Eastern Michigan University College of Arts and Sciences College Advisory Council Minutes Thursday, September 26, 2013 Scheduled Meeting Time: 3:30-­‐5:00pm Pray-­‐Harrold, Room 219 Present: Higgins (WGST; Chair), Johnson (CHEM), Vosteen (WL), Laporte (CAS AD), Dove (PSYC), Venner (CAS Dean), Shen (P&A), Dionne (ENGL), Saunoris (ECON), Egge (H&P), Hammill (CMTA), Haynes (COSC), Stevens (ART), Kovacs (G&G), Sambrook (Science DH), Ensor (SAC), Angell (BIO), Plagens (PLSC) Absent: Curran (MATH), Ramsey (DH-­‐Arts), Merrill (M&D), Peters (AAS), Mehuron (CAS AS) Visitors: Wade Tornquist, CoT Dean’s Office; Nancy Harbour, CoT Paralegal Program Coordinator I. Call to order by CAC Chair, Peter Higgins, at 3:32 pm II. Election One additional member of the Procedures Committee is needed. Geoff Hammill was going to serve on this committee, but had to resign. This person will need to help CAC revise the bylaws this year. Amy Johnson is already on the committee by default because she is Vice Chair of CAC. Susan Haynes volunteered her time to serve on this committee. III. Approval of Minutes Full CAC Meeting of 4/18/13 Full CAC Meeting of 9/5/13 Both sets of minutes were unanimously approved (14-­‐0-­‐0) IV. Visitor Nancy Harbour from the Paralegal Studies Program visited to explain changes to LEGL 211. The Arts subcommittee had some concerns about this course. As a result, Nancy volunteered to change the title and some of the language in the course description to reflect that the concerns from the Arts subcommittee were heard. The political science department representative let Nancy know that the political science department is now ok with this course. As a result, Nancy withdrew her suggested changes to the course revision proposal, but Peter Higgins stated that the concerns went beyond just the political science department. Nancy suggested that those who are still concerned follow the lead of the political scientists who have withdrawn their concerns. Discussion about what to do with this course will be held as the Arts subcommittee report is discussed later in this meeting. V. VI. Reports A. Arts Report—Several courses under both old and new business were passed with minor comments. B. Sciences Report—Most course revisions, course proposals, and program revisions were passed with minor comments. DTC 360 was tabled because IESS minor-­‐related faculty were not consulted about this course. Chair Higgins indicated that the Arts committee will want to see this course also because Philosophy may have concerns about course overlap. Before the Arts minutes could be passed, the full CAC committee discussed the above presentation from Nancy Harbour. We discussed whether the relevant portions of the Arts report needed to be separated before we passed them. Peter Higgins brought up the concern that the scope of the course is very broad and others noted that student confusion may result. Political science feels that the language is the only thing changing, and the course content is not changing; therefore, it is not an issue for them any longer. There was a motion made to separate LEGL 211 from the rest of the Arts report so that the rest of the report could be approved. This motion passed unanimously (14-­‐0-­‐0). There was a motion to send LEGL 211 back to the arts committee, and this motion passed (11-­‐0-­‐3). There was then a motion to pass the rest of the Arts report with one amendment to the vote count for Chair (13-­‐0-­‐1). There was then a motion to pass the Science report as provided; motion passed (14-­‐0-­‐0). Old Business: A. Election of one representative to EPEO Advisory Council. The EPEO Advisory Council meets approximately 6 times per year on Mondays, 3:30-­‐5. Nominees included: Bonnie Wylo (P&A) Deanna Mihaly (WL) Mike Bradley (G&G) Chair Higgins noted that it might be nice to have a Science Representative because we have an Arts representative already. Bonnie Wylo was chosen as the winner of this election. B. Nominations for CAS Assessment Committee (1 Faculty Member Needed) There were no nominations, so we will need to revisit this issue at the next CAC meeting. C. Resolution on tabling within CAC subcommittees In response to the Provost’s Office having approved last Winter the Public Health major without CAS CAC input, Angell, Ensor, and Higgins drafted the following resolution. “To facilitate a timely response for programmatic input, it is the consensus of the College Advisory Council that its Arts and Sciences subcommittees should not table the same submitted proposal in consecutive meetings, except in exceptional circumstances; proposals tabled at one subcommittee meeting should be "Approved" or "Not Approved" (if from within the College of Arts and Sciences) or "Passed" or "Not Passed" (if from another College) at the subsequent meeting of that subcommittee, unless unusual circumstances warrant a second tabling. Failure on the part of the submitting program to address the subcommittee concerns in virtue of which a proposal has been tabled once should not normally be understood as grounds for a second tabling.” This resolution was discussed and a motion was made to pass the resolution as worded. Motion passed unanimously (14-­‐0-­‐0). VII. New Business: A. CAS Grade Grievance Committee The Provost’s office now requires that CAC approve departmental nominees for the CAS grade grievance committee by October 15, 2013. Chair Higgins showed the nominees that have been received by either him or Colleen Gavin to date. Amy Johnson asked why we are being asked to do this, and Chair Higgins suggested that, as an input body, CAC is now being asked to provide input on this. Several names that were originally not on the list were added so that CAC could approve these representatives. However, this still did not complete the list. AD Laporte suggested that we vote upon this electronically after the list is more complete. It was decided that we would, in fact, take this action electronically. B. CAC Bylaws The CAC bylaws have not been updated since 2005 and several pieces of them are not consistent with the input document. Chair Higgins wanted to alert CAC that these are being revised this term. After the revisions are drafted, we will be asked to vote on these revisions. VIII. Dean’s remarks: A. Applying the FYES/FTEL Budget Model to Summer (AD Laporte) AD Laporte presented data on why we may want to consider applying this budget model to summer. Reasons included: 1) widespread cancellations being disruptive to students, 2) financial aid accessibility (e.g., Pell grants) has changed, 3) departments are handling summer courses in variable ways so that is resulting in some inequities. CAS is in danger of overspending their summer budget this year if some changes are not made. As a result, the Dean’s office is proposing applying the FYES/FTEL model to summer; before it was only applied to Fall and Winter terms. People are familiar with this model already, and this model is scalable. This also allows departmental autonomy, which allows the Dean’s office to step out of this process. Departments were not given targets last year, but Laporte showed data for how close departments were to these targets last year. Several departments missed their targets quite drastically. This summer, there will be calculations made in order to target how many courses departments can offer. This will reduce widespread cancellations. Discussion of this proposal ensued, and AD Laporte answered questions. Input is needed on this proposal by the 10/24/13 meeting. B. Proposal to reorganize the College of Technology by incorporating the Department of Computer Science Dean Venner told the CAC that Dean Tornquist (CoT) has proposed that Computer Science be incorporated into the CoT. He expressed that there is a timeline for input from various bodies and Chair Higgins will lead us through what is needed from us. Many bodies will have a say in this, including the Department itself, CAC, Faculty Senate, the Dean’s office, and the Provost, who ultimately makes the decision. Dean Venner allowed us to ask questions of him, which he answered. He indicated that he has a stance on this that he is not going to share at this time because he does not want to influence faculty input. IX. X. Chair’s remarks Chair Higgins brought up the timeline for CAC’s input on the matter that Dean Venner brought to our attention regarding the possible realignment of Computer Science into the College of Technology. CAC will be focusing upon this in the November 14, 2013 meeting. Chair Higgins would like us to take this to our departments as soon as possible so that departments have their input ready to go as soon as possible. More specifically, departments should eventually send something to Chair Higgins about how this realignment would affect their own departments, but we cannot discuss this in our departments until Computer Science’s deadline for input (October 25, 2013). There will then be an impact statement regarding how this change would influence the CAS itself. Chair Higgins believes we should compile an ad hoc committee that will draft CAC input statement following the November 14, 2013, CAC meeting. The Chair will serve on this committee, but is looking for an additional two members from CAC to serve as well. Chair Higgins is asking for us to call a special CAC meeting on November 21, 2013, to address this issue and help prepare the CAC’s response statement. A motion was made to approve the inclusion of this special meeting on November 21, 2013. Motion passed (13-­‐0-­‐1). Faculty remarks Susan Haynes preliminarily presented Computer Science’s perspective on what has happened regarding the proposal to move Computer Science to the College of Technology so far, cautioning that her remarks today are not, and should not be taken as, COSC’s input. They do not believe that they were involved in a discussion at all before the proposal was provided in mid-­‐
September. She presented the timeline that has transpired to date. She noted that they are collecting data within the department regarding this issue. They are concerned about how a college can unilaterally make a grab for another college’s departments. The department is developing their input but they feel that what has happened is very non-­‐collegial to this point. XI.
Adjournment: Meeting was adjourned at 5:07 pm. Respectfully submitted, Natalie Dove (CAC Secretary 2013-­‐2014)