16 April, 2007 FPC Faculty Meeting Minutes
College of Education
Spring Faculty Meeting
April 16, 2007
40+ faculty members in attendance
Welcome (Buffy Bondy)
• There was a shooting at Virginia Tech today. Yeager gave an update based on
recent CNN website information.
• Today’s agenda is organized around brief reports from each of the five
departments, the four deans, the Faculty Senate, then from FPC committees.
Department Highlights
The Counselor Education Department (Harry Daniels):
• Continues to be highly ranked by USNews;
• Added two new faculty members, Michael Garrett and Andrea Rayle;
• Became the most diverse unit in the COE and perhaps campus wide;
• Was actively involved in Hurricane Katrina relief;
• Is involved in several major projects. Focus areas include: underachievement of
male middle-school students, family-school communication, accountability
models at the school-level, and needs assessment for a multidisciplinary schoolclinic;
• Is actively involved in submitting grants;
• Is increasing its emphasis on student research. For example, twenty students
presented papers at national or regional conferences and the department held its
first professional development symposium developed by students; and
• Established a memorial award in remembrance of two students who died in an
automobile accident early last semester (David and Brian Marshall).
The Educational Administration and Policy Department (Kathy Grotto):
• Held an international research event directed by students. Students participated in
poster sessions and faculty gave presentations;
• Received several grants including a $1.6 million grant from Lumina Foundation, a
Science for Life grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and a $56,000
research opportunity grant;
• Will host a visiting Chinese scholar for a year (studying comparative education);
• Hired a new faculty member, Pillar Mendoza;
• Participating in the Carnegie project on Professional Practice Doctorate; and
• Initiated two new online-blended doctoral degrees.
The Educational Psychology Department (Mark Shermis)
• Promoted Mirka Koro-Ljungberg and Traci Linderholm;
• Was awarded seven year accreditation from both APA and NASP;
• Was awarded $342K in research funding, up from $123K last year;
• Was named one of the top ten educational psychology programs by School
Psychology Quarterly;
• Faculty/staff received several awards including Diana Joyce, Tom Oakland,
Nancy Waldron, and Elaine Green; and
• Awarded sabbaticals to Tina Smith-Bonahue and Tom Oakland.
The School of Teaching and Learning (Tom Dana):
• Has $1.8 million in active grant awards;
• Submitted 15 proposals this year, including several interdisciplinary;
• Increased funding for doctoral students;
• Is conducting several major projects;
• Expanded online degree programs;
• Enrolled 804 online graduate students;
• Submitted an Educator Preparation Institute proposal for the SITE program (sitebased
implementation of teacher education)
• Continued work on the Duval-UF Lastinger Center Apprentice Teacher project,
professional development models, and assisting east side elementary schools;
• Is working to establish a presence in Alachua County middle and high schools;
• Had more students interested in studying education than spots available.
• Had several retirements (Mullally, George, Gregory, Douglas) and several hires
(Pape, McArthur, Sanders-Cassell, K. Cavanaugh)
The Special Education Department (James McLeskey)
• Lost several valued members of the department to other schools;
• Conducted several searches and hired great people;
• Received a total of $5 million in grant funding this year. Study topics include
aggressive and disruptive students, and leadership in inclusive education;
• Faculty and students received numerous awards;
• Graduated 15 doctoral students including two Holmes Scholars; and
• Moved up from #9 to #4 in the US News rankings.
Deans’ Highlights
Office of Student Services (Theresa Vernetson):
• Advised 2400 people (not just College of Education students—also people getting
certificates);
• Placed 322 student teachers;
• Gave appreciation gifts to teachers and counselors in Alachua County;
• Initiated four study abroad programs this year (plan to start recruiting earlier next
year);
• Reviewed 158 scholarship applicants (scholarship selection committee);
• Gave graduation clearance for hundreds of students; and
• Reminds faculty to wear regalia to graduation on Saturday at the performing arts
center.
Office of Educational Research (Paul Sindelar):
• Reviewed 52 proposals requesting more than $22 million so far this year;
• Facilitated more proposals this year than in the entirety of 2005/2006 and almost
doubled the amount of money requested.
• Received nearly $6 million in new awards, not including the $10 million Kellogg
grant;
• Received more funding than in 2005/2006 including DOE, NIH, and NSF grants;
and
• Sponsored several grant information sessions and workshops.
Office of Academic Affairs (Jeri Benson):
• Assists in overseeing distance education, institutional research and educational
technology;
• Submitted four promotion cases from COE faculty and five cases from PKY
faculty;
• Working on promotion advisement for non-tenure track faculty promotions;
• Conducted 14 searches and made 15 offers (One of the searches was so successful
we created an extra position);
• Two searches are still outstanding;
• Negotiated a spousal hire with the college of engineering;
• Hired Elayne Colón as Director of Assessment and Accreditation;
• Beginning to gather data for accreditation; and
• Facilitated several awards.
The Dean’s Office (Catherine Emihovich):
• Introduced Bob Henning, new COE Director of Development;
• Presented an overview of the COE in the dean’s budget request to the provost.
