CAS
MEETING
Friday, April 28, 2017
Alumni House
Proxies were held for:
by:
Betsy Bowen
Beth Boquet
Elizabeth Petrino
Beth Boquet
Janet Striuli
Laura McSweeney
David McFadden
William Abbott
Linda Henkel
Shannon Harding
Joe Dennin
Joan Weiss
Irene Mulvey
Susan Rakowitz
The chair called the meeting to order at 3:31p.m.
I.
Approval of the April 7, 2017 Meeting Minutes
The
chair asked for a motion to approve the minutes from the CAS Meeting on
April 7, 2017. Professor
Weiss MOTIONED, Professor McSweeney SECONDED.
With 6 abstentions, the motion passed unanimously.
II.
Elections for CAS Secretary and two representatives for
the Arts & Sciences Planning Committee, one representative from the
Interdisciplinary Programs, one representative from the Natural Sciences
& Mathematics
The
chair announced that elections would be held for three positions: CAS
secretary and two seats on the Arts & Sciences Planning Committee.
The
chair announced that there was one nomination for CAS secretary,
Professor Miecznikowski (Chemistry), and asked for other nominations
from the floor. Seeing
none, Professor Miecznikowski was elected by acclimation.
The
chair next announced the nominees for two seats on the Planning
Committee: Professor Kubasik for Natural Sciences & Mathematics, and
Professor Orlando for Interdisciplinary programs.
The chair called for additional nominations from the floor;
seeing none, Professors Kubasik and Orlando were elected by acclimation.
III.
Presentation of Faculty Research Highlights
The
chair then invited Dean Williams to announce faculty book publications
for the 2016-17 academic year.
Dean Williams: The following faculty have published
books during the 2016-17 academic year.
Chris Bernhardt, Author
Professor of Mathematics
Turing’s Vision the Birth of Computer Science
The MIT Press - 2016
Elizabeth Boquet, Author
Professor of English/Director, Writing Center
Nowhere Near the Line
Published by University Press of Colorado -2016
Javier Campos, Translated book
Professor of the Department of Moderm Languages
Dora Franco,Confesion tardia, author Yevgeny Yevtuskenko
Published in Lima Peru, 2016
Benjamin Fine, co-Author
Professor of Mathematics
Number Theory an Introduction via the Density of Primes
Springer International Publishing, 2016
Sonya Huber, Author
Associate Professor of English and Director, MFA Program
Pain Woman Takes Your Keys and Other Essays from a Nervous System
University of Nebraska Press, 2017
Amanda Harper-Leatherman,
co-Editor
Associate Professor of Chemistry
The Science and Function of Nanomaterials:
from Synthesis to Application
Distributed in print by Oxford University Press, 2016
Emily Orlando, Co-Editor
Associate Professor of English
Edith Wharton and Cosmopolitanism
University Press of Florida 2016
Associate Professor of Communication
Health Communication for Health Care Professionals
Springer Publishing Company NY 2017
Yohuru Williams, Co-Editor
Professor of History/Dean, College of Arts & Sciences
The Black Panthers
Portraits from an Unfinished Revolution
Published by Nation Books, 2016
The CAS faculty then offered their congratulations
to their colleagues with enthusiastic applause.
IV. Report
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.
Professor Harding: My
job today is to walk you through our report that hopefully you all
received on Tuesday. I’ll
take you through the document and when I’m done, the entire committee
will join me for a question and answer session.
Professor Harding then thanked her committee members and
reminded the body of the committee’s charge.
Professor Harding: I’d
also like to give you all some background.
This revision has been a long process with many involved,
including Interim Provost Siegel and the Fairfield 2020 Core Task Force,
Core Directors Professor Epstein and Professor Porter, the three Summer
2016 Working Groups, and a small Fall 2016 working group.
Professor Harding the reminded the body of the timeline
of core revision proposals, noting that the most recent proposal was
approved by the UCC in December of 2016 and was then presented to the
faculty at FDEC Day in December. Professor
Harding also reminded the body that concerns over this proposal resulted
in the motion at the January 27, 2017 CAS meeting calling for the
formation of the CAS Core Revision Committee.
