Thomas W. and Robin W. Edwards
College of Humanities and Fine Arts
Spring 2013 General Faculty Meeting
January 10, 2013
Call to Order
Dr. Dan Ennis called the meeting to order at 9:05 a.m.
Approval of Minutes
A motion was made by Pam Martin to accept the minutes of the August 16, 2012 COHFA Fall Faculty
meeting and seconded by Armon Means. Motion passed.
John Beard
Dr. Beard updated the faculty on the work of the University Assessment Committee, which is composed
of 16 members. The Committee is made up of the college assessment coordinators (Ellen Arnold is
COHFA’s representative), five Associate Deans (Carol Osborne is COHFA’s representative), as well as
individuals from other areas of the University. The Committee was divided up into four groups with
approximately 50 reports to be reviewed. A rubric was developed and reports were scored individually
and then as a group. A consensus by the group was reached for each area of the report. Once the
evaluation step was completed, each group was asked to select the top two reports. Eight (8) eight
finalists will be recognized at the General Faculty meeting and a monetary award presented to the top
three. In COHFA the Art and History reports ranked in the list of finalists. Dr. Beard thanked all faculty
and chairs for their work on the assessment reports.
Dean’s Updates
Department of Communication, Languages, and Cultures – Dan announced the creation of a new
department as a result of the combining of the Communication and Journalism Department and the
World Languages and Cultures Department. The Communication, Languages, and Cultures Department
will be chaired by Jim Everett. The Dean complimented Matthieu Chan Tsin for all of his work as chair of
the WLAC Program and thanked him for his commitment and dedication to his colleagues and the
college. Dr. Chan Tsin will serve as Associate Chair of the newly created department.
Budget Cuts - The Dean announced the decision of the university to suspend the Spanish major due to
budgetary reasons. The Provost will explain the details surrounding the university’s $1M budget cuts.
The two areas that COHFA has been asked to sacrifice is the suspension of the Spanish major and the
restructuring of the Centers and how they will be funded in the future. The Dean will charge the new
department to build a new major that will be supported by the University.
Merit Committee – Sara Sanders delivered a brief report on the work of the COHFA Merit Committee.
Paul Olson (co-chair) and Sara had the opportunity to meet with colleagues from all departments to talk
about how to adjust the merit framework to be more effective. They have received a variety of
responses and input and are moving forward. The Committee plans to have something to present in the
near future on what COHFA deems meritorious and how merit should be distributed. Sara asked that
faculty continue to respond to requests for feedback from the committee.
Penny Hall and Edwards Building – The move to Penny Hall has gone fairly smoothly. There are a few
issues with the phone service and internet connections. The Dean requested that faculty inform their
chair/admin of any issues they are experiencing in Penny Hall and pass them onto the Dean’s Office.
The furniture in the classrooms has been set-up according to how the room should default. Faculty are
expected to rearrange their classroom(s) to fit their teaching style; however, faculty are requested to
reset the classroom(s) to what the default looks like when it is over. The moves within Edwards
Building have been finalized with input from each department chair. If offices are vacant as the result of
the Penny Hall relocations, the process of moving into those offices can begin.
Office Hours – Dan reiterated that office hours be updated online, especially in light of the moves, to
post them on office doors, and to adhere to them. Signage and name plates are forthcoming.
Student Feedback/Evaluations - Dan informed the faculty that he has been having very productive and
fruitful conversations with the COHFA faculty senators once a month. Of special interest has been the
topic of student feedback/student evaluation/course evaluations. It has been concluded that this
semester two forms will be distributed. The standard, numeric forms will be distributed, and some
sections of classes will also receive a second form, which is what is currently being used by the College
of Science. COHFA will look at this as a pilot and review the results at the end of the year to see if the
feedback is beneficial and move forward with any necessary changes. The Dean expressed the need to
adopt a form that will better represent the questions we want to ask the students. The feedback we
obtain from the current form is hard to apply as we look to improve our teaching in the future.
Absence Reporting – Dan explained around the third week of the semester, the Federal Government
requires the University to report non-attendees, that is, students who never reported to class. There is
a problem with the student who does not attend CCU, but maintains a class schedule. Often times a
faculty member on that schedule reports that a student never reported to class, and another faculty
member reports the student did report to class. This will cause problems for the student with the
Federal Government because it appears they are fraudulently collecting financial aid. Beginning this
year, emails will be sent alerting faculty when the attendance reporting on a student is not consistent.
Faculty are asked to be diligent in keeping attendance records and reporting accurately.
Threat Assessment – The Dean explained that we are now faced with questions, such as how do we
identify potential threats and what can we do about them. Training sessions will begin this semester
for the CCU community.
Associate Deans Updates
Steven Bleicher

