MINUTES of Faculty Policy Council

Meeting date: Jan 23, 2012

Call to order: A faculty policy council meeting of the college of education was held on January 23, 2012. The meeting convened at 2:05 PM, Paul Sindelar presiding, and Dorene Ross, secretary.

Members in attendance: Suzy Colvin, Diana Joyce, Holly Lane, Walter Leite, James Mcleskey, Steven Pape, Jeanne Repetto, Dorene Ross, Paul Sindelar, David Therriault, Shelley Warm

Agenda accepted (moved and seconded)

Approval of minutes: Motion was made by David Therriault and seconded to approve the minutes of the December 12, 2011 meeting. Motion carried.

 Announcements

  •  Maureen Conroy has agreed chair RAC
  • Albert Ritzhaupt has agreed to chair Technology and Distance Education
  • Holly Lane is now the FPC rep for Technology and Distance Education
  • Shelly Warm is the FPC rep for Diversity
  • Zhihui Fang is the new alternate for STL
  • All committee chairs are asked to submit a schedule of meeting dates to post on the website. FPC members are asked to encourage the chairs to provide this information.
  • To access FPC committees on the website, faculty should start at the FPC website link.
  • The Strategic Planning Implementation Committee will meet next on Feb. 6 from 3:30 to 5:00 in 2329.
  • The FPC committee Elections committee has been appointed: Stephen Smith will chair it. Kent Crippen and Sylvia Doan will represent the other schools. They will oversee the election for FPC representatives, Promotion and Tenure Committee, and Faculty Senate. This election will be held in March. Paul stressed how important it is to recruit faculty who will be highly involved in FPC for all of these roles.

 

Action Items

 There were no action items

Committee Reports

Budgetary Affairs– James McLeskey reported that BAC met with Dean Good to talk about entrepreneurial efforts. They began to generate some principles but they weren’t sure how to pursue them because issues related to this work extend beyond BAC

  • Some committee members will talk with Tom Dana to figure out how we might best create the structures to address the issues.
  • They talked about the need for an ad hoc committee because the issues are much more complex than

Curriculum– Dorene Ross reported that the disabilities minor has been approved and that the Transition and Disaster certificate programs are going through the approval process.

Diversity – Shelley Warm reported several information items.

  • They are presenting a two film series– Jan 30 and Feb. 2 (Ma Vie En Rose) April 2 and 9 (American History X).
  • They plan a series of posters to reference college projects that are addressing various issues related to diversity. Faculty are encouraged to send in more ideas related to these posters.
  • James McLeskey asked the committee to clarify for us whether and how disability is built into our definition of diversity.

Faculty Affairs– David Therriault reported that they are currently processing sabbatical applications.

Lectures Seminars and Awards- Diana Joyce reported that the committee had forwarded recommendations to the Dean for the doctoral dissertation award.

Long Range Planning– Walter Leite reported that the committee will meet tomorrow at 1:00 to discuss Deans’ evaluations. Paul Sindelar clarified that we are charged with evaluating the Dean every year and the Associate and Assistant Deans every other year. LRPC is asked to oversee the evaluation process. He has forwarded the surveys to the Deans to get their ideas about any possible revisions to the survey. Because Dean Good has been here only a year, there will be some items that are not appropriate yet. Dorene Ross will meet with the LRPC to share feedback from the Deans. The evaluation will be done in March. The committee was asked to discuss strategies for sharing the findings with faculty.

Research Advisory- Stephen Pape reported that RAC has not met since the last meeting. They will meet on Jan. 30. Their business will be revival of BOC and Fein Professorships and revival of Fein Doctoral Fellowship.

Technology and Distance Ed—Holly Lane reported that Cathy Cavanaugh had sent out the Task Force Advisory Guidelines for FPC to consider. This report will be an action item for next month. Holly reported that the committee also discussed the UF social media policy. Trace Choulat is drafting a possible syllabus entry for faculty to use to communicate the social media policy. The next meeting of the committee will be Wed. Jan 25 at 1:00.

 Discussion Items:

Tom Dana has suggested the need for a Joint Ad Hoc Committee for Academic Issues

  • Tom brought it up at agenda committee because there were academic issues that come to the Dean’s office but do not clearly fit into any of our standing FPC committees. This is not about curriculum. He is asking whether there might be a need for such an Ad Hoc committee.
  • FPC members discussed whether this should this be part of FAC responsibilities and expressed concern about proliferation of committees across the college
  • James McLeskey suggested the need for a strategy to address issues that bridge committees should be brought to FPC for conversation.
  • This topic was deferred until Tom can come and discuss it with the FPC.

 Issue for future discussion: How will FPC address issues that bridge various committees in the college and/or those that are complex and potentially high risk for the college or for faculty (such as entrepreneurial activity). We also need to address the concern about how many committees faculty can be involved with.

There was concern raised about the Technology and Distance Education office and how decisions have been made about creation, funding and staffing of the office. Specifically, there is concern about lack of faculty input into decisions and particularly about emergent policies that faculty must pay for services such as development of video for coursework or development of video as part of previously funded grants. Faculty are unclear about what services this office does and does not provide to faculty and which services are fee based and why.  Holly suggested there should be some form of technology needs assessment to help DE understand what faculty need.

Question: Can faculty get access to Chair evaluations?

Adjournment: Motion to adjourn was made by Holly Lane and seconded. The meeting was adjourned at 3:22 PM

 

 

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Secretary                                                                                             Date of approval