Professor Harding: Our
committee
identified four major faculty concerns with December 2016 the proposal:
1. The distribution of courses in Tier 1 and Tier 2
2. The decision to link Tier 2 courses to learning outcomes
rather than disciplines
3. Integration of the work done by the Summer 2016 Working
Groups
4. The language requirement exemption for students in the
School of Engineering.
Professor Harding: In our report, we have broken things
down so we can talk through all four of these and provide
recommendations for each of these concerns.
In the proposal approved by the UCC in the Spring of
2016, there were 8 courses in Tier 1, three of those were Writing Across
the Curriculum (WAC) and Arts & Literature were grouped together.
There were 7 courses in Tier 2, and again Arts & Literature
were grouped together. In
the revised proposal from Fall of 2016, one change was in the
presentation of the material, with a new graphic rather than a course
listing. There was also a
shift from seven courses to eight courses in Tier 2, with separate
elements for Art and Literature and a shift to choose two out of three
courses from the departments of Philosophy, Religious Studies, and
History. The committee’s
first recommendation is to endorse the course requirements from the fall
proposal, although we recommend moving away from the graphic and
returning to the simpler text presentation.
Our
second task was to consider the shift to grouping elements by learning
outcomes rather than disciplines. In
the Fall 2016 Core Proposal, it was suggested that elements be
determined by learning outcomes; however, the committee feels strongly
that course approvals should be discipline specific and therefore
department based. We do
however believe that there should be an appeals process if a department
turns down a request for a course to be counted in that area of the
core, because at this time there is not mechanism for appealing the
decision of a department. The
committee’s recommendation is for UCC to form a body especially for such
appeals.
The
third faculty concern was the integration of the work done by the three
Summer 2016 work groups. As
you can see from the graphic circulated with the Fall 2016 Core
Proposal, three WAC courses, in addition to a course on Composition
& Rhetoric, were required. Social
Justice (SJ) was added as a new signature element with one SJ course in
Tier 1and two in Tier 2. An
interdisciplinary (ID) course was also added.
The committee’s recommendation is to retain these elements, but
in order to make the Jesuit tradition more visible, we suggest renaming
this as a Magis component and endorsing this as a central and unique
feature of our core. The
committee does have some lingering questions to resolve around what
constitutes a core course and if any of these Magis elements could be
completed in the major. The
committee also recommends changing the name from Writing Across the
Curriculum to Writing Across the Core.
The
last concern, which was the most contentious and the one that took up
most of the committee’s time, is the SOE language requirement exemption
proposed in the Fall 2016 revision.
Just to remind everyone, two of the primary goals of the core
revision were to reduce the size of the core and for all students to
have a common experience. The
SOE has presented us with information from competitive engineering
programs at schools like ours, there is either no language requirement,
a limited language requirement, or the option for a place-out of the
requirement. SOE also
articulated concerns with recruitment and retention, as the language
requirement would result in a shift in the percentage of science courses
taken which could impact accreditation.
The committee met with and reviewed correspondence from SOE and
the department of Modern Language & Literature (MLL), but we were
unable to come to a consensus. Instead,
we came up with several options, including no language requirement for
SOE students, placement testing for SOE or even for all students,
allowing Computer Programming to count in that black of “language”
courses for all students, or keeping the core requirement the same for
all schools (2 language courses at any level).
The committee spent a lot of time discussing these options, but
did not come to a consensus on this issue.
The committee’s plan is to listen to the faculty
feedback, and to bring specific motions to this body at the first
meeting of the next academic year.
We plan to distribute these motions well in advance of the first
CAS meeting.
V. Discussion
of CAS Core Revision Committee Report, CAS Core Revision Committee
The chair then invited the other members of the CAS Core
Revision Committee to join Professor Harding and opened the floor to
questions.
Professor Abbott: By
place out, do you mean holding an exam and then there would be no
language course? What does
place out mean?
The committee stated that this was the intention of that
suggestion.
Professor Harding: In
any version of the core, the MLL requirement has been reduced from the
current requirement of two intermediate level courses.
In all proposals, students take one year of language, either a
new language at the beginner level or, if there is competency, then
students would take two advanced courses.
So no one would place out as it stands now.
