Faculty Council Meeting Minutes
April 7, 2008
1:00 p.m.
Memorial Room
Members attending: John Champagne (Chair), Greg Filbeck (Vice Chair), Dean Lewis
(Secretary), Jack Burke (Chancellor), Bob Light (Senior Associate Dean), David Christiansen
(Associate Dean), Zack Irwin (Senate Representative), Melanie Ford (Part-Time Faculty
Representative), Jennifer Trich Kremer (Academic Computing), Terry Blakney (Athletics), Ron
McCarty (Curricular Affairs), Ash Deshmukh (Faculty Affairs), Phil Iobst (Library Committee),
Charisse Nixon (Research), Brian Young (Scholarships & Awards), Joshua Shaw (Student Life),
Mary Connerty (Undergraduate Studies).
Student Representatives: none
I.
II.
The Faculty Council (FC) held its meeting on Monday, April 7, 2008 at 1:00 p.m. in the
Memorial Room. John Champagne called the meeting to order at 1:03 p.m.
Remarks
A. John Champagne, Chair
1.
The minutes from the March 19th meeting were approved.
2.
John Champagne thanked all who assisted in the Gender Conference that was held
the previous weekend.
B. Jack Burke, Chancellor
1.
A meeting will be held soon with SGA regarding the release of ISBN numbers for
student use in locating assigned texts beyond using the Bookstore. The contract
with Barnes and Noble is currently being reviewed to determine if there are any
issues with doing so.
2.
Faculty Affairs will likely be asked to review options related to HR-40 Annual
and Extended Review.
3.
Campus Facilities Improvements:
a) The board of trustees is visiting in July and funding has been approved for a
number of projects that will be done prior to their arrival, including new
carpet in the library and new sidewalks. This will also coincide with the start
of Behrend’s 60th Anniversary events.
b) An architect is being sought for renovations and lab upgrades (mostly for
chemistry) in Otto Behrend Science Building at a cost of almost $3 million.
c) Architectural students are meeting at the end of the month to show their
concepts for the proposed Admissions and Alumni House, which will have a
naming gift possibly announced this summer.
d) A campus exterior architectural plan has been created that highlights cosmetic
upgrades that can be made on campus to improve its curb appeal to
prospective students.
e) Kochel Building will have a cabling upgrade for network connections this
summer, as well as new classroom technology installed (same as in REDC).
f) Additional wireless routers will be installed around campus by the end of the
year in places where they are still lacking.
g) The Computer Center will also be renovated this summer.
h) Dobbins renovation is still progressing, with bids going out in late fall.
C. Associate Deans’ Remarks
1.
Robert Light, Senior Associate Dean: A group from NOAA recently visited
campus to review Behrend’s Penn State Sea Grant program and gave a positive
review, recommending that the status be moved up to the next level of funding to
$500,000/year.After three years, we can petition to move up to the final level to a
full Sea Grant College.
The Student Business Plan Competition was recently held, and Behrend students
took the top three places, with significant cash awards.
2.
David Christiansen, Associate Dean
a) Curricular Proposals: At the April 29th University Faculty Senate meeting
there will be a vote on the new Interdisciplinary Business and Engineering
major and revisions to the current Communications and Media Studies major
and the Biology major. The Curricular Affairs Committee recently finished
review of the revisions to the Math major, Math minor, and Stat minor, which
will be sent soon, but these probably won’t be reviewed by the Senate until
the fall. The Chemistry major revisions have been received and will be
starting the review process.
b) The Program Learning Objectives and Assessment Measures deadline is May
1st. If they are not completed by then, keep working on them, but they must
be posted on each School’s website by June 1st. Assistance can be requested
if you are having difficulty developing these. The University wants all these
as well as Recommended Academic Plans (RAPs) on-line by June 1st. It was
noted that alumni exit polls are helpful to see what students feel they learned.
The Alumni Office can help with this.
D. Zach Irwin, Senate Representative:
The next Faculty Senate meeting will be on April 29th. There are a number of items
on the agenda.
1.
Resolution to Endorse the Committee on Institutional Cooperation Statement on
Publishing Agreements, which allows authors fair use of their own writing.
2.
Revisions to Senate Policy 14-10, Limitations to Enrollment as a Non-degree
Student, which limits the number of credits that a non-degree student may take.
Differences between conditional and regular are addressed.
3.
Penn State’s Web presence and development of an institutional-wide Web support
module.
4.
Recommendations for Documenting and Disseminating Outreach and Engaged
Scholarship, which intend to foster a University culture that evidences support for
engaged scholarship, to redefine and broaden the nature of scholarly activities,
and to make it easier to document on faculty activity reports.
5.
Report on Administrative Structure of Penn State On-line, which addresses issues
on the use of course material developed by faculty and how faculty for on-line
courses are hired and promises future reports on how faculty can be more
involved. Dave Christiansen reported that a World Campus Task Force reported
to the On-line Steering Committee a series of recommendations and changes that
should be made.
6.
Implementing Disciplinary Communities: Progress Report from the Disciplinary
Communities Implementation Team, which reports on their definition, purpose,
and addresses communication issues.
7.
Faculty Tenure-Flow Rates: 2007-2008 Annual Report
8.
Report on the Impact of High-Risk Drinking Among Penn State Students, which
lists the number of citations reported for each campus.
