11 December, 2006 FPC Meeting Minutes
College of Education (COE)
Faculty Policy Council Minutes
December 11, 2006
Members Present: Buffy Bondy, Mary Ann Clark, Zhihui Fang, Cynthia Griffin, Kathy Grotto* (substitute for Jim Doud), John Kranzler, Bernie Oliver, Diane Ryndak, Sondra Smith, Rod Webb, Elizabeth Yeager
Members absent: Jim Doud
Non-Members Present: Jeri Benson, Marylynn Hall, Jean Starobin*
* Not present for the entire meeting
Meeting began at 2:07pm
Bondy asked for a motion to approve the agenda. Yeager moved to approve agenda and Ryndak seconded the motion. The agenda was unanimously approved.
Bondy asked for a motion to approve the November 13, 2006 FPC meeting minutes. Griffin moved to approve the minutes and Yeager seconded the motion.
Dean Benson expressed concern that certain language in the minutes made it seem as though the Provost pressured the COE to align with University policy. The Provost made suggestions—not mandates. Dean Benson suggested removing phrases regarding directives from the Provost from the minutes. The minutes were unanimously approved as amended.
Information items
1. Betsy Creveling, PKY teacher, will replace Maureen Conroy on the Faculty Senate for spring semester
Maureen Conroy is leaving the faculty. Her seat on the faculty senate will be filled by Betsy Creveling. Two of the seven COE senators are supposed to come from PKY. There was only one senator from PKY on the senate this year so now Betsy will be the second. The first faculty senate meeting of the new year will be January 18.2. CADREI proposal on the professional practice doctorate.
CADREI stands for Council of Academic Deans of Research Education Institutions. CADREI has joined with the Carnegie Foundation to focus on the professional practice doctorate (EdD). The COE may be invited to engage in a 3-5 year effort to enhance the value of the professional practice doctorate. The COE has submitted a proposal and we may hear in the spring if we have been selected. There is prestige, but no money attached to this project. A small number of faculty members would work with the group and representatives from other institutions.3. Reviewing the Sustained Performance Evaluation policy
The Sustained Performance Evaluation (SPE) policy, developed in 1998, gives procedures for evaluating tenured faculty members each seven years following tenure or their most recent promotion. Bondy asked FPC members to look over the policy and solicit feedback from departments to see if updates were needed. The group discussed the following points:• This policy is being reviewed because there are inconsistencies in the way departments conduct SPEs.
• Inconsistencies became apparent because two new department chairs needed help finding policies and some of the older department chairs did not know about the SPE policy.
• There may not be much flexibility to change the SPE policy because it was originally a merger of Tigert and union policy.
• If you have good annual evaluations, the outcome of the SPE is fixed. That is an inconsistency that will come up in a review, but may not be fixable since it was a provision of the union contract.
• Is there a policy for the annual review letters? Bondy will bring up annual letters with the Agenda Committee.
• SPE policy is not the process that results in a raise for full professors. That process is the Salary Pay Plan for Professors.All agreed that it doesn’t make sense to review the SPE policy until after the union contract is finalized.
4. Update on COE consultant
At the last FPC meeting, Dean Emihovich talked about bringing in a consultant. Yeager and Bondy met to design a process for reviewing proposals from the consultant. They also identified emerging concerns about working with a consultant and presented them to Dean Emihovich. She was open to all feedback. If the faculty do not want a consultant, she would not use one. It looks like the COE is going to be invited to apply for a large amount of money. Could be as much as $10 million. Dean Emihovich suggested the consultant could work with faculty to prepare a proposal to get this money. This objective appears more focused and will perhaps be better received by the faculty. The proposal will be on a big, broad theme (kept under wraps right now). We should hear by the end of the year.
Committee Reports
Curriculum Elizabeth Yeager
Yeager reported that the meeting was canceled in November because there were no submissions. January 29th is the next scheduled meeting.
Faculty and Budgetary Affairs (FBAC) Sondra Smith
Smith reported on three items, two informational and one discussion item:
1. There will be changes to how sabbaticals are awarded this year. Previously they were awarded by the University. This year money will come from the college.
There will also be a shift in the committee. Last year the awards committee looked at sabbaticals, now it is the FBAC. FBAC will look at eligible faculty requests and make recommendations to departments. The dean is ultimately responsible for awarding sabbaticals. The group discussed the following points:• Only eligible faculty applications would go to the committee.
• The criteria for reviewing sabbatical applications are few and vague.
• The department chair has to coordinate how positions would be covered for those on sabbatical (instruction/supervision duties).
• The chair has to write a letter as a part of the sabbatical application.2. FBAC finalized an adhoc committee to review criteria for tenure and promotion of tenure-track faculty. The adhoc committee represents a cross section of departments and ranks. It will start next semester.
3. There is an open question about FBAC’s role with regards to the budget (see Discussion Items)
Lectures, Seminars, and Awards (LSAC) Diane Ryndak
Ryndak reported that Mary Kay Dykes will chair the LSAC. The dissertation and doctoral mentoring awards are done. Now the LSAC is waiting for information from Dean Benson. They are not sure how to proceed because they need more direction on all of the awards. They wonder if there is any money for lectures and seminars. Benson suggests the committee organize a meeting with her because there is a lot to do.
