CAS MEETING
Friday, April 7, 2017
Alumni House
3:30 p.m.
Proxies were held by:
For:
Ronald Davidson
Patricia Behre
Laura Nash
Marice Rose
Laura Nash
Jo Yarrington
Susan Rakowitz
Irene Mulvey
The meeting was called to order at 3:33 p.m. by Interim
Chair Professor Bayne.
I. Approval of the January 27, 2017 Meeting Minutes
The chair asked for a motion to approve the minutes from
January 27, 2017. Professor
Bowen MOVED to approve, Professor Miecznikowski SECONDED.
With the exception of four abstentions, the motion PASSED
unanimously.
II. Faculty
Research Minutes
The chair introduced
Professor Orlando, who discussed
her research in 19th and
early 20th century
transatlantic literature, with a particular focus on gender and the
sexual politics of representation. Professor Orlando spoke about
her work on the American realist writer Edith Wharton and particularly
her engagement with visual culture, noting that she is currently editing
Volume 6 of The
Complete
Works of Edith Wharton,
for Oxford UP, which will be comprised of her many writings on
architecture, design, and gardens. She has also been working on
literary conversations between Oscar Wilde and Edith Wharton and between
Nella Larsen and Edith Wharton. Professor Orlando noted that she’d
love to have a time machine that would bring them all over to dinner,
but she fears that Wilde wouldn’t approve of her china and her dogs
wouldn’t be the right breed for Edith.
III. Update on CAS Dean’s Search, Mary Frances
Malone, Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs
The chair introduced Associate Vice President for
Academic Affairs Malone to provide an update on the CAS Dean Search.
AVPAA Malone: The
search is moving along quite aggressively.
As of last Wednesday, we had 65 candidates, and today we have
75. This is not at all
unusual according to search firm, and in fact they tell us that often
the strongest candidates apply at the last minute.
The ad states that in order to receive full consideration,
applications must be received by April 8, which means that we could
receive a few more. The
search committee will review all of the applications, and by early next
week each member will
The chair then opened the floor to questions.
Professor Abbott: What
will the May visits entail? Will
candidates have the opportunity to talk to faculty?
AVPAA Malone: We expect interviews to be a whirlwind 1-2
days. Candidates will have
dinner with the search committee and will meet with the search committee
and the chairs. There will
also be an open meeting for any interested faculty, as well as
individual meetings with selected students, senior leadership, Interim
Provost Siegel, HR, and anyone else we can think of really.
If we are fortunate enough, we plan to do this non-stop, bring
the first candidate Sunday-Monday, then Tuesday-Wednesday, then
Thursday-Friday. The
committee is mindful that if we do not have viable candidates for full
interviews before the close of the semester, then we will not have the
opportunity again until September because we want a full complement of
faculty and students here when candidates come to campus.
Seeing no further questions, the chair thanked AVPAA
Malone for updating the CAS faculty.
IV. Election for the CAS Distinguished Teaching
& Mentoring Awards Committee, one representative, Natural Sciences
& Mathematics
The chair then stated that at this time, the body must
elect one member for the Distinguished Teaching & Mentoring Awards
Committee and this member must be from the Natural Sciences or
Mathematics. Professor
Shannon Gerry from Biology and Professor Ed O’Connell from Chemistry
have been nominated and are willing to stand.
The chair asked for any additional nominations from the floor.
Seeing none, the chair distributed paper ballots.
V. Update from CAS Core Revision
Committee, Shannon Harding, Chair, CAS Core Revision Committee
The chair next introduced Professor
Shannon Harding, Chair of the CAS Core Revision Committee, to present an
update on the committee’s work to date.
Professor Harding: I’d like to begin by
introducing my fellow committee members, Beth Boquet, Johanna Garvey,
and Dennis Keenan. I also would like to take a moment to remind
you of the committee’s charge (Professor Harding then read from charge
as determined by a vote of the CAS faculty at the January 27th meeting).
We have identified three main issues:
The committee has met five times, and
has met with stakeholders from SOE and MLL, with Nancy Dallavalle to
discuss making aspects of the Jesuit mission more visual, and with
Melissa Quan regarding how service learning might dovetail with SJ. We
also reviewed a memo from a concerned faculty member about the name of
the SJ component.
