Minutes of the 10/29/08 Meeting of the College of Arts & Sciences

No votes including proxies were taken.

Call to order: Prof. Sauer called the meeting to order at 4:10 pm.

Approval of the minutes of September 18, 2008: Prof. Bowen, seconded by Prof. Weiss, moved to approve the minutes of 9/18/08. The motion passed without objection.

Announcement: Sauer invited Prof. Naser to give a brief update on Prof. Newton's condition. She is out of the hospital, doing well, and hopes to be teaching in the spring.

Proposal to add language about Program Directors to the College Governance Document

Sauer invited Profs. McFadden and Umansky to present the proposed changes. Umansky explained that three years ago, Dean Snyder asked the program directors to develop a description of their responsibilities for the Governance Document. A subcommittee consisting of Profs. King, Rodrigues, Carolan and Umansky drafted a list of responsibilities that, after some revisions, was approved by the Program Directors. Then another committee charged with examining interdisciplinary programs at Fairfield looked at the earlier document. From that work, a proposal was brought to the College faculty last year, but there was no quorum at that meeting. Since then, the Program Directors have again reworked and passed a document, and that is what is currently under consideration. The proposal leaves out some controversial points, including the issue of term limits, in order to focus on items that all directors could agree to. McFadden agreed with Umansky's comments and noted that having something parallel to the description of chairs' responsibilities in the Governance Document is long overdue.

McFadden, seconded by Bowen, moved to accept the proposed language and add it to the Governance Document. Naser asked whether there was a quorum. A count indicated that 39 faculty members were present, but without a list of faculty on leave, no one was sure of the number necessary for a quorum. We agreed to vote on the proposal and determine after the meeting whether the vote would stand. At this point, the floor was opened for questions. Weiss asked about term limits. Umansky explained that the directors were very divided on this issue, but felt that it was important to get some documentation regarding responsibilities on the record, as a first step. Dean Crabtree added that Program Directors, like Chairs, have terms, but not term limits. Prof. Gannett asked whether this document would apply to the Writing Program director, and if not, whether that would be a problem. Umansky said that the programs under discussion were interdisciplinary programs in the College, though Weiss pointed out that Computer Science is not interdisciplinary. Naser noted that the Writing Program director reports to the Academic Vice President, not the Dean of the College, so that position wouldn't fall under this document. The motion passed 36-0-1, but it was later determined that a quorum is 41, so the motion will need to be revisited at another meeting.

Election of the Arts & Sciences Planning Committee

Sauer reminded the faculty that the College had approved a revised description of this committee, but that revision had not yet been voted on by the Board of Trustees. We would therefore be electing a committee under the original description, calling for five faculty, with at least one from each of the three major areas. There were four nominees on the ballot (covering the three areas): Profs. Abbott, Epstein, Rakowitz and Sauer. Prof. Drake was nominated from the floor and there were no further nominations.

Report on the CAS Board of Advisors meeting

Sauer asked Profs. Schwab and R. White for a brief report on the 10/14/08 CAS Board of Advisors meeting. Schwab explained that the meeting featured presentations by Prof. Miners on the CAE, Prof. Nantz on core integration, and Dean Boquet on cluster courses and the strategic plan. The core curriculum was a constant theme, and the members of the Board were very interested in the topic and in the opportunity to meet more faculty. White said that in this transitional year, her role was to help facilitate the Board's exploration of global citizenship as a theme connecting different parts of the strategic plan. Last year this project began with students and faculty discussing their relevant experiences. The project includes connecting global citizenship with diversity issues and with core integration.

At this point, Crabtree distributed a list of Board members. She said that the Advancement division is focused on identifying top rated donors for the Board. Advancement is also connecting faculty with alumni, for example, Prof. Dreyer has given talks on women and spirituality around the country, involving many alumni. She went on to talk about upcoming plans for the Board. A project called "core stories project" will ask alumni (and students) how they think about the core in their life. The Board will also be brought to the core science laboratory. Then there are the ongoing themes of global citizenship and the environment. Faculty will be involved in all of these activities and students will be involved at least once a year.

With the floor open for questions, Prof. Dennin asked whether the Board members are donating as expected. Crabtree explained that the initial giving was a sort of Board training, focused on three projects. Some members are still paying off their pledges for those projects. The focus is now shifting to endowment funding rather than project-based donations; that is what will be expected of new members. Schwab noted that many of the members may already have big commitments through the annual appeal. Crabtree added that the members have been analyzed as capable of making substantial contributions; the longer their relationship is with the College, the bigger is their likely donation.

