Minutes for University Faculty Council Meeting,
12:30pm - 2:00pm, Friday 4 April 2008

Members Present: Javad Abbasian (ChBE), Patricia Bach (Psyc), Jeff Budiman (CAEE), Howard Chapman (Kent), Warren Edelstein (AMAT), Joel Goldhar (SGSB), Bill Grimshaw (SocSci), Joyce Hopkins (PSYC), Andy Howard (secretary, BCPS), Vijay Kumar (ID), Robert Krawczyk (ARCH), Art Lubin (AMAT), William Newman (MSED), Boris Pervan (MMAE), Ganesh Raman (MMAE), David Rudstein (Kent), John Snapper (Hum), Phil Troyk (chair, BME), David Venerus (ChBE), Catherine Wetzel (ARCH), Chris White (chair-elect, BCPS), Geoff Williamson (ECE), Wai Gen Yee (CS).

Student Representative: Adam Bain.

Faculty and Staff Visitors:

Members Absent: Shlomo Argamon (CS), Ali Emadi (ECE)

Call to Order: The meeting was called to order at 12:39pm on Friday 4 April 2008 in the ballroom of the McCormick / Tribune campus center after lunch.

Discussion and Action Items:

1. Support Intervention Committee (Mike Young):
   Mike Young (Psyc) described the plans for this group. The Council discussed the plans briefly.
2. IPro Oversight Committee
   Margaret Huyck (Psyc) described the reviews performed by the UniFC-appointed IPro Oversight committee of the proposed and renewed IPROs. 475 students will be involved in 47 IPROs this semester. She noted that the meta-learning objectives of the IPROs are teamwork, communication, ethical awareness, and project management. Each project has a technical specialty, but common competencies are sought; These are drawn from the findings of the 1994-95 IIT Commission and the ABET lists. Each IPRO is supposed to develop tests of its learning objectives. The purpose of the tests, internal reviews, and external reviews, is to help to develop appropriate learning objectives and then achieve them. The goal is for 80% of the students to meet their goals 80% of the time; the IPRO Oversight Committee would like to raise those percentages to 85. Some individual teams meet the 80% goals, and some do not. There appears to be graduate improvement in the overall numbers.

   Tom Jacobius distributed a handout containing enrollment forecasts; these are based on a forecasting model developed by an Applied Mathematics student. Projections are on track to within 5%. For spring IIT had forecast enrollment of 500 students and found 475 enrolled. There has been a gradual increase in the number of IPRO sections: there have been 90 in AY07-08. One could control this by letting teams grow bigger, but that's not optimal. In the corporate world, teams should be in single digits. We'd like to do that. In a group of 12, there are probably 3 subgroups of 4 each. Teaching relief or building IPros into overall teaching loads are subtle costs for these programs. Tom noted that 20-30% of projects are company-sponsored: maintain those relationships with industrial leaders requires resources. He displayed a PowerPoint slide illustrating the organizational structure of the IPRO system; the structure is fragile but functional. Chris White asked whether the IPRO office is getting enough resources to run the program well: Margaret said no.

   Chris also noted that we have a new president, and asked whether the attitude of the senior administration is better than it had been earlier. Tom said that he thinks President Anderson is looking for the faculty to lead that discussion; Margaret said this should be a core activity of the Academic Units. Phil Troyk noted that the faculty oversight committee does need yearly approval by the UniFC; that should be done at some point. He noted that one of the reasons for creating this committee was to maintain academic quality. He asked what hurts the program the most. Margaret replied that it was the thin staffing. She and other IPRO organizers try to help faculty sponsors by providing graders and other resources, but that's a fragile system too: workshops are hard to run and staff. Phil noted that there was supposed to be an UGSC subcommittee looking at IPro finances; Jack said he will include a discussion of that in his our upcoming report. Margaret said she believes the $8000 per IPRO payoff is not the right way to manage these efforts: IPRO expenses should be built directly into each Academic Unit's budget. Joel Goldhar said we're missing out on opportunities for the faculty to learn from one another's experiences; a faculty questionnaire would be useful. Only 38 regular faculty participated in IPROs in 2007-08: that's only 15% of the total. It would be useful to compile a rolling 5-year average would be good info. If every faculty member led one IPRO every five years, we would have enough quality projects. It wouldn't be hard to collect the data for that.

   Tom agreed, but noted that the 38 number counts multiple-semester teachers only once. Margaret said we need to provide more support so people know how to do this and to facilitate growth and development. Joyce Hopkins (Psyc) said the Psychology Institute is underrepresented, and asked what would encourage our psychology faculty to get involved. Margaret suggested that Joyce speak with her offline about this. Tom noted that there are between 35 and 40 IPROs planned for fall, selected from 40-50 proposals. In order to be selected, the proposed IPROs go through a two-stage screening procedure—first from the IPRO staff, and then from the IPRO Oversight Committee. Joel Goldhar asked why we are not offering more than that; Margaret said the budget cannot support more. Bill said there are not many corporate sponsors of IPROs, and asked whether the percentage is going up or down. Tom said sponsorship rolls with the economy, but it also depends on personal contacts with trustees, alums, and others. It is hard to sustain an industrial project over multiple semesters. Margaret said that finding and working with corporate sponsors requires a lot of Tom's own time. Tom said we discount heavily for entrepreneurs; we shouldn't be relying on sponsors to pay for academic expenses, but rather for programmatic expenses. He noted that a variety of funding models exist at other Universities. The average cost of operating an IPRO (continuing or new) is between $5000 and $10K.

