Minutes of the 2/24/09 Meeting of the College of Arts & Sciences

No votes using proxies were taken.

Call to order: Prof. Sauer called the meeting to order at 3:34.

Approval of the minutes of December 5, 2008: Prof. Miners, seconded by Prof. Steffen, moved to approve the minutes of 12/5/08; the minutes were approved with no opposition.

Announcements

Prof. McFadden introduced Prof. Bowen to introduce this semester's visiting JFDP scholars. Prof. Nino Dondoladze is an instructor in the European Studies Department at Batumi Shota Rustaveli State University in Batumi, Republic of Georgia. Her professional interests include modern American literature, the intersection of religion and literature, and stylistics. Her academic mentor at Fairfield is Prof. Johanna Garvey. Prof. Hallybagt Orazova is an assistant professor in the department of English for Specific Purposes at Turkmen State University in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan. Her professional interests include American Studies, the teaching of English as a foreign language, and public speaking. Bowen is her academic mentor for the semester. Both visitors welcome the opportunity to get to know faculty. They can be reached in BNW 304, ext. 3431, or at ndondoladze@stagweb.fairfield.edu and horazova@stagweb.fairfield.edu .

Prof. LoMonaco offered a brief follow-up to an earlier announcement of the upcoming Romeo and Juliet Project. She distributed a handout explaining that this project, funded by the College Board of Advisors, "is a university-wide multidisciplinary exploration of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet that will culminate in Theatre Fairfield's production of the play in spring 2010. Two distinguished guest artists from Theatre de la Jeune Lune will direct and design a contemporary-styled production that retains Shakespeare's language, which will resonate with present-day global issuesÉFairfield's production will find an approach that meaningfully responds to campus academics, spirituality, and issues of faith, peace, and justice." LoMonaco invited faculty from across the College to consider possible connections between their courses and this project. She is the point person for the project.

Sauer reminded faculty that nominations for the Distinguished Teaching Award are due no later than April 1, electronically, to Jean Daniele. He also announced an opening for a social or behavioral scientist on the selection committee. No nominations arrived in advance of the meeting, but Prof. Salafia volunteered for the position and was elected by acclamation.

Sauer then offered a brief update on the work of the Arts & Sciences Planning Committee (Profs. Abbott, Drake, Epstein, Rakowitz, Sauer). The first thing that the committee tackled is the chair selection language about to be presented. They have also had preliminary discussions regarding the process for program reviews and plans to review the College Governance Document.

Proposal to revise the College Governance Document regarding the election and removal of chairs

Sauer began by summarizing the key points of the proposal. The proposed language in item 1.6 is a significant change in that the results of departmental elections are forwarded to the dean who may decline to appoint the elected faculty member. A series of procedural steps are laid out, but ultimately, the department elects and the dean appoints. In section 1.7, the big change is that problems would go to the College faculty members serving on the Academic Council rather than to the entire Academic Council. Prof. Rosivach asked what would happen if the dean rejected everyone. Sauer responded that that would be incredibly unlikely, and Rakowitz noted that the venue would then shift to the College Academic Council members. Rosivach pointed out that the dean still had the right to reject the selection of that body. Prof. Dennin agreed that the process seems to hit a dead end if the dean rejects the selection of the College Council members. Prof. Mulvey wondered about the rationale for the dean being able to reject the recommendation of the College members on the Council.

Prof. Lane, seconded by Prof. Sapp moved to approve the proposal to revise the College Governance Document regarding the election and removal of chairs.

Mulvey, seconded by McFadden, moved to amend the proposal to delete the final sentence in 1.6.3. Prof. Weiss spoke in favor of the amendment, noting that the dean is being consulted in the process already. The question was called and the motion to amend passed, 48-1-3.

Prof. DeWitt, seconded by Rosivach, moved to amend the proposal by replacing "may recommend" in 1.6.3 with "will appoint". The motion to amend passed, 44-0-2.

A motion to call the question was defeated.

Prof. Greenberg spoke against the proposal. He argued that we don't want a managerial model for chair; the chair is the department's representative to the dean, not the dean's representative to the department. But his bigger objection is that the dean has told chairs that they have to apply for the type of compensation they will receive for being chair. He viewed this as an enormous arrogation of power. The College shouldn't allow this proposal to go forward without more closely examining this dictatorial exercise of power by the dean. Dean Crabtree responded by explaining that the compensation of chairs has always been in the dean's purview and is described as such in the College Governance Document. Previously compensation of chairs was handled non-transparently and she is now making the process transparent. Regarding Greenberg's other point, she said that the chair is always both a colleague and a manager. Furthermore, a recent survey of the College faculty with a fairly representative sample of respondents indicated that 75% believed in some sort of shared system for selecting the chair. She also noted that the process proposed disallows arbitrariness on the part of the dean because of the requirement for a written rationale for rejection. This process would allow for more formative conversations between chairs and the dean.