We have received and reviewed
supporting materials, including the core proposal from 11/28/16,
correspondence from SOE and MLL regarding possible courses of study, and
information from Nancy Dallavalle and Melissa Quan. Just to
give you a sense, we have been making progress and have come to
consensus on several of these issues. However, this consensus
might change as we go through the process, so we decided to present the
whole product at a future meeting rather than presenting a proposal in
process. Our goal is to have recommendations to the CAS faculty on
the Tuesday before last CAS faculty meeting, and we hope to present at
the last CAS meeting and open this up to a vote. We are hoping
that anyone who has concerns can let us know what they are by email or
paper, and please know we are working hard in this process.
The chair then opened the floor to
questions. Seeing none, the chair thanked Professor Harding for
her presentation.
The chair then announced that Professor Gerry was elected
to the Distinguished Teaching and Mentoring Awards Committee.
VI. Dean's
remarks
The chair then invited Dean Williams to offer his
remarks.
Dean Williams: Good
afternoon,
everyone. I would like to
update all of you on some hiring in the college: Kimberly
Gunter will be joining the English department as Director of Core
Writing. In the Mathematics
department, Chris Goodrich will be joining us focusing on preparing high
school and middle school educators in Bridgeport, he comes to us with a
stellar record of publications. We
also have Annemarie Iddins joining the Department of Communications.
She will be teaching global media and media studies in the
department.
An email went out requesting faculty to report
significant achievements in scholarship over the last year.
To date, we have only had 38 responses to Brian’s query for
newsletter. If you could
share these with us, it helps us with this newsletter and development
has also been pushing us for this information.
I am also working on finalizing the annual report so that this
is not dumped on a brand-new dean.
I also believe that candidates will want to look at the annual
report as they think about leadership in the college going forward.
I also want to take a moment to mention that there will
be a conversation about faculty salaries in the near future.
Please take this seriously, be aware of info from the faculty
salary committee, please read the information from the administration
carefully. We all want to
avoid the impasse that we had at the end of last year.
I have had the opportunity to spend the last several
years in a department with great teachers, but recently I had an
opportunity to visit Professor Emily Orlando’s class, and I was just
blown away. All of the CAS
faculty are amazing, providing transformative experiences for our
students. Please know that
the work you do is valuable and simply know that we have the finest
faculty in the county, but I also wanted to give a shout out to Emily
for her fine teaching.
I am still waiting for the final decision on hires for
next year. I have been in
talks with Interim Provost Siegel about the budget.
She correctly pointed out that we got information about the
budget later than this last year. I
want you all to know that I have every confidence in the faculty on the
Dean’s search committee, and I encourage everyone to be deeply involved
in the search because without faculty involvement, we can’t guarantee
that you’ll get leader that you want.
Dean Williams then opened the floor to questions.
Professor Bouquet: Can
you give us an update on the presidential search?
Dean Williams: I
don’t have any information at this time.
VII. Announcements
The chair then made several announcements.
Chair Bayne: At
the next CAS meeting, we will be holding elections for CAS secretary and
two positions on the A&SPC. We
will also be holding elections for the Merit Review Committee.
Please be on the lookout for calls for nominations for these
positions. A reminder that
the CAS awards will be held on April 25, at the usual time.
That same day, there will be a presentation of the Humanities
Institute Student Fellows in the Diffley Boardroom.
Finally, the A&SPC will be hosting an official CAS happy
hour on May 12, at Local in Fairfield, from 4-6.
The chair then opened the floor to additional
announcements.
Professor Harper-Leathermann:
A reminder that FDEC Day will be on May 3.
This year, we will be holding a teaching showcase, “Learning
from Unsung Teachers in our Midst.” Jean Daniele sent out an email
yesterday asking for nominations for presenters.
Please look out for it, click on link and nominate colleagues
that we can ask to present.
Seeing no other announcements, the chair called for a motion to adjourn. Professor Davidson MOTIONED, Professor David SECONDED. The meeting was adjourned at 4:11.
Respectfully submitted,
Margaret McClure
Interim Secretary, College of Arts & Sciences