Minutes of University Faculty Council Meeting,
Trustees Dining Room, HUB; 12:00pm - 2:00pm, Friday 7 November 2008

Members Present:: The signup sheet from this meeting has disappeared, so this is a tentative list:
Javad Abbasian (ChBE), Paul Anderson (CAEE), Mark Anastasio (BME), Patti Bach (Psyc) Howard Chapman (Kent), Warren Edelstein (AMat), Ali Emadi (ECE), Joyce Hopkins (Psyc), Andy Howard (BCPS), Nasrin Khalili (Stuart), Bob Krawczyk (Arch), Judith Lederman (MSEd), Art Lubin (AMat), Boris Pervan (MMAE), Dietmar Rempfer (MMAE), David Rudstein (Kent), Jack Snapper (Hum), David Venerus (ChBE), Catherine Wetzel (Arch), Chris White (BCPS),

Members Absent (again, this is tentative):
Dale Fahnstrom (ID), William Grimshaw (SocSci), Xian-He Sun (CS)

Visitors: Thomas Anderson (Stuart), Alan Cramb (Provost), Mary Anne Smith (Counsel)

Call to Order: Christopher White, Chair of the UniFC, called the meeting to order around 12:35pm.

Action and Discussion Items

1. Confirmation of Sabbatical Leaves Committee membership:
   

   David Venerus (ChBE) has assembled a Sabbatical Leaves Committee, consisting of himself as chair, Braja Mandal (BCPS), and Eun-Jeong Lee (Psyc). After a brief discussion this roster was approved by acclamation.

2. Library Committee membership:
   Christopher Stewart, IIT Dean of Libraries, has assembled a proposed membership list for the Library Committee according to the revised membership plan approved by the full faculty in spring 2008. Because it was unclear what action was needed by the UniFC on this roster, no action was taken.
3. Stuart School proposal to consolidate MS Financial Markets:
   The plan was distributed prior to the October meeting, but because no one from the Stuart School was at the October meeting to clarify the issues involved, action was postponed until this meeting. Thomas Anderson from the Stuart School provided an explanation of the proposal. The programs have, in effect, already been merged: there are about 400 students in the program, and in general they like the combination of the MS in Finance and the MS in Financial Markets. Chris asked whether the requirements are different for the two degrees: Thomas responded that there were technical differences, but the switch from quarters to semesters has rendered them equivalent. After a brief discussion the Council approved the merger by a 21-0 vote. Mary Anne Smith said she would check to see whether the Council's Appendix-P-style expedited approval process applies in this situation. Secretary's note: Mary Anne has determined that this merger does not require Board of Trustees approval, so no further action is required.
4. Faculty Family Policy discussion (Chris, Mary Anne Smith):
   Chris and Mary Anne distributed a proposed revision to the policy regarding family leave for faculty members. Provost Cramb plans to implement this policy, and would like the faculty to respond to it. Chris asked Council members to take the new policy back to their Academic Units and seek their opinions on it. A vote on approval of the new policy will be sought afterward. Provost Alan Cramb explained that the motivation is the support faculty, and to limit the authority of the faculty member's dean to disallow family leaves.

   Jack Snapper (Hum) asked what should happen if a faculty member applies for leave and then changes his or her mind: Mary Anne said that the chair can decide how to handle that. Chris asked whether there would be a limit on the number of times a faculty member could apply for family leave: the answer is that the only limit is on the Tenure Clock provision, as provided for in the document. Alan noted that the goal is to limit pressure on female faculty members and to portray IIT as a caring institution. A Council member asked whether an IIT married couple could apply for leave simultaneously: the answer was yes. Mary Anne noted that the provisions of the Family Policy are considered an employment benefit. Joyce Hopkins (Psyc) asked whether faculty members could apply for leave in order to deal with a child's illness: Mary Anne replied that that is handled through the personal-leave policy, elsewhere in the employee benefits package. Art Lubin (AMat) asked whether the Provost could estimate the cost of the change in the benefit; Alan said it doesn't matter. Mary Anne noted that the primary cost is for hiring adjuncts for the semester of the leave; Alan said that adjuncts are not the only way to manage these situations. Jack suggested that a certain amount of ambiguity in the policy is actually useful in handling unusual cases. After further discussion, Chris recommended that Council members discuss the proposed policy with their Academic Units and come back to the December meeting prepared for a vote.

