Minutes of the Faculty Policy Council

Meeting date: February 20, 2012

Call to order: A faculty policy council meeting of the college of education was held on February 20, 2012. The meeting convened at 2:05 PM, Paul Sindelar presiding, and Dorene Ross, secretary.

 Members in attendance: Holly Lane, Walter Leite, James McLeskey, Bernard Oliver, Steven Pape, Jeanne Repetto, Dorene Ross, Paul Sindelar, Stephen Smith, David Therriault, Shelley Warm

Visitors in attendance: Kara Dawson and Albert Ritzhaupt

Agenda accepted (moved and seconded)

Approval of minutes: Motion was made by Holly Lane and seconded (Repetto) to approve the minutes of the January 23, 2012 meeting. Motion carried.

Announcements

Dean’s report (Dean Good)

  • Matt Hodge indicated that he felt the funding contribution pipeline had been pumped dry and so Maria and Glen have been trying to rebuild the pipeline using Meet the Dean events. These have been held in Alachua County and Jacksonville thus far and response has been good. Leaders of districts want more involvement from UF and they are opening conversations about how to fund such activities.
  • UF is exploring a relationship with Teach for America. They are seeking professional development and masters degrees and UF has a great deal to offer.  They are particularly interested in Leadership degrees.
  • Development and entrepreneurial activity are going well and this is important in terms of the current fiscal situation in the state.  It seems unlikely that higher education will be spared in budget cuts this year. The prediction is 12-15% cut in higher education. With tuition raises that would mean about a 5% cut.
  • Colleges of Education enrollments across the state are down by 1/3. Ours are down but not by as much. We are being very active in exploring opportunities to increase revenue in every way possible. Enrollment is already turning around.
  • Faculty raises—we did not get the 3% raise the President offered. There will be another opportunity during upcoming budget negotiations.
  • Self-insurance—we are likely to see state reducing contributions to health benefits. UF is trying to launch a self-insurance option. There will be a PPO Blue Cross option.
  • Searches are underway for grant writer, fiscal director, HDOSE Director, Associate Dean, REM, Ed Tech.
  • Strategic planning—all short-term goals have been implemented. The long-term implementation actions will begin with some values clarification activities.
  • AACTE there was discussion about new accountability efforts for colleges of education. They are investing in competition to challenge the status quo with minimal emphasis on capacity building. If Obama’s budget were to come through it would be $1.7 billion in vein of RTT. UF would be in a good position if they go through with it. We are highly selective. We would need to work on grade inflation.  Under the new plan, accreditation would need to be more rigorous.

Dean Tom Dana

  • Distance education group—Nicola Ware and Ben Campbell are both leaving.  We look for a senior instructional designer to replace them. The position will be funded with the distance learning fee.
  • There is an initiative to review the quality of all distance learning courses. The quality scorecard may help us see some areas where we need to develop policies.
  • Meetings with program areas related to Board of Governor’s reports are underway. There will be another review in a couple of years. A number of programs are creating innovative ways of thinking about their programs and thus the programs are evolving.
  • We still need a few graduation marshals.
  • University Budget Council is reviewing all the direct support units (e.g. physical plant, health center, human resources). These need to be cut by $12 million across the University.
  • PK is part of the college and faculty are subjected to the same state law as all other public schools—no tenure, faculty evaluated with state approved models, etc.  It is important that we engage with PK in addressing these issues.
  • National Center for Teaching Quality has asked for lots of data through a pubic records request. We gave them an estimate several months ago for providing these data and they view it as unreasonable. They are using some strategies such as contacting students directly for materials such as syllabi. Their new request is largely information that is already publicly available. Their focus seems to be math and reading.

Action Items

No action items

Committee Reports

Budgetary Affairs– James McLeskey: The committee met on Feb. 6 and continued to talk about entrepreneurial activities. That will continue at the next meeting and they will continue to discussion of college budget. Next meeting March 12 (1:00-2:00)

Curriculum– Dorene Ross: Major work is in the area of certificate programs though work, of course, continues on all course submissions. Two certificate programs have been approved.

