Minutes of the 4/25/07 Meeting of the College of Arts & Sciences

 

Call to order: Prof. DeWitt called the meeting to order at 4:18.

 

Approval of the minutes of 3/20/07: Prof. Bowen moved to approve, seconded by Prof. Steffen. The minutes were approved without objection.

 

Proposal to revise the formula for determining the number of merit levels available

DeWitt explained that in the Fall of 2005, the College approved the proposal from the College Merit Committee (Profs. DeWitt, Epstein, Lang, Rakowitz, Yarrington and Dean Snyder) for College-Wide Structures for Merit Plans. Department plans have since functioned within the parameters of those Structures. DeWitt then explained the collapsing accordion of merit levels at the heart of the Structures. The idea was to have three levels of additional merit separated from one another by about $500. If there was not enough additional merit money to support $500 separations, the number of levels would collapse to two or one. The formula for determining the number of levels was based on our best guess of how to achieve roughly $500 separations. Now, with more data, we want to revise the thresholds in order to make the $500 separation between levels more likely. Currently the cutoffs, which consist of percentages embedded in a complex formula spelled out in the Structures, are .75, .5 and .25. The College Merit Committee proposes doubling those cutoffs.

Prof. Lang, seconded by Prof. McFadden, moved to revise the cutoffs in section 5 of the College-Wide Structures for Merit Plans to 1.5, 1, and .5. Prof. Gardner indicated that she was uncomfortable not knowing what these numbers were percentages of. DeWitt referred her to the Structures available at http://faculty.fairfield.edu/cas/ and said that the formula looks at the additional merit pool in the College minus the Dean's discretionary fund as a percent of the total pool of College salaries. Under the proposal, that percent would have to be at least 1.5 in order to have three levels of additional merit in the College. Prof. Primavera asked what would have happened had the revised cutoffs been in place this year. DeWitt suggested that the three levels this year will probably be separated by about $300. Had the revised cutoffs been in place, there would have been fewer levels, separated by more than $500. With no further questions, the motion passed without objection.

 

Approval of the report on Special Topics courses from the A&S CC

DeWitt next introduced Prof. Rosivach, Chair of the Arts & Sciences Curriculum Committee (A&S CC). Rosivach explained that the A&S CC did something in May of 2002 that seems not to have reached the College for approval. At the time, the A&S CC was responding to the fact that a number of new courses circumvented committee approval by going straight to the Dean for one-time Dean's approval. Dean Snyder was not comfortable with approving these courses and went to the A&S CC for help. The Committee examined why courses sought Dean's approval. Some were just late in completing the requisite paperwork, but more often, either courses were too topical to be likely to be taught again, or their first time through was viewed as a "test drive" prior to formal submission to the Committee. The Committee was left with the problem of assuring the quality of these courses while not loading up the catalogue with courses that would eventually be removed due to the sunset provision. The A&S CC noted that Special Topics courses in some departments met one-time approval needs, and thought they should be regularized to meet these needs more broadly. The circulated proposal does just that. It includes a template for handling Special Topics courses, specifically, the departments will review course proposals and send the proposal and minutes on to the Chair of the A&S CC. The Committee has been following this procedure since May of 2002, and would like the College to endorse it.

Rosivach, seconded by Bowen, moved that the College endorse the report on Special Topics courses circulated with the email announcing this meeting. There were no questions and no discussion; the motion passed with objection.

 

Before turning to the next item on the agenda, DeWitt took a moment to toast Dean Snyder on this occasion of his last faculty meeting as our Dean. He explained that when Tim arrived six years ago, he did not find nearly enough metaphors, so he began to turn our fair field into verdant metaphorical pastures. He found faculty who were like sparkling panes of glass, beautifully reflecting knowledge, and occasionally needing a bit of Windex. Not all was well all the time, though– merit, for example. Tim once described the merit situation as if there were a fence, with faculty on one side of the fence baking their merit cookies, and the administration on the other side baking their merit cookies. Then occasionally both sides would come to the fence and toss our cookies on each other. At other times, things seemed to proceed well, only to break down–– for example, the ongoing issue of chair's compensation. All looked good, at least at first. Tim said the situation was like a having a ball of cotton candy–– big and good and gooey. But then it was as if we were left with just the cardboard at the center, like an empty roll of toilet paper, and feeling rather sick to our stomachs. Nonetheless, some things went very well, like the recruitment of new faculty. Tim once described the new faculty as being like multifaceted crystals: shiny, talented and expensive. Much more expensive than we shiny panes of glass were when we first arrived. In summary, the College is like a lovely garden, full of fragile annuals and hardy perennials. Tim has nurtured the garden, cultivating new bulbs, watering us all with fine fluids, and occasionally dumping a load of manure on us. All metaphored out, DeWitt raised a glass, and wished Tim well in his new position.