5. Committee Reports:
   
   • Undergraduate Studies:
     Jack Snapper distributed minutes of the most recent Undergraduate Studies Committee (UGSC) meeting. He noted that a the committee approved the undergraduate portion of a combined BS/MS program in Applied Mathematics; the actual academic content of the program is identical to the current BS in Applied Math, so the committee believes that this program does not require approval at UniFC or Board of Trustees level. Jack also noted that the UGSC is taking back control of the General Education requirements. This process is mostly moving forward, but there is retroactive concern over the Communications requirement, partly because IIT currently lacks a permanent Communications Program director. Alan asked what the issue was: Jack replied that there were two problems. The first is that some courses have a communications-intensive ("C") designation in the catalog, and yet the faculty member in charge is ignoring that component of the course. The other is how to decide which courses should have a "C" designation. The Council concluded that the UniFC has no action items at this point, and that the UGSC knows it needs to deal with this. Ali Emadi asked whether this problem is serious enough that it could become an ABET issue.
   • Academic Affairs:
     Ali Emadi, Javad Abbasian, and Judith Lederman met for the first time on 7 November. The primary topic of conversation was involvement of administrators (chairs and deans) in the faculty deliberations regarding promotions and tenure. The committee is preparing to reword a portion of Appendix C of the Faculty Handbook (Article IIIB, paragraph 1) to explicitly exclude Deans and Provosts from Promotions and Tenure deliberations.
   • Finance:
     Howard Chapman distributed a preliminary financial report. Most of the data in it will reappear in the final form, but the figures given in this version have not been reviewed by the administration, although they came from there originally. He noted that operating revenue is up by $15.2M, but operating expenses are up by $24.9M; the non-operating deficit is $77.2M.

     Tuition and fees have increased by 14.9%, while costs associated with faculty salaries are up 9.9%, and benefits, for some reason are up by 21.9%. Operations and maintenance are up 26.7%, mostly because of increases in fuel costs. The total number of student "heads" is up 2.5% and the number of credit hours is up by 4.5%. International enrollment is 39.3%, up 2.5%. Architecture and Stuart have experienced the largest growth in enrollment. SAT scores have slipped a bit, but ACT scores are steady. TOEFL scores have declined steadily over several years.

     The endowment is down $42.3M as of May—before the market began to crash. Investment categories have been redesigned, so it is difficult to compare past years to the current year. Grants are up a little, but private gifts have fallen significantly. The faculty and staff raise pools are uncertain: they will depend on financial performance and on the strategic importance of various programs. The University anticipates a tuition rate increase of 6.75% in the upcoming year and 6% per year thereafter. A Council member noted that IBIS no longer exists—the undergraduate business program is now part of the Stuart School.

6. Policies regarding grading and dissemination of exams:
   A recent incident in a biology class led to the distribution within the College of Science and Letters of a memo from Dean Russell Betts regarding grading and dissemination of exams. Alan has endorsed the content of Russell's memo and plans to distribute it to Armour faculty as well; Alan noted that it was intended not as a policy statement but rather as a way of operating. The memo discusses two issues. The first was how faculty members can maintain students' right to privacy in returning exams to their students; the second was how much authority teaching assistants should have in grading exams. Provost Cramb has emphasized that faculty members should take steps to minimize the likelihood that a student's exam paper would be seen by another student without the first student's permission. The Council was supportive of this idea.

