Minutes for the Meeting of November 9, 2004

Attending: Peter Hlebowitsh (Chair), Micheline Chalhoub-Deville, Ellen Herman, David Jepsen, Joyce Moore, Nancy Jackson, and Chris Ogren.

DEO’s Dennis Maki (CRSD) and Elizabeth Altmaier (P & Q) attended the first part of the meeting.

Follow-up with DEO’s on program coordinator changes: Peter reported that he had invited all of the College’s DEO’s to join us to reflect upon the effects of last year’s discussions with the FAC on the duties of and support for program coordinators. Larry Bartlett sent a memo to Peter, and Dennis Maki and Betsy Altmaier were in attendance. (Peter had not heard from Gary Sasso.) Dennis explained that CRSD continued after last year’s discussions to provide a ¼-time assistant each program coordinator. He emphasized that while this is not much support, it is something, and members of the FAC thanked him for seeing to it that coordinators receive some support. Betsy reported that following last year’s discussions, P & Q began to employ a ½-time graduate assistant at the department level to serve all of the programs. She then suggested that the FAC examine the program-coordinator position in general by looking into how university departments outside the College of Education coordinate their academic programs. (Psychology and History, for example, have department-wide coordinators.) Noting the high number of associate professors in the College, Betsy suggested that the FAC consider options ranging from dissolving the program-coordinator position to requiring that coordinators be full professors. We then discussed compiling data on associate professors in the College, examining other models of coordination, and perhaps emailing program coordinators to solicit information. (Dennis Maki and Betsy Altmaier then left the meeting.)

Minutes of the last meeting were read and approved.

Course Duplication: Peter explained that the issue of duplication is “in the discourse” surrounding new courses, but is not on the form that the College uses for proposals of new courses. Because this is a university form, we can not simply add a question about duplication. Peter will look further into the University form. We also discussed the issue of duplication in new course proposals versus duplication among existing courses.

The Dean’s feedback: Peter shared an email from the Dean responding to some of the budget concerns we had raised at earlier meetings. She emphasized that President Skorton is aware of the University’s low rank among CIC institutions in faculty salary, and that he is asking the Board of Regents to press the legislature for funding to raise salaries. She also reported, “the only budget news is that we have no wiggle room left,” and we in turn discussed the issue of faculty participation in decision-making on the budget.

New events related to the Task Force on the Qualitative Research Curriculum: In response to concerns raised by Anne DiPardo, Carolyn Wanat and Liz Whitt, Peter will represent the FAC at a meeting with the three of them and the Dean to discuss the charge, role and duties of the task force.

Standing Curriculum Committee: In part because of concerns surrounding the issue of the Qualitative Research Committee, we decided to keep this issue alive even though the Curriculum Committee Task Force Report of April 2004 stated that a Standing Curriculum Committee was not necessary. We would like to consider what would be the duties and responsibilities of this committee.

Concern over the loss of faculty: We discussed what appear to be large numbers of faculty departures in recent years, and suggested that we should examine the impact of these losses on the College and course offerings, as well as why people leave (salary, quality of life, etc.) and whether there is exit data.

Respectfully submitted,
Chris Ogren
Secretary