Lane spoke in favor of the proposal, saying that the School of Business has had this sort of procedure for a while. Most people end up chairing because no one else wants the job. Prof. Hodgson asked whether we really want a public, written record of the dean's rationale for rejecting someone. Prof. Thiel argued that that is what makes this procedure a good model of checks and balances. There is a high price to the dean of saying no, so he or she would only do so in extreme situations where, presumably, most faculty would support the judgment. Anyone who has been here for long enough can think of at least one example of a bad departmental choice. This is a procedural model allowing the dean to say no, but a dean who says no capriciously will have a shortened career. As in many of the procedures in the Faculty Handbook, a good system of checks and balances works to produce the best outcomes. He also suggested that this proposal doesn't imply any particular model of what a chair should be.

Hodgson said that the proposal doesn't list the criteria the dean could use to reject someone. Crabtree and Thiel both noted that the Governance Document lists the duties of chairs. Hodgson replied that the dean would be making a judgment about a candidate prior to that person becoming chair, so would the dean be looking at the candidate's ability to get along with the dean, the candidate's ability to enunciate what the department wants, etc.? Prof. Epstein replied that he understood Hodgson's point, but that those sorts of things aren't in the proposal because those sorts of things aren't in the Governance Document. The Governance Document is predicated on people acting reasonably and is designed to facilitate people acting reasonably. This proposal is meant to give the dean a mechanism to exercise responsibility without taking the power of election away from the department. Epstein argued that Hodgson is concerned that the dean's criticisms will be made public and may be petty, but the former makes the latter less likely. Prof. Nantz also spoke in favor of the proposal. She had every expectation that the dean would make his or her best judgment on whether an individual would be able to satisfy the duties outlined in the Governance Document just as we all do when electing someone to be chair for the first time.

The question was called. The proposal to revise the College Governance Document regarding the election and removal of chairs, as amended, passed, 51-9.

Proposal to revise College-approved change to language about the Health Professions Advisor in the College Governance Document.

Sauer explained that the proposal was to replace language that the College had approved regarding the Health Professions Advisor with the single sentence that had been distributed. Crabtree elaborated that she had made a mistake in including the job description of a non faculty member in the Governance Document and thereby making changes in the description subject to the vote of 2/3 of the faculty. The Health Professions Committee has approved the proposed change. DeWitt noted that this change required two separate motions.

Prof. Naser, seconded by Prof. Patton, moved to rescind the previously approved language. Motion passed without opposition.

Lane, seconded by Patton, moved to approve the new language. DeWitt said that he supported the motion because the previously approved language was too detailed for the Governance Document, but he did not agree with the rationale that was distributed with the proposal, specifically, that this job is not an academic position. The Health Professions Advisor has a great deal of contact with students. Mulvey added that the current holder of the position is a member of the faculty. Naser noted that the Health Professions Advisor need not be a member of the faculty. The motion passed without opposition.

Brief remarks from the Dean

Crabtree said she wanted to give an update on enrollments and budgets because she assumed people had concerns. With regard to enrollments, application activity is fairly similar to what it usually is, though about 25 students more than usual left the university between fall and spring, and fewer and lower quality students sought to transfer in than usual. The overage in transfers out was not recovered with transfers in because the pool of applicants didn't warrant it. The plan is to add 25-30 students to the incoming class to offset the loss. We won't have any firm numbers on the incoming class until the June orientations. Miners asked whether there is any discussion of lowering admission standards. Crabtree said that they are trying to avoid that for now. Prof. Bucki asked whether that's part of the discussion about stopping requiring the SATs. Crabtree explained that that's a separate issue; the SATs are already a minor part of the review of applications, and we're looking at what our competitor institutions do.

Currently we're working to create a reserve from this year's operating budget to address next year's anticipated shortfall. There are also exercises underway considering different budget cutting scenarios, for example, what would happen if the budget had to be cut by 5%. There will probably be an impact on open faculty lines, but there has been no discussion of an impact on existing faculty. Cuts will affect the operating budget, programming, core integration, and curricular review. She is trying to make as much use as possible of endowed, restricted Humanities Institute funds. Upcoming interdisciplinary programs like the Romeo and Juliet project and an integrated Latin America theme will test whether less programming, but programming that is more integrated, may have deeper effects on students.