Classes were moved from EHFA 109/110 to Penny Hall. Faculty and students will receive an
email reminder to check their schedules for new room assignments in Penny Hall.

Once classes begin, there will be a two-week moratorium on moving classes.

A second request will be sent to the faculty to submit a QEP proposal with a due date of
February 4. The QEP will review/rate all the proposals collected and forward them to the
Dean for his final input. Aneilya Barnes and Steven welcome meeting with any faculty
member with questions or an idea for a proposal.
Carol Osborne

The Student Learning Committee (formerly the Student Assessment Committee) will be
hosting a ConFab in February. Faculty are encouraged to attend and share their ideas for
improving student learning.

Carol thanked the First-Year Experience Committee for their hard work and creative ideas
for revamping the class. We have eight instructors who will be teaching the class in the fall.
It is now going to be a COHFA First-Year Experience course and will be completely different
and, hopefully, much more beneficial for our students.

Carol acknowledged the committee that worked together in the development of the Master
of Arts in Liberal Studies. Nineteen new classes have been proposed and will be submitted
along with the 20-page proposal to the COHFA Graduate Committee for review and
feedback before it is submitted to the University Graduate Council. The Fall 2014 Semester
is the goal for the MALS to be in place.
Announcements

Dan reminded the faculty that the Psychology/Sociology classes in Penny Hall are on the
East Campus schedule. The Humanities classes are on the traditional Main Campus
schedule. This is only in place for the spring semester.

Deb Breede announced that a morale building forum is being planned in February and
several of the items on the agenda at this meeting will be topics in the forum. Pam Martin
announced the conference will be entitled Morale and a list of six topics have been selected.
The list includes the salary and compensation issue, security on campus, teaching/learning,
and the continuation of the conversation concerning our contingent faculty. Faculty
participation is strongly encouraged.

Dan informed the faculty that they can join AAUP with payroll deduction. AAUP has
restructured and has separated their official union from their faculty advocacy and thinktank operation. This will allow faculty to be a member of AAUP, but not a teaching member.

Pam Martin is the College representative for technology, and explained the move to Moodle
will be studied this semester. Moodle is free and BlackBoard is not. There is training
offered on Moodle and it is recommended that faculty participate. Faculty should be aware
that they will lose all their files in BlackBoard the moment CCU cuts-off affiliation. Anything
created on BlackBoard that is reloaded each semester will be gone and off the network.
This includes student grade books. Pam suggested that faculty put the information on a
personal back-up drive so it is not lost. Also, the evaluation form has been changed for
online courses. The next step will be for the college evaluation form to be sensitive to the
online learning environment.

The issue of absence reporting was discussed. At the end of the semester, the system asks
for the number of absences, which is not calculated in the absence reporting program nor
does it go into the grade books. Faculty have to actually export the information by creating
an Excel file, do the math, and re-enter the numbers. Dan explained this is due to the failure
of BlackBoard to talk to Datatel. He reiterated that if faculty are storing attendance data
through BlackBoard, they have to move to the attendance reporting module in Datatel and
manually enter absences. This was the biggest reason why some faculty got emails at the
end of the fall semester that indicated they did not report their absences.
Submitted by: Judy Davis