College of Liberal Arts s1

College of Liberal Arts August 28, 2013 3:30 p.m. Chairperson Meeting

Attending: Phil Bridgmon Rob Wallace Mike Chanslor Audell Shelburne Cari Keller Ben Kracht Robyn Pursley Dan Savage Mark Bighley Brad Agnew Jason Uphoff Kat Shahan David Scott

The meeting was called to order and the quorum recognized.

Dr. Bridgmon recognized the new department chairs: Ben Kracht – Cherokee and Indigenous Studies; Rob Wallace – Criminal Justice and Legal Studies; Robyn Pursley – Art and Theatre; David Scott – Communication and Media Studies; Brad Agnew – History and Dan Savage – Geography, Political Science and Sociology.

Cari Keller was introduced as the Assistant Dean of Liberal Arts. She will still have teaching and advising obligations but will assume additional roles. Cari will assist departments in the development of online curriculum and programs as well as help with the implementation of the Degrees of Excellence pilot program. She will also work with assessment issues and both internal and external marketing of the college. Cari is the faculty sponsor of Alpha Chi honor society. If anyone is interested in being the co-sponsor, please contact Cari.

The Academic Service Fees have been transferred to the departmental budgets. Dr. Bridgmon asked the chairs to be aggressive in identifying activities to utilize these fees. There is greater pressure to efficiently use these fees. The service fee guidelines have been distributed that outline the proper usage for each of the three service fee areas.

Dr. Chanslor asked the chairs to consider curriculum development as they are building the spring 14 schedule. Chairpersons should also think about contraction not expansion and covering courses with regular faculty. This semester there are several full time faculty with low enrollment courses. Consider raising caps on courses and offering fewer sections. Chairpersons should also limit electives and take a hard look at weekend workshops.

Dr. Bridgmon stated that COLA over uses adjuncts. Currently COLA has adjuncts teaching fewer than ten students and full time faculty teaching less than 12 or 13 students. Continuation of low enrollment courses is a sign there is no demand for that curriculum. This indicates a soft budget and could result in the loss of another faculty line or two.

Faculty who are teaching full time and teaching 40 or fewer students are not meeting the threshold for cost recovery. Some weekend classes do not have rigor and the syllabi indicate this. The Regents want to see a representative amount of syllabi for courses that meet less then eight weeks.

Dr. Bridgmon did four or five extensive analyses of faculty salaries in 2012-2013. Faculty currently augment their salaries with overloads.

If the academic prioritization is revisited, programs could be lost and majors eliminated. Chairpersons were asked to get a handle on overloads and adjuncts. COLA needs to work together to address these issues. The primary chair duty is to make sure the right faculty are teaching the right courses. Teaching is our core responsibility.

The Affordable Care Act implementation has been delayed. NSU can no longer waive benefit rights for adjuncts. Adjuncts will be limited to two courses. If there is an urgent situation and an adjunct is asked to teach three courses, the chair must send Dr. Bridgmon a memo stating they will not go over 30 hours per week in teaching, preparation and grading papers. Staff can only teach one course per semester. Chairpersons need to review the expectations and demands on adjuncts in relation to full time faculty.

Faculty Development funds at the university level is $12,000. Last year COLA ran out in December. This year requests for $1,000 will be lowered. Questions regarding how the faculty development committee works should be directed to Cari Keller. Dr. Bridgmon will screen and possibly deny request in order for resources to be spread through the year. The scholarly content of faculty development travel should be at the Boyer Model level.

Each department needs a Facebook page. There are numerous great things happening in COLA that need to be promoted. Faculty videos and good student comments would be an asset to Facebook pages. These pages can also be linked. We need a better COLA presence at the Riverhawk Rally.

One third of the students at NSU are undeclared. We need to do a good job with the students we encounter in terms of major recruiting. Cari Keller will email the most recent enrollment plan to the chairpersons. There is a change coming that will allow freshman to declare when they want.

Do not delete any email to, from or about Dave Madden. We are obligated to preserve documents for possible use in this claim. Liberal Arts will be tailgating September 14th and 21st and on homecoming October 5th.

Email Phyllis with spring 14 adjunct, overload and weekend workshop assignments in November.

The May 1st minutes were approved by consensus.

Chairs were told to communicate with their faculty, let them know what is discussed at chair meetings.

There are good things going on at NSU, keep the momentum going.

The meeting was adjourned at 3:30 p.m..