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College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Meeting Tuesday, April 12, 2011 3:30 p.m. Memorial Lounge, Waterman MINUTES 1) 2) Approval of the Minutes of the March 15 Faculty Meeting. Wolfgang Mieder (German and Russian) made a motion to approve the minutes. This was seconded by Tony Magistrale (English). The minutes were then approved by the faculty. Announcements – Dan Krymkowski a. b. c. d. e. Major Jackson Full Professor lecture postponed until fall Kroepsch-Maurice Awards nominations: April 27 deadline Staff Awards for Superior Performance: May 31 deadline for nominations Suiter and APLE Award results University Scholar Seminar: “The Benefits of Blundering in Research (and Life),” George Osol (COM), April 14, 4:00pm, Memorial Lounge f. Admitted Student Visit Days (April 15, 18, 22) 3) Dean's Comments Interim Dean Goldberg first gave a brief update on current tenure-track hires. He commented that we now have successful hires in Chemistry, Russian, Philosophy, Art History, Anthropology and Physics; have offers pending in Studio Art and soon in Geography and Music; and are doing final interviews in Biology. Following this, the Dean briefly addressed FY12 tenure-track recruitments, noting there were fourteen submissions for seven tenure-track slots. He said he had sent recommendations to Provost Knodell for positions in the following departments: Biology, Chemistry, English, Geography, Political Science, Psychology, and Religion. (He noted these were listed in alphabetical order, and that seven of these were among the top eight recommended by the Academic Planning and Budget Committee.) Dean Goldberg then spoke about the impact of the Presidential Search on the search for a permanent dean of the College. He outlined three possible scenarios: (1)Continue the Dean’s search as planned, commencing this spring; (2) delay the search for a year and wait until we have a new President in the summer of 2013; (3) stagger the two, so that the dean’s search would begin early in the fall and the candidates would come to campus soon after the new President is announced. Dean Goldberg said that the President and Provost (who would make the decision on timing) would discuss this at the next chairs’ and directors’ meeting; the Dean encouraged others to provide feedback as well. At this point the Dean turned his attention to the latest changes to the General Education proposal. He commented that the latest Gen Ed documents were considerably different from those presented in February, and said that they would be considered by the Curricular Affairs Committee later in the week; if approved, the proposal would be voted on by the Faculty Senate in May. The Dean indicated that the Gen Ed committee was hoping for an endorsement of the basic conditions for Gen Ed requirements. He said that the committee has taken an outcomes-based approach that would be implemented within the individual units. The first goal is to seek approval of the outcomes. The next step would be the establishment of a special ad hoc committee of the Faculty Senate, who would further refine what this initiative looks like, explore implementation costs (all contingent upon enough resources), etc. The Dean observed that feedback would be valuable to the committee, and encouraged faculty to share their comments. He also encouraged faculty to recognize that this is General Education – not liberal arts – as a threshold that all students must meet to get a UVM degree. A spirited discussion followed. Faculty expressed a number of concerns, including how this would fit into our curriculum, the lack of agreement among committee members about the inclusion of science, resource implications and resources being diverted to things that are not fundamental, whether this will address the issue (and is this really a problem?) of students having difficulty transferring from one unit to another, and the need for data on what we are now doing well and where the gaps are. Char Mehrtens (Geology professor and a Faculty Senator) strongly encouraged faculty to run for these committees so that CAS is represented; Dean Goldberg agreed, emphasizing that this should be a faculty initiative and should be designed by faculty. Deb Ellis (Film and Television Studies), a Gen Ed committee member for two years, said she was encouraged that the discussion had become much more faculty-driven. She noted that initially they thought this process would take a year, and now (in the second year) recognize it may take much longer. 4) College Standing Committees Curriculum Committee. After thanking the individual committees who had drafted the guidelines for courses fulfilling CAS requirements in Humanities, Social Sciences, Literature, and Fine Arts, Committee Chair Gregory Druschel opened the floor for discussion on the proposal. Another lively discussion ensued, primarily focused on the Social Sciences guidelines. Tom Streeter (Sociology) said he had shared this proposal with a number of his colleagues, and they had commented that it didn’t cover half of the courses in the department. Druschel pointed out that it was not supposed to cover all the courses. Dean Goldberg further clarified that this is not a definition of a Social Sciences course, but rather is meant to describe the requirements, the intent, and what we want the student to take away from a course in Social Sciences. Streeter argued that these guidelines do not describe what modern Social Scientists do; they would filter out courses that Sociologists think are great introductions to the field, yet would accept others. Meghan Cope (Geography) agreed, noting that the sticking point is the scientific method, because many social sciences do not employ it. Streeter asked why these guidelines were needed. Druschel responded that the Curriculum Committee has to determine if a new class is appropriate to be counted toward a particular distribution requirement; this was designed to help the committee make that determination. Dean Goldberg added that the guidelines will help provide more consistency and ease for the committee. Streeter sympathized with this goal, but questioned whether this would be really helpful. After considerable discussion and suggestions, Dean Goldberg proposed that the Social Sciences description be tabled and brought back to the Curriculum Committee to get broader acceptance by Social Scientists. Barbara Rodgers (Classics) made a motion to approve the Humanities, Literature, and Fine Arts requirements; this was seconded by Rory Waterman and approved by the faculty. Nominations and Elections Committee : Matthias Brewer encouraged faculty to vote in the College Committee election, and noted the slate of candidates: Academic Studies Committee (Hammack and Bose); Admissions (Mathieu-Bohl and Toufexis); Honors Committee (Chan and Otovo). He then reviewed the remaining calls for nominations for College committees. Madalina Furis was the sole nominee for the full-term Natural Sciences slot on the Nominations and Elections Committee; Jose Madalengoitia was the sole nominee for the Natural Sciences slot on the Honors Committee. Both were declared elected. Brewer then reviewed the list of CAS nominees for Faculty Senate committees that had been received since the last faculty meeting, and asked for additional nominations: Faculty Senate Curricular Affairs Committee, one-year replacement position - one nominee: Charlotte Mehrtens, Professor, Geology. Faculty Senate Educational and Research Technologies Committee, one full-term position - two nominees: Barbara Saylor Rodgers, Professor, Classics; and David Feurzeig, Asst. Professor, Music. Faculty Senate Educational and Research Technologies Committee, one one-year replacement position - four nominees: Cristina Mazzoni, Professor, Romance Languages; Beverley Wemple, Assoc. Professor, Geography; Thomas Brennan, Assoc. Professor, Art; and Jan Feldman, Assoc. Professor, Political Science. Faculty Senate Financial and Physical Planning Committee, one two-year replacement position - one nominee: Rona Delay, Assoc. Professor, Biology. There were no additional nominees. Faculty Senate Standing Committees: The following faculty members were present to provide a brief summary of their committee reports and/or to answer questions. Due to the lateness of the hour, there was little discussion. Curricular Affairs Committee – Deborah Ellis Educational and Research Technologies Committee – Deborah Guber Financial and Physical Planning Committee – Julie Roberts Professional Standards Committee – Lokangaka Losambe Research, Scholarship, and Graduate Education Committee – Rory Waterman Student Affairs Committee – Sin yee Chan 5) Old Business – None. 6) New Business – None. 7) Adjourn. A motion to adjourn the meeting was made by Rory Waterman (Chemistry) and seconded by Ted Lyman (Art) and approved by all. Respectfully submitted, Sally Knight