Members present: Jeff Budiman (CAE), Kevin Cassel (MMAE), Warren Edelstein (AMat), Joyce Hopkins (Psyc), Andy Howard (BCPS), Sanjiv Kapoor (CS), Bogdan Korel (CS), Robert Krawczyk (Arch), Vijay Kumar (ID), Victor Pérez-Luna (ChEE), David Peterson (Psyc), Ganesh Raman (MMAE), Jack Snapper (HUM), Phil Troyk (BME), Miles Wernick (ECE), Chris White (BCPS), Geoff Williamson (ECE)
Members Absent: Joel Goldhar (SGSB), Howard Chapman (Kent), Art Lubin (AMat), William Newman (MSED), David Rudstein (Kent), Jay Schieber (ChEE), David Sharpe (Arch)
Student representatives absent: Alejandro Taboada, Govind Wakhlu.
Guests: None.
Opening: The meeting began at 11:40am in the ballroom of the McCormick-Tribune Campus Center.
Minutes: The minutes from the 19 December meeting were discussed. Two minor corrections were noted; subsequently Geoff Williamson moved and Bob Krawczyk seconded approval of the minutes. The motion carried unanimously.
Dates of Meetings: Phil and Geoff suggested that an appropriate time for University Faculty Council meetings would be on the Friday following the Graduate and Undergraduate Studies meetings, since much of our business comes from them. The recommendation for meetings on the third Friday of each month from 11:30 to 1:30 was proposed, but with some exceptions: 20 January would be too soon, 17 February would be too close to the University Faculty meeting, 17 March would be during Spring Break, and 19 May would be after finals week. Accordingly, we agreed after substantial discussion to schedule the meetings for 11:30 am to 1:30 pm on the following dates: 10 February, 10 March, 21 April, and 12 May.
The Council then discussed the date for the full faculty meeting that UniFC plans to call for the spring. After further discussion the date of 24 February from 12:00 noon to 1:30 pm was agreed upon. Phil will look into the practicality of getting the 24 February meeting catered, and Andy said he would send out a "save the date" message to the entire faculty [n.b.: this message was sent out on 23 January]. After the Faculty Council meeting on the 10th we will be able to define the agenda for the meeting on the 24th, so we will send the agenda out for that meeting shortly after the 10th.
Professional Masters in Biological Engineering: Victor Pérez-Luna presented a proposal for a Professional Masters program in biological engineering, to be offered from the Chemical and Environmental Engineering Department. Several Council members raised issues regarding curricular plans, including the incorporation of existing biology and biomedical engineering courses into the syllabus for this degree. Victor agreed to bring the proposal back to his department for resolution of these issues and re-present it at the February Faculty Council meeting.
Undergraduate Studies Committee Structure: The Undergraduate Studies Committee has proposed a self-reorganization that would require a change to the Faculty Handbook. Currently the committee has one representative per degree program; this makes the committee too large and ungainly, and it offers disproportionate representation to departments that have small student populations and several programs. The committee is also uncertain regarding its long-term significance, given that the structure of the Undergraduate College itself is foggy. The structure of the committee is also unusual in that it is constituted as a Faculty committee (a group that reports to the Faculty Council) and yet it is chaired by an administrator, namely, the undergraduate dean. These peculiarities apply to the Graduate Studies Committee as well.
The Committee has therefore proposed a new structure, to be incorporated into the Faculty By-Laws as Appendix B, Section F of the Faculty Handbook. In this new version each academic unit offering one or more undergraduate programs will get one representative on the committee; AUs with at least 8% of the average of FTE undergraduate majors and undergraduate student credit hours, determined in the previous year, shall have two elected voting members. In addition, ROTC and Undergraduate Student Government will each elect a voting member. At the beginning of the academic year, the UGSC can approve, by majority vote, additional special interest groups as voting members for the academic year. Other details of the proposed Appendix were presented at the UniFC meeting.
