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
- 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
- College Curriculum Committee: No report.
- 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.
- Lectures, Seminars, & Awards Committee: No report.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
