Minutes of the 3/11/11 Meeting of the College of Arts & Sciences

No votes using proxies were taken.

Call to order: Prof. O'Driscoll called the meeting to order at 3:44.

Approval of the minutes of December 8, 2010: Prof. McSweeney, seconded by Prof. Bowen, moved to approve the minutes of 12/8/10. The motion passed without objection.

Annual report from the Arts & Sciences Curriculum Committee

Prof. Im, chair of the A&SCC for the Fall semester, began by asking the committee members to stand and be acknowledged. He said that the committee had approved 20 new courses in the Fall, sent three Special Topics courses to the Dean, made two modifications to the Math graduate program, endorsed the five year review of the New Media, Film, Television and Radio major, and approved a new one-week course. Prof. Zhang, chair of the A&SCC for the Spring semester, continued the report. She said that the committee had met twice so far this semester, had approved ten new courses and four one-time Special Topics offerings. They also approved a minor in Anthropology, and approved changes in the requirements for Communication and Asian Studies. The committee has also been discussing how to promote interdisciplinary coordination in course offerings. It's important to maintain dialogue about overlapping courses because some courses are cross-listed with other programs, and some professors have expertise relevant to programs outside of their departments.

Im concluded by mentioning that the committee has had issues with some people not knowing the routing procedures for new programs. He emphasized that new chairs and program directors need to be directed to the Journal of Record for routing information. Prof. Bucki asked whether the routing information is also available at the A&SCC website [http://faculty.fairfield.edu/cas/A%26SCC/CurriculumComm.html]. It is. There were no further questions.

Proposal to amend the College Governance Document to make the Individually Designed Major Committee a standing committee of the College

Assoc. Dean Weiss explained that there has been an Individually Designed Major (IDMJ) Committee in existence since about 2002 when the major began. But the committee has always been ad hoc, appointed by the Dean. The proposal (circulated with the agenda), was to create a standing committee in the College Governance Document. She then asked for questions.

Prof. Bayne asked whether there had been any discussion of having the faculty elected rather than appointed to the committee. Weiss replied that they had always been appointed. Dean Crabtree said that election had been discussed in the College Planning Committee, but was deemed by the members of that body as unnecessary. There was some further discussion, with Profs. Lasseter, DeWitt, and Mulvey expressing concern about appointment versus election. Weiss noted that faculty are also appointed, rather than elected, to the Arts & Science award committees in the College. Prof. Rakowitz said that election was crucial for committees making policy decisions, course approvals, or rank and tenure recommendations, but this committee would be examining the coursework of individual students, and that seemed more comparable to the work of the award committees. Bucki asked why the A&SCC doesn't control this issue. Weiss explained that this is a special committee overseeing the students in a particular major and the A&SCC doesn't look at individual students.

Bucki asked how many students are doing the major. Weiss said there are three currently, and there were five last year. Bucki argued that faculty aren't rewarded for the extra work of supervising IDMJ. Weiss said that a debate on the major itself wasn't appropriate at this point.

Bowen, seconded by Prof. Petrino, moved to approve the amendment as distributed. Prof. Patton spoke in favor of the proposal. She said that it seemed like a no-brainer to codify current practice. Im also spoke in favor, suggesting that continuity on the committee would be good for maintaining consistent standards. Motion passed with 1 opposed and 2 abstentions.

Divisional Merit Review

O'Driscoll said that we still needed 2 at-large members for the Divisional Merit Committee in the Humanities. Rakowitz, seconded by Bowen, nominated Prof. Dallavalle. Prof. Humphrey, seconded by Bucki, nominated Prof. McFadden. There were no further nominations, so both were automatically elected.

Rakowitz then offered a brief demonstration of the streamlined, user-friendly, online submission system developed by C&NS in consultation with the Dean and members of the committee that put forward the proposal on divisional merit. Currently the system is set up only for standard merit, which is all that will be available for 2010 merit evaluations.

Faculty members will be sent a link that goes to a page accessible by netID. Once logged in, a faculty member will see his or her name, department, and division. There are key excerpts from the university-wide Merit Guidelines, along with a link to the entire set of University-wide Guidelines and a link to the CAS Divisional Review Plan. Then there are three boxes for text, one each for teaching, scholarly/creative achievements, and service. Each has a word counter and is limited to 250 words (typed or pasted in). The "submit" button at the bottom shows the faculty member what he or she has typed and offers a final opportunity for revision. Once the application is submitted, a confirmation with a copy of the submission is emailed to the faculty member. C&NS is working on a program that will randomly distribute those applications to the reviewers according to the parameters set out in the Divisional Merit Review Plan.

