Members Present: Javad Abbasian (ChEE), Patricia Bach (Psyc), Jeff Budiman (CAE), Howard Chapman (Kent), Ali Emadi (ECE), Andy Howard (BCPS), Bill Grimshaw (SocSci), Sanjiv Kapoor (CS), Robert Krawczyk (ARCH), Art Lubin (AMAT), Victor Pérez-Luna (ChEE), Ganesh Raman (MMAE), John Snapper (Hum), Catherine Wetzel (ARCH), Chris White (BCPS).
Members Absent: Pat Corrigan (Psyc), Warren Edelstein (AMAT), Joel Goldhar (SGSB), Vijay Kumar (ID), William Newman (MSED), Boris Pervan (MMAE), David Rudstein (Kent), Phil Troyk (BME), Geoff Williamson (ECE).
Student Observer Absent: Avelo Roy.
Student Visitors: Scott Justus, Jason Tenenbaum
Faculty and Staff Visitors: Bob Carlson, Mary Anne Smith.
Call to Order: The meeting was called to order about 12:35pm on Friday 13 April 2007 in the ballroom of the McCormick / Tribune campus center after lunch.
Presidential Search:
Chris White said that the
Presidential search is going well.
The committee believes that the process is on schedule,
and they believe that it is on track for an announcement of a new President
by the 22 May meeting of the Board of Trustees.
Undergraduate Studies Committee: John O'Leary is hoping to discuss the IPro Oversight Committee report with Tom Jacobius before forwarding it to the University Faculty Council. Secretary's note: The report was made available in early May, and it is now on the UniFC website.
Student Evaluations of Faculty: Chris White distributed iClickers, which are commercially-available voting devices, suitable for anonymous polling and for classroom purposes in which the students contributing can be identified. He showed the UniFC ways in which they could be used to conduct anonymous, electronic, in-class student evaluations. Catherine Wetzel pointed out that the list of questions currently on the standard student-evaluation form do not work well in studio courses, and a change to this system would not correct that difficulty. Jack Snapper pointed out that the two most important questions on the standard form are still applicable in this kind of class. Catherine acknowledged that the standard form allows for two class-specific questions, but suggested that a larger amount of department-specific or course-specific flexibility in the evaluation system would make it more effective. Bob Krawczyk asked whether the primary purpose of the evaluations was improvement of course offerings or evaluation of instructors; the answer to that question should influence how the evaluations are designed and carried out.
Approval of minutes: The Minutes of the 9 March meeting were distributed by hand. After a brief period of perusal the Council unanimously approved them. They are posted on the UniFC website as well.
Center for Professional Development and Appendix S: Jack Snapper asked that two minor corrections be made in Appendix S, defining the role and responsibilities of the Center for Professional Development. One was a spelling error in the third paragraph of section III: the abbreviation was CDP, where it should have been CPD. The other was more substantive. In the first paragraph of section III, the previous version had specified at least three tenured faculty should serve on the program management committee of any CPD program. The proposed change was to specify five members on the program management committee. After a brief discussion, these changes were approved by acclamation. Mary Anne Smith agreed to implement the changes and Andy Howard agreed to post the modified version on the UniFC website at least eight days before the upcoming 25 April University Faculty meeting, so that the faculty can vote on the modifed version rather than the version approved in December. Secretary's note: At the 25 April meeting, two further modifications in Appendix S were approved by floor amendment. The UniFC will discuss the implications of this University faculty vote at its 4 May meeting.
Community-wide Ethics Statement: Chris White reminded the Council that the members had been asked to bring back opinions from their constituencies about the Statement, as drafted by Vivian Weil and her colleagues. Chris said he and Phil Troyk had met to discuss this; several academic units have voiced reservations about the document that go beyond mere wordsmithing. Phil suggested that an appropriate faculty committee should work with Vivian to draft a new version that is more expressive of these faculty concerns. Patty Bach affirmed that the Institute of Psychology would like to see this kind of further discussion. Art Lubin pointed out that part of his department's concern is over how and where this document would be published. Vivian Weil said that the Center for Study of Ethics in the Professions had suspended their regular sack-lunch meetings, and is happy to restart that. The Council agreed that the Academic Freedom Committee is the appropriate group to work on this, and agreed to populate that committee in time to work with Vivian on this Statement in fall 2007.
Academic Integrity: Jack Snapper and Scott Justus presented the Student Affairs Committee's report on the recent discussions of academic integrity, and the work of the student-organized Academic Integrity Committee. The Council discussed the report and the students' concerns. Council members expressed concerns about how the heightened concern over student cheating will play out over time. It will cost money to alter current classroom and examination procedures, and someone will need to attend to how funding will be obtained. Recommendation #8, for example, calls for establishment of a faculty ombudsman who will assist students with academic complaints. Someone will need to define a funding source for that ombudsman's position. There is, in fact, already a students' ombudsman: Vicki Tolbert, the Administration and Operations Manager of the Office of Student Affairs. Chris observed that the idea of making previous years' exams available is controversial because some faculty won't cooperate. Jack Snapper argued that a library-based database of old exams would offer an advantage over the current system, in which the fraternaties have copies of some old exams and can provide them to their members but not to other students. Chris asked what the Council's next act should be. Jack suggested that perhaps the Council could endorse the Committee's recomendations and then forward them to Mike Gosz for implementation. Mary Anne Smith noted that these recommendations could even be incorporated into the faculty handbook. Chris noted that if these recommendations were inserted into the faculty and student handbooks, they become policy, and it becomes the administration's responsibility to pay for implementation.