Remarks from the Dean

Crabtree began with an overview of the economic situation and its implications for the university. There are two specific issues. First, cash is often kept by universities in the Common Fund, which was frozen. Fairfield had a small amount of cash there, so that was not a big problem. The other issue is debt management. Two years ago, we refinanced to fixed rate instruments, so we're in very good shape in that regard. Other universities have hiring freezes and we're not seeing that. We're waiting to learn of the impact on our students and their parents. We expect to see some effect on the rate of students returning in the Spring. Financial Aid will revisit aid packages if necessary. We may see first year students leave in the summer, but we began with about 100 extra freshmen, so the impact of some transfers might not be so bad. Admissions is waiting to see the impact on the class of 2013. We should expect delays of large capital projects; we will hear more about that in the future. Presumably the next tuition increase will be small, both because of the problems of our students and their parents, and because of federal monitoring of institutions that have large tuition increases– that is not a list we want to be on. We might also expect a slow down in retirements with consequent implications for hiring.

Budget requests are delayed this year; the information just arrived from the A.V.P. and will go to Chairs and Program Directors tomorrow. Crabtree explained that she is trying to regularize budgets and accounting. A history of lots of ad hoc use of contingency funds makes planning difficult. Especially with an upcoming change in A.V.P, things that have often been provided in an ad hoc fashion need to be standardized. In addition, she is planning on meeting with the Budget Committee to argue for increasing chair stipends with new funds. She has used her existing budget to increase opportunities for release time, and there is a new plan for compensating Chairs that is currently being distributed by Chairs to departments. With regard to faculty travel, requests are well over last year, more are being funded than last year, but all requests have still not been funded. This is another issue that she will be bringing to the Budget Committee. Travel funds are the primary means of supporting faculty research, and travel costs, along with faculty activity are escalating.

Crabtree then moved on to hiring. She indicated that we can't simply assume we'll hold on to replacement lines, but we can hope and proceed as we have in the past. We should be able to cobble together new lines from replacement monies, but it won't be automatic. We should also be able to add lines through graduate program revenue generation. At the moment, the least likely possibility is that new funds will be allocated to lines, but we're not giving up on those requests. As for this year, 10 faculty searches are underway. Furthermore, Human Resources has done a comprehensive review of staff salary and compensation. We're competitive but there are some areas for tweaking. Wider salary ranges without as many different grades would decrease problems of redlining, in which jobs are attached to grades and staff who are maxed out at their job's grade can't get salary increases.

Crabtree wrapped up with a collection of announcements. She's working with Chairs and Program Directors on assessment and program review as well as faculty development and mentoring. Funds will need to be reallocated from elsewhere in the university to support program review. Boquet is leading the efforts to move core integration into the departments, and is coordinating with Student Services, especially Dean Cady Melzer, on improving advising. The call for a second Associate Dean has gone out and Crabtree hopes to hear from faculty. The first round of Humanities Institute funding information will be coming out shortly. The Office of Institutional Research is coordinating all survey research on undergraduates and alumni, so anyone planning a survey needs to work with Dr. Stehney. The university governance issue is unfolding; the Academic Council subcommittee's response to the Blue Ribbon Commission report is now posted on the General Faculty Secretary's website. Faculty should read the relevant documents and stay abreast of these issues. Finally, Crabtree reported on the many rewarding meetings she's having with faculty. She's going to each department and had a meeting with all pretenure faculty. She's having dinners with new faculty and will soon be meeting with graduate Program Directors. She is also having what she's calling "faculty wisdom lunches" drawing from among the longest serving members of each department. She also appreciates invitations to faculty events like a recent Religious Studies department colloquium and she is looking for a venue for intradepartmental Program Directors to share their experiences. She then opened the floor for questions.

Prof. DeWitt said that he liked the idea of the wisdom lunches. He then asked about the travel funding– would non-funded travel be kicked up to the A.V.P.? Crabtree said that international travel used to be shared with the A.V.P.'s office, but that policy had changed, so she hadn't kicked up any unfunded travel. DeWitt noted that in the past, if travel met the Handbook requirements, it was generally funded by the A.V.P., if not by the Dean. Crabtree responded that the Handbook specifies that travel that meets certain criteria will be covered if funds are available and that departments don't necessarily follow the Handbook criteria. Sometimes individual faculty without grants expect to be funded for many trips, including international travel. Department requests for funding vary widely and many departments are close to fully funded, but some requests are really over the top. Schwab echoed the idea of kicking expenses up to the A.V.P., but also suggested approaching Advancement about developing an endowed research fund for the College. Crabtree explained that the Board is being asked to develop an endowment for faculty development, student experiences, and faculty research. Also, Crabtree, Boquet, and Prof. Nash are looking at outside grant possibilities for jump starting such an endowment. They looked at a challenge grant but couldn't get approved for it at this time (based on the stipulations of the grant). There were no further questions. Crabtree apologized for the dry reception we were about to adjourn to and said that it wouldn't happen again.

The meeting was adjourned at 5:06.

Respectfully submitted,

Susan Rakowitz