MINUTES
Meeting of the Economics Department
Monday, August 31th, 2015, called to order at 1:00 PM
Present: Ahmad (Chair), Barati, Das, Ersal, Fariditavana, Heinrich, Karim, Kashian,
Lovett, Marks, McGregory, Tao, Teferra, Ullman, Winden, and Xue.
Absent: Bashaw, Guo, Welsch.
Sabbatical: Glosser, Schweigert.
1. Approval of May 4th, 2015 Minutes. Heinrich moves, Kashian seconds. Motion passed
unanimously.
2. Introductions
a. Ahmad Karim has been appointed to be the new Associate Dean of CoBE. Prior to
coming to UW-W, Dr. Karim had served at Indiana University – Purdue University, Fort
Wayne.
b. The Department of Economics hired three new lecturers this year. Darin Ullman is a
full time lecturer. Hadiseh Fariditavana and Mehdi Barati are part time lecturers. Ullman,
Fariditavana and Barati are currently PhD students from UW-Milwaukee.
Econ department members introduced themselves to Karim and other new faculty
members.
3. Announcements
(1) Bashaw recently underwent back surgery. The department is looking for a substitute
instructor for the first two weeks for him.
(2) Purple Books
Chair Ahmad reminded faculty members of the upcoming deadlines for purple book
submissions. Das and Winden are up for Mid-tenure review this year. Guo and Xue are
up for review. The deadline for submitting material is Friday, 9/11/2015.
For faculty members up for consultation this year, the deadline for submitting material is
Friday, 10/2/2015.
During the 10/5/2015 department meeting, a personnel review will be conducted.
Faculty members submitting their purple book are encouraged to talk with Kashian, who
serves on the CoBE Promotion and Tenure Committee, before submitting their purple
books.
(3) A reminder was issued regarding the submission of sabbatical proposals.
(4) Department Self-study
The submission deadline for submitting to the dean is 10/1/2015. Chair Ahmad is
planning on circulating a draft before the next department meeting on 9/14/2015. Ahmad
thanked all the faculty members for their efforts over the summer.
4. Assessment
Heinrich reported a change in terms of the Assurance of Learning Outcomes that is
reported to the college for the BBA. Econ 202 will still be reported to the college,
whereas 245 is no longer been reported to the college. However, the department may still
keep track of the 245 assessment data in the future years.
Heinrich pointed out that a series of instruments are available on the T-Drive “Econ Docs
- Assessment - Current AOL Instruments”. This includes the rubrics for the graduate
students and undergraduate students, as well as the updated assessment questions for 202
and 245.
Heinrich emphasized that when faculty members report assessment data, the format is to
report the data by student (i.e. count the number of students that are very good, good
enough, etc.) instead of by question.
Finally, Heinrich announced that CoBE is doing assessment in the Fall, and no longer in
the Spring.
Chair Ahmad requested all the instructors of 202 or 245 in Spring 2015 to resend the
assessment data to Heinrich, who represents the assessment committee (Heinrich,
Winden, and Tao).
b. Senior Outcome and Assessment Survey (SOAS) Results
Chair Ahmad advised faculty members to read through the questions and make notes if
the questions are relevant to the Econ major. Currently the questions marked with an X
are the ones considered to be relevant.
c. Advising
Chair Ahmad pointed out that advising is something faculty members should potentially
think more about. In particular, relevant questions worth considering are: Do we feel we
are doing enough? Is there any way we can do better? Should we (or how to) ensure that
students come to faculty and talk about career advice? Should faculty members take a
more active role on advising in general?
Faculty members exchanged thoughts on this topic. Ahmad proposed to table the
discussion and to continue it at a future department meeting.
d. MS Applied Economics Pre/Post Assessment Results
MS students were assessed on the 1st day of the program and again on the last day of the
program. Results were presented tabularly and suggested that the statistical knowledge of
MS students improved dramatically.
5. Faculty Reflection Exercise
a. Chair Ahmad presented faculty members with the results from the faculty reflection
exercises.
b. Chair Ahmad encouraged faculty members to discuss their insights as to which
teaching methods have worked well, what are the students doing well with, and what are
the student not doing well with. Faculty members exchanged thoughts on this topic.
6. Action Plan
a. Chair Ahmad suggested the department think more about advising issues more in the
upcoming year.
b. Several faculty members including Ahmad, Ersal, Winden, and McGregory suggested
that the department may encourage faculty members to help improve students writing
skills through a short essay assignment and encouraging writing center visits.
7. On a Kashian and Winden motion, the meeting was adjourned at 3:25pm.
Respectfully submitted,
Yuhan Xue (Cathy)
Secretary Pro Tem