Substantial discussion ensued. The notion of allowing some AUs to have more than one representative was questioned, as was the appropriateness of allowing the ROTC and student government representatives to have a vote. Some members discussed the difficulty of calculating which AUs have more than 8% of the FTEs or 8% of the credit hours, and asked who would be responsible for those tallies. Joyce Hopkins proposed deletion of the second-member clause; after extensive discussion she withdrew her proposal. Many members believed that the fact that the UGSC itself had extensively debated the logic of all of these inclusions suggested that we should adopt their recommendation as is. Accordingly Ganesh Raman moved and Joyce seconded approval of the proposed changes in Appendix B, Section F; the motion was approved 14-1.
There was also some discussion of what constitutes a new degree program, i.e. one whose approval requires action at a higher level than the Studies Committee. The new version says "The UGSC shall review, approve, and inform the UFC of course and program modifications"; there was some concern that we need to be clear that the UGSC is not taking on any powers that had not already been delegated to it.
UniFC participation in the budgetary process: Phil Troyk observed that the faculty have been invited to participate in planning and executing the university budget, and for the most part we have not accepted that invitation. He is eager to name some new people to take this task on, and hoped for a list of three or four faculty members who would respond to the call. Geoff asked how big a time commitment would be involved; Phil said it would involve two or three meetings per year, plus some e-mail exchanges.
Phil also said that Susan Wallace has asked for one or two people to be involved in looking at budgets as part of the NCA accreditation process, in addition to the people who will be involved in planning and executing the budget. He said last year the committee in charge of this consisted of Margaret Huyck (Psyc), Miles Wernick, Phil Troyk, and Joel Goldhar. Chris White noted that the members of this committee should, among other things, serve as conduits for information back to the Academic Units and the UniFC; Phil agreed.
Miles suggested that a department chair would be a good choice for this committee, since such an official will have experience in looking at budgets from a variety of points of view. Chris supported this suggestion because chairmen have a clear idea of how the tradeoffs among various potential expenditures are likely to work. Geoff asked about crosstalk between this committee and the assessment or reportage committee, which Howard Chapman has headed up for the last two years. Warren Edelstein suggested that a new associate professor would provide a useful, non-administrative perspective on budgetary processes. Jack Snapper recommended that we seek out someone with an understanding of budgets.
After further discussion it was agreed that by 10 February we are to have assembled (by nomination and volunteering) a list of 3-4 names. Bob Krawczyk noted that reportage should be two-way: the UniFC and the academic units need to be ready to ask the right questions of the committee and the administration. Miles noted that department chairs are not unique in being in an uncomfortable position relative to the administration; many ordinary faculty are put in that position too. He also suggested that the truly controversial issues are not in the details but in overarching issues like whether the overall size of the faculty is correct for what we are trying to accomplish.
Committees on Promotion and Tenure: The old Faculty Handbook called for a three-tier approach to promotion and tenure: an Academic Unit Committee on Promotion and Tenure (AUCoPT), a Campus CoPT, and a University CoPT. The Campus structure has been essentially abolished in the last Handbook revision, but the middle level of the CoPT system remains attached to the Campus. Many faculty believe that elimination of the middle level will leave too much authority in the hands of the University CoPT, and that replacing the Campus CoPT with a College-based system will be difficult to implement for academic units like Psychology and Architecture, where the AU and the College or Institute are identical.
Phil proposed that we block out time during a future University Faculty Council meeting to develop a new set of CoPT-related procedures, culminating in a proposal at a full faculty meeting. This should be accomplished by the end of the academic year. The minutes from last year's subcommittee meetings and previously-developed revised language should be distributed as a starting points, and UniFC members are encouraged to poll their fellow faculty members to get their views on the system.
Among the options to consider are (a) revising the handbook so that the written procedures match the current actual practice; (b) recommend elimination of CamCoPT; or (c) developing a different middle tier. UniFC members were asked to be prepared to engage in substantive discussions at future UniFC meetings. Phil recommended that the issue be addressed by the full UniFC rather than by a subcommittee.
Quorum at Faculty Meetings: Jack Snapper recommended that the statutory quorum level for University Faculty Meetings be reduced from the current 25% down to 20%. The motion was tabled, to be addressed at the 10 February UniFC meeting.
Adjournment: The meeting adjourned at 1:35 pm.