College of Education (COE)
Faculty Policy Council Minutes
March 19, 2007

Members Present: Buffy Bondy, Mary Ann Clark, James Doud, Zhihui Fang, Cynthia Griffin, Tom Oakland (alt for John Kranzler), Sondra Smith, Elizabeth Yeager
Members Absent: Bernie Oliver, Diane Ryndak, Rod Webb
Non-Members Present: Dean Catherine Emihovich, Marylynn Hall, Bob Henning

Waiting on Quorum (2:00-2:10). Meeting began at 2:10pm
Bondy asked for a motion to approve the agenda. Griffin moved to approve agenda and Clark seconded the motion. The agenda was unanimously approved.

Bondy asked for a motion to approve the February 12, 2007 FPC meeting minutes. Yeager moved to approve the minutes and Clark seconded the motion. The minutes were unanimously approved.

Dean’s Report
• The Kellogg grant is giving the college lots of good press.
• The COE has a new development director, Bob Henning, who comes from California.
• The COE has met its original capital goal of $9 million. The new goal is $13 million.
• Several faculty searches are still ongoing.
• Pat Snyder from Vanderbilt will be the new Lawrence Professor (in Special Ed).
• At most there will be 2-3 searches next year apart from the Fein professorship. The Dean has been using the existing rate of vacated faculty lines for recent hires/searches. There may be 5-7 years before the next wave of searches, based on retirement projections.
• Approx. 40% of the faculty has been hired since the Dean started five years ago.
• Scholarship of Engagement process has changed. There was a university-wide winner and each department also had winners: Maria Coady (Teaching & Learning) Holly Lane (Special Ed), Mary Ann Clark (Counselor Ed), Nancy Waldron (Ed Psych), and Dale Campbell (Ed Leadership).
• There is a strong likelihood that Kellogg will want to take the Scholarship of Engagement to the national level.
• David Lawrence will be the keynote speaker at the Scholarship of Engagement Banquet. Money from ticket sales is used to fund students in special circumstances.

Announcements

Update on Market Equity Review Committee
Yeager reported that the Market Equity Review Committee is working on a draft proposal via email. They are working on issues such as how faculty members can initiate the process and the role of the department chair. Stephen Smith is coordinating the draft.

Committee reports to Bondy by April 16: (a) Accomplishments (b) Ongoing activity (c) Next steps for Fall 2007
A brief annual report is due from each committee by April 16. It should include a statement of accomplishments, next steps, and ongoing activities. We need the reports to get the ball rolling for committees in the fall. A message will also go out to all FPC reps.

Elections committee work is underway (FPC, Senate, T and P)
Bondy is grateful to David Quinn, Holly Lane and Thomasina Adams for their work on this committee. The committee is taking nominations for faculty senate and FPC representatives. They will work to get nominees for the T&P committee once the committee structure is finalized. Anyone can nominate people by contacting the elections committee.

Committee Reports

Curriculum (CC) Elizabeth Yeager
Yeager reported the CC approved a change in an existing course (now School Evaluation). A new course, Crisis Management in Higher Education, was also approved. The next meeting will be March 26.

Faculty and Budgetary Affairs (FBAC) Sondra Smith
Smith reported that the ad-hoc Tenure and Promotions committee is drafting requirements for service, teaching and scholarship in three groups. The Faculty Affairs Committee will also be looking at teaching load. The Budgetary Affairs Committee is interviewing department chairs as an initial step to see what role the committee should take. The committee wants to include faculty more in budgetary affairs. The FBAC completed review of sabbatical applications. The next meeting is April 5.

Lectures, Seminars, and Awards (LSAC) Diane Ryndak
No report due to Ryndak’s absence.

Long-Range Planning (LRPC) Bernie Oliver
Oliver was absent. Nancy Dana sent a report. Dean Emihovich’s review is ready. Teresa Vernetsen’s and Paul Sindelar’s reviews are being edited and these deans will also be evaluated soon. The LRPC asked Bondy to send out the evaluation surveys from her email.

Research Advisory (RAC) Mary Ann Clark
Clark reported that the RAC will meet tomorrow to discuss research professorship applications. Next on the agenda is CRIF.
Student Recruitment, Admissions, Petitions (SRAPC)
Discussed during action items (below).

Technology (TC) Rod Webb
Webb was absent. Hazel Jones sent a report to Bondy discussing six items on the TC agenda: 1) The TC is working with Trace Choulat to investigate and address faculty/staff email issues. 2) Online survey support. Choulat is considering purchase of survey
software 3) Integration with distance learning office. 4) Concern of faculty/staff with new Vista operating system and possible upgrade. 5) The TC wants to review its charter and make recommendations by the end of the year. 6) A TC representative will attend the department chairs’ meeting to hear a collaborative software presentation by Scott Blaze.

UF Senate Report
The Faculty Senate passed a resolution supporting the academic enhancement program. It also passed a resolution to support an initiative called Focus on the Nation. Focus on the Nation is designed to heighten awareness of global climate change among universities with an event to be held Jan 31st 2008.