E. Student Representative: No report
III.
Old Business
A. Reports of Standing Committees: None
B. Reports of Other Committees: None
C. Unfinished Business: Motions from previous meeting:
IV.
1.
Ad hoc committee on internationalization as per the College’s Diversity Plan:
Standards for international competencies exist, but a mechanism to distribute and
implement these competencies to the faculty doesn’t. A committee of interested
individuals to brainstorm ideas on how this can be done could possibly address
the issue better than charging the Undergraduate Studies Committee. A motion
was made by Charisse Nixon to form an ad hoc committee on international and
intercultural issues that will be formed over the summer with representatives from
each School. It is intended that they will be ready to begin working on this
immediately in the fall. Dave Christiansen has names of some faculty who have
expressed interest in this, and additional members will be sought at the upcoming
Faculty Organization meeting.
2.
The additional motions will be tabled until the fall semester and possibly charged
to the committees including: addressing inequities in the service requirements for
the annual review process; the role of public scholarship in the annual review
process; transparency and clarity in the annual review process; a charge to the
Faculty Affairs Committee to develop policy for privacy of student evaluations;
and a charge to the Undergraduate Studies Committee to support faculty who
wish to incorporate international components into their classes.
New Business
A. Reports of Standing Committees:
1.
Academic Computing: Jennifer Trich Kremer submitted a report on their meeting
on March 31:
a) Recommendations on lab usage is awaiting feedback from student perception.
b) The Computer Center will draft some procedures/guidelines for ordering and
deploying new faculty workstations.
c) Wireless access will be improved over the summer to cover dead zones on
campus.
d) Microsoft Vista deployment plan has been posted.
e) Agreed with Computer Center to eliminate support staff after 6 p.m. during
the week due to a lack of support calls.
f) A policy for computer lab reservations for class-based research is needed.
2.
Athletics: Brian Young submitted a report for Terry Blakney from their last
meeting:
a) Moving Early Class Times: No names were put forward at this time, but it
will be monitored in the future.
b) Club Sports: These are funded by Student Activities and do not fall under the
Athletic department. Membership is not necessarily policed or tracked
accurately, so informing faculty is difficult. It is possible that some faculty can
keep tabs on the sanctioned club sports and report to the Committee.
3.
Curricular Affairs: Ron McCarty reported that they have reviewed all the
curricular proposals that have been submitted including the new IBE major and
revisions to Biology and Math majors, some minors and courses. Next year’s
Committee should work on procedures for how the Committee’s process interacts
with the electronic process. All campuses seem to be in the same situation with
the new electronic procedure. They have not seen any news of an electronic
program approval process at this time.
4.
Faculty Affairs: Ash Deshmukh submitted a listing of content that they feel
should be included on the Faculty Web site tab. Other university faculty tabs were
researched as well as Behrend faculty. A few suggestions were given for
additional links including a Faculty Organization link. Additional suggestions can
be sent to the Committee.
5.
Library Committee: Phil Iobst reported that the FC Library Committee is now
dissolved.
6.
Research: Charisse Nixon reported that they have completed their charges for the
year. Their last was to review the nominations for the faculty research and service
awards. They are recommending that the current practice of each School Director
receiving nominations then submitting one nominee to the Committee become
official policy.
7.
Scholarships & Awards: Brian Young reported that the Committee interviewed
sixteen students for the award and selected winners. He said that during their
interviews, students had answered their question about how they would change
Behrend with: the weather, parking, the making available of hot food after 6:00
p.m., and providing housing for international students during breaks.
8.
Student Life: Joshua Shaw reported that student groups have had difficulty with
going on trips due to limitations in renting 15-passenger vans to drive in/through
New York State due to laws in place there. The campus had vans in the past, but
they were phased out and a deal was made with Enterprise to provide them. It
was noted that a special test is required to drive the vans, and that the School of
Science has a van that can be used. A report was also submitted detailing their
work on marketing for attracting retail businesses to the area, consolidating
summer evening classes to buildings close to food services, guidelines for
emergency situations, and easier and more access to color printing.
9.
Undergraduate Studies: No report.
B. Reports of Other Committees:
1.
EECEC: Dave Christiansen reported that the Education Equity and Campus
Environment Committee has continued their work:
a) Their first recommendation has been sent to the Chancellor’s Office to
implement a Penn State Behrend Administrative Fellows Program;
b) They are reviewing practices on how each School deals with inappropriate
and vulgar material on SRTEs and will determine a single policy that all
Schools will follow. This could involve some administrative changes to the
SRTE process;
c) They are working on a number of diversity initiatives that can be enacted on
campus, with recommendations coming soon.
C. Other New Business: None
V.
Adjournment
A. Announcements:
1.
Faculty Organization Meeting will be held April 21st and will discuss issues
dealing with General Education and strategic planning.
2.
An opera recital will be held in the Smith Chapel on April 21st at 7:30 p.m.
3.
Year-end reports from the Faculty Council Committees are due as soon as
possible.
4.
A meeting with the outgoing and incoming committee chairs will be held at some
point before the fall semester. A common time is being investigated.
5.
A speaker on the Millennial Generation may be invited to speak on campus.
B. Meeting was adjourned at 2:22 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Dean Lewis
FC Secretary