1 Depauw University Faculty Meeting Minutes September 7, 2015 1. Call
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DePauw University Faculty Meeting Minutes September 7, 2015 1. Call to Order – 4 p.m. Union Building Ballroom The meeting was called to order at 4:03 p.m. The Chair welcomed everyone to the first official faculty meeting of the 2015-16 academic year. She expressed her excitement to be formally launching the new governance structure today, and reminded everyone of our guiding principles moving forward was to avoid using abbreviations as a way to provide better context to our conversations. She also made the following reminders: • If you don’t like to be startled when your cell phone rings aloud, please check that it is silenced. • When you step to a microphone Clay will turn up the sound, on occasion it takes a moment. 2. Announcement of Fall Semester Quorum by VPAA (Anne Harris) VPAA Anne Harris announced the official quorum for the semester. 274 voting faculty members -35 part-time voting faculty members -19 on leave academic year - 7 on leave fall semester 214 x 0.4 85.6, rounded to 86 = quorum 3. Verification of Quorum (quorum is 86) The voting status of faculty members is attached to the end of the agenda for reference. Jim Mills is back from sabbatical and agreed to help with ballots again. He has signaled that a quorum was reached around 4:03. 4. Faculty Remembrances for Clinton Burke Gass Clinton ‘Clint’ Burke Gass, Professor Emeritus of Mathematics was a full-time faculty member at DePauw from 1954 to 1986. Clint passed away on July 27, 2015. Mark Kannowski, Professor of Mathematics wrote and read the remembrance found in Appendix A. 5. Faculty Remembrances Byron W. “Bill” Daynes Byron W. “Bill” Daynes, Professor of Political Science served DePauw from 1971 to 1990. Bill passed away on July 27, 2015. Bruce Stinebrickner, Professor of Political Science wrote and read the remembrance found in Appendix B. 6. Consent Agenda There were no requests to move anything from the consent agenda to a regular item of business. The consent agenda was approved. A. Approve Minutes from the May 4, 2015 Faculty Meeting 1 Reports from Core Committees Committee rosters are available at: http://www.depauw.edu/offices/academic-affairs/faculty-governance/committees-and-contacts/ 7. Faculty Priorities and Governance – (Pam Propsom) As we moved into reports from committees the Chair shared a couple things. First understand that since today’s meeting is the first of the academic year many of our committees haven’t met yet so have little to report. As committees do meet we’ll get updates from them about their agenda for the year. This month only a few are ready to share. As we move through the year and have more business we need to discuss, debate and act on we will likely have less informational content to our meeting. For the Faculty Priorities and Governance, Pam Propsom, Department of Psychology, has agreed to serve as chair. Pam came to the podium and made the motion to approve by-laws and standing rule changes outlined on the agenda. A. Motion to be voted on: Faculty Priorities and Governances asks the faculty to approve the following additions to the new By-Laws and Standing Rules approved in April 2015 to address two loose ends with regard to the new governance structure. Additions shown in bold. Advance notice was given in May 2015 Addition to Section II.C. Voting. “2. Faculty members in Part-time Faculty Positions with Academic Rank may vote in any semester that their teaching load exceeds the equivalent of 1.5 courses or in any active teaching semester after 12 semesters of teaching service to the University. Librarians serving as part-time renewable term faculty may vote in any semester that their load exceeds the equivalent of 50% of full-time, or in any active semester after 12 semesters of librarianship at the University. All other faculty members in part-time positions may attend faculty meetings and participate in debate, but not vote; however, Senior (Emeriti) Professors are eligible to vote during any semester in which they are teaching at least one course.” Addition to Article IX University-wide Committees Section C: “C. Sustainability 1. Function: Coordinates the University’s sustainability efforts. 2. Membership Faculty membership: Three (3) appointed representatives. Administrative members: Voting: Director of Sustainability. Ex officio (without vote): Sustainability Director and VPAA or representative. Student members: two (2) appointed by Student Congress.” Rationale As expected we knew loose ends would arise as we worked through such a complete change to the governance structure. These changes address two things, (1) the clarification that we wanted to treat our part-time professional library colleagues in parallel to our other part-time faculty colleagues, and (2) a request from last year’s existing ad-hoc sustainability committee to recognize the role of our sustainability director in the new committee structure. A question was asked if we could approve the two changes at the same time, there were no objections. The motion to approve both changes passed. 