Minutes of the May 2007 Faculty Meeting

Opening:

President Anderson called the meeting to order at 11:31 am.

Bruce Benson, college pastor, opened the meeting with prayer.

The minutes of the April 2007 Faculty Meeting were approved.

Consent Agenda

The consent agenda was approved.

New Business:

Mary Cisar, college registrar, moved the graduation of the Class of 2007. Henry Kermott seconded the motion.

The motion was approved.

Maggie Odell, chair of the Nominating Committee, moved a waiver of the seven day rule, in order to vote on 06/07-05, a ballot with candidates for positions on the Curriculum and Student Life Committees.

The motion was approved.

Odell then brought 06/07-05 before the faculty and asked them to vote. She asked that two names be added to the ballot, Marc Robinson and Beth Christensen, and advised the faculty that if they did not know individuals on the ballot well enough to make a decision, they abstain from voting altogether. Kris Thalhammer objected to Odell’s advice on practical and pragmatic grounds, while acknowledging the plausibility of the principle behind the advice. President Anderson advised the voters to consider the advice as they saw fit.

Kathryn Ananda-Owens, on behalf of CEPC, moved that the college award an honorary degree of science to Jean-Marie Laborde.

The motion was approved.

Matt Richey, chair of RPC, moved the approval of 06/07-03, a revision of the language of the Faculty Manual regarding the salary procedure. Bob Entenmann said that he would vote for the motion but that, in general, he was against changing principles in the Faculty Manual in order to fit practices.

The motion was approved.

Richey moved 06/07-04, a revision of the language of the Faculty Manual about special appointments.

The motion was approved.

Jill Dietz, chair of CEPC, moved the approval of 06/07-13, a motion that grants special authority to a small committee in the event of an emergency. Laurel Carrington asked whether this was meant to address situations like the recent events at Virginia Tech University. Dietz clarified that the kind of emergencies that the proposal was meant to address involved situations when the groups of people who would normally make decisions were not available, perhaps because of short notice. DeAne Lagerquist asked why there was no reference to the Board of Regents in the proposal. Lynn Steen clarified that the proposal asked the faculty to delegate authority to administer academic programs and that while the Board of Regents would be relevant to other decisions, it would not be relevant to this proposal.

The motion was approved.

Dana Gross, on behalf of CEPC, moved the approval of 06/07-14, a revision of the multicultural studies (MCS) general education requirement. Michael Fitzgerald asked for specification of the definition of “non-dominant groups” in the proposal. Gross said that the definition depended on context, but that with respect to domestic courses it generally referred to groups not enjoying privilege or status, that had been marginalized and, with respect to global courses, it could refer to groups not privileged within the established Western system. Fitzgerald asked whether Scandinavian studies would count as studying a non-dominant group. Gross said that race and ethnicity might be one way that people would interpret the language, but social class could also be important. Fitzgerald also asked about the language that concerned moving from a component to a course, and whether consideration had been given, practically speaking, to whether more courses would count. Gross said that the proposal moved toward emphasizing the quality of focus in the course instead of a certain percentage of the content. So the upshot was that the courses that offered the requirement might be increased, or certainly hold steady.

Fitzgerald then asked how recently the final draft came out. Gross said April 21 st.

Laurel Carrington asked that since gender was included as a relevant category, would a course on medieval women qualify. Gross said that if students were getting chances to reflect on the meaning of those patterns and how they might connect to their own experiences, then it might count. David Booth said that the successor to GEC would take up these types of questions. He added that without seeing the context of the course and a syllabus, it was hard to say which courses would count. Ed Langerak said that he had asked earlier about particular courses and asked now whether the committee had talked about those courses. Gwen Barnes-Karol said that they had talked about Spanish 232 which is about the experience of US Latinos. It seems like this course would continue to count under the new guidelines. Jo Beld directed the faculty’s attention to specific language in the proposed guidelines that clarified that that MCS courses need not be totally committed to the GE in order to satisfy the requirement.

The motion was approved.

