College of Arts and Sciences
Dean's Council Meeting
3:30-5:00,
CNS 100
Present: D. Winn, E. Boquet, M. Coleman, N. Dallavalle, J. Garvey (for J. Simon)
D. Keenan, P. Lane, J. McCarthy, D. McFadden, J. Orman, L. Porter, R. Rodrigues,
G. Sauer, J. Simon, J. Shanahan, M. Sourieau, K. Steffen
Not Present: J. Simon
The meeting convened at 3:30 p.m.
Minutes
Approval of Minutes—Dr. Dennis Keenan moved to approve the March 11, 2009 minutes and Dr. John McCarthy seconded the motion. Dr. Kraig Steffen made some minor corrections. Upon amendments, all approved the minutes, with the exception of two abstentions.
Announcements and Updates
Budget update—the Board of Trustees passed a budget that was fairly optimistic with a 4 to 5% cut. This decision may be revisited in June once the student enrollment numbers are more noticeable.
The bulk of the College's budget is reflected in salary; therefore, because the University does not intend to cut salary, the College's operating budgets will consume the necessary reductions. The Dean mentioned that the interdisciplinary programs will most likely experience the largest cut to operational budgets; therefore, she encouraged them to pursue the opportunity to apply for a Humanities Institute Grant to fund programming initiatives.
In terms of new faculty position approvals, decisions have not been made, but the Dean will try to obtain some commitment on open positions. She reminded the chairs that a budget meeting for the campus community was scheduled for Tuesday, April 6, updating the community on the University wide plans to address the financial situation.
Additional Travel Approvals—The Dean mentioned that if any of the already approved travel requests are not going to be utilized, department chairs should share changes with Ms. Daniele.
Chair selection policy—The new language constructed for Chairs' selection policy passed at the CAS faculty level. This language went to Board of Trustees Academic Affairs Committee; they were very accepting of the language. All governance changes initiated University-wide, including the College's, will go to the Board of Trustees, as a package in June for voting. Approval of these changes will take place as a whole; there will be no line item veto. The Dean mentioned that several chairs are already discussing succession planning with her and she encouraged all departments to do this with their faculties. This will allow for mentoring in advance of transition.
"Themes" integration—A message from the Academic Vice President's Office was sent to the University Community relative to Arts integration. The Dean encouraged integration of larger themes for programming at the University, so that some of these larger initiatives feel more coherent for students offering an opportunity for engagement around similar subject matters. The initiatives moving forward for next year are as follows:
Faculty interest in themes is the key to successful programming. Themes connected to classes, where
faculty demonstrate interest in programming, help students become
enthusiastic/engaged, and make explicit connections to course content work best.
Core Integration Revisited
Dr. Kathy Nantz revisited the Dean's Council meeting to discuss integration within the College. She asked the chairs how they see integration in teaching and learning taking root within their departments. Is the curriculum changing in any way within departments that would request integration?
Nantz mentioned that students previously made a recommendation that the University put together a website for the core with suggested menus of integrative learning opportunities. She is in the process of gathering data from students about recommended paths where they had positive experiences in terms of coupling courses within majors and/or minors. She mentioned that Rodrigues previously shared with her a list of core courses with suggestions that would integrate nicely with Sociology. Nantz commented that she would like to send a worksheet to each department to obtain a list similar to the one Rodrigues constructed. Here intention is to place these suggested links on the website where students could go into a core link to obtain these opportunities.
Dr. Dennis Keenan (Philosophy Department)—The department is beginning discussions about ways to integrate their core courses historically—integrating within the core, within the department. They are presently having discussions related to PH 100-level courses and tying them back into the PH 10s.
Dr. Kraig Steffen (Chemistry Department)—Drs. James Biardi and Steffen taught a cluster course fall 2008. This course went well with a student body of 17. Five of the students who participated in this course declared a minor in the Program of the Environment. The department also introduced a new forensic chemistry course and is running this semester with Dr. John Miecznikowski. This course could logically be coupled with a criminology course. There will be a course in the near future taught by Drs. Olivia Harriott and Cecelia Bucki which is part of an NSF grant. There is also a resource center for core science courses. Bucki's course is about immigration and Harriott's course about human genome. This course will allow students to investigate their own lineage and use this as a way of understanding migration and history. It is similar to DNA mapping. This is a national project that the University will be engaged in. The Dean mentioned that Drs. Dennis Hodgson (demographic expert) and Terry-Ann Jones (migration expert) may be able to contribute to this initiative.
Dr. John McCarthy (Psychology Department)—The past few
years the department was engaged in concentrations, which are displayed in the
University catalog. The
concentration has five courses that are individually tailored. The department found that students
enrolled in a minor were only interested in some of the courses needed to
fulfill the minor. The concentration
allows students to go in to depth in an area and to fulfill a concentration;
they are given the opportunity to work outside of the discipline offering pathways
into other disciplines. The Dean
asked how many of the courses are within the department opposed to outside of
the department. McCarthy commented
that it various dependent on the student.
There are recommended courses for each of these concentrations.
