College of Arts and Sciences

Dean's Council of Department Chairs

 

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Alumni House

 

 

Present:

Steven Bayne, Chair of Philosophy

Mary Ann Carolan, Chair of Modern Languages and Literatures

David Crawford, Chair of Sociology and Anthropology

Nancy Dallavalle, Chair of Religious Studies

Mark LeClair, Chair of Economics

John McCarthy, Chair of Psychology

Stephen Sawin, Chair of Mathematics and Computer Science

James Simon, Chair of English

Kraig Steffen, Chair of Chemistry

Brian Torff, chair of Visual and Performing Arts

Brian Walker, Chair of Biology

J. Weiss, Associate Dean CAS

Margaret Wills, Chair of Communication

David Winn, Chair of Physics Department

 

Regrets: Cecelia Bucki, Chair of History

Marcie Patton, Chair of Politics

 

Approval of the Minutes

Dr. Nancy Dallavalle moved to approve the minutes of October 6, 2010, and Dr. Kraig Steffen seconded the motion. Dr. Mary Ann Carolan mentioned that her name was inadvertently omitted from the attendance list. All were in favor upon this amendment.

 

R&T Follow-up

The Dean commented that the detail reflected in the October 6^th Dean's Council minutes relative to the expectations of the R&T chairs' letters of recommendation is a good resource for ongoing consultation. In addition, the Dean constructed and circulated a handout highlighting expectations and important areas to reflect on while crafting pre-tenure and Rank and Tenure review letters.

 

The following was discussed relative to Rank and Tenure.

·      Dr. Steve Bayne commented on the new Rank and Tenure procedures that were approved by the Academic Council and will be displayed in the Journal of Records. He asked if there would be any grandfathering. The Dean commented that there would not be. There are a few months difference for notification, but it is designed in a way to be in the best interest of the candidate. The other deadlines will be shared and discussed at the CAS Chairs' Retreat in August. At the last Dean's Council meeting, in May, a discussion relative to the new timeline and deadlines will be addressed, because May 31 will be the notification deadline for all candidates applying for promotion and/or tenured in the fall of 2011. This is the most significant reminder.

·      Dean—The Dean mentioned that some pre-tenure faculty, planning to go up for tenure and promotion next year, had conversations with her. They looked at their CV and are seeking advice. She recommended that they have a conversation with chairs to put together their list of potential reviewers. She also gave them a number of tips on how to approach constructing this list. For example, looking in journals to see who is publishing similar work or seeking colleagues who were respondents on panels when they presented a paper. They should try to identify folks with professional qualification to review their materials but not really a close connection. Work with colleagues on devising the list and it can include a notation stating "do not send my materials to this person."

·      CAS pre-tenured faculty met with the Dean on Friday, October 29. She shared a tip sheet and Dr. Linda Henkel was present to answer R&T questions, and there were a handful of colleagues who are up for tenure now, sharing their wisdom and some insight. The Dean will forward the tip sheet to department chairs. This will give chairs an opportunity to address any concerns or include departmental advice that could be helpful to the candidate.

 

With all of the resources shared—set of guidelines, the conversation at the October Dean's Council meeting, the pre-tenure meeting, and the tip sheet—applicants and chairs have a clearer common framework to work with.

 

FY '12 Budget submissions

The Dean introduced Ms. Tracy Immerso, Manager of Academic Operations to give an overview and engage in a question and answer session relative to budget submission for FY'12. Ms. Immerso constructed a new budget procedure, working closely with the finance office. The recording of this year's budget will be through an excel spreadsheet process. Both Ms. Immerso and Ms. Jean Daniele are available to answer budgetary questions. The CAS College budget submissions are due by Friday, November 5 (with a grace period up to Monday morning, 11/8). Ms. Daniele will follow-up with chairs or directors after that time if she has questions relative to rationales, etc.

 

Why Change the Process? Ms. Immerso's main priority was to develop a mechanical paperless budget process and to generate a system that incorporated a two-way means of communication. The newly designed template offers a means to roll up dollar amounts by school, department, or category. There will be a greater means of transparency in terms of what requests are or are not approved.

 

Ms. Immerso explained the process and then engaged in a question and answer session.

