Minutes of the 4/22/09 Meeting of the College of Arts & Sciences

No votes using proxies were taken.

Call to order: Prof. Sauer called the meeting to order at 4:09.

Approval of the minutes of February 24, 2009: Prof. Lane, seconded by Prof. Benney, moved to approve the minutes of 2/24/09. The minutes were approved with 1 opposed and 4 abstentions.

Announcements

Sauer explained that he had addressed the Board of Trustees regarding the faculty-approved changes to the CAS Governance Document. The changes were positively received and will be voted on in June. He also reminded faculty of the upcoming General Faculty meeting which will include an important discussion on governance and benefits, and he urged faculty to attend.

Prof. Greenberg then spoke briefly about the new peer mediation program at Fairfield. Twenty three students have already been trained, mostly to address student to student conflicts. The program is being run by Prof. L. Katz, with the involvement of Profs. Greenberg and Torosyan. They can provide more information, as can Deans Pellegrino, Solomon, Cady-Melzer, and others. Prof. DeWitt asked whether there are any provisions for mediation of conflicts between faculty and trustees. Greenberg said there were not.

Proposal to add language about Graduate Programs to the College Governance Document

Sauer said that there are a handful of grad programs in College and they currently have no way to discuss common problems and issues. Prof. Bowen, seconded by Prof. Sapp, moved to add the CAS Council of Graduate Programs and the description of the Responsibilities of Graduate Program Directors to the College Governance Document. The motion carried with 49 in favor, 1 opposed, and 2 abstentions.

Annual report from the Arts & Sciences Curriculum Committee

Prof. Shanahan said that the A&SCC last reported in the Fall, when that semester's chair, Prof. Petrino spoke about the types of courses they have recently approved. It is now his job to summarize the full year's activities. He began by thanking the committee members: Robbin Crabtree, Jessica Davis, Robert Epstein, Shannon Harding, Manyul Im (replaced by Nels Pearson, Fall '08), Danke Li (replaced by Les Schaffer Fall '08), John Miecznikowski, Elizabeth Petrino (Chair, Fall '08, replaced by Michael Pagano Spring '09), James Shanahan (Chair, 'Spring 09) and Joan Weiss. The committee approved 40 courses: 8 in the humanities, 13 in languages, 9 in social science 4 in History, 3 in Visual and Performing Arts, and 3 in science. They received a report from the Subcommittee on Internships, Independent Studies, and Supervised Research that included recommendations for bundling and banking credits. They endorsed the findings of the subcommittee. They also elected members to help develop guidelines for graduate courses, and clarified that graduate courses must by reviewed by the A&SCC. Working with Prof. Schlichting, they engaged in an ongoing discussion and review of graduate American Studies courses. American Studies has a curriculum committee that will work with the A&SCC.

Another topic was program review. The A&SCC elected members to serve on a task force on program review and endorsed a document containing guidelines for program review. They also approved a certificate program in financial math and, more generally, set up procedures for dealing with certificate programs. They will inform the Academic Council that such programs will require departmental approval, then approval from the A&SCC, and then the Dean.

Prof. Schwab asked about certificate programs because they are considering one in Art History. It would be administered through University College, but staffing would be through Visual and Performing Arts. Dean Crabtree said that UC and CAS should coordinate, especially if the courses might count toward graduate programs. Prof. Rosivach asked about the rationale for returning to the requirement of multiple copies of course submissions rather than electronic submissions. Shanahan said that last year the committee members voted to receive hard copies rather than print out copies themselves. The committee does request double-sided submissions. Prof. Orman thanked Shanahan for his good work at Fairfield and Shanahan remarked on the bittersweetness of leaving. There were no further questions.

Brief remarks from the Dean

Crabtree began with an update on faculty searches in the College. Two hires were made in English (digital journalism and renaissance literature); two in Math and Computer Science (computer programming languages and topological fixed point and coincidence theory); one in Philosophy (Prof. Drake, specializing in ancient social and political thought and aesthetics); one in Politics (Asian politics); one in Psychology (social and cross-cultural psychology), one in Religious Studies (Islam); one in Sociology (anthropology, with research based in Mali); one in Visual and Performing Arts (theater program- acting). She thanked the search committees and noted that the status of next year's searches is uncertain.

She went on to thank Chair Sauer and Secretary Rakowitz for their service and suggested that replacement officers are being sought for next year. She thanked Jean Daniele, noting that today's reception would definitely be more frugal, but not noticeably so. There was a warm round of applause for all of Ms. Daniele's work for the College.