   The question of whether TAs should be allowed to grade exams is more complex. The faculty strongly support the idea that the faculty must be responsible for the content of exams and the grading mechanisms for them. However, Joyce Hopkins and other UniFC members asserted that it is useful experience for teaching assistants, particularly graduate teaching assistants, to participate in grading exams. Joyce asked whether the concern over privacy per se extended to preventing graduate TAs from seeing student papers; Mary Anne said no: the concern is over visibility of students' papers and grades to other enrolled students. Provost Cramb noted that he has always graded his exams himself, and two Council members said that different disciplines may have different grading requirements and different demands placed on the faculty, based on course enrollment and the kinds of questions being asked. Jack Snapper noted that Russell's memo, which discouraged grading by TAs, should apply to non-IIT students who are hired as graders; Russell has responded that such a hired grader is functioning as an adjunct and is exempt. The consensus at the Council was that if faculty members allow TAs to take part in grading exams, they should do so with close supervision of the process and should provide the TAs with a detailed answer key.

   Council members asked whether it needs to act on this issue. Mary Anne encouraged discussion of the issue at the Academic Unit level. David Venerus asked whether a friendly reminder about this from the Provost might be useful; Alan said he had heard about Russell's memo from Mike Gosz and had simply forwarded it to the Armour chairs in his capacity as acting Armour dean. The Council discussed at length the specifics of these questions. Alan noted that a statement from the Faculty Council about this question could potentially be an endorsement of Russell's original statement. Chris said Council members would take this issue to their Academic Units and return for a discussion and potential endorsement.

7. Teaching loads and communication-intensive courses:
   Suzanne Mueller (Stuart) noted that many faculty members take the "C" designations of their courses seriously. Her department and the Humanities department believe strongly that we need to improve our students' writing. She said that truly communication-intensive courses require faculty members to spend a lot of time critiquing papers and providing constructive feedback. The Writing Center provides very limited support. She has surveyed her colleagues to get estimates of the time burden associated with writing: she got responses ranging from an extra quarter-course or 80-90 hr/semester to a half-course. She argued that this added time burden is insufficiently recognized in assessing teaching loads.

   Jack Snapper said the Undergraduate Studies Committee probably cannot take a stand on the problem of faculty workloads, and suggested that some of these problems could be resolved by increased reliance on and adequate resources in the Writing Center. Chris asked whether there is a general feeling the Undergraduate Studies Committee that "C" courses entail increased workloads. Jack said the UGSC has never considered that question. Joyce Hopkins noted that not all faculty who teach "C" courses are as conscientious as Suzanne has been in dealing with writing. Snapper noted that architecture studio courses are designated "C" because they involve presenting projects.

   Judy Lederman noted that by the time professors like Suzanne see these students, many are already missing a critical piece of their K-12 education. Alan asked who is letting the students down: he said it's not the university itself, but the individual faculty members. Jack Snapper said that when faculty members get assigned to teach "C" courses they do try to get the students to write, but the resources are insufficient: it should not be the Electrical Engineering professor's job to address insufficiencies in the students' communication skills. Alan disagreed: he said that this is part of the professor's job. Chris asked whether there should be enrollment limits in "C" courses. Javad noted the writing burden varies considerably from one "C" course to another, so the problem should be addressed at a departmental level. Suzanne agreed in theory, but reiterated that students show up for her classes unprepared. David Venerus noted that students are unprepared in other areas as well, including mathematics. Joyce said this issue is important, and asked whether an ad hoc subcommittee might be assembled to deal with the Communications requirement and the problems of the Writing Center. Javad asid that if we could assess the students' shortcomings, we should be able to identify solutions.

   Council members noted that many courses are listed in the University Catalog with the Communications ("C") designation without any particular scrutiny on the suitability of that designation. Some members said that they moved into teaching a particular course and then discovered that the course had a "C" designation, and were uncertain of how to incorporate that emphasis on communication in their syllabi. Laboratory science classes, for example, often have "C" designations, presumably because students are expected to write lab reports. Whether that is an appropriate use of the "C" designation is unclear. The Council launched an extended discussion of who should make these "C" designations, and how those should affect students' General Education requirements. Javad asked how "C" designations are decided on currently: Chris replied that the Academic Units themselves make those decisions now. Chris suggested that we begin by dealing with the problem of how courses are designed as Communications-intensive, and then make sure that they are taught as is prescribed; then we can address the Writing Center issues and the problem of faculty time burdens. Jack said he would bring these problems back to the UGSC.

Adjournment: The meeting adjourned by acclamation at 1:55pm.