·      Department chairs and program directors should fill in the gray shaded areas of the workbook.

·      Submissions should be forwarded to Ms. Daniele for the first review process

·      The Dean will complete the review assigning a priority to all of the College requests and listing the final dollar amount to present to the Vice President of Academic Affairs for the College.

·      The Vice President of Academic Affairs will engage in the same process, reviewing and prioritizing all requests across the various schools. He will then decide how much should be requested for the Academic Division.

·      Once the final decisions are made, Ms. Immerso will record the approvals on each individual department and program spreadsheet and share these approvals with the appropriate Dean, chairs, and directors. This level of transparency allows for these decisions to be accessible throughout the course of the academic year.

·      The Dean commented that she appreciated the transparency that this new process will lend. The College will actually know what was approved. This was not a common practice in the past.

·      Dr. James Simon asked how the level of priority worked based on a scale of one through four. Ms. Immerso confirmed that number one would indicate the highest level of importance. The numbers do not reflect a ranking system, but rather an indication of its level of importance. You can have more than one 1, more than one 2, etc., but not to put 1s on everything.

·      Professor Torff asked if department chairs should submit requests from colleagues within the department if they seem to be out of line. The Dean mentioned that chairs should be transparent by prioritizing these requests and communicate to their colleagues how decisions were made. The Dean has the authority to make a decision on whether to send requests forward. If something was prioritized high by the chair and the dean was in disagreement, she would contact the chair to discuss.

 

Personnel Sheet

·      Ms. Caitlin Doyle, Coordinator of Visual and Performing Arts, asked if departments are required to record salary increases due to tenure or promotion. Ms. Immerso clarified that requests for routine increases will be processed separately through the Academic Vice President's Office. Department and program budget submissions primarily focus on increase in operating budgets, travel expense, and capital expenses, if any is requested. The Dean added that a critical salary related item for departments to handle is the adjunct piece. An estimate of the number of sections needed per year should be based on freshmen enrollment of approximately 925 students in the class of 2015.

·      Ms. Doyle mentioned that the Dean requested a separate one-page justification for requests for tenure-track positions. The Dean explained that the separate justification will come into play for developing search plans later, and for her work with Paul on authorizations, but that it is still necessary to include a one- to two-sentence justification on the spreadsheet process.

·      Salary requests for current tenure line faculty are not necessary, but the Dean will add salary for all faculty hired this year in active searches (chairs should put the line in the budget). Dr. Carolan asked how to handle a situation if a full-time faculty is on leave and returning, replacing a one-year visiting position. In this situation, it is not necessary to include a request for additional compensation, because the visiting position is terminated and the funds remain available in the faculty line. If you want to request another one-year visiting position, that would need to be included with justification.

·      Ms. Immerso mentioned that if a part time faculty or staff person is being considered for a change of status from part-time to full time then the increase in salary would be included with the Personnel requests.

·      Professor of the Practice, adjunct faculty, new faculty lines, and student workers all need to be reflected on the Personnel worksheet. These positions need to be evaluated each year based on performance, need in the program, and budget being available.

·      If there is an assumption that there will be a course release relative to a grant (existing or pending), or sabbatical or pre-tenure leave that is not yet approved, all replacement needs should be factored into the budget.

·      In terms of graduate assistant requests, the number of hours requested will be needed, along with the dollar amount relative to the program the graduate assistant is enrolled in. The tuition amount per credit could be found on the Fairfield University website. If a graduate assistant is not yet determined, then an estimated amount should be recorded based on the list of tuition rates posted.

·      The Dean asked that departments identify their work study needs, and then these will be shared with Financial Aid. In terms of calculating costs for Federal work study, although the University is responsible for 25% of work study compensation, the funding responsibility is not placed on the departments. It is a University expense.

·      Dr. McCarthy asked how to seek approval for a search for a FY'13 hire. Permission to search should come up through this year's process, with a note indicating the request is for FY'13 not FY'12.

·      Dr. Walker asked if the AVP's office could estimate what a search would cost.

Ms. Immerso mentioned that the cost of a search is an expense incurred by the AVP's office. The Dean reiterated the importance of indicating requests to search during FY'12, so that the AVP's office could access their needs in terms of funding for these searches. These requests should include the dollar amount within the memo because some disciplines require a different structure in terms of the salary (not on the budget spreadsheet which will be only FY '12 dollars).

