Faculty Development Committee
Minutes of the FDC Meeting October 29, 2004
Present: Kris MacPherson (chair), Jeanine Grenberg, Shelly Dickinson, David Schodt, Martin Hodel, Arnie Ostebee, and Bill Thornton.
We discussed the October 8 minutes and agreed to postpone approving them until Paddy incorporates a few suggested edits. It was proposed that we discuss at a future meeting whether or not faculty who receive released time grants can also be relieved of academic advising and committee responsibilities during the semester in which they receive a grant. It was noted that to take full advantage of a released time grant, some faculty - by virtue of their particular discipline - need to be abroad during this time.
Shelly reported on a program of preparations for the fall Mellby Lecture. Everything seems to be in order, including food, publicity and posters. At the lecture Kris will present the speaker's introducer, who has yet to be chosen.
We discussed whether or not the FDC should be part of the internal nomination process for St. Olaf's National Endowment for the Humanities grant nominees. Our discussion revolved around whether non-Humanities faculty should review applications specific to the humanities. In any case, and regardless of recommendations FDC might make, the Associate Dean of Humanities will make the final recommendation to the NEH. Perhaps FDC could work together with senior Humanities faculty to aid in the selection process. If FDC were to be involved, the NEH deadline would necessitate that the committee meet at least during week one, if not late in the summer, to review applications. The consensus was that if FDC does decide to participate in the process, then doing a ranking of any proposals would be useful. In addition, Arnie suggested that the application process might best be seen in context of a larger Humanities Strategic Plan that would include a framework for evaluating such NEH grant applications. Jeanine will talk with Charlie about our discussion and we will decide on our involvement at a later meeting.
We reviewed the FDC document, Criteria for Summer Grants for Scholarly and Artistic Activity. Out of concern that some faculty are reluctant to apply for Summer Grants because of the perception that all applications somehow need to be linked to classroom teaching or the applicant's department's goals or priorities, we amended Criteria, A., 1. to read "Contribution of the project to scholarship and/or artistic development in the applicants field. Projects may involve disciplinary or interdisciplinary research, artistic activity, and/or scholarship of teaching and learning. Applicants are encouraged to link their projects to needs, goals or priorities of their departments, interdisciplinary programs, and/or professional associations in explaining why the project matters." We discussed whether or not we should evaluate applicants' proposals in light of their departmental professional activity statements, and if so, how to evaluate proposals that cross disciplines. Should applicants be encouraged to submit a "professional development plan" along with their applications? Some concern was expressed that the applicant's department chair might exert undue influence over defining an applicant's "field of study." Several other changes to the Criteria were approved, including to point D., Plans for dissemination. We will continue to work on the changes to point D. at a later meeting.
We planned the agenda for meetings on Nov. 5, 12, and 18. On the 5th, we will give an initial evaluation of the Released Time Grants and the FACE grants, and take up the remaining changes to the Criteria for Summer Grants document. On the 12th we will continue working on the RTG proposals and hopefully finish them up on the 18th, when we plan to have our recommendatons ready to present to the Dean.
The Chair encouraged the committee memebers to develop "evaluation rubrics" to help them appraise the RTG proposals; these rubrics could also help department chairs communicate how to strengthen future proposals to unsuccessful applicants.
Respectfully submitted,
Martin Hodel
