,"
Council of Deans
Unapproved Minutes
January 27, 2003
Members:
McKellips
Buckley
Burgess
Dawe
Goode
Neale
Soelle
Young
Other Present:
Glen Pinkston
1. McKellips introduced Glen Pinkston, Vice President of Business and Finance, to the
members of the Council. Mr. Pinkston stated it was nice to meet everybody. He is glad to be here
and looks forward to being a part of Cameron.
2. Items from Executive Council.
a. On Thursday ofthis week, there will be a small delegation oflegislators on campus.
There will be a campus tour between 10:00 and 3:00. Keith Mitchell will be contacting those that
will be involved and will have more specific information and times.
(1) The delegation will want to look at four items involving academic areas. One
is a CAMSTEP presentation. McKellips told Neale that the President specifically asked for Mark
Reid to make a 15 minute presentation about CAMSTEP and would like to have two or three good
CAMSTEP students present for that. Neale replied that the CAMSTEP students are out in the public
schools in the spring semester and are not on campus.
(2) To Buckley - they are thinking about talking with Ann Nalley - maybe some of
the projects she has worked on with students - maybe the Henessee lab or some of those kinds of
things where she would talk and maybe the students could also talk. This is again only 15 minutes.
(3) To Soelle - Matt Jenkins - The thought there was Jenkins could talk about some
ofthese documentary type things he has done. They would like to have some students available that
know something about that.
(4) To Buckley - They would like to have a real quick tour ofthe Science Building.
One of the things they need to see is the Goodyear Room.
b. Mentioned to Soe1Ie that the President has visited with Sarah Janda and Sarah has
agreed to lead the planning for the centennial. She will get a 3/7 summer assignment for that. Ifwe
have to supplement Soelle's summer allocation to cover that we will.
c. McKellips stated that he has read about what the Chancellor has been talking more
and more about, and that is the regional institutions having differentiated missions which is
something that has been done in a number of states around the country. If the deans have any
thoughts along those lines McKellips would like to get them.
(1) McKellips has thought about this over the years. In our Masters degree programs
- for the most part our masters degree programs are capstone professional degrees in a way that is
different from a masters degree you might be getting if you were on your way into research. They
are capstone professional degrees. McKellips stated, that with regard to the MBA, it is not at all
uncommon for the MBA degree to be a degree that is sought by all kinds of people whose basic
disciplinary training is in another field. It is common for attorneys, for engineers, some scientists
who are getting into entrepreneural type things in science, etc. McKellips stated that ifwe did a little
work on our masters programsand also our undergrad:yate programs we could have an avenue for
a lot of our students to become an expert in whatever their fIrst major field was and then with one
more year have a professional degree that would enable them to move through management ranks
or administrative ranks within that fIeld. MBA is an obvious one; CAMSTEP is another place we
produce people with experts in disciplines and then prepare them to become professional teachers
at a higher level than you normally have. Behavioral Sciences prepares licensed professional
counselors right now. How many fields that might be useful to he doesn't know but certainly some
fIelds in education and probably other areas. Dawe mentioned that the MED is additional
certifIcation for teachers. McKellips started thinking about this when in the EC, the President said
she needed to start thinking about how to deal with the Chancellor on this and McKellips is supposed
to get the President a concept paper to talk from. If the deans have anything they want him to
mention or if they have a quarrel with it, this would be the time to let him know.
(2) Soelle asked ifthere is a sense we are moving toward some sort of an integrated
state system, like some states have. McKellips asked if she meant where Cameron would be the
University of Oklahoma at Lawton. He hasn't heard anything to indicate that. If you are going to
talk about regional universities, a regional university has to have a core set of programs that are
uniform from place to place. You can't have a regional university where you go to study English
and other one to study Mathematics. That doesn't make very much sense as long as you are talking
about the basic liberal arts and sciences. It is not unusual for regional universities to have some sort
of specialized mission that differentiates them from all other regional universities. If you ask the
other regional universities none ofthem would be able to answer that question because they have not
had to think ofthemselves that way. The middle ground McKellips did not talk about is that if we
want to pull this off, I think it would have to be done in such a way that each maj or fIeld that wanted
to participate would have to sit down and think about which Capstone degree worked well in a
profession where their graduates ordinarily would go and then they would have to restructure.their
undergraduate program to add a bit ofpreparation for that capstone degree. Business has dealt with
this for years and they already have a set ofleveling courses that you take for no credit on the degree,
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just take them to get into the degree program. If Science, for example, was using the MBA as a
capstone professional degree for their people they might be able to work their curriculum in such a
way that these leveling courses were taken care of before they got into the 'MBA and became part
of their undergraduate program. That might necessitate dealing with minors in a different way or
taking a different look at general education or maybe a different look at the major in order to do that.