 

Capital Request

·      A capital expense should be for equipment $2,000 or greater. Ms. Immerso shared that there is a Finance link for additional capital information that can be used to obtain a more detailed description on what is capitalized or not.

http://info.fairfield.edu/finance/webpdf/Equipment_Guidelines41409web.pdf)

·      Capital requests should include estimates of startup funding for new faculty. Because startup could be relative to non-equipment requests, it is important to break down the needs placing it in the appropriate area in terms of operating, capital and non-capital. Startup packages could include student workers, materials funds, and building renovations, so each should be recorded accordingly. Student workers, lab supplies, and small capital equipment should be requested within operating budget.

·      Dr. David Winn asked if equipment from the same vendor could be bundled together to total the minimum requirement of $2,000, or if there was a system that had numerous components needed in order to be functional, could these items be capitalized. Ms. Immerso reiterated that if each item is less than $2,000, it would have to be paid by an operating budget, unless departments could demonstrate to the Finance Division that each one of the pieces could not function without the other, then it could be capitalized as a whole.

 

Non Capital Equipment

·      Non-Capital equipment should include unit costs of less than $2,000, inclusive of new computers that are over and above replacement computers worked out between CNS. The Dean mentioned that faculty computers are replaced through the IT budget. Older computers often go into adjunct offices. Sometimes adjunct offices and lab computers are inadvertently neglected for routine replacement. The Dean recommended that chairs ensure that these computers needs are addressed. Office computers are in the renewal process, but lab computers need to be flagged so that we could inform our needs to CNS, who appreciates the heads up as they plan use of their budget and staff time.

 

Operating Funding

·      Request for funds to accommodate service contracts should be reflected under operating requests. Continual or new contracts need to be listed every year.

·      Travel for new faculty should be reflected by adding $1,000 to the travel budget. Some budgets have a permanent travel fund reflecting this formula, but others for some reason do not. We're still trying to regularize this and our request will reflect that.

·      The Dean mentioned that concerns relative to the enormous photocopy costs and the large impact on departmental budgets were expressed during previous meetings. Inquires as to whether departments or programs should put forward a request for additional funding to accommodate an increase in faculty or the student body was articulated. The Dean encouraged the use of paperless solutions but was fine with requests for additional funds for photocopy needs.

 

 

Core Integration & Assessment Update

Drs. Kathy Nantz and Curt Naser joined the Dean's Council to discuss Davis Grant Workshops and Core Pathways.

 

The Dean emphasized that these workshops are useful resources relative to many initiatives, such as program reviews including pre-planning for a future review, deep work in relationship to a self-study, or follow up work correlated to an external review that already took place. As well, these workshops are beneficial for assessment work related to learning outcomes, curriculum mapping, rubric development, analysis of data, or core integration—horizontal, vertical or both. There are a lot of resources available to engage in work with colleagues through CAE regular workshops, the special Davis funded workshops, or CAS Humanities Institute funding.

 

Dr. Curt Naser, Facilitator for Academic Assessment, gave an overview of the progress and opportunities available relative to the Davis workshops, in particular the Core Pathways. One of the responsibilities that all departments share, in terms of the Core Pathways, is to engage in assessment work. As departments and individual faculty think about how their courses fit into the core pathways, they should consider what kind of assessment would be appropriate and doable among the faculty and staff in their area. Naser contacted department chairs numerous times and he is pleased with the progress among colleagues. Departments are in all different phases of their assessment. Some are in their second or third reiteration, applying data, etc. In terms of departments fulfilling their obligation for assessment, the Dean's expectation is that departments engage in some kind of assessment process, in addition to the Core Pathways, and that there is some progress each year no matter what stage of the assessment they are currently engaged in. Naser mentioned that his role in the assessment process is to help departments figure out what areas need to be addressed and then determine what process would be beneficial to meet their goals and expectations. There are many ways to engage in assessment dependent on variables, such as discipline and/or the nature of student learning. He is committed to helping departments find approaches that not only match disciplinary variance but do not involve a lot of extra work (e.g., can be built into class design, assignment design, etc.)