In other news, the first round of Science Institute awards was made this month. Crabtree thanked the selection committee, Profs. Kubasik, Phelan, and Sawin. Much of the money was for students working with faculty to travel to conferences to present their work. Some money was for research and some was for speakers. Right now, only about $10,000 is generated, but Advancement is working hard on attracting additional funds. The Humanities Institute (Prof. Behre, who is about to rotate off, and Profs. Keenan and Patton) is currently reviewing applications. Faculty searches are intact and unfolding, and she will have an update at the April meeting. Search committees are doing a great job and the caliber of candidates is good. We will probably have 10 new, high quality, colleagues next year. She went on to thank the Planning Committee, A&S Curriculum Committee, the chairs and program directors. There have been good conversations about governance issues, and she appreciates the support today for one of the Planning Committee initiatives.

The January meeting of the Board of Advisors was snowed out, but the members participated in an online course created by Nantz. They all joined in the online learning community and appreciated the experience of being in class. Prof. Downie used the online format combined with a conference call to lead a panel with students on environmental issues. There are ongoing opportunities for faculty and students to engage with the Board, and Profs. Schwab and R. White are providing good representation for the faculty. A priority fund-raising goal for the Board is to create an unrestricted endowment for the College focused on supporting teaching and research.

Crabtree then announced that the new Associate Dean of the College, as of July 1, will be Prof. Joan Weiss. Weiss has degrees from Idaho State, Delaware, and Carnegie Mellon. She came to Fairfield in 1985 and was promoted to full Professor in 2005. She has deep institutional knowledge, along with a great deal of experience serving on handbook committees and other ad hoc committees. She has also been involved with the programs for women in science and has worked with GSEAP because of her involvement with math majors who minor in education. Her attention to detail will be quite useful, and she is expected to be involved in departmental and program self-studies, working on the review of the Governance Document and the development of departmental governance documents. Weiss was given a warm round of applause. Crabtree went on to say that she is in conversation with other faculty who might be interested in leading and/or facilitating initiatives in the College, for example, on working with first generation college students, or with part time faculty. Crabtree concluded by offering thanks to Profs. Nantz and Miners and Dean Boquet, along with Profs. Naser and Torosyan for bringing core integration into the College.

Prof. Bowen expressed a concern about the web rebranding. She suggested that her points are probably known, but she wanted to put them on the record. Much of the existing academic content has been stripped from the website. We now have less information than do many local high schools about our academic programs. Crabtree said that the content isn't lost but is inaccessible. She shares Bowen's concerns. Over the summer, the deans were told to determine the contents of each school's pages. Crabtree argued that that was inappropriate; departments and programs need to have input. Some faculty were asked to give feedback this summer and their responses were conveyed, but the web people need to work with each department and program. She expected that to happen during the fall semester, but everything fell behind. They were only shown templates before the rollout, rather than being able to review content. The web people are supposed to be coming to departments now with questions about how existing content will be displayed. Epstein said, apropos of core integration, that the new site makes it very difficult to find answers to questions about the core. In working with an advisee, he failed to find the information the student needed from the website. Steffen, chair of the Educational Technologies Committee, requested feedback from the chairs and then sent VP Sudhakar a note asking for the immediate restoration of links to existing content. There is time to worry about making it look nice and consistent later. This may be the most important recruitment cycle ever at Fairfield and we desperately need the content to be visible now. The response wasn't no, but the links haven't been restored.

Prof. Schlichting echoed Steffen's point about the importance of this recruiting cycle. He urged faculty to be involved in recruitment and to support Judy Dobai and Karen Pellegrino in their efforts to fill the class without going to the wait list. He explained that typically, the applicant profile matches the profile of student who enroll, but if the incoming class has a much higher proportion of high need students, we will have real budget problems. Crabtree agreed. We're a tuition driven institution and the faculty are the front lines on retention and can play a crucial role in recruitment.

Before anyone could make a motion to adjourn, Boquet said that because we were all invited to join the reception for the Wabash visitors, she wanted to give a brief overview of Wabash. The Wabash Center at Wabash College looks at assessment issues from the perspective of liberal arts colleges and the liberal arts tradition. We've started to participate with a small sample from the class of 2011 being followed longitudinally. She encouraged everyone to look at the overview of their initial findings available via a link in the email from Ann Stehney announcing their visit. At Fairfield, the faculty and interactions with faculty look very good, but data on core integration are more disappointing so far.

The meeting was adjourned at 4:47.

Respectfully submitted,

Susan Rakowitz