Professor Davidson:
You may recall that there was previously a discussion about SJ
and its replacement of the World Diversity requirement in the current
core. I had a discussion
with members of the CAS Advisory Board and they were dismayed that
students could easily graduate without exposure to any culture outside
of the U.S. in this proposal. They thought that this is not in the best
interest of students, and faculty in Asian Studies, for example, agree.
Besides the three SJ courses, there is no global diversity
requirement.
Professor Garvey: I
think that some of the confusion is that one needs to look at leaning
outcomes for SJ1 and SJ2, as these open them up to more global
diversity. The SJ term may
trip people up, but as you listen and define it, it has much more of a
global focus. In SJ1,
students look at themselves and other cultures, this for example could
be happening in a Spanish class or in many other places, both for SJ1
and SJ2.
Professor Boquet: One
piece that cuts across this, in conversations that we had in the summer
and that continued in the small fall working group, is the importance of
having conversations about what needs to change in our teaching, both in
terms of what I teach as well as in shared teaching across programs and
departments. We certainly want to think about student experiences and
what students learn, pulling that into shared conversations about what
students will learn in this new core.
Professor Sauer: I am a bit confused.
On one of the slides, it looks like there is an option for SOE
students to place out of any other two courses, not necessarily language
courses?
Professor Keenan: The
committee
is of two different minds on this. One of the possibilities that we
discussed was to keep the core the same for all students, but students
could opt of out any two courses. We
have a variety of opinions about this, but it would keep it uniform for
all students.
Professor Boquet: We
did not have an elaborate conversation about this, but we were trying to
move away from intractable binaries that we went into the process with.
The committee heard questions about why one requirement would
be waived and not another one. One initial common goal was of the core
revision was universality; right now, there is none around language so
this is another way of thinking about how this question of relieving
pressure on the core, because for the professional schools this proposal
does not relieve pressure and, in some ways, it actually makes it worse.
We also received questions about proficiencies because students
come in with English exemptions or exemptions for AP history, for
example. We will likely
have to make some exceptions so building in a way to do this will make
sense for many students.
Professor
Dallavalle asked the chair for permission to distribute copies of a memo
from Professor Dallavalle to the CAS Core Revision Committee.
Professor
Dallavalle:
My proposal is that we use RATIO as a key to the mission aspect of the
core curriculum. You can see in the handout, I don't want to take
too much time, that this will hit our students at two points, only one
of which is up for discussion today. For today, my point is that we
should relabel the interdisciplinary aspect of the core the "RATIO
Seminar." The Committee has proposed calling all three signature
elements the "Magis" because this refers to more and is questioning the
use of Ratio because they find our students to be quite rational.
I oppose this use of Magis because it is a weak use of Magis, and
will move this "label" to the background, noted on glossy brochures but
not an active piece of the core for students taking the core. Explicitly
naming the interdisciplinary component the Ratio Seminar will make it
visible to our students, and tell them that the life of mind is central
to being Jesuit educated.
The committee mis-states the issue of making
mission visible in the core, it is NOT, as they presented, to make
mission visible to "outsiders," it is to make mission a visible aspect
of the academic program to our students.
This is appropriate for ID courses because RATIO
refers to the 1599 Ratio Studiorum, which presumed a unity of knowledge,
and is the basis of our core curriculum. The ID courses ask about that
unity, which is understood differently in our day, after modernity.
This kind of questioning, about how we understand the life of the
mind today, is a key marker of Jesuit education, and we want our
students to recognize that. The proposal I make is simply to label
the ID courses the RATIO Seminar, there is no change to the proposed
course goals, etc.
Professor
Bouquet:
We don’t have a copy of this memo, but we do want to get this feedback
from the faculty. We did have a version of this conversation when
Nancy came to meet with the committee and two points were raised.
The first is that there are questions about the naming of element 1,
what the terminology is and how it looks on paper and how it is
experienced in print. The second has to do with implementing this.
I think that there are things that would need to change in how we image
the ID experience if we make it the way that Nancy suggests. In
many experiences, such as when you have interdisciplinary experience
with a seminar, it should be clear that we are going to encounter
mission. Students know the word Magis, they know this as highest
as in deeper, not just more.
Professor
Garvey:
Another issue is with pragmatics. The ID experience is not just a
seminar, this must take multiple forms since there is no way we can
deliver an ID seminar for every student in the curriculum.
