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25 October, 2004 FPC Meeting Minutes

October 25, 2004

Room 158, Norman Hall

Members Present: Dale Campbell, Mary Clark (alternate), Maureen Conroy, Hazel Jones, Ester deJong, Mirka Koro-Ljungberg, Linda Lamme, Tracy Linderholm, Terry Scott, Larry Tyree

Members Absent: Ellen Amatea

Others Present: Associate Deans Jeri Benson and John Kranzler, SAGE representative Karen Kuhel

Conroy called the meeting to order at 2:06 p.m.

Agenda and Minutes

  1. Approval of the agenda for October 25, 2004

Tyree made a motion to approve the October 25, 2004 meeting agenda. Benson seconded the motion. The FPC unanimously approved the agenda.

2.  Approval of the minutes of the October 11, 2004 meeting

Campbell made a motion to approve the October 11, 2004 minutes as submitted.  Linderholm seconded the motion.  The FPC unanimously approved the minutes.

Conroy reminded those present that the next agenda committee meeting will be on November 15. Members can send agenda suggestions to herself, Tyree, or Jones.

Committee Reports

  1. College Curriculum Committee: Jones reported that the committee has met twice since her last report (August 30). The committee is discussing the GRE requirement for doctoral students and the EDS requirements.
  1. Faculty and Budgetary Affairs Committee: deJong reported that the committee is finishing its work on the faculty climate survey. They are also working on the role of non-tenure accruing faculty in governance and will come up with a proposal for the next FPC meeting
  1. Lectures, Seminars, & Awards Committee: No report due to Amatea’s absence. Conroy expressed concern that some issues may be time sensitive. Kranzler replied that there are no time sensitive issues for this committee at this time.
  1. Long Range Planning Committee: Lamme reported that the group has not met.
  1. Research Advisory Committee: Koro-Ljungberg reported that they are continuing to review the selection criteria for the B.O. Smith professorship and the Associate Dean for Research positions.
  1. Student Recruitment, Admissions, & Petitions Committee: Linderholm reported that the group met once. They are continuing to discuss the nomination procedures for Alumni and Presidential Fellowship awards. They have discussed specific recommendations. She asked if the committee should present a formal report for the FPC. Conroy confirmed that they should. Linderholm added that this committee is also collecting data on recruitment.
  1. Technology Committee: Scott reported that their next meeting is November 3. The issue of administrative access to faculty computers is still being discussed. The committee also needs to finalize their recommendations for the position description for technology director.

Report from the Dean

Associate Dean Benson provided a summary of faculty feedback as edited from the original version she presented at the FPC meeting on October 11. She made the changes she thought were needed and incorporated some of the feedback provided at the last FPC meeting. Benson reported that it was not yet clear how the president would use the information. The college would like to see these recommendations implemented and there are plans to follow-up with the president.

As a newcomer to the FPC and the College of Education, Benson asked what type of information the Dean typically provides in the Dean’s report. Tyree gave a summary of the Dean’s presentation at the September meeting.

Benson reported that Dean Emihovich is out fundraising and following up on donor gifts. Half of the Dean’s job is to bring in new resources. She reported that the Dean has delegated a lot of the day-to-day operation of the college to the Associate Deans. One of Benson’s concerns is hiring an IT director to interface between faculty, IT staff and the Dean’s Office. She also reported that the new Dean’s Advisory Committee has met, and will meet again soon. They provided input on the faculty survey.

Benson discussed the search for an Associate Dean for Research and confirmed that this will be an internal search. Jones asked Benson when the position would be posted. Benson was not sure. Kranzler said there would be a search committee, and a full search process. Dean Emihovich is in the process of setting up the committee now. Conroy asked what changes will be made that will make the search more successful than it was last year. Kranzler reported that the position has been clearly crafted as a Dean’s position. The college is searching for a technology director, so that portion of the job will not be there, which makes the job much more attractive.

Jones asked about the IT director search. Kranzler reported that they are using a position description from another university to give people an idea of what is needed, qualifications of perspective candidates, etc. The position description has been sent to the technology committee and the educational technology faculty for input.  He anticipates that enough time will be taken to formalize this position. It is an important position for the college so it needs to be considered carefully.