These kinds ofthings can happen. McKellips stated the handicap Cameron has going into this is that
we are not a residential university in any sense of the word, but it a goal to this President. She has
a goal to improve student housing on this campus. Student housing is nothing like it once was.
Students don't like to live in these tall buildings with the gang bathrooms. They want apartment
style residential housing. Discussion followed.
d. McKellips stated the Chancellor will be here on March 26 and 27. Soelle mentioned
they have the Academic Conference that week with two big speakers, which could be a good thing
if you want to show off some things we are doing. McKellips stated that someone suggested that
and it may be one of the things they do with the Chancellor's schedule.
3. Summer allocations. McKellips is not sure what the deans have been told about summer
allocations. The deans have individually indicated some things to him, but he has not sent the deans
a memo. McKellips read from a document, revised December 6, 2002. Business $115,234 and a
separate budget for the European ($91,250) and Marine Corps ($21,096) budget; Education and
Behavioral Sciences - $147,530; Liberal Arts - $263,076 and Science and Technology - $251,208.92.
Before McKellips sends out any memos he will get with Glen Pinkston. Discussion followed.
4. McKellips stated that he had mentioned to the President the meeting that he and Dawe
had about distance learning and how to manage with the MBA Program and indicated to her that
Dawe had also talked to Burgess about this. The President's initial reaction was positive. Dawe
stated they should have the proposal fInished by the end oftoday.
5. McKellips stated the President had asked him today about where we are on the courses
for interactive delivery to high schools. He would like to get just a list ofcourses by Friday, January
31. Discussion followed.
6. The next two items are recommendations from the Faculty Council to the President. The
President has asked McKellips to discuss them with the deans to see how they feel about them.
a. The first recommendation is how we determine Summa cum laude, Magna cum laude
and Cum laude. Right now it is a combination of class rank and GPA. The Faculty Council is
recommending the class rank part of that be eliminated, that it all be based on GPA. Lengthy
discussion followed. Question was asked ifclass rank were discontinued, who would determine the
GPA rankings for these honors. McKellips replied that someone at that point is going to have to
make a recommendation. Soelle suggested that we agree to this recommendation with the provision
that the Deans Council would like to be in on the discussion when the GPA rankings are determined
to make sure the standards are rigorous enough for the different levels. Then we could get rid ofthe
ranking part. McKellips replied that makes sense to him. McKellips stated that whoever
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recommended this probably made the assumption that the GPA is where it is now and the rest of it
would just go away. Discussion followed.
b. Another Faculty Council recommendation that involves the deans is that the Facility
Council is saying there is a lot of uneveness on the campus with regard to how the annual facility
evaluation program is administered. What they have requested is that we have workshop for the
deans and chairs and go through just the specifics of what is in the Faculty Handbook on how that
is supposed to be done. Their concern is that ifyou just call in the deans and chairs and say read that
and do it that way this year, that doesn't seem to get done. They have specifically asked for some
training and the President has assigned McKellips to do that. He will find one day later this spring
to conduct thatworkshop. McKellips stated that he has been involved in this kind oftraining before
but he is not up-to-date in his expertise with faculty evaluation and development. There are people
around the country that provide this kind oftraining all the time. McKellips stated that beyond the
one day session where he will talk about what our basic requirements are, he suggests that we have
a series of two or three days workshops run by one of the individuals who do this kind of training
all the time and who know the techniques' for evaluating teaching, scholarship, and service.
McKellips stated that this is a very complex business that requires a lot more training than he can
provide at this time. Discussion followed.
7. McKellips stated the SGA recommends a December graduation ceremony. They took
it over to the Faculty Council and the Faculty Council endorsed it. McKellips is now asking the
opinion of the Deans Council. The Faculty Council recommendation had a caveat and that is
providing a rotation system be developed for faculty attendance. The one that is being discussed
right now would go like this: everybody would still go to the Spring graduation but the December
graduation being a smaller event would not require all the faculty to attend. Ifa faculty member goes
this December they would not have to go next December, or something like that. Soelle asked if
there was any data on how many graduates there would be in a December graduation. McKellips
replied that he has not looked that up. Soelle asked if we are thinking in terms of the Cameron
Theatre because it would necessitate a limitation oftickets for family members for one thing. Also
if there is a December graduation you just by definition reduce the number of graduates in May so
do you in any way diminish the importance or the grandeur or the ceremony in May. McKellips
replied that he thinks you do but one ofthe arguments is that a lot ofpeople just don't go to the May
graduation because they are gone. You don't diminish it by the size of the group you graduate in
December but by a part ofthat size you do. Soelle stated that it sounds like a good idea on paper and
one which might be somewhat disappointing to execute. Buckley stated that it also brings up the
management question because most ofthis is handled by the School of Liberal Arts and Soelle has
May graduation and then Convocation in the Fall and ifyou put in another graduation you are adding
another activity. She will have to figure out how to handle all these without it being overwhelming.