 

Recognition of faculty accomplishments

Dean Snyder began by complimenting DeWitt's memory for metaphor and suggesting that the toast had the ring of collusion. He continued the theme of sparkling panes (insisting on panes, rather than pains) by thanking the faculty, AVP Grossman, and Deans Poincelot and Gogol for their support. He urged care in selecting the next Dean and noted that the Chairs will discuss desirable features for the next Dean at the upcoming Chairs' Retreat. He then digressed for a moment to make some comments about merit. He said that departments varied widely in their merit designations and he made some changes to achieve a rough average merit designation of A2. He said that the thresholds aren't comparable across departments, which isn't fair, but he couldn't align all 15 plans. He said that perhaps we should consider having a committee try to align the plans, but there is the challenge of diversity among the departments. Prof. Behre suggested that perhaps departments were being generous in their allocation of additional merit because of previous losses to CPI. Snyder said that it would be nice to make three year deals on salary in which, for example, increases would meet cost of living in two of the three years, and exceed cost of living in the third.

 

Snyder then returned to the agenda and recognized a variety of faculty scholarly and creative output on the back table along with the following books authored or edited by College faculty:

Elizabeth Boquet (Co-Author), The Everyday Writing Center: A Community of Practice

Ronald M. Davidson (Co-Editor), Tibetan Buddhist Literature and Praxis: Studies in its Formative Period, 900-1400

Benjamin Fine (Co-Editor), Contemporary Mathematics: Combinatorial Group Theory, Discrete Groups, and Number Theory

Benjamin Fine (Co-Author), Number Theory: An Introduction via the Distribution of Primes

Hugh Humphrey, From Q to Secret Mark: A Composition History of the Earliest Narrative Theology

Hugh Humphrey, The Gospel of Mark: An Indexed Bibliography 1980-2005

Paul Lakeland, Catholicism at the Crossroads: How the Laity Can Save the Church

Thomas Larkin (Co-Author), How to Talk to Customers: Create A Great Impression Every Time with Magic

Eric Mielants (Special Issue Co-Editor), International Journal of Comparative Sociology

Raymond Poincelot (Senior Editor) Developing and Extending Sustainable Agriculture: A New Social Contract

Walter Petry (Co-Editor), Religion in Latin America: A Documentary History

Gita Rajan (Co-Editor), New Cosmopolitanis: South Asians in the U.S.

Yohuru Williams (Co-Editor), In Search of the Black Panther Party

Min Xu (Co-Author), Random Processes in Physics and Finance

 

Presentation of CAS Distinguished Teaching Award

Snyder read the following citation, which was met with great applause,

Distinguished teaching goes beyond the classroom into the lives of our students and invites them to step up to a higher level of knowledge and care for the world. Inspired teaching puts students first. Engaged teaching rings true when students see and experience the passion of a mentor-scholar. Professor Patricia Behre embodies the very spirit and essence of Jesuit education. She has transformed the teaching of early modern European history: from first-year seminars to Honors, from University College to writing-intensive and team-taught approaches, from early modern France to rural poverty and revolt, from Fairfield to New Orleans. For her vibrant and student-centered modeling of intellectual immediacy, independent thought, religious-cultural diversity and compassionate dedication, as well as her deeply collegial willingness to listen and learn, the College of Arts and Sciences is proud to honor Professor Patricia Behre with its Distinguished Teaching Award for 2007.

 

DeWitt commented on the excellent nominees for the teaching award and made a pitch for faculty to admire the creative and scholarly accomplishments highlighted on the back table.

 

The meeting adjourned at 5:12 pm.

 

 

                                                                        Respectfully submitted,

                                                                        Susan Rakowitz