Benson reported that the search for the Associate Dean for Research might end in January and the search for a technology director might start in January. Kranzler reported that the search for a technology director might become a national search.

deJong asked about the Dean’s evaluation and how the Dean plans to respond. Benson reported that she spoke to the Dean about it, and the Dean would like to know more of what the FPC expects. Conroy reported that she plans to meet with the Dean on this matter. Conroy discussed possible changes to the evaluation process for the Dean and Associate Deans such as evaluating them separately for each of their different roles and looking at the amount of contact a faculty member has with the person he or she evaluates.

Campbell mentioned that it is not widely understood that half of the Dean’s job is fundraising which may be a problem when trying to evaluate her. Benson reported that the Dean has been interested in how to show the results of her fundraising efforts. Conroy agreed that fundraising is important and the effects of her efforts may not be seen in the short term, but that information on fundraising progress might be helpful to faculty members because it affects them over the long term.

Report from the Faculty Senate

There is no report at this time, however Conroy stated that she met with some Senators and discussed whether they are comfortable meeting directly with Benson. There did not appear to be any objections to this idea. Senators do not plan to attend FPC meetings unless there is a burning issue to discuss. Currently the senators are sending reports to the faculty through e-mail.

Information Items

UF Strategic Plan – College of Education – Faculty Feedback

This item was discussed during the Dean’s Report.

DAC/FPC Retreat – Report & Next Steps

Benson reported that at the Dean’s Retreat the Dean asked the Advisory Council: “What would you like this college to look like in five years?” The Dean has compiled that feedback. At the fall faculty meeting, they will collect more feedback and begin using it to form a basis for the college’s strategic plan. Conroy reported that the date for the next faculty meeting would hopefully be toward the end of November.

Transfer to COE New Server – Faculty Feedback

Conroy provided a handout of feedback presented to Jones and herself on the issues with the recent technology changes. Lamme also provided written feedback from ST&L. Conroy asked that the members look over the two documents and then discuss issues or concerns that aren’t represented.  She opened the floor for discussion.

The faculty raised several additional issues and concerns.

  1. Some  faculty are concerned that when they receive tech support, the person helping does not know about how something works for the Mac.
  2. Although training is being offered, the same problem has occurred when Mac users participate in training. The person conducting the training cannot tell them how to use the software with a Mac.
  3. Many faculty feel they do not have enough information to make a decision about which e-mail program to use.
  4. The faculty is receiving more spam than usual.
  5. E-mail accounts for non-faculty (e.g., doc students, accounts that go to a particular machine for office purposes) were not being provided.
  6. The disruptions are still evident every day.
  7. Sending in tech requests has been problematic because it is not clear when tech staff are available.

Linderholm reported a list of issues:

1)      Her department chair found that people could schedule things on his calendar without him knowing;

2)      Autofill is not working for email addresses;

3)      Faculty are having problems with opening email attachments at home; and

4)      In the contact spreadsheet an important phone number (Sylvia’s) is incorrect.

Kranzler provided some explanations for many of the problems and questions:

1.   Entourage allows users to do more with the server in calendar than Outlook. The migration also seemed to be easier for Macs. One of the difficulties with the migration is that everyone has a different way to handle their email. They had problems with filtering and moving saved emails.

  1. The spam filters were not put on right away but they are on now.
  2. A number of training sessions are now being offered.
  3. In response to item 5 above, Kranzler replied that a computer security plan was passed a year ago. Some of the things that were happening were against UF policy. He has had to override UF policy in some instances so that people can work the way they are accustomed to working. But it is important to realize that we are in a new era. If you can get on a machine with the right username and password you can get to a lot of information. A current student can get an account, but former students should not have access.

Suggestions for possible solutions were discussed.

Jones suggested a posting of pros and cons of using Eudora, Entourage, etc… so faculty can make an informed choice. She emphasized the need for unbiased advice. She stated that no one she knows cares about the calendaring function.

Lamme reiterated the need for information (as suggested by Jones) so that faculty can make rational decisions about what to do.  The tech people don’t seem to be sure what works on a Mac.