 

Dr. Kathy Nantz reported that representation of the Core Pathways is beginning to surface within syllabi. The Dean shared that while sitting on ASCC, she noticed a new 300 level course in Communication unrelated to the core, used references to the pathways. This proposal was from a new faculty member, a demonstration of how pathways can be part of vertical integration, not just horizontal integration of the core and how new courses can be introduced to the curriculum encompassing the core pathways.

 

Dr. Walker asked if students are exposed to pathways, whether they know anything about this project. Nantz mentioned the importance of getting faculty on board first, and as the pathways are referenced in more and more syllabi, students will become more and more familiar with them and how they work across the curriculum. The CAE and Core Pathways facilitators are working with FUSA trying to think of ways to disseminate the information to students. Student Affairs is also working a little bit with these pathways related to holistic learning outcomes, so they are trying to think integratively across the living and learning initiatives. The Dean mentioned that any impact we expect to have on students could be communicated most powerfully through the curriculum. The centerpiece of a Fairfield experience is the curriculum and the student/teacher relationship.

 

Announcements

Asbestos Abatement:

The Dean informed the chairs that Canisius Hall will be undergoing asbestos abatement over the winter break, just hallways, but this will make each floor unavailable, each for a week at a time. No courses are scheduled in CNS over the winter session. A schedule for which floor will be unavailable which week will be distributed to all relevant chairs, faculty and staff.

 

Divisional merit review in the College:

At the last CAS Faculty meeting a divisionally based plan for implementing the University Merit Plan was adopted. The plan will be implemented this year. The Dean will forward a copy of the plan to all department chairs with instructions, listing an estimated time line and how the plan will unfold. Departments should elect two representatives to the Merit Committee. Elections will be one person for the one-year term and one person for the two-year term. The Dean will forward materials to prompt these elections. Departmental elections need to be completed by December 8. At this point the at large members will be elected at the College Faculty meeting. Every department elects two members and then every division elects two at large members. Faculty members of these committees need to be tenured.

 

Graduate Program Development:

The Dean asked chairs to please share with her any ideas that are percolating in the departments so she can bring conversations together. We have a series of three program development protocols. The Office of Graduate Admissions & Enrollment Management and Office of Graduate Program Marketing developed a sheet of questions and a sheet on business planning and related considerations to help departments. Once there is a formal program proposal there is a required routing procedure to follow. The dean will distribute the two documents to chairs. She asked that chairs inform her of any discussions unfolding within their department, so she could pull them into these conversations.

 

There are two streams of conversation currently going on about which the Dean is aware:

 

1.     Masters in Liberal Arts/MA in various Humanities programs—The Dean is not sure how the marketing research will be for these areas. There is a question as to whether the humanities departments/faculty should work towards an interdisciplinary MA in Liberal Studies with several tracks or whether individual programs should be developed (or some other course of action). The future of the American Studies MA program would be considered alongside these conversations. The Dean and Judy Dobai will bring a group of interested faculty together for conversation.

 

 

2.     Masters in Public Administration – This is mostly social science related, with faculty coming forward in economics, politics, sociology, and communication with strong interests. Serendipitously, a recent environmental scan of the surrounding market by our marketing/advertising agency showed promise for this kind of a program. It might also have distinctive tracks (e.g., policy, non-profit management, health-related, etc.). This will be determined by the faculty if the program is approved for moving forward and in relation to formal market research. Again, the Dean and Judy Dobai will bring a group of interested faculty together for conversation on this program, as well.

 

In both of these conversations, we will discuss procedures for program development, vetting, and approval—Programs that go forward will do so with a revenue model and resource analysis, including the impact on undergraduate programs. The Dean wants to make sure key programs and departments are represented in these discussions, so if you have faculty interested in this stream, please be sure the Dean knows who they are.

 

Another idea, based on success of MFA Creative Writing (low residence program), is to develop other ideas for low-residency programs. The arts might be a good fit for this model, and the timing of these discussions is not yet clear.

 

The Dean talked about all of these ideas with the graduate directors at this semester's meeting of the Council on Graduate Programs in the College.

 

Meeting adjourned at 5:15 pm