Scott Justus explained that the students' plan was that it would be the students' responsibility to obtain copies of the exam and turn them in to the library: the faculty members would not need to take on this task. Scott pointed out that the Academic Integrity Committee does have an mail address: it is iitintegrity@gmail.com.Art Lubin asked whether department chairs should be playing a more active role in enforcing the rules against cheating. Jack Snapper siaid the current system says that responsibilities begin with the instructor and move up through the chair to the college Dean, and only when the Dean cannot resolve a situation is it necessary to convene a campus-wide committee to review the case. Jack also suggested that some of what is needed is not a change in policy but rather the availability of appropriate software for unearthing plagiarism. He also argued for establishment of a mechanism for attending to anonymous accusations of cheating that do not have specific perpetrators' names attached.
Sanjiv Kapoor raised the question of collaboration on homework. Jack suggested that it's a poor idea to make unenforceable policies, and attempting to prevent colloaboration on homework falls in that category. Scott noted that recommendation #9 is particularly important in chemistry and physics, but might have less relevance in other disciplines. Chris suggested that some of these items are potential action items for the Council; others are suggestions on how individual faculty members should behave. Chris suggested that the final goal of the Academic Integrity movement should be a leveling of the playing field and the cultivation of good learning practices. Chris asked University Faculty Council members to come back to the May UniFC meeting with comments from their own faculty on this topic.
Changes established at the March UniFC meeting in the Humanities undergraduate programs: It was noted that the UniFC secretary only publicized the proposed changes in the Humanities Degree programs, as passed at the March UniFC meeting, with an email sent on 17 April. Accordingly, requests to bring those degree-program changes to the attention of the full faculty will be accepted through 16 May. The question before the Council was whether these items should be, in fact, brought before the full faculty at its April meeting so that the final decision could be made there. Mary Anne Smith said that option would work, but Jack Snapper said the Humanities Department would prefer not to go through that process. So the request for faculty responses as defined in Appendix P will continue, as planned, through 16 May. Secretary's note: no requests from the faculty for a full-faculty vote on these programs had been received as of 3 April.
Student Retention: Chris White has been discussing IIT's hope to improve its undergraduate retention numbers. One suggestion that has been raised is the assignment of "super-advisors"—faculty members who would become deeply familiar with a student's situation so that he or she could provide really informed advice to the struggling student. Council members discussed this idea briefly, and the issue of compensation for this rather time-intensive effort was raised: if a faculty member agrees to do this kind of work, will he or she be compensated, either with money or with a reduced teaching load?
Election of officers: Chris reminded Council members to come to the May meeting prepared to elect officers for academic year 2007-08. We plan to elect a chair, a vice-chair, a secretary, and a chair of the Faculty Senate. After Chris's reminder the Faculty Council discussed the role of the Faculty Senate, as set forth in the Handbook.
Admissions: Howard Chapman noted that as of 10 April, admissions inquiries were up by 10%, but applications were down by 14%, admissions were down by 10%, and the number of actual deposits was down from 232 as of that date in 2006 to 132 as of that date in 2007. Mary Anne Smith confirmed those numbers, but noted that Jerry Doyle has set up a later cycle for admissions and deposits this year than was in place the previous year. Furthermore, students are getting their acceptances and financial-aid packages simultaneously this year rather than as two separate letters, and that has held up some admissions. Mary Ann Rowan, VP for Enrollment Management, remains optimistic that we could get 510 freshmen and 175 transfers as of August.
Banner: Andy Howard expressed concern that the preparations underway to implement the "Banner" software package at IIT has siphoned away a distressingly high percentage of the major administrative talent at the University. Mary Anne Smith said that the financial systems will be operating within Banner as of 1 June, so the rollout is near. Andy asked whether we could invite someone in the administration to explain how the system is supposed to work and why it has required such an extensive investment of the time of mission-critical people. Mary Anne suggested that Susan Wallace, IIT CFO, would be the best person to answer those questions.
CoPTs: Chris asked whether the Council wanted to again discuss the Committees on Promotion and Tenure. Mary Anne noted the recent spirited discussion involving UniFC Chair Phil Troyk and the chair of a department about how UCoPT representatives are chosen, and suggested that this argument is emblematic of the ongoing difficulties associated with the process. She also noted that David Arditi and others drew up a set of guidelines defining the roles and responsibilities of the various levels of CoPTs around 2001, and that those ideas were never implemented. The Council agreed that it would like to see those guidelines and determine whether they could be used as operational plans for the CoPTs, particularly in order that the CoPTs could function more consistently from year to year than is now the case. The problems are primarily, but not entirely, at the UCoPT level. Howard Chapman suggested that some former UCoPT chairs might be invited to a discussion on this subject.
Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 2:15pm.