Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Attendance: J. Evans (chair), L. Millner (v.chair), Paul LaFollette, (CST), D. Maleson (Law), I. Shapiro (STHM), A. Stark (Dent), K. Turner (SCT) and M. Chisholm (coord)
1. Call to Order:
The meeting was called to order at 1:05.
2. Guest:
Dick Englert, Deputy Provost, on Periodic Program Review. He thanked the FSSC for undertaking this feedback; some was surprising, some was good to hear. He noted that we brought up four problems:
i) Time frame for reviews: This time was chosen as it seemed to match with other institutions. He agreed that the cycle could be tweaked, especially for departments who are not used to accreditation cycles, as the process may be more daunting. For departments involved with accreditation (which does not have exactly the same purpose as program review), Englert suggested that perhaps the Dean of the School or College could make the call on whether the program review and the accreditation should be done at the same time. He welcomed suggestions on how to work with the problem, Averbach suggested shorter cycles, in order to have institutional memory to make the process easier. LaFollette suggested that there be a faculty member given release time to write the program review, as this was a Herculean task.
ii) Selection of committees: Englert was surprised by this finding, but suggested that some of the tensions may arise when the Dean (not the department) identifies the important subfields within a department. He noted that his office did not require, but only invited departments to give names, and then explained that availability of the suggested teams was a real problem. Perhaps this is a problem of communication between his office and the departments.
iii) Time spent with different constituencies: Englert noted that at the dinner for the team on the opening night, the Provost's office did ask the team to focus on certain issues, such as the impact of General Education and how the department does assessment (the latter will be important for the Middle States Review). He explained the need for individual faculty member consultation, which meant that time with groups of faculty was limited. The Dean, Deputy Provost and Provost comprised the group for the exit interview. When pressed by Turner and LaFollette on why the chair could not be present at the exit interview, Englert said this concern was legitimate. LaFollette noted that the perception among the faculty is that the University has its results before the review team arrives, and this 'paranoia' probably feeds the perceived problem about the composition of the review team. He asked that there be better communication, especially with department chairs.
iv) Results are too few for the effort expended: Englert noted that the review team results are made available to all faculty authorized by the chair to read the report, but that the faculty are not beholden to follow the recommendations of the team. He emphasized that the Deans are the keys to the results. So far, 27 reviews have or are taking place, and there have been results where Deans have agreed with the findings (Englert cited faculty hires, though he conceded that not all hires were the result of program reviews). He noted that since two schools have acting deans, there is a built-in limitation on what results could occur from current reviews. Shapiro noted that the way the document was set up, departments perceived that the administration would intervene to help improve a department, but that he is now hearing that the control is much more locally applied. Englert added that perhaps better follow-up was needed to explain the process to departments.
3. President’s Report:
Evans discussed the Senate Appropriation Hearings, and briefly shared with the FSSC a letter from David Adamany about workload. She also reported on the Academic Affairs Committee and the restructuring of the Graduate Faculty.
4. Vice-President’s Report:
Millner is starting the process of filling committees for next year. A Nomination Committee was formed; information will go out on the faculty listserv, and Millner will write a column for the Faculty Herald. She noted that the morale survey got about a 40% response rate, and that there will be a meeting soon to draw up a report on the findings.
5. Old Business:
None was presented.
6. New Business:
The agenda for the Senate meeting will be mailed to the FSSC for approval.
7. Adjournment:
The meeting was adjourned at 2:50 in order to attend the Trustees' meeting.
