Minutes of the October 2006 Faculty Meeting

Opening

President Anderson called the meeting to order at 11:40 am.

Pastor Benson opened the meeting with prayer.

The minutes for the August 2006 meeting were approved.

President’s Remarks

President Anderson observed that the approaching weekend would be very busy and full, and he hoped that it would be an occasion to celebrate. He made a quick announcement on funds for the Science Center, noting that the original strategy had been to attain $18 M. by the October board meeting and $22 M. by January. He reported that currently, $16.7 M had been raised, but added that the college had recently received a $2.6 M gift, and that although the donor was still deliberating on how to allocate the funds, it appeared that some of the gift would go to the Science Center. President Anderson concluded that in light of the progress that had been made, he expected that the Board would vote to proceed with its strategy and schedule.

President Anderson, by way of explanation of the agenda for the meeting, noted that the chairs and parliamentarian had met to set the agenda and had divided the issues into those that could be fast-tracked and put into a consent agenda and those that would probably require discussion. He noted that the consent agenda was only a device to save time; if anyone thought that something in the consent agenda required or deserved discussion, they had the preemptory right to move an item to new business.

Consent Agenda

It was moved that the faculty approve the items on the consent agenda, specifically the Winter Sports Schedule, CEPC 06/07-1, and IDOCS 06/07-1.

Kathryn Ananda-Owens requested that the athletic schedule and the media studies course proposal from CEPC 06/07-1 be removed from the consent agenda, and they were both moved to new business. The motion to approve the consent agenda, with changes reflected, was approved.

Reports

Jill Dietz, Chair of CEPC reported on three big ticket items. First, she said the committee was continuing to look into the revision of the multicultural studies requirement. Second, she said the committee was continuing to discuss and formulate grading policies that would help deal with grade inflation and offer more meaningful guidelines. Third, she reported that the committee was continuing to discuss issues of governance, in conjunction with RPC and IDOCS. She concluded by noting that the committee hoped to come back to the faculty in November with one or more of these issues for more extended discussion.

Matt Richey, chair of RPC reported on three issues on which the committee had been working. First, he mentioned that the restructuring issue was moving forward briskly, and that the committee would hopefully have a proposal to bring before the faculty soon. Second, he noted that the committee had been gathering information and beginning to discuss the problematic nuts and bolts of the issue of a possible policy for stopping the tenure clock. He also noted that an e-mail had been sent out that requested feed-back from faculty, and that if anyone had concerns or input, the committee would be very happy to receive it. DeAne Lagerquist asked for clarification about why this issue came up in the first place. Richey answered that it had been bouncing around for some time, that many other institutions have such a policy, and AAUP endorses it as the right thing to do. He stated that he hoped to have a lot of the discussion on the issue completed via e-mail and committee meetings, instead of having new ideas surface at the time of the green sheet. Third, he concluded by noting that the statement on faculty ethics was something the committee would like to discuss further this year.

Jo Beld spoke about assessment, noting that she had provided the faculty with some homework and hoped it would generate conversation, comments, and questions.

Paul Zorn and Jonathan Hill testified to favorable experiences and impressions, though Hill urged the faculty to take a pragmatic approach to the use of assessment instruments.

Matt Rohn urged that the ARP website be restructured so that things could be found more easily. Mary Carlson asked if departments engaged in program review could use the site to find information on different students and majors. Beld directed her to a number of resources on different websites.

Rohn asked, in connection with assessment, about the upcoming accreditation review in January, and what was being done to prepare the faculty. Beld said that a report needed to be prepared, she was preparing it, and she was planning on sharing her draft with the group involved in the assessment, and hoping to post it and invite comments from everyone in faculty.

Susan Bauer commented that in the past assessment had been focused on accreditation, but that she thought the faculty should shift its focus to student learning and teaching, and encouraged faculty to treat these instruments as aimed at individuals

Beld concluded with remarks about the number of students, according to the results of the Research Practices Survey, who regarded Time, U.S. News, and Newsweek as scholarly sources. Diane LeBlanc ventured an analysis of those numbers, and mentioned that this is good for getting feedback on attitudes of students.