3. Appendix P modification (Phil Troyk):

   Phil noted that it would be wise for us to be careful about modifications of the General Education requirement. John O'Leary (CAEE), Jack Snapper (Hum), and Phil developed a proposed wording for a modification of this Appendix. The underlying idea is that the General Education rules are not themselves curriculum changes. He explained the context regarding the recent University Faculty meeting. This change to Appendix P will mean that some changes to the General Education requirements will require faculty action, but not all: the proposed change is not intended to thwart changes that really are routine. The Humanities Department is not the only place where "H" courses are taught, for example. Phil said that we want the process to go forward. Jack noted that the new paragraph is badly worded: any mathematics class would have to be vetted by the UGSC. Phil agreed that we don't want to clog the system with problems related to H, S, and C designations for courses, and Jack affirmed that the intention here is a good one: he simply wanted it to be worded in a more clean way. Chris White said this appears to be a significant problem, and that Jack's concern over getting bogged down with minutiae is legitimate; he asked whether Phil could work a better wording for the proposal. Art Lubin (AMat) asked how these possible revisions might affect faculty members' ability to propose amendments to degree requirements at actual faculty meetings. Phil confirmed that that problem is unresolved, but that it's a separate issue from the one we're discussing now. Joyce Hopkins said she would like to see Phil go back to revise the wording of the proposal. Concerns were raised about grandfathering in existing H, S, and C courses, and about how to evaluate newly-developed courses.

4. UGSC report (Jack Snapper):
   Jack Snapper summarized a number of recent items that have come to the attention of the Undergraduate Studies Committee. Chris said he would like to give the University Faculty Council members some time—say, one week— to digest the report that Jack provided.
5. April 2008 faculty meeting (Chris White): Revisions to the Aerospace Engineering BS program, which we discussed at the March meeting, will be on the agenda for the April 2008 University Faculty meeting. We will also bring forward the revisions to Appendix P if we pass them. A brief discussion of the faculty meeeting ensued.
6. Selection of Undergraduate Studies Committee chair:
   Phil noted that the Faculty Council plays a role in choosing the chair of the Undergraduate Studies Committee. A Council member asked whether John O'Leary would be willing to serve again. Greg Fasshauer (AMat) has also agreed to stand for the chairmanship, as have John Kallend (MMAE) and Jack Snapper (Hum). Geoff Williamson and Mike Gosz have been nominated, but there is some question as to Mike's suitability, since he is Associate Provost for Undergraduate Affairs; they have also not been cleared with the Committee itself. Chris White asked whether any council member would object to providing the Provost with the names of O'Leary, Fasshauer, Kallend, and Snapper as candidates for the chairmanship. No one objected.
7. FERPA and student privacy:
   Several faculty members are interested in working with Mary Anne Smith to develop ways to provide faculty members with the information they need to provide effective student advice and to write useful recommendation letters, while remaining in compliance with FERPA rules. This will continue to be a matter of concern.

8. Appendix P change, revisited:
   Chairman Phil Troyk developed a reworded version of his proposal; the revision is shown here. He moved passage of this version; Bill Grimshaw (SocSci) seconded. A brief discussion followed; Jack Snapper noted that he did not want to vote on this without first discussing it with his Academic Unit. The vote was 10-1 with one abstention, and Phil asked the secretary to notify the faculty in a timely way about the change. Secretary's note: This modification was considered at the University faculty meeting four days after this UniFC meeting, and the outcome of that Faculty Meeting, viz., that the entire issue was referred back to the Undergraduate Studies Committee for further consideration, took precedence over the language discussed at this UniFC meeting.
9. Appointment of officers and representatives:
   Phil and Chris noted that the procedures for election of UniFC officers and representatives have changed as of the most recent faculty meeting; the question arises as to whether the new rules can apply this spring. Mary Anne says we can work this way this time, so we intend to do so at the May 2008 meeting.
10. Schedule for May 2008:
    It was noted that some Faculty Council members have scheduling conflicts for the planned date of 2 May, including the Chair. Chris asked whether these conflicts would significantly affect attendance, such that we might want to switch to a different date. After a brief discussion, the Council decided to leave the schedule as is.
11. UCoPT Standards:
    Chris noted that the committee charged with developing written standards for the operations of the University Committee on Promotions and Tenure has made some progress, and he will write a report for the Council's consideration at its May meeting.
12. Archiving UniFC Actions:
    Phil noted that many actions taken by UniFC that aren't handbook changes: he asked whether there permanent records of these actions. He noted that it would be useful to define a permanent archive for Council actions.

Adjournment: The meeting adjourned at 2:04pm.