2 In addition to this one item of business, Pam had another announcement beyond those written announcements on the agenda. The Governance Committee met with the president this summer after the announcement about the changes in administration. One of our committee's goals for the coming year is to develop procedural guidelines for faculty involvement in administrative hires and reviews that directly affect faculty. We are pleased that the Board of Trustees sought out faculty at the very start of the presidential search. There were no questions for Faculty Priorities and Governance. Written Announcements – 1. Faculty Priorities and Governance committee has already met several times this fall to address issues that came up over the summer and appoint to the Presidential Search Committee. 2. At our first meeting we elected Pam Propsom to serve as our committee chair for the year. 3. We have already received several items for our agenda for the year, those include helping to launch our new governance structure and address any loose ends, considering a suggestion of a steering committee for the Hubbard Center. If someone has an issue they would like the committee to address please be in contact with Pam Propsom ([email protected]). 8. Curricular Policy and Planning – (Dave Guinee) Curricular Policy and Planning has not yet met for the year. Dave Guinee has agreed to serve as the chair of the committee for the year. Their report is an offer to answer questions. There were no questions. Written Announcements – 1. The Curricular Policy and Planning committee will have its first meeting of the semester next week. 9. Faculty Personnel Policy and Review (Mark Kannowski) Currently Mark Kannowski is serving as interim chair of Faculty Personnel Policy and Review. A. Faculty Personnel Policy and Review still has need for volunteers to serve. Committee members must be tenured. Individuals may be from any department other than English. There were no questions. Written Announcements – None 10. Faculty Development (Chair TBD) The Faculty Development committee will hold their first meeting of the semester tomorrow, September 8, and elect their chair. For now Jeff Kenney our Faculty Development Coordinator will share announcements. Written Announcements – Jeff Kenney reminded everyone that Faculty Development supports reading groups dedicated to helping faculty think through works-in-progress. They started this opportunity last year, and would like to continue it if there is sufficient interest. Jeff has a list of people who expressed interest last year. If you have an article, book chapter or, perhaps, grant proposal that you wish to workshop, please let Jeff know. The Faculty Development committee will hold firm to the stipulated page limits on proposals for the 3 various In the past, the committee has allowed people to submit proposals that exceeded--at times dramatically--the page limits. To ensure equity, the committee will not accept proposals that are clearly over the limit. We ask that the faculty understand our concern and stay within the stipulated limits. DePauw has signed on to the Teagle-funded GLCA Center for Teaching and Learning, a virtual consortial center to assist GLCA schools in improving teaching and learning. As part of our obligation to support the virtual center, DePauw will appoint two individuals to coordinate efforts between the GLCA center and our campus. The first appointment is a "Campus Liaison," who will communicate the work of the consortial center to the DePauw campus. That individual's task will be fused with the responsibilities of the Faculty Development coordinator. The other position is that of "Teagle Pedagogy Fellow," defined as part of a group of "intellectual leaders" of the GLCA CTL who are "responsible for identifying core themes and setting the agenda for the work of the GLCA Center in each year." They will author essays related to pedagogical matters, and make presentations and facilitate discussions of teaching and learning – on their own campuses and at other GLCA colleges. We are still unsure how these two positions will mesh with our existing CTL and FD programming, but we are committed to cooperating with the GLCA and will find ways to integrate the consortial center into our current programming. Faculty interested in serving in the position of DePauw's Teagle Pedagogy Fellow may send Jeff an email. Jeff will be following up with a general announcement, which will include as an attachment the proposal that has been funded and the various responsibilities. A reminder and clarification about the message sent on Saturday to invite faculty to follow-up conversation curricular areas General Education goals. The meeting will take place on Monday, 21 September, 4:00-5:30pm, in the Emerson Rooms at The Inn at DePauw.