Humanities and Sciences Senate Meeting Minutes
9 September 2011
Present:
Kim Baker, John Barr, Hugh Egan, Claire Gleitman, Rebecca Lesses, Patrick Meister,
Brendan Murday, Carla Stetson, Matt Sullivan, Steve TenEyck, Michael Trotti, David
Turkon, Aaron Weinberg.
Absent:
Peter Melcher
Guests:
Leslie Lewis.
Meeting called to order at 4:03 pm.
1.
MOTION to approve Minutes from 6 May 2011.
Motion passes, 12-0-0.
2.
Reports:
A.
Executive Committee report
(i)
Executive Committee crafted the agenda. What is on the agenda is self-evident;
what isn’t on the agenda:
(a) merit (tabled on the expectation that the new Provost will have her own
thoughts about this;
(b) the template (Dean Lewis is gathering feedback from chairs about what
would be most useful);
(c) Senate bylaws (Michael Trotti reports that progress is being made on getting
the revised bylaws officially recognized.
3.
B.
Faculty Council report
(i)
There is space for a representative from Senate among the H&S seats.
(ii)
Council will be forming new committees that will create 25-31 new seats for IC
faculty to fill.
C.
Senate President report
(i)
Senators will gather in small groups before the next Senate meeting to discuss
what issues Senate might want to take up this academic year.
(ii)
Copies of Senate minutes from prior years are being scanned and posted online.
(iii)
Elections are in progress.
(iv)
An announcement will be forthcoming from the Dean’s office offering faculty
the opportunity to contribute aid to faculty Elizabeth Bergman’s family, who lost
their house in the recent flood.
New Business
A.
Elections
(i)
David Turkon is voted the Senate representative to Faculty Council for Fall 2011,
by a vote of 13-0-0.
(ii)
Carla Stetson is voted Senate parliamentarian for 2011-12, by a vote of 13-0-0.
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B.
Representation on the Academic Standing Committee.
As it stands, there is no process for determining membership on the Academic Standing
Committee. Creating a process would be beneficial.
MOTION to create a Senate sub-committee of two people to regularize the elections
process of the Academic Standing Committee.
Motion passes, 13-0-0.
Kim Baker and Rebecca Lesses will serve on this sub-committee.
C.
H&S General Education Committee (formed by Curriculum Committee)
This committee will be needed to assess the current general education model, and to
make recommendations about the H&S “add-ons” to the forthcoming 20/20
liberal education plan. It will report to Curriculum Committee.
Curriculum Committee would like H&S Senate to endorse the formation of this
committee for this purpose.
MOTION to endorse the formation of the General Education Committee.
Motion passes, 13-0-0.
Elections for this committee will not be run until the formation of the committee has been
formally announced.
D.
Committee to evaluate H&S Scholarship Statements
Some questions to consider in forming this committee:
(i) How many members should constitute the Committee?
- Four; one from each of the areas the comprise H&S.
(ii) Should membership be drawn entirely from H&S Senate?
- Yes.
(iii) Should the charge of the committee be limited to reviewing Scholarship Statements,
or expanded to cover departmental policy reviews in general?
- It should be limited; a separate proposal will be made for policy reviews not
concerning Scholarship statements.
(iv) How should the committee select the standards by which to conduct evaluations?
- Talk to recently tenured faculty to find out whether there are problems with the
current formulations of scholarship statements; contrast different departmental
statements to see if some departments are overlooking any issues that would be
worth explicitly addressing.
MOTION to create an ad-hoc subcommittee of 4 tenured Senate members, one from each
area, to review departmental scholarship statements only, to bring back
recommendations to Senate for a vote to approve these statements early in the
Spring semester, with a target of conducting that vote at the first Senate meeting
in Spring 2012.
Motion passes, 12-0-0.
Patrick Meister, Steve TenEyck, Michael Trotti, and Aaron Weinberg will serve on this
subcommittee.
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MOTION that the Senate Executive Committee will perform a preliminary review of
departmental bylaws changes concerning personnel issues other than scholarship
statements, to summarize their findings for Senate, departments, and the Dean, to
offer provisional review pending formal approval.
Motion passes, 12-0-0.
4.
E.
Possible Senate response to the draft T&P proposal from the Faculty Evaluation
Committee
MOTION to table discussion of this in light of unsettled questions about how the FEC is
collecting feedback on their proposal; Michael Trotti will ask the FEC on behalf
of Senate how representative bodies (particularly those that review personnel
policies, such as Senate) will be involved in their process of gathering feedback.
Motion passes, 11-0-1.
F.
Questions about resource problems with the new liberal education curriculum
Will seven new faculty lines suffice to cover the staffing needs that will be created by the
new liberal education curriculum?
Michael Trotti should ask the Provost how the number ‘seven’ was determined.
Senate will need to determine how best to express faculty concerns if H&S faculty think
that seven lines will not suffice.
MOTION to adjourn meeting, 6:03 pm.
Motion passes, 12-0-0.
Submitted by Brendan Murday.
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