Professor
Dallavalle: Two quick points. The word "seminar" is the word
used in the handout for the interdisciplinary element, that's why I'm
using "RATIO Seminar," this could be discussed. With regard to
concern about using mission language raising all kinds of other
questions and imposing issues on the interdisciplinary courses, I think
we should avoid fear-mongering here, I have clearly stated that this
proposal would accept the interdisciplinary proposal as written,
including the course goals as writing, it would simply draw students
attention to the question of the life of the mind that these courses
raise.
Professor Carolan: I am still not sure why SOE is focused
on the language when we know that two courses that used to count for SOE
for the VPA requirement will no longer count in the new core proposal.
Is this an issue of language or of credits?
If the SOE students cannot complete a degree in 4 years, and by
the way these comparison schools often don’t require religious studies
and philosophy, then the new core must be revised for everyone.
And since SOE students don’t take language now, how can
admissions guarantee that students won’t come here if we start requiring
language?
Professor Harding: It
was explained to us in terms of accreditation standards.
They have to meet a certain percentage of courses that fall
into specific categories, including science, engineering, etc.
In our current core, there is more science whereas the proposed
core is “science-light,” and that is having ramifications on SOE.
We could look at having applied ethics and graphic design
continue to count, but the way that this would work would be for them to
go to a department and if that department says no, there is no appeal
process. These ideas are
all good, but we did not discuss them in detail because that was not in
our purview, because language requirement is the one that was changed in
the fall.
Professor Keenan: We
looked at a lot of sample student schedules from SOE, and we didn’t
always agree. The committee
feels strongly that we need to frame this not as a language versus SOE
question. We asked why
specifically MLL, and they have variety of answers, some of which are
not so convincing. One idea
that we have is that we need to get clarification about what we as the
college need to deliver to the students, and then we should figure this
out. We think that we
should first start to see what we are about.
The other thing is that when we started going through this
process, we didn’t go down the path of learning outcomes, we stayed on
the path of disciplines. We
have to take seriously the fact that if one of the disciplines in our
school has concerns, we have to respect the expertise of that
discipline, keep that clear and then deal with issues about what
professional schools need or don’t need.
Professor Xiao: I really appreciate the committee’s work, we see that you have been
trying to work hard to mediate between DMLL and SOE. We looked at
the document SOE sent to the committee and our concern is that we don’t
see hard evidences from SOE that there is indeed a recruitment problem
and a retention problem that can be attributed to the language
requirement. I also want to quickly ask you about the two options
you proposed in this document. One is place-out. Can
place-outs really solve the problems for SOE? Some SOE students
might get a language waiver. But most won’t. Also, if we offer the
two-course exemption option, can students choose to exempt from both
language courses? In other words, then they could opt out of the
language requirement entirely.
Professor Keenan: To
be honest, we were all over the place with this, just suggesting a
number of possibilities. We
haven’t thought through them all, we were trying to identify some way to
deal with this. I would be
lying if I said we talked them through to nth degree, there is a lot of
disagreement within the committee.
We understand the things you brought up and for the most part we
agree, these things are hard to predict.
Professor Boquet: I
think that this underscores the point of disciplinarity, which is the
road we went down, and we need to be clear about how we are positing it.
We have to now come back and ask, what do we share?
Why are we here and what are we doing?
Many of us may get feedback from the professional schools, but
our charge came from CAS and we are representing this body.
Because we are doing that and are talking about disciplines, we
have to ask what are our colleagues with expertise are saying about
this. And that is clear:
MLL has a clear position and we need to respect our colleagues.
That doesn’t solve the question, but it is another example of
the principle.
Professor Garvey: To
reiterate,
one key discussion is whether we want the core to be universal. If
the answer is yes, then we need to be prepared for more changes and key
questions that will need to be resolved.
The chair reminded the body of the hour, and asked for a
few final questions.
Professor Nash: Is
writing across the core OK with engineering?
Professor Boquet: We didn’t check with engineering, but
this is our recommendation.
Professor Nash: You
mentioned
that there is no appeals process in JOR for courses to count as core if
a department says no, but John Miecznikowski is a keeper of records on
this and I can forward to you the policy of the UCC that addresses this.
My second question is on SJ,
are you proposing a specific course for SJ2?