Dr. David McFadden (History Department)—They have been concentrating on core courses over the past few years working on HI 30 in terms of some key documents and learning outcomes. The department is now focusing on the diversity within the 200-level courses having the same level of work in the library and work in terms of understanding historical questions and/or arguments. In addition there is attention to the vertical integration which is the 300-level courses for the major. The department is interested in having conversations with other core departments to discuss ways in which courses could be integrated. McFadden mentioned that several faculty thought it would be beneficial to use the honors model more generally, where one course with two instructors counts as two core courses. Drs. Patricia Behre and Donald Greenberg engaged in this with the honor's program and then attempted to teach their course as a cluster. The History Department's integrated experiences with International Studies are working well.
The Dean mentioned that when departments are thinking about interdepartmental initiatives, their focus should not be so much on the instrumental goal but more heavily on the integrative student learning, becoming more familiar with how their colleagues teach and what they are teaching about. They should be more strategic in reaching out, seeing whether having some partnership among departments would be beneficial.
Dr. John Orman (Department of Politics)—The department is involved in a lot of interdisciplinary activities. They have a cluster with Drs. Ed Dew and Jay Buss,
Drs. Orman and James Simon. Orman suggested that there be more cluster offerings for students and that clusters should be extended to sophomore and junior students. He felt that the new registration procedure may force Politics to make PO 11, 12 and 14 core offerings.
Dr. Beth Boquet asked department chairs to extend her thanks to faculty for lending the opportunity for the cluster and enhanced course offerings. Boquet is working closely with Dr. Deb Cady Melzer to obtain a residence hall for students who opt to engage in cluster/enhanced courses. If all of the courses run, there will be enough students to occupy one residence hall. This will make programming and reserving rooms easier to facilitate. There is a luncheon scheduled for faculty engaged in teaching cluster and enhanced seminars to thank them for their commitment and give them an opportunity to discuss how these experiences are working. The enhanced sections in Modern Languages and English are paired sections for people teaching the same kind of courses. This is an opportunity to ask how these courses could be arranged so that students think about integrating while they are learning. How could faculty bring their students back to what they are learning in other courses and integrate these experiences to their current text?
Dr. Lynne Porter (Visual and Performing Arts)—All of their faculty see how the arts is integrated to the world; their challenge is to get students to see these connections. As a department they are naturally integrated, because they have five concentrations. There are a lot of faculty focusing on how they could initiate conversations with their students bringing in their experiences from their other disciplines. There are some concerns that the University conversation is about core integration and not about critical thinking. Porter's perception is that this is not high on student abilities and should be taught to students.
The Dean mentioned that she is hearing from College faculty that business students are complaining about the core. She will have a conversation with the Deans to ask what they are doing about core integration. How are they communicating to their students about the core? They need to participate in changing the discourse among their students, promoting the liberal arts among their students, and integrating the core with their majors.
Dr. Johanna Garvey (English Department representative)—Core working group working with EN 11 and 12 and the 200 level. The English Department had a meeting with the Dean and various chairs of the School of Business, because they wanted to replace the literature writing course with a business writing course.
Dr. Nantz distributed handouts with information that will allow better ways to engage with the integrative process. There are five areas emerged as result of retreats and work they were involved in over the first two years of the integrative project. These five learning outcomes—global citizenship, scientific literacy, quantitative reasoning, communication arts, and aesthetic appreciation— provide a guide for departments as they illustrating key points to focus on working towards an integrated core curriculum. There is no expectation that every course accomplish all of these. The expectation and hope is that at the end of students core experience that will have grown in these five areas and would achieve learning outcomes in these five areas. There will be point person put in place for each of these areas and this person will assemble a team of fellow travelers that will design programming around these portals around the integrative core. The goal is to get students thinking outside of the disciplinary distribution requirements that we presently have into a more disciplinary way. They are trying to find a different way to present the core to students, so they realize that the core is not just to get out of the way. In meeting with students, Nantz commented that students have no idea that there is a difference between the core offerings within the College and the business core. She recommended that faculty clearly articulate with students about what the core is about, how it is constructed, and why they should take core in earlier years. There are some courses that students need to take by the end of sophomore year. They are hoping to develop a reflective moment as students move into their last two years of their undergraduate degree.
Nantz shared some opportunities for faculty engagement in core integration initiatives.
Quantitative Literacy Summer Workshops:
Reflections on Dean's Council
The Dean reminded the chairs that during the August 2008 Chairs Retreat there was conversation about the roles of chairs and a reflection on integrative learning and assessment and core integration. Chairs were asked to reflect on their own leadership style and record these self-reflections. These reflections were redistributed to chairs to revisit what they articulated to themselves in terms of work and goals they wanted to reach and to evaluate what they actually accomplished. The chairs took a minute to reflect on these goals and later discussed what they experienced over the course of the academic.
A handout was distributed to chairs College of Arts and
Sciences End-of-Year Evaluation of Dean's Council Meetings. Chairs
were asked to rank the overall value of the Dean's Council meeting over the
course of the academic year, so that the Dean could obtain this feedback and
utilize these thoughts for future planning for the Summer 2009 Retreat and next
year's Dean's Council meetings.
Next Meeting
The final Dean's Council meeting is scheduled for Wednesday,
May 6, for chairs and directors and will be followed by a dinner
reception. The Dean's Council
meeting will begin at 4:00 p.m.
Chairs' Retreat—There
is a half day retreat scheduled for new chairs on Wednesday, August 26, 2009
from 2:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. followed by a dinner. This will be followed by a full-day
retreat for all chairs on Thursday, August 27, 2009 8:30 am – 4:30 p.m.