Moving to the celebratory part of the agenda, she asked Profs. Brill, Chamlin, Gudelunas, Im, Nash to rise and be acknowledged for having been tenured and promoted this year. She similarly acknowledged the promotions to full Professor for Profs. Bucki, Patton and Shanahan.

Recognition of faculty accomplishments

Crabtree next announced the winners of the first departmental award for core integration and assessment. Second place ($1500) went to Psychology which "presented a very thorough and thoughtful application that focused on its integrative work in its curriculum. Psychology's application was the most 'scholarly' of those presented." First place ($2500) went to Visual and Performing Arts which "submitted a well written and organized proposal that demonstrated systematic departmental work on integration and assessment. They did an excellent job articulating their core learning outcomes and methods for assessing them, and evidenced a productive and collegial process of developing their assessment plan. Members of the department report that they found the process useful in spite of initial resistance to the idea."

As she acknowledged books published by CAS faculty in 2008-2009, Crabtree reminded the group that all sorts of scholarly and creative productions of faculty were available for perusing after the meeting. The books were:

Cecelia Bucki, Social History of the United States: the 1930's

Javier Campos (Translator), Caminando sobre el tejado (Walking on the Roof) Translation from English into Spanish of Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko last poems

Javier Campos, El poeta en llamas

Ralph M. Coury (Co-Editor), Writing Tangier

David Crawford, Moroccan Households In The World Economy: Labor and Inequality in a Berber Village

David Downie (Co-Author), Climate Change

Elizabeth Dreyer, Making Sense of God: A Woman's Perspective

Philip Eliasoph, Robert Vickrey: The Magic of Realism

Benjamin Fine, Aspects of Infinite Groups

Adam King (Co-Author), Memory and the Computational Brain: Why Cognitive Science Will Transform Neuroscience

Janie Leatherman (Editor), Discipline and Punishment in Global Politics: Illusions of Control

Eric H. Mielants (Co-Editor), Caribbean Migration to Western Europe And The United States: Essays on Incorporation, Identity, and Citizenship

Michael Pagano, Interactive Case Studies In Health Communication

Giovanni Roberto Ruffini, Social Networks in Byzantine Egypt

Brian Q. Torff, In Love With Voices: A Jazz Memoir

Ellen M. Umansky (Co-Editor), Jewish Women's Spirituality: A Sourcebook, Revised Edition

Michael White, Soul Catcher

Renee White (Co-Editor), HIV/AIDS: Global Frontiers in Prevention/Intervention

The meeting concluded with Crabtree's announcement of the 2009 Distinguished Teaching Award. She thanked the committee, Profs. Xu, Salafia and Humphrey, and noted that Xu would need to be replaced next year. She then read the following citation, which was greeted with a standing ovation.

Teaching excellence may be most evident in one's own classroom, where a faculty member demonstrates expertise, models excitement for learning, builds student participation and empowerment, and nurtures their growth as whole persons. An extraordinary teacher, however, knows that pedagogical excellence begins long before setting foot in the classroom and is made possible only through commitments that extend beyond the boundaries of discipline and campus. A truly distinguished teacher integrates courses, ideas, lived experiences, vocational explorations, social goals, and funding partners, sharing with students, colleagues and others passion for intellectual inquiry and reflective practice. She recognizes an opportunity to teach in every setting—whether supervising student research, organizing group study sessions, mentoring colleagues, or facilitating faculty workshops. For more than two decades, in her economics classes, in clusters and Honors courses, in team teaching and mentoring faculty, Professor Kathy Nantz has demonstrated extraordinary teaching and dedication to student learning.

The Association of American Colleges and Universities recently noted that "overcoming the fundamental challenges facing higher education today will require new forms of creativity and collaborative leadership on the part of college faculty." In her role as facilitator of the Core Integration Initiative, Professor Nantz embodies and fosters such creativity and collaboration, and brings forth the joy and dedication known by her students to faculty development, promotion of pedagogical and curricular innovation, and the advancement of Fairfield University's educational mission in the liberal arts and Jesuit traditions. She works with every department in the College to institutionalize the goals of core integration, builds bridges to the schools, and cultivates student and alumni voices, orchestrating a truly comprehensive engagement. For this sustained and superlative accomplishment, the Fairfield University College of Arts and Sciences recognizes Professor Kathy Nantz with the 2009 Distinguished Teaching Award.

The meeting was adjourned at 4:50.

Respectfully submitted,

Susan Rakowitz