Professor Garvey: We
didn’t change anything in regards to that.
Professor Nash: Not
even all SOE students take computer science, so that doesn’t seem like
it helps.
Professor Bucki: You
suggest
taking out the MLL requirement, asserting disciplinary sovereignty, but
here it says UCC should develop a policy.
I would like to see a statement asserting the sovereignty of
the departments.
Professor Nash: That’s
what currently exists in the UCC documents.
Professor Harding: The
committee
determined that the appeals process is really murky. We are suggesting
formalizing such a process.
Professor Bucki: And
this should include removing language about learning outcome and
replacing it with disciplines.
Professor
Thiel: This has been very
helpful, especially how the committee asked us to think along with them,
laying out all of the options that we can consider to make a decision
that will be good for all of us and our students.
I have a question about the WAC courses: I assume that there
will be a high bar for them, and that ordinary writing requirements in
our courses now will not suffice. My
question is: can we actually offer enough of these courses, 3 in the
current proposal, that deliver this high standard?
How do we know that there are enough professors who would be
willing to teach these courses, since academic freedom precludes us from
requiring professors to teach their courses in a certain way?
Professor Boquet: We
have a new director for core writing joining us in the summer charged
with working with departments and the CAE, as well as other programs, to
think about what Writing Across the Core means.
My position at this point would be that I think that the work
of implementing a WAC program involves thinking differently about
teaching writing in the disciplines.
People need to be prepared to teach writing and not just assign
writing. I think that there is a lot of writing that is assigned and
evaluated currently that is huge use of faculty time with limited gain
for students. This proposal
has us revise a core English course in my area, writing about writing,
in other words how to encounter discourse.
People will have to teach writing in the disciplines, and if we
sign on to this then the faculty will have to agree that this is a
departmental and programmatic commitment for all faculty.
At the same time, I imagine that it might not even need to be
as labor intensive as what is happening now.
Professor Johnson: I’m
not going to share my opinions on language because I think they are
already understood. Thank
you for all of your work. For
the WAC and literature courses, would courses outside of the English
department count? For
example, in MLL we teach several courses on close reading, writing,
etc., in other languages.
Professor Garvey: We
didn’t put that they have to be in English. One
place
for the consideration of this idea is governance.
It depends on whether it’s a core level course. and this is one
thing for the department to consider, should it be in English.
Professor Boquet: One
part might be a conversation for the incoming person, there could be
much more work on multilingual writing.
I wouldn’t close that door.
Professor Johnson: For
the SOE, when I met with them, they said this is not a problem now but
for where they want to go. They
want to add more courses to their curriculum, but they are currently
accredited. Did they make
that any clearer to the committee?
Professor Harding: Again,
the
core revision has from the beginning had two goals: a universal
experience and students having more flexibility.
What we have now is a wash.
SOE gave us sample schedules, and some students will take19
credits per semester and are still not be able to take additional
engineering courses. They
would like to take more engineering electives.
The reason that language is an issue for them is because their
students don’t take it now.
Professor Nantz: I
am discouraged to the point of despair as we talk about disciplinary
ownership of these requirements, like the ones that Jerelyn mentioned
with Spanish literature, as a person who has championed
interdisciplinary collaboration. We
are increasingly giving ownership of these to particular departments,
and that leads us back to the same old idea of silos and these existing
in departments. I was
hoping when we got the new core, we would try to sort that out, as we
decide how do we determine this. I’d
like to see us keep this on front burner whether or not this proposal
passes.
Professor Alphonso:
In looking through the document, I can’t understand in the
governance document who decides, for example, what social justice means?
Who decides who sits on these committees that determine whether
or not a course qualifies as a "social justice" course and what
definition of social justice is used?
What is "ID"? Is
it only pre-existing interdiscipliniary programs or are there certain
elements? Any clarification
on this would be useful.
Professor Garvey: Over
the summer, all three working groups recommended some committee that
would oversee this, and we didn’t change that. In
our attempt to think about governance, some of us talked about this.
One option is that the UCC could have an election, but we are
not sure since UCC is all schools not just the college.
Some body of the college should discuss and, if we approve,
then that is how would we populate courses.
Professor Davis, do you want to add anything?