Brief remarks from the Dean

Merit. As questions arose about the timing for merit applications, O'Driscoll turned the meeting over to Crabtree. Crabtree began by thanking the faculty who worked on the online submission process. With regard to deadlines, she explained that normally the General Faculty would need to vote on a Memo of Understanding (MOU) before deadlines could be set for merit applications because the applications can only be for merit levels that are funded in a particular year. This year we know that there won't be additional merit because the relevant cost of living increase was 1.5% and a 1.5% raise was agreed to by the Salary Committee, approved by the Finance Committee of the Board of Trustees, and is in the budget to be presented to the full Board on 3/31, and in the MOU to be presented to the General Faculty on 4/1. If both bodies approve, we'll have an MOU on 4/1 and there will be only standard merit.

The SVPAA has asked for a deadline of 4/1 for merit submissions. Crabtree asked for feedback and Mulvey suggested that Monday 4/4, would make more sense. Crabtree agreed and said that the process of reflection should begin now. With a deadline of 4/4 for submissions, the reviewers would have about two weeks to review applications. (Crabtree noted that she has looked at the still in-progress online review system and found it very streamlined and self-explanatory.) Then there will be a period of time for the committees to communicate their recommendations to the Dean and for the Dean to make her decisions. The timing of this process will vary each year depending on the timing of the MOU. This summer we'll start to develop an online submission system for years in which additional merit is available.

While evaluations for raises are being done divisionally, formative feedback is to be provided at the department level. Faculty annual reports to their departments could be merit submissions, though untenured faculty would include more materials. Crabtree mentioned that she recently met with a number of Associate Professors in the College and found that many who were newly tenured missed the kind of feedback they received in annual reviews when they were untenured. She felt that the separation of pay evaluations from formative feedback was a good thing in that it would allow more open conversations in departments, and she plans over the next month or so to talk with chairs about mechanisms to facilitate those conversations. She emphasized that merit submissions shouldn't be high stress and then asked if there were questions on merit. Prof. Mielants asked whether she was aware of any strategies that the Board of Trustees might have for funding additional merit. Crabtree said that there was a lot of fundraising going on and that the SVPAA was very concerned about faculty compensation. She noted that she personally was concerned about faculty reflecting on their work in the same way that we help our students reflect on their learning.

Updates. Crabtree noted that three years ago she made a presentation to this body on a set of priorities based on her work on the strategic plan as a faculty member at Fairfield, and in response to the NEASC report. We've made tremendous progress on those issues. In terms of responding to the NEASC report, we've developed a faculty performance review system and are developing a culture of more frank, mentoring reviews. The governance issue relevant to the College from the NEASC report was about decanal ratification of chairs, and that issue has been addressed. In addition, the whole Governance Document of the College has been revised and approved so that it is now more transparent and clear.

Another major area of progress is program review. Guidelines were developed, ratified by the A&SCC, and are now in use. Philosophy, Sociology and Anthropology, and Math and Computer Science are wrapping up the review process this year. They've done great work and it has been useful to the departments to reflect on their strengths, goals, challenges, and how to address those challenges, including resource issues. Two of the departments are already moving forward with plans coming out of the reviews. She thanked the faculty in those three departments for their level of earnest engagement in the process. Women's Studies and Latin American & Caribbean Studies are beginning their reviews this year and the queue is moving along. The SVPAA is financially supporting these program reviews as he put the funds the Dean requested for this previously unfunded mandate into the CAS budget.

There has been progress made on assessment as well, but it's uneven. The structures coming out of the core integration project will help. The Dean also noted that, for the first time, NEASC has provided a rubric for assessment, with a straightforward set of questions: have formal learning outcomes been developed; where are they published; what data/evidence is used, beyond grading, to assess student learning outcomes; what is the process for interpreting the evidence and who is responsible; and what changes have been made (to the program, courses, pedagogies, etc.) as a result?