Long-Range Planning (LRPC) Bernie Oliver
Oliver reported the committee is meeting next week to discuss two things: 1) They need to select a chair; and 2) They need to review the process for the Dean’s evaluation. There are also some outstanding questions about the role of the committee in strategic planning. Bondy suggested the LRPC should avoid redoing the work that was done last year by Holly Lane and Cyndy Griffin on the Dean’s evaluation. She will suggest some work for the LRPC later in this meeting (see Discussion items).
Research Advisory (RAC) Mary Ann Clark
Clark reported the RAC is working on Research Opportunity Seed Grants. Letters of intent came from nine different groups. Proposals are due Jan 4, the RAC gets them Jan 5, and reviews them on Jan 10. Each grant is worth $100,000 and up to 12 will be funded across the campus. The COE is able to submit two proposals for consideration.
Student Recruitment, Admissions, Petitions (SRAPC) John Kranzler
Kranzler reported that the SRAPC met in mid November and plans to meet again January 22nd. They are discussing whether the committee needs to exist and will make a recommendation after January’s meeting.
Technology (TC) Rod Webb
Webb reported that the TC elected a chair. They also began working with Trace Choulat and invited Chris Sessums to be an ex-officio member. The chair will convene the committee this month.
UF Faculty Senate Report
Griffin reported that the Academic Policy Council within the Senate made a recommendation that the University begin to use minus grades. The Senate will vote on whether or not to do this. It would become a university-wide policy. Griffin believes it will pass.
Dean’s Report
Dean Benson reported on three items:
1. Travel money for faculty and grad students has been moved to the departments this year. There is $1000 for graduate student travel, per department.
2. CRIF money is still in Paul Sindelar’s office. It may be useful for the FPC to invite Paul to a meeting to ask him what monies he has available. Sindelar gets the Dean’s portion of all indirect funds.
3. When the COE got our raise pool of 3.5%, we had to pay for promotions off the top of that money. That left 0.9% for average faculty merit increases. If you got more or less, there should be reasons for that. Next year we hope the Provost will fund promotions. Dean Emihovich is writing letters now to let people know what their raises are.
Discussion item
1. Annual report format for shared governance work
The COE would like to highlight the importance of shared governance. Jean Starobin was invited because she would like to get FPC feedback on the current format for inputting service online. She showed the portion of the annual report website called “Service to Department and College”. There is space for people to add accomplishments. The group discussed the following points:
• The intent is to get the individuals’ contributions above and beyond basic committee work. Some suggested adding “Your role on the committee” or “What was your specific contribution to the work of this committee?”
• FPC members should bring this up at department meetings to see what other categories are needed. What are the names of their committees?
• Jean will add a category for faculty mentoring.
• The Agenda Committee will meet with Jean in another month to review the changes.2. Plan for evaluating effectiveness of shared governance (see proposal)
Every unit on campus was to develop a system of shared governance and some process for periodic assessment. COE already has shared governance, now we need to assess it. Bondy sent an email attachment with a suggested assessment procedure. When the agenda committee met, there was a strong sense that this procedure would not give much information. Bondy recommends that this go to the LRPC. She would like to see a Likert-scale questionnaire to assess whether faculty think the shared governance structure is effective. The group discussed the following points:
• Three years seems like a long time to go between evaluations.
• Every spring a small set of statements could go to the faculty to get their feedback.
• Possible to attach this to elections for FPC reps, the dean’s evaluation, or bring it to the spring faculty meeting.
• The LRPC could develop a plan for how we might do this and develop the survey.
• It should be brief and the FPC needs it by the end of February.
• B and C on the suggested procedure are very important.
• A is also important to do – provide information about what the FPC has done that year. How will people know about the impact of the policies?
• Are the policies making a difference? It would be good to measure this among the faculty at large.
• It would be good to get the information before the spring faculty meeting so that it could be presented at the spring meeting.
• We should present the data once it is collected.3. Proposal to operationalize the budgetary role of FPC and FBAC (see proposal)
The FBAC has a proposal to further their role and involvement in budget work. They would like to make sure budgetary decisionmaking processes are transparent. Ester de Jong anticipates that FBAC will be charged with a budgetary template report. Bondy read key portions of the proposal to the FPC. The proposal was also sent to members by email. The group discussed the following points:
• It is important for us to know how our money gets allocated and spent.
• Should FBAC talk to the dean about what they would like to see in the budget report?
• How can they help structure a set of questions that both parties might prepare in reports? What questions do we ask?
• What information do we want to have and in what form?
• There may be a need to split the FBAC in two (Budget Affairs and Faculty Affairs)
Yeager motioned to vote on the FBAC’s new role. Diane seconded the motion. All were in favor of the proposed role. Sondra asked for suggestions via email.
Bondy asked for future agenda items. One suggestion:
• Eligibility for the UF research foundation professorship. If you got it before, when are you eligible to get it again? (In 5 years) Are department chairs eligible? (Yes)
Meeting adjourned at 3:55
Next meeting: January 22 (2/12, 3/19, 4/30; 4/16 spring faculty meeting)
