Faculty Meeting Minutes
April 23, 2010
Present: Baxter, Biersack, Frost, Kennett, Lee, McClure, Moreno, Morgen, Moss, O’Neil, Silverman,
Snodgrass, Stephen, Sugiyama, White. AAGs representative: Klaree Boose
Condon 302 Biological Lab: White reported that the remodel is being fully funded by Linton’s office; they
will remove asbestos and the middle wall to make a wet lab. The project is due to start this summer.
Karim will move to Frost’s lab, his lab will move to 369.
Dutton has misplaced the March 12 meeting minutes. If she can’t find them, she will reconstruct them
with Silverman.
The April 2 minutes were amended, adding Stephen Wooten and Jon Erlandson as present.
Approval of amended minutes: 10 Yes, 0 No, 3 Abstain.
New Business
1. Funding Update: Silverman reported that Anthropology received $45,000 as new supplemental
funds, with a grand total of $115,000 supplemental funds. Stephen suggested comparing our
department’s allocations with other departments. The faculty discussed the new GTF rules: GTFs cannot
be below .4 FTE, but this can be averaged over 3 terms, leaving some flexibility. Morgen would like to
have it in writing from the GTFF that this is acceptable so no grievances can be filed. White
recommended that everybody look at their classes to see how they can accommodate as many GTFs as
possible.
2. Salary adjustment update: Silverman reported that equity adjustments are postponed until Fall.
3. GTF Admission Report: White reported that 10 offers were made but only 4 accepted. By going to
alternates, we still may get 7 incoming students: 1 promising scholar, 5 female, 2 males. The faculty
reiterated the need to reconsider the policy on 1st year funding of GTFs. She said we need more care in
scheduling big classes with reference to projections for GTFs. For example, next year, there is a
discrepancy: Fall- 23 Winter-21 Spring- 12. Faculty need to increase their class sizes. We need to move
more classes to 75 students to get readers. White suggested we create super GTFs or other GRF models.
Kennett suggested we have a GRF or super GTF position for each sub-division.
Morgen wanted everyone to be aware of how well our Anthropology students have been doing. At the
CAS awards ceremony Anthropology swept the top positions. She recommends we inform the students
of how proud we are of their recent achievements. Silverman said she will write up something and it
will be added to the website.
4. Graduate student Facebook issue: White reported that approximately 7 GTFs had posted excerpts of
poor writing from undergraduate exams on Facebook. She spoke with some of the grad students and
issued a statement saying that this activity is unprofessional, possibly illegal, and would be taken very
seriously. Klaree Boose, representing AAGs, stated there had been a graduate student meeting on the
topic, which, unfortunately, only 9 people attended. She read a formal statement from this AAGs
meeting saying that that even though facebooking may be a gray area, this practice is unacceptable to
AAGs.
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Silverman said the focus should be on what we do now. We need to develop a formal policy on digital
communication (including email) that applies to both graduate students and faculty. This is an
educational moment and can be used to expand our awareness. The digital communication policy
needs to be added to the handbook as well as addressed in the proseminar and the graduate pedagogy
class. Furthermore, the faculty as a whole needs to make clear to the graduate students that there will
be no repercussions for past behavior, and that the regular criteria for GTFs are still in effect. Silverman
will write an email to this effect.
5. Biological anthropology position (search request due May 5): Frost circulated a preliminary
proposal/vision statement. The biological anthropologists suggest hiring someone broadly trained who
does not duplicate current interests. Silverman reviewed the five programmatic requirements that had
to be addressed in proposal, and she pointed out we can only apply for one search this year. She and
Dutton will work on the budget required for permission to search.
The faculty voted (13 Yes/0 abstain/ 0 no) to support the position in biological anthropology.
6. Community development committee: The committee has been formed: Baxter, Snodgrass, and Scher;
it could still use an archaeologist. Baxter explained their plan to meet with every grad student
individually to get an idea of their experiences and what could be improved. This will hopefully be
completed this term, and then information will be assembled and analyzed. Baxter and Silverman
proposed that Condon 313 serve as a social center for the whole department (graduate students, staff,
and faculty); will coffee available noon-2 PM. They highly encouraged everyone to come and bring work
or socialize.
7. Mid term Contract Renewals: The tenured faculty discussed Lee’s and McClure’s cases.