Action Items

Four-part handout: committee changes, staggering membership, COE T&P Committee membership, shared governance survey
Part I, FPC Committee Changes. Bondy reminded members of recent discussions about changes to committees. Some committees have too much to handle, others not enough. The proposal in Part I includes revised committees, new committees and a couple of committees on hiatus for a year.
Bondy asked for a motion to approve Part I. Griffin made the motion and Yeager seconded it. The following points were discussed:
• Bondy met with the SRAPC. Recruitment is handled at the department level. As long as recruitment is being addressed in this college, the SRAPC members agreed that they could go on hiatus. They liked the idea that a task force could address recruitment issues that could involve graduate coordinators. Sharing best practices in recruiting might be useful.
• The task force should also focus on geographic and ethnic diversity, including international students.
• There does not seem to be a coordinated effort within the College to encourage internationalization.
• Re: Distance education task force. It is still possible that a standing committee will be needed. But right now there are very specific issues that need to be addressed. Chris Sessums has identified three so far. The task force would report at FPC meetings. The Deans and Sessums together identified people who might have interest in being on the task force.
• Task forces build more flexibility into the structure of the FPC. It can enable us to be more responsive to issues that come up.
• There is no language in the constitution related to task forces.
• We will propose constitutional revisions next year if they are warranted.
• We are not dropping the functions of any committee.
• Should the technology committee handle distance education?
• Sessums felt strongly that there are distance education issues that are separate from technology issues.
• It may be unrealistic to expect the distance education task force to meet twice before the end of the semester.
• Some distance education issues need to be resolved before the fall. Something might be done quickly if there are people willing to do the work.
• An adhoc committee and a task force are one and the same.
A vote was called and Part I, FPC Committee Changes was approved unanimously.

Part II, Proposal for Staggering FPC Committee Membership. Committees need continuity from year to year and this proposal would achieve that. Yeager moved to approve the proposal. Griffin seconded. The following points were discussed:
• Staggering membership is not in the constitution but people are asking for it.
• Which two departments will elect two-year terms for the Shared Governance Advisory Committee?
• It makes sense to wait and see which members are agree to stay on the other committees.
• There might be trouble with the volunteer system if one department has multiple people who volunteer to stay.
• If special ed volunteered five people to serve an extra year on each committee it would be lopsided.
• We may be anticipating a problem that does not exist.
• Not every member of a committee is equally valuable. If we take volunteers we may get the people who are more valuable to the committee to stay.
• Do we want to set up the rotation or do we want the committees to set it up?
• Edit #1: Each of the committees will submit a list to “recommend the names of 2 members who could remain for a second year. Yeager will review the list to ensure balance between the departments.”
• Edit #2: “Based on department membership in other committees, Yeager will determine which departments should elect 1 year members to the Shared Governance Committee”.
A vote was called and Part II, Proposal for Staggering FPC Committee Membership was approved unanimously with the two edits mentioned above.

Part III, Proposal for Electing the COE T&P Committee. Recently the faculty senate required elected members on the college tenure and promotion committee. The Deans were worked on a proposal. This proposal is based on feedback from FPC members. Yeager moved to approve the proposal. Doud seconded. The following points were discussed:
• The T&P committee should choose its chair.
• Someone recommended that untenured assistant professors should all be required to serve on the college’s T&P committee.
• Is the T&P committee meeting public? Probably not.
• No one department can take command of this committee using this structure.
A vote was called and Part III, Proposal for Electing the COE T&P Committee was approved unanimously.

Part IV, Shared Governance Survey. Every unit on campus must implement and get feedback on shared governance in the unit. A subcommittee of LRPC submitted a survey
draft and it received faculty feedback. One criticism was that the survey assumed a definition of shared governance that made it synonymous with FPC. There might also be shared governance at the department level, for example. The new proposal is to use two open-ended questions (provided in handout). The following points were discussed:
• Why don’t we also ask—What is shared governance?
• We don’t want to invent a new term. We want to know the application of the concept to the college of education.
• Is there a definition of shared governance? Does Bernie Machen’s have one?
• If it is not defined in our constitution, it is unclear what definition should be used.
• A question like “What does shared governance mean to you?” might get a more personal response.
• We should provide a definition of what we think shared governance is.
• Shared governance needs to be further articulated in colleges and academic units.
• Griffin read a general definition of shared governance from the Faculty senate.
• Change suggested is to start with the language from the faculty senate.
• If there are open-ended questions, the survey may not get responses.
• This survey will give us some general information, but it will not be the same forever.
• If the survey is presented after an FPC presentation, the results will be different than out of context.
• The Dean would prefer a shared governance council that has all parties, not just faculty, working together – deans, faculty and chairs.
• We should ask about involvement in shared governance in different levels, college-wide, department, and program-level.
• A committee could analyze the results in the fall.
A vote was called and Part IV, Shared Governance Survey was approved unanimously, with the stipulation that Yeager and Bondy add a definition of shared governance.

Discussion Items

Plan for April 16 COE faculty meeting
Bondy is concerned about April faculty meeting. The constitution says we will have it, but there is no agenda yet. Maybe there should be a report from the committees, then faculty can fill out the shared governance survey.

Meeting adjourned at 3:59pm.

Next Meetings: April 16 spring faculty meeting in Terrace Room at 2PM; April 30 FPC meeting for new and returning representatives.