April 7, 2003

Room 158 Norman Hall

Members Present: Jim Archer, Phil Clark, Maureen Conroy, Vivian Correa, Silvia Echevarria-Doan, Hazel Jones (for Paul Sindelar), Bridget Franks, Lamont Flowers, Jane Townsend, Nancy Waldron, Elizabeth Yeager

Correa called the meeting to order at 2:05 p.m.

The Faculty Policy Council met with members of the NCATE-DOE-DCU Review Team as part of the national and state continuing accreditation review of the UF educator-preparation Unit.

Agenda and Minutes

1.  Approval of the agenda for April 7, 2003.

Clark made a motion to approve the agenda as submitted by Correa. Echevarria-Doan seconded the motion. The FPC unanimously approved the agenda.

2. Approval of the minutes of the March 24, 2003 Meeting.

Archer made a motion to approve the minutes. Yeager seconded the motion, and the minutes were unanimously approved.

Reports from FPC Committees

· College Curriculum Committee.

Waldron reported that due to limited agenda items, the last meeting of the CCC was held using an e-mail discussion and voting format. The next scheduled meeting is April 28.

· Undergraduate Admissions/Petitions Committee.

This committee has not met since the last FPC meeting.

· Graduate Admissions/Petitions Committee.

Echevarria-Doan reported that the committee has been completing its work by passing around petition requests and files to committee members for review and vote. Due to the small number of petitions, the next meeting of the committee has not been scheduled.

· Faculty Affairs Committee.

Townsend reported that the FAC met last week and continued discussion of faculty load issues. There is a need for the committee to collect information from departments and individual faculty related to this topic. This cannot be accomplished by the end of the academic year, thus the committee recommends that the issue be addressed next year by FAC.

Concerns were expressed about committee membership and the need for stability from one year to the next. FAC will lose all but one member next year, and it would be helpful to have greater continuity of membership from one year to the next.

·  Research Advisory Committee.

This committee has not met since that last FPC meeting. In response to a question from Correa about the requested recommendations from the committee about COE indirect costs, Conroy indicated that the COE Research Advisory Committee would present a draft policy to the FPC about this issue after additional faculty input is received.

The next RAC meeting is scheduled for April 17.

· Student Recruitment and Admissions Committee.

Yeager reported that the Student Recruitment and Admissions Committee met on April 3. She distributed information about a presentation that Dr. Terry Mills, UF Office of Graduate Minority Programs (OGMP), gave to the committee about the recruitment of graduate students and the activities of the OGMP. Dr. Mills addressed the following issues:

o  OGMP Diversity Guidelines

o  OGMP Recruiting Activities

o  Funding Opportunities Available for UF Graduate Students

o  Mentoring Advice

o  Recruitment Tips

Dr. Mills suggested that faculty members contact Ms. Denise Yates (at 392-6444), Coordinator of Recruitment and Retention, OGMP. Ms. Yates makes frequent recruiting trips, and is willing to take information from UF faculty members about their programs to disseminate on her trips. She will also provide names of potential students to faculty members and graduate programs.

Dr. Michael Bowie, Director of the COE Office of Recruitment, Retention and Multicultural Affairs, and Theresa Vernetson, Assistant Dean of Student Affairs, distributed a document that they have drafted (Minority Recruitment and Retention Plan) for committee review. The SRAC will review the document carefully after soliciting and receiving faculty input about the proposed plan.

· Long-Range Planning Committee.

Archer reported that the Long-Range Planning Committee would attempt to schedule a meeting before the end of the academic year.

Report from the Dean

No report provided at this meeting.

Unfinished Business

·  Procedures for the Spring Faculty Meeting.

Procedures for the Spring Faculty Meeting that will be held on April 14 from 2:00- 4:00 p.m. were presented. The following meeting-related issues were discussed:

    • Communication to Faculty: Rationale for Revisions. Waldron distributed a draft document (COE Constitution – Proposed Revisions and Rationale) that lists the proposed amendments with the rationale for each and a chart that compares the current and proposed committee structures. This document will be posted on the FPC website for faculty review.
    • Voting Procedures. All faculty members will be encouraged to attend the Spring Faculty Meeting in order to ensure a quorum. Correa described how she plans to structure the voting procedures. She will present groups of amendments separately. A sign-in sheet will be provided to document attendance at the meeting and to confirm that a sufficient number of tenured and tenure-accruing faculty members are present to vote for the revisions.
  • Doctoral Research Requirements Report

Conroy reported that the COE Research Advisory Committee was in the process of developing a recommendation that it will submit to the FPC concerning doctoral research requirements. The committee will likely recommend that the FPC create a task force (possibly an ad hoc committee with representatives from each department) to study this issue further.

New Business

  • College Minority Recruitment and Retention Plan

Correa reported briefly about the development of the Minority Recruitment and Retention Plan by Michael Bowie and Theresa Vernetson. She expressed concern about the lack of faculty input in the development of the plan. She indicated that the SRAC would solicit and review faculty input carefully before making recommendations to the FPC about the plan.

·  Doctoral Admissions Loophole

Waldron reported that James Algina, Professor, Department of Educational Psychology, has expressed concern about the new COE graduate admission requirements. He has asked Waldron (as the departmental representative to the FPC) to present this issue to the FPC for discussion.

Specifically, he indicated that the following standard might provide a way for students who do not meet COE doctoral admission requirements to enter a doctoral program:

Minimum requirements for certified teachers and undergraduate students in the Unified Early Childhood and Elementary programs leading to certification who are applying for degrees culminating in the MEd and EdS degrees in the COE will be either a minimum GPA of B for all upper-division undergraduate work or a minimum Verbal-Quantitative total score of 1000 on the General Test of the GRE for students with an earned bachelor’s degree only.

He indicated that departments could subsequently change the degree option from MEd or EdS to doctorate for students admitted under this standard. Such decisions could possibly raise serious issues about COE graduate admission requirements.

After an extended discussion about the new admission requirements and the concerns expressed by Algina, FPC members recommended asking the SRAC to study this issue further, and to make recommendations to the FPC after reviewing this issue and obtaining input from faculty. It was noted that departments could recommend higher admission criteria than the COE graduate admission criteria.

Adjournment

Archer moved that the meeting be adjourned. Franks seconded the motion. The meeting was adjourned at 3:14 p.m.