Some administrators seem to think that the College is lagging on assessment. We're making progress, but we need more data gathering and reflection/analysis of those data. Prof. Naser has been the facilitator for academic assessment, but his term will be ending and he will be returning to full time teaching in the Philosophy department. His "capstone project" for the College is to assemble departmental data for a snapshot of where we are. We need learning outcomes and procedures for collecting and analyzing data by the end of the summer, and most departments have these. Next year all departments need to be collecting and analyzing their data; each year a different outcome or type of evidence can be focused on. By the Fall of 2012, for the five year NEASC report, we will then all have some information on what we're changing due to what we've learned. The NEASC rubric makes for a straightforward way of reporting to NEASC and making improvements.

With regard to core integration, the pathway learning outcomes are about to be completed, communicated, and published. Crabtree reminded faculty that though we've been focusing on horizontal integration of the core, we need to think about vertical integration as well. We need to pull the core outcomes through the majors. She encouraged inclusion of the relevant pathways in syllabi so that there is more intentional integration. The assessment of core pathways may require sampling artifacts (e.g., class assignments) from classes across the curriculum. Stay tuned for more on core integration.

Crabtree then offered a brief update on the IDEA forms. They have just made it back to campus and are being collated by departments for return to faculty. All full and part time faculty need to be aware of how to use and read the forms and students need to be helped to understand their importance. She suggested that any questions or concerns be addressed to the FDEC.

Moving on to University College, the Associate of Arts degree program has been closed through the university process and is going to the state. The program is not accepting new students; students expressing an interest in the program are being encouraged to matriculate into a BA or BS program. Students currently in the program are being grandfathered and most will finish this year (all should finish by spring 2012).

There have been two combined meetings of the University College Committee, Educational Planning Committee (EPC), and Academic Council Executive Committee to consider a range of related issues, including integrating part time students into the College and DSB. The University College Committee has since passed a motion to close University College and integrate part time students into CAS and DSB. That motion still needs to go through the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee (UCC), the EPC, the Academic Council, and the General Faculty. The proposal may not look exactly like what the SVPAA or Crabtree herself might have envisioned, but it's thorough and sensible based on broad and deep consideration of issues and data; the University College Committee put it together under the able leadership of Prof. G. Campbell.

The proposal presents some questions for the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee to consider, especially with regard to the fact that University College had a modified core curriculum. The UCC will be asked to look at policies and structures for online courses, particularly in light of new federal regulations regarding online learning; the UCC had already generated online course issues as an important future business item, so the timing is good. The Bachelor of Professional Studies degree, designed for returning students who are often employed full time and/or career changers, should also come to the A&S Curriculum Committee for consideration of whether we want to sponsor this program, and if so, in what form. Finally, there are some other administrative and policy issues to be resolved, for example about part-time student admissions, registration, and payments. Crabtree encouraged faculty to bring their thoughts on these issues to her and/or members of the University College Committee.

Announcements. The last CAS meeting of the semester will be on Tuesday, April 26. Crabtree asked anyone who has published a book this year to send a copy to Jean Daniele. Faculty should also bring copies of articles and creative work they completed this year to the meeting for display. To enhance the celebratory nature of the meeting, the reception will be somewhat less frugal than at mid-semester meetings (i.e., there will be hot appetizers and plenty of beverages).

Crabtree noted that this year she has been able to meet all faculty travel expenses beyond departmental budgets. Nonetheless, her budget is always in danger of being needed for unanticipated problems like major equipment breakdowns, so she urged people to be reasonable in their travel requests and considerate of their departmental colleagues.

On Thursday, April 28 there will be a celebration of student research across the disciplines, followed that night by the Arts & Sciences Awards ceremony. For the first time, there will be academic achievement awards given to graduate students as well as undergraduates. Crabtree reminded faculty that there should be one student per award and that the comments should be concise and focused on the students, not the faculty presenters. She noted that she collects these remarks and uses them in talks to donors and as a basis for newsletter stories and other PR. She urged faculty to attend the ceremony; students want to introduce their faculty to their parents.

Crabtree concluded by offering thanks to the department chairs and program directors and other CAS faculty who provide tremendous leadership across the institution, and to all of the College faculty, especially for the work we do with students.

Prof. Brill, seconded by Bucki, moved to adjourn. The meeting was adjourned at 4:56 pm.

Respectfully submitted,
Susan Rakowitz