Professor Davis: In
the fall when I was helping, I looked at U.S. Diversity and World
Diversity committees as models. The
summer working group was thinking that that learning outcomes would be
the determinants. CAE helps
us learn how to do this, but governance says what they are.
Seeing no further comments, the chair thanked the
committee for their presentation.
Interim Chair Bayne:
Are the members of the committee willing to continue this work?
Professor Keenan: I
believe that this is still part of our charge.
Interim Chair Bayne:
Does the committee have a plan for this work?
Professor Keenan: We
want to have your feedback. Our
idea is to give you concrete motions before the 1st CAS
faculty meeting of the next academic year so we can start the discussion
and so you can all marshal resources, think of who it is that you want
to speak, propose alternate motions, etc.
We will give you these motions well in advance of the meetings,
and then we can discuss them.
VII. Presentation
of Distinguished Teaching and Mentoring Awards
The chair then invited Interim Dean Williams to present
the 2017 Distinguished Teaching and Mentorship Awards.
Dean Williams:
This year’s recipient of the College of Arts and Sciences
Distinguished Teaching Award is Associate Professor Laura
Nash. Professor Nash is a
tirelessly dedicated teacher. Every
semester Laura teaches core lecture music courses, such as History of
Music, History of American Song, and History of Hip Hop.
Each fall Laura teaches a Cornerstone course to first year
students while also serving as a First Year Experience facilitator.
In addition to her regular classes, Laura also oversees all
music internships and teaches 4 or 5 independent studies every semester
for advanced music theory students, meeting with these students
individually in tutorials.
Laura is not just a dedicated teacher, but she is also an amazing
teacher! Students report
that being in her classes is a transformative experience.
An alumnus writes that “The first time I met Dr. Nash, I was a
timid college freshman, sitting in the far corner of my first class,”
and “I anxiously sat at my desk as I watched Dr. Nash come into the
classroom, and she started to shake things up like an earthquake whose
aftershocks I am still feeling today. She brought this amazing energy
and within the first 15 minutes of class, she turned us from passive
learners to active members of a learning community.
By the end of the 75-minute class, I think we all realized that
we weren’t in Kansas anymore, and that a college class like this might
just change our lives.” Laura’s
colleagues recognize this too: Prof. Lynne Porter writes that every time
she has “visited Laura's classroom, there has been great energy in the
room. No matter what the topic, and no matter how enthusiastic the
students are (or not) Laura energizes everyone throughout the session.”
Prof. Brian Torff writes that Laura “excels in delivering a
passionate and comprehensive approach to music education. Her engaging
style draws students into a meaningful learning experience that is
accompanied by her consistently high standards.”
Laura’s teaching shines not only within
the classroom, but also outside it.
Prof. Marice Rose writes that Laura is “tireless in her devotion
to her students both within the classroom and outside it, through her
mentoring and advising.” Of
course, Laura is an amazing mentor to her music students, but she is
also an amazing advisor to her 40 or 50 undeclared CAS students.
Laura’s mentoring of students doesn’t even end at
graduation—years after graduating, alumni have reported seeking (and
receiving) Laura’s advice on some of their post Fairfield projects.
For her sustained commitments and accomplishments in teaching, the
College of Arts and Sciences recognizes Associate Professor Laura Nash
with the 2017 Distinguished Teaching Award.
Dean Williams: The
College
of Arts and Sciences Advising & Mentoring Award recognizes the
crucial role that student advising and mentoring plays in the life of a
mindful and vibrant university. The award honors CAS faculty who
have demonstrated sustained dedication to students in the area of
academic or co-curricular advising.
While
still a junior faculty member, Assistant Professor Aaron Van Dyke has
already demonstrated his dedication and ability to mentor students at
Fairfield University. Prof.
Gary Weddle writes that “mentorship and advising have many components.
Among them are good advice, friendship, respect, a non-judgmental
listening ear, encouragement to professionalism, and the willingness to
spend time with the student. Aaron has exhibited all of these qualities
with all of his students.”
Aaron seems to have the ability to be an ideal mentor for both his
research students in chemistry as well as students outside the
discipline. A recent
graduate writes: “Professor Van Dyke is one of only a few people who has
impacted my life in a tremendous way. He always preached about trying to
find your passion and his words will live with me for the rest of my
life. It was through his advising and mentoring that I discovered my
passion for organic synthesis which has led me to pursue my Ph.D.”
