10 September, 2007 FPC Meeting Minutes

College of Education (COE)
Draft Faculty Policy Council Minutes
September 10, 2007

Members Present: Jean Crockett, Rick Ferdig, John Kranzler, David Miller, Bernie Oliver, Diane Ryndak, Edil Torres, Elizabeth Yeager, Harry Daniels (alt. for Sondra Smith), Ruth Lowery
Members absent:, Sondra Smith, David Quinn
Non-Members Present: Dean Jeri Benson, Marylynn Hall, Ester de Jong, Mirka Koro-Ljungberg, Paul Sindelar, Linda Hagedorn

Meeting began at 2:03.

Yeager asked for a motion to approve the agenda. Oliver moved to approve agenda and Ryndak seconded the motion. The agenda was unanimously approved.

Yeager asked for a motion to approve the April 30 FPC meeting minutes. Miller moved to approve the minutes and Torres seconded the motion. The minutes were unanimously approved.

Dean’s report

• Dean Emihovich is currently in China. Dean Benson reported that she was asked to speak about the budget cuts. The college was asked to return 4.2% of its budget. This is effectively a 33% cut to the operating budget because salaries can’t be touched. The amount is around $678,000, which has already been given back. This is a permanent cut. Because the legislature is not meeting until October, we don’t know if this is the end of it. We could be asked to make more cuts. An anticipated 4% additional cut next year. We were fortunate that no one had to lose a position. Searches for the next few years are off, unless there are retirements.
• Dean Benson has announced her retirement as of July 1, 2008. There will be an internal search for her replacement. When Emihovich returns next month a job description will be finalized. Webb will chair the search committee. We hope to have someone named by the end of December. This timing will allow transition.
• Dean Benson discussed her new office website. The site includes forms, policies, and processes for academic affairs.

Information item

• COE Fall Faculty Meeting, October 8
  Yeager reported that the fall faculty meeting is on October 8. This is rescheduled since Catherine was unable to attend the other date. She wanted to be able to talk about the budget situation. Rick Yost from the Faculty Senate and Dick Gorsky from the UF Disability Center will be there.

Discussion items

• Update on tenure and promotion (T&P) criteria
  Koro-Ljungberg reported that she is chairing the T&P adhoc committee and de Jong is co-chair. The committee has met several times since January to discuss the criteria. Koro-Ljungberg emphasizes that the focus is not on the process, just the criteria.
  de Jong provided a handout with some history of the committee. The committee started last year at the request of the Faculty and Budgetary Affairs Committee (FBAC). to revise the criteria. The procedures have already been revised in 2002. They sent an open invitation to all faculty to participate in the committee. They tried to get different ranks and representations from all departments. They started by looking at what other people had done. They took tenure and promotion guidelines from comparable institutions such as California, Michigan, Maryland. What do these other institutions do? Then they decided to tackle it by dividing it up by service, teaching, and scholarship – different groups looked at each piece. Then the language was brought back to the entire group for revision. Each document has gone through three revisions by the entire committee. They have three big parts to them. What do we consider scholarship, teaching, service defined as? What are some areas of distinction? How can distinction be demonstrated? The purpose of the list is not to be exhaustive. There will never be a full-fledged list. The piece that is not included yet is the introduction to the document. The committee has worked very hard, and worked well together.

Koro-Ljungberg invites faculty to give conceptual feedback. Assistant professors will have an open forum on October 12. Forum for all faculty will be on October 19. This will be in three one hour sessions (service, scholarship, research). Forum for faculty to participate in integrating the different parts of the document on October 26. Hopefully FPC members can encourage department members to participate in this process. FPC members can also pass along department feedback to the committee.

Ferdig questions … What are sources versus indicators of quality – Just being on committee is not a quality indicator. Chairing or strong participation on the committee is more an indicator of quality. More specific criteria is being added. They have tried to put the quality indicators in context. The list is still there, but more detailed reasoning is provided in the new version. Ferdig suggested sending the old document out for comparison purposes too. Benson suggested early notification of the meeting (save the date) so that people can get this on their calendar.

