................................... $50
• MACTLAC (Midwestern Association of Chemistry Teachers at Liberals Arts College)
  Six faculty members @ $310 each .................................................................. $1860
• Tutorial field trip to Latino festival ................................................ $150
• Tutorial field trip to Marshalltown ................................................ $250

MATLAC: The total dollar amount exceeds normal fast-track guidelines, but the amount for individual faculty members falls well within the guidelines.

Continuation of discussion concerning students voting on ISC matters: According to the Faculty Handbook:

Six faculty members (two from each division) elected for staggered two-year terms. The Dean of the College or a designated Associate Dean, the Librarian of the College, the Director of Computer Services, and the Dean of College Services shall be non-voting members. The committee will invite representatives from the bookstore, audio-visual department, the faculty secretaries and other constituencies of the College to attend, when relevant issues are being discussed. Two students, one elected by the Student Government Association and the other by the Student Academic Computing Committee will be invited to attend meetings, when appropriate.

Student representatives have a voice on the committee, as do representatives of the administration, but are not voting members.

Update on open Curricular Technology Specialist position: The search to fill the position vacated by Fred Hagemeister is still open. Requirements and expectations of the position have led to a small applicant pool. Applicants need to have a high level of technical skill coupled with an academic background. Leslie, Bill and Richard met with the Social Studies division to talk about their technology needs. The Division is concerned with having adequate equipment in classrooms, support for that equipment, both in troubleshooting at class time when necessary as well as maintaining and upgrading the equipment. There is an increasing need to support GIS.

Discussion and evaluation of the CTS program is underway. The program began with four CTSs, but has been reduced to three. Some ISC members are concerned that certain areas of campus are not being adequately served.

Revision of Guidelines for Requesting Support for Teaching and Curricular Development: The budget guidelines under Curricular Development Projects are not clear. For example, “books” are listed in both the “may include” and “may not include” sections. These two bullet points will be consolidated.

MAT 115 instructors, who are drawn from all areas of campus, have difficulty getting software used for the course loaded on their own computers. Faculty should contact Bill to request this software.

Field trip funding: Can recurring field trips be built into departmental budgets? This was suggested by ISC in the past. Departments have not increased their budgets to cover field trips. It is unclear if they did not make the request or if their requests were denied. Leslie will check into this further.

Interdisciplinary/EKI:

• It is unclear if the award is per faculty or per project in a team-driven project. Awards are per faculty member.
• Are projects defined by total project or by year? Stipends are per complete project.
• Should faculty be allowed more time between receiving course development funding and actual course offering? Suggested that faculty could have up to three years to offer the course. Stipends will be tied to the course offering. Funding for developing the course will follow current guidelines.

Should proposals address staffing and course offering frequency? (Section: “Proposals are more likely to be funded…”) Faculty do not always know if an experimental course will continue to be offered. Faculty may be more willing to develop courses as experimental rather than worry about long-term offering.

Leslie and Karen will draft revised guidelines for discussion at the next meeting.

Discussion of alternative meeting times for ISC:Shuchi will email committee members to decide if meetings this academic year should continue on Wednesdays at noon or if 4:15 is a viable option.

Respectfully submitted,
Terri Phipps