Conroy asked whether tech staff could be better trained in the necessary areas. Kranzler explained that some tech staff have better training than others and that there is no way to anticipate exactly what skills will be needed when. He stated that he plans to share the feedback document with the tech staff.

Linderholm asked if the best course of action is to fill out a tech request. Kranzler confirmed that it was, but also stated that lots of people call directly and cut and line, depending on the importance of the issue. Jones reported difficulty logging on to the tech support page. Benson mentioned that they are considering moving the tech page to the COE home page. Members agreed this was a good idea.

Lamme reported that there were some very positive comments and some negative comments about tech support staff.  Clark reported that some faculty like their new ability to access email through the Web.

deJong mentioned that there is a lot of frustration about what should have happened that did not happen. The college needs to acknowledge that people have been inconvenienced and move on from there.

Conroy summarized that the faculty aren’t seeing the benefits related to the costs of this migration. To have resources set aside and not see benefits is problematic. There is also a communication problem between faculty and tech staff.  Kranzler thinks the tech staff members are trying their best and he wants faculty to let him know of specific problems with tech staff.

Benson thanked everyone for the feedback and Kranzler stated that he appreciates the constructive nature of the criticism.

Committee Membership Update

There isn’t a chair for the Long Range Planning Committee or the Lectures and Awards Committee.

deJong asked about agenda items for the next meeting. Conroy replied that there are not any at this time.

Conroy asked for a motion to adjourn. Clark motioned to adjourn. Linderholm seconded the motion. The FPC unanimously approved the motion to adjourn at 3:30 pm.

Documents provided to attendees: (1) Faculty Policy Council Agenda, (2) Draft of the October 11, 2004 FPC Minutes (3) Summary of College of Education Faculty Feedback on UF’s Strategic Plan (4) College of Education FPC & COE Committee Membership 2004-2005 (5) COE Faculty Feedback: Technology Issues and Concerns 10/25/2004 (6) Comments about the Technology transfer from the School of Teaching and Learning 10/29/2004

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11 October, 2004 FPC Meeting Minutes

October 11, 2004

Room 158, Norman Hall

Members Present: Dale Campbell, Mary Clark (alternate), Maureen Conroy, Ester de Jong, Mirka Koro-Ljungberg, Linda Lamme, Tracy Linderholm, Terry Scott

Members Absent: Hazel Jones, Larry Tyree,Ellen Amatea

Others Present: Associate Dean Jeri Benson, SAGE representative Karen Kuhel, Nancy Waldron

Conroy called the meeting to order at 2:05 p.m.

The FPC welcomed Karen Kuhel, a representative of SAGE.

Agenda and Minutes

  1. Approval of the agenda for October 11, 2004

Lamme made a motion to approve the October 11, 2004 meeting agenda. Koro-Ljungberg seconded the motion. The FPC unanimously approved the agenda.

2.  Approval of the minutes of the August 30, 2004 meeting

Lamme made a motion to approve the August 30, 2004 minutes as submitted.  Campbell seconded the motion.  The FPC unanimously approved the minutes.

de Jong asked that the minutes be sent to FPC members by email before FPC meetings. Conroy will check with Jones to make sure this happens.

Conroy reminded those present to send agenda suggestions to herself, Tyree, or Jones.

Committee Reports

  1. College Curriculum Committee: No report.
  1. Faculty and Budgetary Affairs Committee: de Jong reported the committee met twice and Nancy Waldron is committee chair. Their focus has been on the faculty survey and its results. Agenda items are:

·         The role of non-tenure accruing faculty in college governance;

·         The faculty load within the college;

·         The promotion guidelines for lecturers; and

·         Policies for merit pay.

