Dean’s Council Retreat Minutes: Summary
August 7, 2013
1. Introductions and explanation of dean’s office staff duties
Kat Wilson is the new Administrative Coordinator in Kinard 107, and Amanda Hackney has
moved up to Kinard 210 and is now the Assistant to the Dean. There will be graduate students staffing the
main desk in 107 at least from 9am-3pm during the week, and there will be another graduate student in
the 212 office to help Beth Costner and Brian Hipp.
Several duties and responsibilities have changed in the dean’s office; for example, R19s now go
to Adria Belk in Kinard 106. In general, Amanda Hackney does all budget and facilities things; Brian
Hipp still does technology; Joan Vandersloot still does grade changes and transfer articulation; blanket
petitions go to Joan or the graduate students at the main office desk; Kat Wilson is in charge of Karen’s
calendar, curriculum things, faculty governance, and personnel; April Lovegrove still does the master
lease; and Maria Linn does all room reservations other than labs and other specialized spaces (email her
directly or email academicscheduling@winthrop.edu).
2. Annual Report comments
Peter Judge is still working on comments from last year’s annual reports. He hopes to be finished
with the ones for people going up for tenure or promotion by the end of next week, and then he will move
on to those going up for post-tenure review.
3. Post-tenure review
Academic Affairs has told us to catch up on these this year, and found 33 people who are due or
overdue for a review. We’ve narrowed it down to 25 people, but there are only about 60 people eligible to
serve on their committees. Therefore, everyone who is asked to serve on a review committee needs to say
yes! This is especially true for people who are retiring in May. Anyone who is a candidate for promotion
to full professor can be on the review committee for anyone other than the people who are reviewing
them. Also, anyone who is submitting lists of possible committee members for their post-tenure review
needs to submit as long a list of names as possible since there are so few eligible people. Portfolios for
post-tenure review are due February 1, 2014. We aren’t sure how review “with distinction” will work now
that we operate under different rules, or if there will be any sort of incentive attached to it.
On a related note: portfolios for promotion are due September 1. We are doing a workshop on
August 12 to go over tips for organizing portfolios and answer questions about the process. There will
also be informational meetings for people sitting on committees and going through reviews.
Another related note: chairs CAN sit on post-tenure review committees for people outside their
departments (in addition to writing the letters for people in their departments).
4. Blackboard
Winthrop is upgrading the blackboard system, so every section of every course will automatically
have a shell created. Therefore, faculty should be able to go into the system any day now to see their
courses and add content. Even faculty who have never used blackboard before will have course shells
created, so now there is no reason to have paper syllabi passed out to students. Faculty are strongly
encouraged to post syllabi on blackboard or at least email them to students rather than printing. (Because
#1 – students will lose the printed one immediately, and #2 – printing is expensive.) There will be training
sessions on how to use blackboard.
5. Budgets
Personal memberships in professional societies can’t be paid for with department funds (unless,
for example, it’s cheaper to buy the membership than for the person to individually purchase
subscriptions to all the journals included in the membership, or the membership is necessary for the
faculty member’s role – undergraduate advisement, equipment maintenance, etc). Also, it’s fine to pay for
a department/university membership in an organization. Office supplies and instructional materials are
always good to buy; travel is iffy. (The state has targeted travel for cuts before, so theoretically having it
show up in operating budgets could lead to those budgets being targeted in future cuts.) Conference
registrations are ok, though. Internship supervision is also still ok to cover, because it’s considered an
instructional expense.
Reminder for faculty: if you get GLI funds, you need to tell the dean’s office so we can adjust and
revise the travel authorizations. Also, you’re strongly advised to apply for GLI funds whenever they’re
applicable.
Travel requests due: September 1, December 15, and March 31. A maximum of about $700 is
still the average amount faculty can get from the college.
6. Evaluation questions – reports from breakout sessions.
The following questions are the consolidated versions suggested by the breakout session groups
for common college-level evaluations:
1. The goals and objectives of this course were clearly stated
2. The course content was clearly connected to the course goals and objectives
3. I knew what was expected of me to succeed in this course
4. The assignments were appropriate and helpful for the material
5. The classroom experience was clear and well organized
6. The course was academically challenging
7. The text and other materials used in the course were helpful to learning and understanding the
material
8. This course was a worthwhile learning experience
9. I would recommend this course to other well motivated students that are interested in this topic
10. The course instructor: Was available outside the classroom (In selecting your rating, consider
the instructor’s availability via established office hours, appointments, and other opportunities
for face-to-face interaction as well as via electronic communications. Satisfied, somewhat
satisfied, not satisfied, did not attempt to contact.
11. The overall quality of the instruction is: good, average, below average, below average, poor.
12. What aspects of this course were most/least effective in prompting learning?
13. The instructor provided meaningful feedback on assignments and/or tests. Strongly agree,
agree, disagree.
14. Strengths and weaknesses on course O.E.
15. The course instructor: Presented material in a clear/organized manner.
16. The instructor encourages discussion and question in class when appropriate.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
To what extent did this course challenge you to think critically?
What suggestions do you have for improving this course?
How much time per week did you spend on this course outside of class?
Instructor was responsive to students’ questions and concerns.
To what extent are you aware that academic misconduct occurred in your class?
Issues brought up for discussion include the use of questions about the promptness of returning
assignments, questions about university-level competencies, the definition of “availability” (which
needs to include online/virtual methods), and the type of question and response scale to use.