Some highlights from the presentation included:
• Collaborative initiatives with other units on campus;
• One of the best records of any college on campus for diversifying faculty;
• Decreasing enrollment in undergraduate education and increasing graduate
education (as desired);
• Outreach programs such as Lastinger Center, UF Alliance, Center for
School Improvement, Institute for Higher Education, and Transition
Center;
• Challenges for our college (tight regulatory environment, need to address
alternatively certified teachers, need to recruit top graduate students and
diversify, physical space inadequate and outdated, research expenditures
are low compared to peer institutions);
• COE Goals: increase graduate enrollment through online programs,
increase grant submissions, establish partnerships with Hispanic serving
and historically Black colleges, increase and retain faculty of color, meet
new campaign goal of $13 million;
• Budget requests: funds for east-side training clinic, new tenure lines,
matching funds;
• Other points: Big focus on STEM initiatives, faculty are willing to work
and partner with faculty in other departments
• Addressed proposal to rename the COE after Jeb Bush. Bush is aware of the
serious implications of such a change and did not approve of the proposal. If it
does happen, it will not change anything faculty are doing.
The Faculty Senate (Cyndy Griffin):
• Revised the strategic work plan with Machen (Academic Policy Council);
• Revised the climate survey (Welfare Council);
• Created a committee to look at the future of the libraries;
• CLASS put forth a plan to investigate the financial workings of the institution and
get meaningful faculty review of budget and resource allocations (Budget
Council);
• Created a dispute resolution officer position. This will be an objective person who
will help faculty mediate disputes;
• Passed a resolution to have minus grades (Academic Policy Council). President
Machen was concerned that there was not enough student input into the decision.
Now there will be more student members on committees (non-voting).
• Voted unanimously to support President Machen’s Academic Enhancement
Program;
• Signed on to participate in the Focus the Nation event on global warming;
• Addressed the need for quality childcare. Current needs are severely unmet.
• Will have chair elect Rick Yost replace Danaya Wright for the remainder of her
term; and
• Has three new candidates for chair, all interested in increasing shared governance.
Faculty Policy Council Highlights
The Curriculum Committee:
• Reviewed course changes and deletions; and
• Considering new proposal related to Professional Training Option.
The Faculty and Budgetary Affairs Committee:
• Recognized members of the committee who did a lot of work;
• Split committee into two parts (Faculty Affairs and Budgetary Affairs);
• Finalized promotion guidelines for lecturers and scholars;
• Established an ad hoc committee with 15 members to develop criteria for tenure
and promotion. The committee is developing criteria for service, teaching, and
scholarship;
• Reviewed sabbatical applications; and
• Budgetary Affairs committee is focusing on FPC’s role in the budget. Members
interviewed department chair’s current practices and how to improve transparency
and accountability;
The Lectures, Seminars and Awards Committee:
• Concentrated on awards such as the Dissertation Advisor Mentor award and
Graduate Faculty Teaching award;
• Members would like to revise some criteria for these awards;
• Had enough lectures due to faculty searches this year.
The Long Range Planning Committee:
• Worked to develop the evaluations for 3 Deans.
The Research Advisory Committee:
• Reviewed Research Opportunity Fund proposals (now the COE can only submit
two);
• One of the Research Opportunity Fund proposals was funded; and
• Reviewed CRIF proposals.
The Student Recruitment, Admissions, and Petitions Committee:
• Recommending that a recruitment task force be led by the Office of Recruitment,
Retention, and Multicultural Affairs, to report to the FPC
• Will be on hiatus next year.
The Technology Advisory Committee:
• Focused on understanding technology initiatives in the college;
• Needs to work on disseminating information. For example, Academic Technology
will implement new collaborative software soon. Faculty need to learn about it;
• Learned about the new VISTA operating system;
• John Donaldson wants to provide a template for putting web pages online;
• Asked Tech Services to provide a tutorial on email management; and
• Is trying to figure out how to become more advisory.
Next year FPC will:
• Stagger committee membership—some members will stay on the committee, and
other members will be elected for two years. Yeager will make sure there is a
good balance between departments;
• Experiment with committee changes. If we want to change the constitution next
year we will do that. The revised committees for next year are:
• FBAC is now Faculty Affairs and Budgetary Affairs;
• New elections committee responsible for FPC, UF Senate, and Tenure and
Promotion Committee elections;
• New Distance Education Task Force will create guidelines for
compensation, class size, procedures, and roles. People are needed for this
task force. Task force will report to FPC in its monthly meetings.
• New Shared Governance Advisory Committee will assess shared
governance, including the deans’ evaluations, and review faculty feedback
on shared governance collected this spring;
• Long Range Planning Committee will be on hiatus. LRP will become
more of a collective responsibility of the FPC;
• Student Recruitment, Admissions, and Petitions Committee will be on
hiatus;
• Provide online access to all the policies that have ever been approved by the FPC.
They are now up there. We will also soon have a link to see the annual committee
reports.
Reminders
• FPC elections close on April 20th;
• New and continuing FPC reps will attend the April 30th FPC meeting;
• FPC committee reps were to tell the FPC committee chair that Yeager needs the
names of two members who agree to stay (by today);
• The chairs’ evaluation will be coming out soon;
• Deadline for applying for market equity consideration is coming up soon (this
Friday).
The group thanked Bondy for doing a great job on the FPC this year.
Meeting ended at 3:45pm.
