This year a new
committee, the Instructional Support Committee (ISC), charged with encouraging
teaching initiatives and ensuring the auxiliary support necessary for the
successful completion of pedagogical objectives, took over the roles of the
Faculty Development Committee, the Library and Bookstore Committee, and the
Academic Computing Committee along with additional computing-related
committees.
Faculty Development
The Instructional Support Committee provided oversight for the allocation of funds provided to faculty for curricular development. It streamlined the process by which faculty members apply for curricular development support from a variety of sources by designing a centralized system for announcing the availability of curricular development funds and for the application process. ISC reviewed the faculty reports submitted to each of the committees which received funding and endorsed continuing funding for individual or collaborative curricular development projects adding diversity to the curriculum, promoting interdisciplinary connections or using new pedagogy or technology to enhance student learning. Curricular development stipends were granted to 25 faculty ($26,700 from the base budget). Additional stipends were awarded to sixteen faculty for the integration of technology into teaching using funds from our Mellon and Culpeper grants.
The Committee
provided oversight for the allocation of funds to faculty for travel to
professional meetings and conferences to support curricular or pedagogical
development and projects. In doing so,
it established a set of policy guidelines.
Thus, it assumed that attendance at such conferences was supplemental to
attendance at a scholarly conference, and to be funded at the same rate as
second scholarly conferences. Where
attendance at a conference might be considered either scholarly development or
pedagogical/curricular development, a very strong case had to be made for
funding from ISC. Faculty members who had already received funding for a second
conference, whether scholarly or pedagogical/curricular, were put at the end of
the line for further funding.
ISC provided funds for materials for four faculty reading groups (Race and Ethnicity, FemSem, Freedom and Authority, Political Economy), for the Faculty Weekend Seminars, and for three teaching and learning discussion groups (science, humanities/social studies, tutorial). ISC also awarded stipends for five faculty development workshops (Africana Studies Curricular Development Workshop; Writing Workshops (2); Oral Communication Workshop; Humanities 140 Workshop).
Library/Bookstore/Academic
Computing/Classroom Facilities. The ISC is charged with raising issues of
immediate concern and participating in long-range planning regarding the
development and maintenance of facilities and services to support teaching.
The Committee
considered questions concerning faculty and staff library loan privileges at
the college and made a number of recommendations to the Librarian of the
College. These recommendations were accepted by the Librarian, the Dean and the
President. The Library began implementing these policies over the summer. The
Committee also reviewed and discussed a report by the Librarian of the College
entitled "Just How Good Are We Anyway? A Statistical Comparison of the
Grinnell College Libraries with those
at Eleven Other Colleges."
A member of the ISC
participated in the Bookstore Manager search and various members of the
committee were involved in the interviewing process. The full committee was
consulted during the drafting stages of a strategic technology plan for
Grinnell College; the Committee also discussed the reorganization of Computer
Services into the new Information Technology Services. A member of ISC is
serving on a small committee appointed by the President to review FFE proposals
dealing with technology and to make recommendations for funding. A subcommittee
of ISC was appointed to review Mellon/Culpeper proposals for the integration of
technology into teaching and for Noyce Award selections. Recommendations from
this subcommittee went to the full committee for approval. After discussion of
the computer needs of the College, the Committee recommended to the
administration that the College purchase two additional T1 lines. The College
did purchase such lines.
ISC began discussing
procedures for assigning classrooms in order to assure that we are providing
adequate facilities for the pedagogical needs of faculty especially in regard
to technology.
Submitted by Helen
Scott, Associate Dean and Bob Grey, Chair