McKellips replied that he raised that issue because that one particular week when a December
graduation would almost certainly have to be scheduled would be one of the worst that we would
have - faculty members trying to wind up their [mals and people trying to get away for Christmas.
This is not a foregone conclusion. McKellips was just charged with seeking opinions from the
Deans Council on this issue. After the discussion that followed, McKellips stated that this is not
an issue where there is a nice, neat solution.
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8. Another recommendation from the Faculty Council deals with class attendance policy
in the Faculty Handbook. McKellips read the proposed amendment.
"A faculty member is expected to meet his classes at all scheduled times and in scheduled
places, to be prompt in beginning and dismissing his classes, and to administer fmal exams
only at the appointed hours. In the event that a faculty member fmds it necessary to be
absent from a scheduled class meeting, he had a responsibility to make arrangements for the
class and to notify his department chair so that arrangements relating to his absence can be
made."
All old language remains the same - proposed addition in italics:
"A student is ultimately responsible for the content of each course in which he is officially
emolled. However, a faculty member must defme and quantify attendance standards,
procedures for verifying unavoidable absences, and methods of dealing with missed
assignments and examination in his course syllabus. Unavoidable absences as a result of
personal illness, the death of an immediate family member, military service, university
athletic and academic commitments, and court-imposed legal obligations are inevitabilities
of life and should be judiciously considered when developing course attendance policies."
a. Dawe stated that when this came up and all the faculty had the opportunity to vote on
those changes, he really had a difficult time with that very fIrst sentence. The rest of it seemed to
make sense. It stated that a student is ultimately responsible for the content of the course. That is
the wrong wording. Students are not ultimately responsible for the content ofa course. Dawe stated
he could not support it until the wording is changed. After the discussion that followed, McKellips
suggested wording be changed to "ultimately responsible for meeting the course objectives with
respect to the content ofthe course." Dawe asked that "with respect to the content" be taken out and
it be changed to "meeting the learning objectives of the course." All agreed.
b. Dawe also had a problem with the words, "a faculty member must defme and quantify
attendance standards....." He can see defIning the standards but not quantify the standards. Reply
was that standards need to be quantifIed so that the students know how many times they can be
absent. Burgess stated that the Regents regulations require us to make specific the attendance
standards by the end of the first week of class. Dawe agrees the attendance standards should be
communicated but quantify means you have to specify through some formula on whether or not you
are meeting the standards. The spirit is fIne but the choice of the words is not. Buckley stated that
really there are two parts to this. One is just that faculty must have an attendance policy that is
understandable and the second part is recommending, more than requiring, that the faculty members
pay attention to those inexcusable absences. Lengthy discussion followed.
9. McKellips distributed letter from OSRHE, January 16,2003, subject: "Teacher Work
Sample Training," for information.
10. Next item, McKellips reminded deans that catalog changes are due on February 17.
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COMMENTS
D. Goode - No comments.
Young - Stated they have been working on the serials cancellation project. The Librarians have a
list ready and she is going to put a message out to the faculty asking them to look at the list. The list
will also be available via the web page. Faculty members can look through the list and pick out any
journals they think need to be retained and then there will be a form they can fill in. Question was
asked about the increase in cost ofserials. Young replied the cost is escalating about 8 to 10 percent
a year. She also has a web site shown where the American Library Association has posted
information about the rising cost of serials. If faculty members want more information about
escalating costs of serials, etc., they can get more information from that site. Discussion followed.
Young thanked Goode for helping them with several things. One thing is that Goode has
ordered 66 new PC's for the Library using the Student Technology Fees fund and thanked Dr.
McKellips also. Also they have installed user authentication software which enables patrons to enter
Library data bases off-campus using their e-mail password so they don't have to use all the different
passwords for the different data bases. She will make a campus-wide announcement that this is
available.
Buckley - No comments.
Dawe - No comments.
Neale - No comments.
Soelle - No comments
Burgess - One ofthe things that has been done through au is they have a sexual harassment training
module on-line that every employee of the university is required to participate in. Employees can
do this from their own desk and their own PC and it reflects that they have completed that training
module. au has made this generic enough that it is going to be available for Cameron to use and
is being coordinated right now with our computer system here. Goode is waiting for the [mal test
to come through so that we can get that in place. At that point, we will be in that same situation of
requiring every employee at Cameron to take that training including Physical Facilities employees
and student workers. Burgess stated that it takes about an hour to complete the training. McKellips
stated that every employee will be required to complete the training.
Adjourned 12:28 p.m.
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