Faculty Council Meeting Minutes

FACULTY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES

Penn State Behrend’s September meeting of the Faculty Council was held on campus on Wednesday, September 15, 2004 at 4:00 P.M., in the Memorial Room. The following members were in attendance: M. Bestoso, D. Blasko, J. Burke, M. Campbell, D. Christiansen, C. Coulston, J. Curry, M. Ford, R. Krahe, B. Lasher, B. Light, D. Mace, B. Power, S. Soltis, S. Stevens, S. Sweeney and R. Weissbach

Introduction

Chair Bill Lasher called the meeting to order and explained that the first Council meeting of the academic year is organizational in nature. Committees will be reporting on their various charges at subsequent meetings.

Reports from Deans

David Christiansen, associate dean for Undergraduate Studies and Academic Administration, reported that the university Academic Council for Undergraduate Education Curricular Integrity Task Force will examine academic offerings at campus locations throughout the university system. It will examine the consistency of the course offerings at the various campuses.

The university is moving away from the General Education GI requirement, replacing it with two separate courses: International Cultures and United States Cultures, effective Summer 2005. It appears that we will not have enough United States Cultures offerings for Fall 2005.

Dr. Christiansen is also involved in several initiatives, including work groups addressing changes in FTCAP, FIGS, and student orientation.

Robert Light, senior associate dean for Research, Graduate Studies and Outreach, had no report.

Jack Burke, campus executive officer and dean reported that the Middle States ten-year re- accreditation of the University is underway. The committee will visit Behrend on November 9 to meet with groups of administrators, faculty, staff, and students. The emphasis will be on teaching and learning.

Rod Erickson, executive vice-president and provost, will visit the college on October 20. Faculty Senate officers will visit with Behrend faculty, students, and administrators on November 3 to assist in setting the Senate agenda for the upcoming year.

Regarding campus construction, Dobbins Dining Hall will undergo a $6 million renovation/addition. REDC is making good progress despite the weather. An approval was granted for a Conference Center, to be constructed as an addition to REDC.

Tracy Claybaugh has been hired as the Financial Officer and Bursar to replace Cliff Sando who will retire after 33 years of service. Dewayne Wright has been hired as director of University Relations, in charge of communications and marketing. Robert Simoneau has announced his retirement as director of SEET and a search committee has been appointed to review candidate dossiers in early November. College enrollment numbers won’t be available for another month, but the change of assignment numbers are problematic.

B. Lasher reported that there is no old business to discuss.

New Business

Following the resignation of the chair of the Scholarships and Awards committee, Kathy Holliday-Darr and John Kerwin agreed to be nominated for the position of chair (Ford, Weissbach). K. Holliday-Darr was elected.

The following additional charge has been added to the committee charges that were emailed to council members on August 16, 2004: Charge 2c is to review the information currently available for faculty on the Behrend College website and make recommendations for changes. The charge was prompted by various requests for the inclusion of the faculty organization information on the college website. Carol Whitbred has emailed faculty with the link to the Faculty Organization website, which will include minutes from previous meetings, reports from last year, and the Faculty Constitution. The consensus of the Faculty Council members was that all information should be made accessible, excluding sensitive information. The Faculty Affairs Committee will decide what additional information should be included on the website.

The Academic Responsibilities and Faculty Expectations brochure needs to be reviewed and updated by the Student Life Committee.

Committee chairs should send tentative due dates for their respective committee’s charges to B. Lasher by October 1. The motion to accept the charges passed (Mace, Campbell).

Council members agreed to schedule Council meetings on Wednesday at 4:00 pm for the Fall semester.

Faculty Senate Representative D. Blasko reported that Military Occupational Specialty credit passed, so we can accept military credits. A report was issued on managing classroom disruption, giving faculty management guidelines. Senate ad hoc committees are currently reviewing curricular integration, procedures regarding revocation of tenure, revision of HR policy, and teaching evaluations for promotion and tenure. A report will be issued on the evaluation of first-year seminars. The BA report that will be coming before senate council proposed that the current 9 credits of arts, humanities and social sciences be broadened to include 9 credits in any of these three areas plus math and science. The other cultures requirement remains the same.

S. Stevens questioned the SRTE frequency for non-provisional tenured faculty in light of the college-wide protocol of evaluating every section of every course. Faculty Senate passed recommendations last year recommend the use of SRTEs in all sections of all courses with exceptions approved by directors.

S. Soltis requested that when faculty submit ISBN numbers to the bookstore, they also submit the numbers to SGA for publication. The Commonwealth Council of Student Governments also wants to have SRTE’s published. The meeting was adjourned (Campbell, Bestoso).

The next meeting of Faculty Council will be held at 4:00 pm on October 20, 2004.