  1. Lectures, Seminars, & Awards Committee: No report.
  1. Long Range Planning Committee: Lamme reported the committee exchanged emails but has not met formally. There is no chair at this time. The committee plans to analyze space usage in the college.
  1. Research Advisory Committee: Koro-Ljungberg reported that Stephen Smith is committee chair. They are reviewing selection criteria for the B.O. Smith professorship and the Associate Dean for Research positions.
  1. Student Recruitment, Admissions, & Petitions Committee: Linderholm reported that Kathy Grotto is committee chair. Kitty Fallon will take minutes and arrange meetings. Their agenda items are:

·         Gather data on recruitment;

·         Increase faculty awareness of the recruitment tools available to them;

·         Discuss criteria for alumni and presidential fellowships; and

·         Provide recommendations regarding graduate admissions for students who do not meet GRE or GPA requirements.

  1. Technology Committee: Scott reported that he is committee chair. The committee will meet again on Wednesday. Agenda items are:

·         The server changeover; and

·         Administrative access to faculty computers.

Report from the Dean

Benson provided a summary document of the faculty feedback compiled by Dean Emihovich.  Benson asked FPC members to review the document to ensure that the faculty intent remains clear. Dean Emihovich will be meeting with the president on Wednesday morning, October 13, 2004 so there will not be much time to edit the summary. Benson reported that the Dean’s Advisory Committee wants the college to present its feedback in a positive light. Benson intends to edit the summary to emphasize the COE as a research partner in the university, reorganize it a bit, and generally make the document more positive and succinct. Nothing will be deleted.

Campbell brought up a concern about the amount of summer offerings for doctoral students. Even though many doctoral students are required to take a certain number of credit hours, there are not enough classes for them. This is a budgetary issue. The first thing that always gets cut is summer school. Conroy agreed that providing summer courses is an important, ongoing issue. Another problem is with faculty not being compensated for the time they spend with doctoral students in the summer. Lamme mentioned that many faculty members were hired with the expectation of continued summer employment, but now that is not available. Benson will incorporate this concern in the summary document.


New Business

  1. Link Between Faculty Senate & FPC

Conroy discussed the need to link the Faculty Senate and the FPC. The agenda committee decided to add the Faculty Senate to FPC’s agenda so there would be a regular update. Currently, Ellen Amatea is on both the FPC and the Faculty Senate.

Benson mentioned that she would like to ask the senators their opinions regarding faculty tenure and promotion issues. She asked whether it is appropriate for her to ask to meet with the Senate. Lamme responded that the Senate does not typically meet with administration, especially since the faculty does not have a union. The reasoning is that administration should not have influence over senators. (This does not represent Lamme’s personal opinion.)

Faculty Senators: Ellen Amatea, Paul George, Jane Townsend, Stephen Smith, and Cindy Griffen.

Campbell suggested that a member of the FPC attend the senate meeting or vice versa. Lamme agreed. She said it is important to have a policy regarding this, and to invite senators to attend FPC meetings. Conroy did invite the senators to this meeting. They did not attend. Conroy plans to talk to senators about the faculty feedback they are getting. Lamme suggested a policy change so that at least one senator must also be a member of FPC (as Amatea happens to be). Conroy replied that a policy change of that type requires a constitutional amendment. It is something the FPC could discuss at the end of the year.

  1. Review of the Dean Evaluation Procedures

Conroy reported on evaluation procedures for administrators. Last year, there was a computer glitch and the majority of faculty members never got evaluation forms. There is also an issue with making comments public because some faculty members are making unprofessional comments. Lamme suggested a review procedure before the comments are posted. de Jong wondered whether faculty members were aware that the comments would be made public. Lamme recommended making the comments private for the Dean. Koro-Ljungberg expressed frustration with the negative climate and the unprofessional nature of comments from faculty.

Conroy reported that there would be another evaluation this Spring. She questioned whether we would use the same instrument. Lamme suggested that the instrument is useful. Clark asked about ways to encourage more faculty to fill out evaluations and mentioned the low return rate. de Jong asked whether the Dean will address her evaluation with a formal improvement plan. Conroy said she does not know of any plans to do this. Campbell said a list of goals based on the evaluation results would be useful. Scott suggested there be a clear set of goals for the Dean that can be used to evaluate her for next year. It might help people make less biased evaluations.