• COE Day Away summary and next steps
  Sindelar led the Day Away activities. The day was focused on budget issues. Handout represents the summary reports from four groups. Talked about how the college can expand and diversify funding sources. Groups talking about grants, efficiency, centers (how faculty members could engage in the work of centers to bring in additional funds), distance education group. The handouts are the final reports these groups made. Each group was charged to identify ways to increase and diversify revenue sources in their area. They committed to identify activities that could be instrumental for preparing for future budget cuts. They would like this to become an action plan.
  They will be talking about this at the October 8 faculty meeting. They would like to send out a narrative version of this to the entire faculty. These are the opportunities that are available to people in these three areas. A lot of these are departmental issues. This was a very fruitful session. People did not focus on the negative. The tone was positive. Ryndak really hopes that there is follow-through because people are ready to get started. There are some obvious next steps. FPC can organize information sessions for people around these topics. There are policy issues that might eventually have to be dealt with from these budget decisions. Yeager asked for suggestions for next steps. Sindelar suggested sending out information to all faculty. Ferdig wants to know who is responsible for each items. Open it up to everyone, but let people know who is responsible for what. Daniels noticed that the centers agenda and the grants agenda has a lot of overlap. It also seems that there is too much to do. What about prioritizing certain areas? Sindelar agreed that ranking activities is an important task. Ryndak discussed how the group members found that their interest areas could support each other. She thought immediately about grant proposals. Crockett discussed how her group thought about becoming self-sufficient – this is an entrepreneurial mission – a whole new way of thinking. Does that type of thinking help to redirect us? Are we moving towards self-sufficiency? Kranzler suggested that grant funding is great, but that is a long-term solution. Daniels brought up low IDC generating projects and how redirecting efforts might be advisable. There is already a structure for addressing distance education issues. Quinn has agreed to be liaison to this committee. Next steps will be getting these ideas out to the faculty and assigning responsibilities to different groups.
• Office of Educational Research resources and budget
  Yeager lined up center directors to talk at FPC meetings to get specifics about available resources. FPC members should take this information back to their departments. Sindelar reported on the resources available in the Grant Office, the budget, where the money comes and how it is spent. The office lost its fiscal person during the hiring freeze and haven’t been able to hire a replacement. They were able to hire a statistics person (Cyndi Garvin), in conjunction with ed psych, for consultation regarding research design and data analysis. They can help in finding potential funding sources. They have a research profile on everyone, which will soon be completely up to date. This is a searchable database. You can pick descriptors and get a list of people who have used those descriptors to describe their own work. They can help with all the aspects of getting grant funding. They can also draft IRBs from exisiting proposals (@80% of the work). Ana has been working with the fiscal people in each department to standardize budgetary reporting. Some of the IDC money has been used for seed money for project development. The office has been self-sufficient for the two years it has operated. A serious issue for the office is the nest egg. They are sitting on some IDC money. He is doing what he can to preserve it. This year they will probably tap into the nest egg. They have hired Angie Williams on an overtime basis and a second research assistant to cover what Devona Ferguson used to do. The expense budget is gone. Everything except staff salaries is covered by IDC. The research office share of Cyndi Garvin’s salary (50%) is being paid from IDC. If we are trying to diversify revenue streams, this IDC money is going to be instrumental,
  so spending it on salaries is not ideal. Brian can help with grants.gov and FastLane submissions. Sindelar feels well supported by faculty.

• Linda Hagedorn – Carnegie Professional Practice Doctorate update

Hagedorn has been accepted into the Carnegie program on the professional doctorate. In response to criticisms of colleges of education. In ed leadership, many graduates go into professional practice. Need to provide the appropriate training for people who are interested in professional work. There is no money attached to this work. This is about creating programs that will create more interest. The idea of the professional practice doctorate works well for their department. Practicums, for example,, are more important. They have put together a working group to guide this initiative. Hagedorn sees herself as the cheerleader for this initiative. They are trying to figure out how to make this happen. It is a three year initiative (first year complete) to create a college-wide program that is applicable to all departments. They have created a pilot program in the department of ed leadership. They have also hired a distance faculty member. It is more about being an effective administrator. Ryndak asked how this was different from the previous program of the EdD in Ed Admin. EdD is going to be off-campus on a part-time basis and the PhD is going to be on campus so students can work with faculty. She is looking to make the research piece for the Ed.D. students more applied rather than esoteric. Crockett looks at this as a way of addressing the research to practice gap. How can we cultivate a greater sense of research understanding. As a practitioner, you are an implementer. This would change what the dissertation experience would be like. Promoting critical thinking and academic curiosity is not necessarily the domain of traditional research. There is considerable competition in graduate and professional education. Distance education universities are getting stronger. If people go into practice, it doesn’t matter much where they get their degree. Convenience, time, and all those factors go into it. Phoenix isn’t cheap. We are not competing with Nova, because we will always be the university of florida. Does every department have an EdD? I think every department can have an EdD.

• GRE/Graduate Council policy update
  Thomasina cannot be here today. She forwarded information on the GRE changes. The University decided that the criteria for 1000 verbal+quantitative minimum score will be removed. The grad school is giving colleges leeway. Our college currently exempts below 1000 GRE with a masters from an appropriate institution. She is requesting feedback – do we want to keep the current 1000 minimum in our college? Kranzler reported that at one point, the admissions and petitions committee was allowing everyone who petitioned to get through. To address this, the deal was that nobody below 900 was accepted period. Some colleges are saying that they only accept 1200. The school psych program decided not to change its criteria. What should our next step be? The GRE discriminates against older students, minorities, and low-SES students. It is program-department-college-university. Rankings are of concern and quality of dissertations. The Dean’s office used to review dissertations because the graduate school was complaining about the quality of dissertations. There
  are superintendents who have trouble getting into UF because of the GRE score. Holistic admissions take into account other experiences that allow them to flourish in this environment. Difficulty getting through a dissertation is a problem with us. We haven’t prepared them well. Oliver argues against uses the GRE.

Action Item – FPC liaisons to FPC committees

Curriculum Rick Ferdig
Faculty Affairs John Kranzler
Budgetary Affairs Sondra Smith
Lectures, Seminars, and Awards Ruth Lowery
Distance Education Task Force David Quinn
Shared Governance Task Force David Miller
Research Advisory Diane Ryndak
Technology Edil Torres

FPC rep to Agenda Committee Jean Crockett

Meeting adjourned at 4:20 – did not catch the motion/second

Next meeting: COE Fall Faculty Meeting, October 8, 2pm, Terrace Room