New Business

The approval of the proposed Media Studies course was moved and seconded. During discussion, Ananda-Owens proposed an amendment that the phrase “or permission of instructor” be added to the text of the proposal. Alice Hanson asked how this would impact the enrollment of the course. Mary Trull answered that she doesn’t think it would have any impact, and that the goal of the amendment, as she understood it, would be to allow a diversity of students access.

Richey asked whether the “permission of instructor” exception isn’t a de facto condition for all courses. Lagerquist asked if the computer system enforced prerequisites.

Mary Cisar said that the Student Information System [SIS] canot currently block registration if students do not have the course prerequisites, but the SIS will soon have that capability. She noted, however, that class and lab listings for courses with prerequisites contain a special warning notation.

Mark Schelske asked whether the Registrar could disenroll students without their signature. Cisar said that they could not.

The faculty voted, the amendment was approved, and the amended motion was approved.

The topic of the athletic schedule was then discussed.Ananda-Owens said that before the faculty endorses the proposed schedule, she thought it should discuss whether it is wise to have a schedule that conflicts with the exam schedule for interim.

Wes Pearson noted that all apparent conflicts had been resolved through rescheduling except for alpine and Nordic skiing and wrestling. Cisar reminded the faculty that interim exams are only scheduled for the first two periods, so they will be done by 12:30.

Hill said that he was in favor of athletics and first-year participation, but was concerned; in one case, a first-year student had missed three of his classes because of changes in schedule. He also asked whether the Atheletic Committee has unilateral power to change the schedule after it has been approved, in the event of special circumstances, and noted that if this is the case, it raises the issue of whether the committee ought to have this kind of discretionary power. Pearson answered that there is an established conference policy dictating how rescheduling is done. As a member of the athletic conference the college has therefore acceded in its rescheduling in situations like this.

Jeanine Grenberg said that she tends to regard final exams as somewhat sacred events, and wondered about a slippery slope, such that if students could be excused for sporting events, they might also want to be excused for other events, such as weddings, family vacations, etc.

Ananda-Owens moved that the question be divided, so that the schedules for alpine, Nordic and wrestling be approved separately. The motion to divide the question was approved, with some dissent. The sports schedule for all sports except alpine and Nordic skiing and wrestling was approved.

Rohn said he was worried about the values and commitments of the college, and that he would like to know whether there was a deeper level of values and policy for dealing with conflicts, or whether the approval of the schedule should be considered as a pro forma matter. Pearson said that he was only aware of this kind of conflict arising last year and this year, and that the problems were due to the fact that interim ended on Saturday in these two years.

Cisar said that due to the date of graduation it was necessary to compress the Interim schedule in 2006 and 2007. Rohn asked whether the Registrar had considered dropping reading day to avoid this problem. Cisar responded that that option had been considered, but had been rejected.

Matt McDonald said that he was grateful for the way that faculty has cooperated in the past, and acknowledged that this issue had snuck up on them. The only alternative, he said, would be to cancel the college teams' participation in those events. David Carter urged the faculty to be flexible.

Bruce Dalgaard noted that the athletics schedule was the only regular co-curricular activity that came before the faculty, and suggested that it was possible that the faculty’s frustration over the conflicts caused by all co-curricular activities might be unfairly vented on it.

The question was called to vote and the motion to vote passed. The athletic schedules for alpine and Nordic skiing and wrestling were approved.

Announcements

Mary Cisar announced that registration for interim would be done on-line, while registration for second semester would proceed in the old way. She requested that faculty read her e-mail statement about this and discuss the process with their advisees. She added that advising would be particularly important for interim because students need approval from their advisors before they can register on-line.

Dean Jim May noted that graduation and retention rates were causes for celebration. He said that the four-year graduation rate is up to 82.9, the six-year graduation rate is 84.7, and the five-year rate for the class of 2005 is already at 85.2, which means the six-year rate will be even higher. He added that our retention rate is in the low to mid 90s.

Gary Stansell asked how St. Olaf compared with Carleton on these numbers and Dean May said he thought we were close but not quite there.

Alice Hansen asked about the location of the pick-up and drop-off points for the shuttle that would run for faculty and staff parking at the bottom of the hill on the day of the inauguration.

The meeting adjourned at 12:33 pm.

Respectfully submitted,
Jamie Schillinger