Diversity – Shelley Warm: The next meeting is Feb. 21 12:30-2:00. They will discuss the clarification of their definition of diversity and the next set of posters.

Faculty Affairs– David Therriault: Jan 31 reviewed sabbatical applications and sent report to Dean. They will begin talking about end of year reports and challenges these present for faculty.

Lectures Seminars and Awards- Bernie Oliver: They are reviewing student applications for outstanding student awards using an on-line procedure. Paul noted that there are concerns about making decisions using an on-line procedure.  The final decisions need to be made in a face-to-face vote.

Long Range Planning– Walter Leite: They are working to develop new versions of the Deans’ evaluation surveys that will provide useful information. The next meeting is Feb. 21. They have collected multiple examples of such surveys and they will draw on those to develop the surveys.

Research Advisory- Stephen Pape:  The committee has meet twice this year. They have been asked to make recommendations for available IDC funds. The committee felt like Budgetary Affairs and the Long Range Planning Committee might need to be engaged in this discussion as well.  Their other work is on redeveloping RFPs for B. O. Smith and Fein Fellowships as well as Fein Doctoral Research Fellowship.

Technology and Distance Ed—Holly Lane: Information items—There is a new marketing director (Rachael) who will help programs/departments with developing identity, branding, marketing.  The University is going to change platforms for synchronous software. Licensing for Eluminate will be expiring. The new platform will be adopted in May. Related to the college website: Use of WordPress seems to be going well. We might need training on how to use the architecture of the website. They also discussed our recent ranking in distance education. The lack of required training in distant education is something that lowered our ranking. Social media policy was also discussed.  Paul also noted that the group has been charged with initiating the development of a college wide technology needs assessment.

Discussion Items:

Report from the Strategic Plan Implementation Committee (P. Sindelar)

  • The committee reviewed a values survey on core values from the Strategic Plan. A subcommittee will revise the survey. David Therriault suggested we might want to ask some likert-stype questions to get actual percentages to suggest faculty values. Stephen Smith encouraged the committee to revisit the Quality white paper to generate some questions for the survey. These suggestions will be communicated to the sub-committee.

Distance Education and Technology Task Force Report (A. Ritzhaupt and K. Dawson)

  • Kara introduced the report and gave the history of the work. Primary goal was to start the conversation about principles that could guide the direction for Distance Education
  • Goal today is to secure feedback and comments on the report. Feedback focused on:
    • The recommendations for phases in preparing to teach distance education courses
    • Issues related to transfer of ownership
    • Clarification of the meaning of the Creative Commons
    • Clarification that the college document uses the same principles of intellectual property as the University
    • Enhancement/Author fees (currently suspended)
    • Clarification of the role of the School Director and Program Coordinator
    • Lack of sufficient attention to the role of the Distance Education Office

FPC asks Albert and the technology committee to review the suggestions and bring the document back to us.

Joint Ad Hoc Committee on Academic Issues (T. Dana)

  • Tom raised a concern that there is no faculty committee to deal with student and program related issues. He requested creation of an Ad Hoc  Committee to address these issues.
  • James McLeskey suggested we review the committee structure and determine whether the current committee structure suits our current needs.
  • Paul Sindelar suggested we create an Ad Hoc committee for now and then look for a longer term solution that would not involve committee proliferation.
    • The Ad Hoc Committee will report back to FPC. This group will advise Tom Dana until such time as we review and revise committee structures. Tom will provide a bullet list of the kind of issues they will address. Some of those issues may have policy implications. There should be a liaison from FPC to that committee.  Suggested representation is two representatives from each school solicited through the directors. James McLeskey agreed to be the FPC representative to this committee.

Adjournment: Motion to adjourn was made by Stephen Smith and seconded (David Therriault. The meeting was adjourned at 4:08 PM.

 

 

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Secretary                                                                                             Date of approval