Minutes
Women’s Studies Department
October 18, 2012
Present: Ellie Schemenauer, JoEllen Burkholder, Donald Jellerson, Lauren Smith,
Geneva Moore, Crystal Aschenbrener.
Lauren welcomed Donald Jellerson and made introductions.
The minutes were approved by Ellie and JoEllen. There were no announcements.
Committee Reports:
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The International Education Committee has not met
WIC –The committee is working on Women in Leadership, and having
continuing conversations on work/life balance, as well as when and where
students are learning about sexual violence – students report confusion on this
issue.
Assessment – The committee is meeting and having conversations about
eportfolio, etc.
Curriculum – Ellie went over last meeting’s discussion on writing intensive
courses and will be reporting on that next meeting.
Old Business
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Course rotation – tabled
Gender & Ethnic Studies online minor – Lauren spoke to Greg Cook, and he said
we should go through the process to explain why the program has not gone
forward. Regarding R&E Cultures – we have not been in position of having a
say in replacement of faculty members who were affiliated faculty members. We
have to be flexible about how we structure curriculum. Ellie asked about having
an online course that would serve that program (perhaps Women and Men in
Cross Cultural Perspective). There is money available for us to put any course
online. Online courses are easier to offer in winterim and summer, but we are
encouraged to offer mostly big enrollment courses/intro courses, not speciality
courses at those times. We should keep our eyes open for potential people to
teach courses online.
New Business
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How to allocate foundation funds - we can create community with funds, and pay
for student travel. This year we should begin to find places to bring students, and
ways to connect with students earlier in their careers. Crystal said that Milwaukee
would have domestic violence shelters and hospital rape centers. The Women’s
Studies Consortium would be good for upper level students. We could also
consider LGBT conferences. We can spend $300-350 a year. In the past we have
sent students to the leadership conference at Mount Mary, but it had some
drawbacks. In the spring we will send an email to find students for the
conference; we could recruit students that way. They could also be presenters.
Assessment materials are done, and we need to talk about what to do in the future.
Students say they find out about Women’s Studies late in their college careers.
Some courses receive mixed reactions. Could Women in American Culture (Jo
Ellen) be a requirement for the major/minor. There was discussion on requiring a
course that focuses on images of women in media. This would require a major
change. Donald’s course will be offered every fall and will become a 200 level
course. Lauren said the minor needs to remain flexible, so students can easily
pick it up and follow through. We can also use personalization. Joe Ellen liked
the idea of requiring a course that requires students to look at media (visual
literature). It would help us match our goals to leap goals. Lauren will send
assessment materials.
Collaboration with Career and Leadership Development on inviting Sandra
Steingraber to campus. We should make collaborative models a goal.
Scheduling with other departments – we have been flexible, but need to assert our
own needs with other departments. We may bring this up at a chairs council
meeting. The course offerings tend to heavy in the fall and light in the spring.
We should look at history courses, and see if we can flip those courses, and Jo
Ellen’s courses.
Move to Laurentide – will be able to connect with more departments.
Goals
o Send students to the consortium as a regular practice. Create more media
literacy. Get younger students –possibly by attending Career
Days/Premier Days. Crystal said that Pam Tanner has speakers for
freshmen advisees - we might talk to the advisees. Janae is our advisor at
the advisement center and we will contact her during advising season.
Ellie suggested a push to get students into INTRO and 200 level classes.
o Establishing the Not for Profit Management (Crystal) Leadership
curriculum. The Not for Profit Leadership minor would be one solution
for students who would like a practical path. It’s a good match for
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sociology and social work students. A collaborative system minor of that
kind would mitigate the problem of having to pay for new courses. It
would make an easier argument for more resources, because it would
generally just be one course. Crystal said there are just two specific
classes for the minor, and that the rest were offered through other
departments.
Policy Issues
o The department needs to do program array assessment – develop programs
to meet market needs and student demand. Will also look for places to
cut. We must make sure we look like a strong and vital department and
point out other things that aren’t related to the number of majors and
minors that we have. It was pointed out that the Social Work department
was so large that it was difficult for them to offer the human services
minor. It was suggested that we should put more women’s studies courses
in the Human foundations curriculum. Possibility: course on women and
gerontology. We should encourage the Social work and Sociology
department advisees to suggest our program as a minor.
o We need to remember to tell students they must apply for graduation.
o Tenured faculty are supposed to be having face to face meetings every
year. For advancement to full professor, there has to be peer review.
o When scheduling classes, the department must schedule classes in the
approved timeslots. We could teach MWF classes as hybrids. Lauren
must approve hybrid/online courses. Crystal talked about hybrid classes
and achieving the goal of keeping people on campus. The guidelines are
that faculty should be on campus four days per week; three days a week
can be approved by Chair, and two days a week must be approved by the
Dean.
We will get our guidelines approved for the standards for tenure and promotion.
Lauren is looking for a faculty member to be chair in the future. Leadership
should shift and we should honor that principle.
Donald asked about the possibility of the change in title for the department. The
faculty discussed what would appeal to more students. Women and Gender
Studies is the most common name for programs like ours. This will be placed on
the agenda for the next meeting.
Respectfully submitted,
Kathy Fellows