Koro-Ljungberg asked if the instrument tells us what we want to know. The “don’t know” category tends to promote “don’t know” responses. Lamme likes the instrument. It is the same as the one that the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences uses. Waldron gave her impression that faculty didn’t seem to have problems with the length of the evaluation, and they seemed to think that the instrument covered the areas that were important to them. There are not that many questions with a high rate of “don’t knows”, and the 47% return rate is not low for research standards.

Conroy mentioned the question posed last year about whether the report should go to the provost’s office. Last year it did. This was not the original intention of the evaluation. Benson thinks Dean Emihovich might like to formally address the goals she will be working on so that there are clear criteria to base judgments for next year. Linderholm suggested FPC set up objectives for the Dean at the beginning of the year and then evaluate how she has met those objectives. Conroy noted that a committee would be formed to review the procedure and evaluate the Dean in the Spring.

Lamme asked for a decision on whether the comments are public or private. She made a motion that comments be made private for the Dean only. Scott seconded.

Campbell suggested an interim step so that faculty members do not perceive the FPC as restricting information. He believes it would send the wrong message. An interim step would be to make the comments available by request. Or, before the FPC takes action, at a minimum, take it back to the departments to discuss it. Conroy responded that making comments available by request would not be much different from what happened this year. She suggested a clarification of the procedures.

Lamme rescinded her motion.

  1. Review of the Assistant & Associate Dean

Conroy reported that Assistant & Associate Dean evaluations are sent directly to the Dean and not reviewed by faculty. One of the big justifications for this procedure was that the department chair evaluations were also sent directly to the Dean. Now that the chair evaluations are made public this may be revisited. Comments from the chair evaluation are still not made public. Benson asked about the rationale for evaluating every two years. Conroy responded that the procedure was time-intensive, so every two years seemed more manageable.

  1. Review of Dean Emihovich’s Evaluation

Nancy Waldron formally shared the results of the Dean’s review. The intent of the summary was to point out specific trends of faculty input. The evaluation survey was sent to all 117 faculty at the college, including non-tenure accruing faculty. Although there was a place on the form for it, many people (30%) did not indicate their rank so there was no opportunity to analyze opinions based on faculty rank. Overall, the most positive area in the review was related to resource development and the Dean’s productivity with increasing college resources from the University, the state, and alumni. 60-65% of the faculty responding felt it was a positive area for her. Her lowest score was for climate and faculty governance. There was a fairly substantial group who felt she had done very well in that area and some who felt exactly the opposite. Overall, there were a number of areas where the faculty was evenly distributed in relation to positive, negative and neutral ratings.

Lamme mentioned that the distribution between positive and negative comments might be related to the amount of information each faculty member has. Those who have less contact with the Dean might have more negative comments. She suggested that the Dean present a report to faculty with specific data describing what she has done before the evaluation so faculty can use that information to make their judgments. Waldron agreed that the degree of information the faculty has is important. They thought about asking on the survey “How much contact have you had with the Dean?”

Conroy stated that she would talk to Dean Emihovich and encourage her to make some goals for the year, which will help her guide her report to the faculty on how she has met these goals.

  1. Faculty Feedback on UF/COE Strategic Plan

·         Faculty meeting held September 13, 2004

·         Faculty forum held September 20, 2004

·         Dean’s Retreat held October 7, 2004

·         The Faculty & Bugetary Affairs Committee is reviewing their documents and will report back on Friday

Conroy reminded FPC members of the next FPC meeting on October 25, 2004.

Conroy asked for a motion to adjourn. Scott motioned to adjourn. Koro-Ljundberg seconded the motion. The FPC unanimously approved the motion to adjourn at 3:48 pm.

Documents provided to attendees: (1) Faculty Policy Council Agenda, (2) Report from the Long-Range Planning Committee, (3) Faculty and Budgetary Affairs Committee Report, (4) Annual Review Procedures for COE Dean, (5) Review procedures for Assistant and Associate Deans, (6) Evaluation of the Dean (blank form), (7) Faculty Review of Dean Catherine Emihovich, (8) Draft of the College of Education Faculty Feedback on the University of Florida Strategic Plan, (9) College of Education Faculty Meeting 9/13/04, (10) College of Education Retreat, Feedback on Strategic Plan, October 7, 2004.

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