Another student writes that “AVD epitomized the mentoring role
of Jesuit education, inspiring me to wander outside of my intellectual
comfort zone while also providing an example of humility, service, and
benevolence I have continually strived to incorporate into my own
character.”
For the past two years Aaron has served as Faculty-in-Residence for the
Ignatian Residential College. In
the dorm, Aaron mentors students where they live and shares their
journey of personal growth from within this residential community.
Aaron’s success here is reflected in student and peer comments.
One student wrote that “I did not feel like I was speaking to a
Professor, but rather a friend. I was able to tell him about my
successes in life and in my academics and more importantly, my struggles
and failures.” One
colleague in the IRC wrote that Aaron’s “vulnerability and openness
allowed students to feel comfortable talking about their own struggles,”
and another wrote that Aaron “was able to use the enduring values of
Jesuit education” to “provide a framework for reflection and
conversation with students.”
Finally, his colleagues believe that the mentoring “Aaron has done to
advance the lives and careers of the students within his circle places
him at the very top of the list of effective and loved mentors and
advisors at Fairfield University.”
For these reasons, the College of Arts and Sciences recognizes Assistant
Professor Aaron Van Dyke with the 2017 Distinguished Advising &
Mentoring Award.
VI. Dean's
remarks
Dean Williams: I
don’t have many comments to offer today.
We are now in the process of preparing the annual reports.
We will soon have candidates on campus and we are preparing for
the transition, and that means collecting documents and preparing
reports, and that has occupied much of our attention in the Dean’s
office in addition to the annual reviews of all junior faculty.
As many of you know, Lynn Sally is no longer Associate Dean,
but we are taking steps to address this.
We are moving to going back to a two-faculty-rotating
structure. Salary
negotiations continue, nevertheless Jean Daniele will email everyone
regarding the annual ritual of writing the three essays for the money
that you can expect that there might be for merit.
The Dean then opened the floor to questions.
Professor Boquet: Can
you speak to the process of appointing the new directors of the schools
of the college?
Dean Williams: In
the governance document, it was agreed that there would be one-year
appointments and that a new process would be solidified once a new dean
was named. Given how the search unfolded, it was decided that most of
the directors would continue in their current roles.
With the move of the economics department to the Dolan School
of Business we needed a new Director of the School of Social Science,
which is why Professor McClure is taking that role.
Professor Davidson will be on sabbatical, which is why
Professor Pearson will be taking that role, but the other two are
remaining in place. The new
dean will most likely determine a more transparent procedure for this,
but it is written in the governance documents that this is the dean’s
prerogative.
Professor Davidson:
The Director for the School of Communication and Media Arts is
not remaining in place.
Dean Williams: That
is correct, since Professor Gudelunas is leaving us, that necessitated a
new Director and Dr. Schwab will be taking that role.
IX. Announcements
The chair then made several announcements.
Chair Bayne: Following
the meeting, there will be a group photo of all book authors at the
front. Also one issue that
will be coming before Academic Council (AC) on Monday: with the
departure of the economics department for DSB, the AC took up a
reapportionment of seats for AC and AC is considering three options.
Please look at the documents that have been posted and speak to
your colleagues on AC. This
change impacts AC and UCC. At
some point this will also come to the general faculty, so please be
aware that this is happening.
The final announcement is for our friend who has 40 days
left. On behalf of the A&SPC, I want to thank Yohuru for his all
that he has done for the college during his tenure.
The University of St. Thomas’ gain is our loss, and you will be
greatly missed.
Dean Williams thanked the chair.
He also thanked Jean Daniele for her continued support and
Associate Dean Walker for his stable presence in the dean’s office
during his tenure. Dean
Williams also thanked Interim Chair Bayne and Interim Secretary McClure
for their service this semester. The
Dean closed by offering his best wishes for the CAS faculty and shared
that he will miss everyone very much.
X. Adjournment
The chair then asked for a motion to adjourn.
Professor Davidson MOTIONED, Professor Bucki SECONDED, and at
4:58 the meeting was adjourned.
Respectfully submitted,
Margaret McClure
Interim Secretary, College of Arts & Sciences