7. Off-campus surveys
We have surveymonkey already, but it’s not clear if that is sufficient for our needs. Qualtrics is
more expensive, but has a lot of advantages. Someone in another college is willing to pay 1/3 of the $5k
cost for a university license to Qualtrics, and PSYC could contribute the money from their individual
licenses toward the university license. It would be $2,800 to get 14 department licenses to surveymonkey,
so if we can find something better for about that cost it will be worth considering. There’s still a lot of
interest in Qualtrics, so we will ask other colleges if they’re willing to contribute to a university license.
8. Meeting with the President
President Comstock wants to tour all the departments and have an open meeting with brief
department presentations, Q&A, and a meeting with just the chairs. This will probably have to be a Friday
event, given the size of our college. Each department will provide two slides: 1.) List all
degrees/tracks/minors/etc offered and some sort of faculty/student statistics, and 2.) Other
interesting/unique/problematic things about your department/program. Slides are due September 4. Make
sure to have questions and agenda items for President Comstock (she doesn’t request these as a
formality!), and make sure to have good attendance.
Possible agenda items suggested include: more funding for student/faculty travel, salary
compression, diversity in faculty and staff, facilities (including leaks in bathrooms and roofs), filling
faculty vacancies.
9. Scholarship statement
Is there a way to describe progress on scholarship (that isn’t necessarily a completion point)?
Yes, in the narrative section on annual reports, in scholarly activity.
Other areas of the scholarship statement discussed: The distinction between peer-reviewed
publications/presentations and those with an audience of only/primarily students. Removed the wording
about “earned a measure of national or equally significant recognition” and replaced with wording about
“as recognized by peers”, to include a broader range of recognition types/venues. Only separating the
descriptions by rank in the scholarship section implies that area is the only one to determine promotion,
so should other sections be separated out as well? For “exemplary professional stewardship”, should there
be some sort of understanding before people start these projects as to whether or not it will count as
“exemplary”? (It would be helpful to document this; there’s something similar in the roles and rewards
document.) Clarified that exemplary professional stewardship is a rare exception, and mentioned that it
happened with a redefinition of a role. This modified statement will have to be presented to faculty and
presumably approved by some committees, so it probably won’t be approved for use in time for this
year’s promotions.
10. Announcements
- The Affordable Care Act: The employer mandate has been delayed until January 1, 2015; the
individual mandate still kicks in this coming year. On temporary ePAFs, the relationship between “credit
hours” and “contact hours” is that a 3-credit hour course counts as 9 hours of work. Labs that are 1-credit
for students but 3-credits for faculty still count as 9 hours of work. The ACA says that 30 hours/week is
the minimum to get health insurance, but we’re not sure yet if that’s an average or something else. Once
an employee hits 30 hours/week, though, they have to be offered health insurance within two weeks, and
they can then keep that coverage for the duration of their employment, even if they later drop back below
30 hours. It’s not clear if they also keep it in the summer. One issue for part-time faculty is that if they
teach 9 credits in the fall and 12 in the spring, they wouldn’t be eligible until the spring semester.
Other potential issues for part-time faculty – Winthrop will be required to offer the insurance if an
employee reaches 30 hours/week, so some people may need to make sure they don’t hit that threshold.
For example, if they get insurance through a spouse’s plan, that coverage may get dropped if they’re
offered their own plan, even if they’d prefer to stay on the spouse’s plan.
-SC state retirees: If a person 1.) is in the SC state retirement plan, 2.) has retired AFTER June
30, 2013, and 3.) earns more than $10k in a year from a state agency, then they will lose their state
retirement benefits for the remainder of that year (effective the day they hit $10k in earnings). This
doesn’t affect people who retired before that date, or social security, or people with TIAA-CREF plans.
11. Avoiding harassment/bullying issues
Universities are in the news for not dealing with these things well, so the Justice Department is
mandating that federally funded universities reexamine Title VII and IX stuff. Every employee at
Winthrop will have to undergo a course developed by HR to educate about harassment issues. Even parttime people have to do this. This will be considered part of academic responsibility for the year. There
will be an online version of the course, so inability to come to campus is not a good excuse. Not sure if it
will also cover student-on-faculty abuse, or student-on-student, but it will cover racial harassment and
bullying.
12. Faculty reviews
There was a discussion in executive session about how the dean could more effectively comment
on faculty annual reports.
13. Announcements, part 2
Mid-semester grades: We still need to report grades for all the same populations as before, but
now we also need to report for all freshmen in all courses. Therefore, remind faculty to make sure that
their syllabi include some sort of graded assignment before the mid-semester grade deadline. We also
have to do attendance checks (for financial aid).
Request from Tim Drueke: Feedback on the relative effectiveness of online vs. face-to-face
summer courses. Are online classes drawing away from the related face-to-face courses? Discussion:
withdrawal rate may be higher in some online courses. Online math courses have lower numbers than
face-to-face, but numbers seem comparable in sociology courses. Online courses seem to appeal to
different groups – particularly those who work during the summer. Social work tried switching a face-toface class to an online version, and had more enrollees than before. In political science, intro courses in
both formats did well, and upper-level courses in both formats did not-so-well. Overall, there doesn’t
seem to be much conflict between the two formats. Related discussion: how do faculty members feel
about teaching online? If there were more incentives, training, and tech equipment available, they might
be more interested in it. Could professional development funds go toward things (like tablets) that could
help with off-campus teaching? Karen says that departments can use their funds to buy tech, and faculty
might be able to use professional development funds if the price is ok, and depending on what tech
they’re after. Talk to IT if you want hardware or software, so they can make sure all the electronics play
nicely with each other. And if you want an iPad, talk to Amanda; we get a bulk rate, so departments who
just want a few can probably combine into one bulk-rate-eligible order.