Dietz moved 06/07-07, the grade and marking system, clarifying that discussion from the past meeting had hopefully brought clarity and improvements to the proposal. She noted that the benchmarks were meant as guidelines that could be helpful to both students and faculty, and added that consensus would probably never be reached about whether a “B” was “good” or “pretty good,” but the committee hoped that at least the gradation of descriptions from one grade to another were as “good” or “pretty good” as they could get.

Booth asked whether insofar as grade inflation was a concern of the college, and insofar as some students’ aid was indexed to grades, the college could provide reassurance that those students’ interests would not be hurt by more attempts to limit grade inflation.

Dietz said that the curriculum committee would be mindful of this possibility and would revisit it if it became apparent that it was a problem. The President recommended Steve Vogel’s article on the topic.

The motion was approved.

The President congratulated the body for its dispatch of the issues.

Committee Reports

The chair of CEPC, Dietz, thanked her colleagues on the committee for their work. She then reported that the docket was more or less cleared, and therefore, next year the committee could start with a new set of issues. She also made some remarks about the Emergency Academic Plan, noting that faculty would be expected to teach in a core curriculum, and that there was money available to develop courses. The President extended his thanks to Dietz for her able leadership.

The chair of RPC, Richey, reported on a number of issues on the horizon, including the on-going review of faculty, the stopping of tenure-clock procedures, the reorganization of the faculty-life committee and the governance committee, and certain inconsistencies in the Faculty Manual in terms of process. The President thanked Richey for his excellent work.

The registrar, Mary Cisar, reported that the faculty could find a report on the website with numbers about registration for fall 2007 that had recently been completed. She said that the partial web-based registration had worked, and that although she didn’t yet have an exact plan for next year, she was hopeful that they would be able to do it on the web, although they would probably try and maintain some sort of personal touch. She added that first-year registration would not be done on the web.

President’s Remarks

President Anderson noted that the endowment had crossed the $300 million mark. He hoped that it would continue to grow. He added that the total amount raised by the community campaign to support the science center had crested $800, 000, and that Emeriti had contributed about $300, 000 of that.

He stated that the numbers on in-coming students suggested the size of the class should be right around where the college wants it. He also noted that the demographics were heartening, that the percent from Minnesota was at 51%, the accept rate was between 50 and 51, the male to female ratio was 45-55%, the percentage of multicultural students was at 10%, the percentage of legacy students was at 36%, and the percentage of Lutherans was at 44%.

Finally, he observed that the attainment towards the Science Center had slowed, and that they were still shy of $25 million. He said he would continue to charge ahead.

Announcements:

Jeanine Grenberg, chair of the Faculty Development Committee, said that email updates would be coming out about a program review, publicly acknowledged two the Mellby lecturers, Anne Walter and Bob Entemann, and thanked the committee members.

Lagerquist asked about on-going space deliberations, and what the next steps might be. The President said that that they’re in the public comment period. The next meeting, he said would be the 14 th of May. He urged people to please send comments, and reassured that they would consider all input.

Dave Van Wylen announced that the Science Symposium was coming up the next day, and invited faculty to attend any or all three talks.

Jonathan Hill announced an upcoming national conference from June 7 th to June 9 th on “Literatures in English,” focusing on literatures written in English outside the mainstream American or British vein. He noted two public readings, and urged people to come to anything, and especially readings, if they were so inclined.

Margaret O’Leary invited the faculty to Syttende Mai on the 17 th of May from 7-9 a.m., with music.

Mark Pernecky asked about the Dean of Community Life and Diversity position now that Eida Berrio was leaving. The President said that he had not yet started to think about whether the position should continue or be changed. He reassured the faculty that whatever changes occurred, the outcome would not be a reduced commitment to the goals of diversity.

Janice Roberts announced that Company Dance would be going on at 7:30 that evening.

Solveig Zempel noted that 24 applications had been submitted to the Fulbright Committee and thanked letter writers. She announced that there had been seven grantees and two alternates.

The meeting was adjourned at 12:30 pm

Respectfully submitted,

Jamie Schillinger