October 2, 2012 Academic Council Agenda

Our next meeting will be Tuesday, October 2, 2012 from 10:30-11:45 a.m. in the Tyler Haynes Commons, Room 305 (THC 305). Please review the agenda below and the cited materials in advance of the meeting.

Approval of minutes from the September 18, 2012 meeting.


Consent Agenda

ARTS 109 Foundation Film and Video

ARTS 269 Thematic Explorations in Film and Video

ARTS 299 Advanced Film and Video

ARTS 375 Interdisciplinary Arts Seminar

BIOL 114 Introduction to Animal Behavior

CHEM 313 The Natures of the Chemical Bond

CLSC 320 Cultural property:  archaeology, ethics, and law

CMSC 344 Advanced Computer Architecture

FMST 302 Intermediate Film Production

FREN 481 Traduction

FREN 486  Paris as visual cliche'

MLC 362 History of the Romance Languages

RHCS 350 Rhetoric in a Globalized World

THTR 305 Sound Design

Revised Course Proposals
Title Changes:

MLC 325 Revolution and Modernity in Chinese Literature (formerly Representing the Chinese Empire (Modern Chinese Literature and History in Contemporary Perspective))

PLSC 364 Child Health and Policy (formerly Mental Health and Policy)

Course Number Change:

ENGL 201 The Art of Writing:  Aims, Modes, Process (formerly ENGL 382)


Discussion Agenda:

1. The department of MLC moves that Academic Council approve the following proposed courses:  MLC 242 From Scheherazade to Jasmine:  The Arabian Nights in World Literature and Culture
   
   MLC 243 Politics and Social Movements in  Modern Middle Eastern Literatures
   
   MLC 244 Writing Women in Modern Arabic Fiction
   
   MLC 347 Islam, Nationalism, and the West--Modern Thought in the Arab World
   
   
2. The department of MLC moves that Academic Council approve the proposed Arabic Studies Major 


3. Department chairs will meet in small groups to discuss calibrations of merit scores. Other members of Academic Council may adjourn.

September 18, 2012 Academic Council Minutes

Dean Skerrett called the meeting to order at 10:30 a.m. The minutes of the April 17, 2012  and September 4, 2012 meetings were approved.

All proposals on the September 18, 2012 consent agenda were approved.

Admissions Update

Malcolm Hill and Lisa Gentile have been working closely with Admissions and following up on concerns that were raised last year at Academic Council meetings. Malcolm reminded everyone to refer to the timeline provided by Admissions for upcoming admissions events.




Introduction of new A&S Communications Staff

Dean Skerrett introduced the two new A&S communications staff members, Jessica Pittman and Andrea Almoite. Jessica and Andrea both gave brief descriptions of their primary duties. Jessica will work with the administrative coordinators and faculty members to plan and execute communications projects. Andrea will write feature stories and find ways to generate content throughout the school of Arts and Sciences as well as any work relating to department websites. 





Presentation of the FY13 Budget


Dean Skerrett presented Academic Council with the FY13 budget.  The dean said that we would focus faculty governance this year on designing a robust budget process for A & S.  Dean Skerrett, Terri Weaver and Dean Wang have been working closely the budget office to the infrastructure of the A & S budget, while simultaneously developing the budget request and review process.

At the end of last June, A&S had both a salary surplus and an operational surplus. Normally, this surplus be transferred to the plant fund, however, for FY14 the dean has the ability to transfer a portion of the surplus back to operations via the program based budgeting (PBB) initiative.

Dean Skerrett was asked to define a plant fund. The dean explained that the plant fund functions as a reserve fund for capital projects throughout the School of Arts and Sciences.  For example, monies spent pursuant to the Arts Initiative came from the plant fund.

The dean is responsible for decisions concerning allocation of resources in connection with the A & S budget.  However, the Dean’s Advisory Council is charged with making recommendations to the dean about budget requests and faculty and staff positions.  In order to ensure that the DAC can make robust recommendations based on information, the dean’s office has designed a budget request process that involves the department chairs and the Dean’s Advisory Council.  Vincent Wang described this process and reviewed the memorandum and budget request forms with the Academic Council.  He promised to email both documents to the department chairs and program coordinators after the meeting.

Undergraduate research is a crucial educational program that A&S funds. The dean’s office will dedicate funding at the current level.  However, now that Granger funding has been spent, undergraduate research will only be funded through A&S, as well as fellowships and grants sought by faculty.  The dean pledged to use all monies from the annual fund to enhance undergraduate research and faculty stipends.  There is currently no budget for faculty stipends for the undergraduate research program.  This is something that the Dean’s Advisory Council can consider in November.
A question was raised about how the Dean’s Advisory Council would make recommendations on budget requests for programs that cut across departments.  The dean suggested that the chairs and program coordinators employ their divisional representatives on the Dean’s Advisory Council to urge such requests.

There are two restricted endowments that support the science initiative, Kresge I and Kresge II. Psychology and Geology will also be part of the planning process, but there are restrictions on which departments can receive funds from these endowments.  The dean thanked the faculty members and development officers who had the foresight to pursue funds for these endowments.



 Program based budget process FY14 



Vincent distributed a memorandum and budget request forms for the program based budgeting process.   A&S will build its FY 14 budget and budget request according to program based budgeting.   Each department chair and program coordinator has already received a budget for FY 13 that reflect realignment based on a three-year history of spending.  The dean’s office created these histories and worked with department chairs on the realignments last year.  Vincent Wang introduced the new process and the new form.Vincent reminded council of the October 26 deadline for budget requests. If department chairs would like an additional copy of their FY13 budget, they may contact Terri Weaver in the dean’s office.  The dean urged that any requests for additional tenure-line positions should have a “leave-proof” component in the justification.  By this, the dean means that the department is willing to offer a curriculum that its tenure line faculty can teach in the ordinary course of things (not including family leaves.)  There was concern expressed for those departments that participate in interdisciplinary studies.  The dean urged the faculty to be inventive within the limits of our current size; thus, if we say yes to something new, we need to say no to something formerly done. Taken as a whole, we do not want to grow in ways that perpetuate or increase our reliance on contingent faculty. 



Staff and faculty position request process

Forms for faculty and staff position requests are included in the program based budtget process.  For staff position request, there is checklist provided by Human Resources that will allow Human Resources to grade the position. 





The meeting adjourned at 11:45am


Respectfully submitted,

Zandria Ivy 

Academic Council September 18, 2012 Agenda

Our next meeting will be Tuesday, September 18, 2012 from 10:30-11:45 a.m. in the Tyler Haynes Commons, Room 305 (THC 305). Please review the agenda below and the cited materials in advance of the meeting.

Approval of minutes from the April 17, 2012  and September 4, 2012 meeting.

Consent agenda:
PPEL Philosophy concentration 

Item of Information:
-The English Department and the faculty teaching Russian request that the English-Russian combined major be deleted from the catalog


Discussion agenda:

1.  Admissions Update- Malcolm Hill
2. Introduction of new A&S Communications team members
3.  Presentation of the FY13 Budget
4. Program Based Budget process FY14
5. Staff and faculty position request process
6. Science initiative
7. Arts initiative 
8. Office Needs- Lisa Gentile  
 

A&S Faculty Meeting Agenda September 20, 2012

Our next faculty meeting will be held on September 20, 2012 at 4:00 p.m. in the Keller Hall Reception Room.



Our agenda will be:

1. Approval of April 19, 2012 minutes
2. Introduction of new A&S Communications team members
3. Priorities and Insights: Report on Listenings 2011-2012
4. Dean's Office Goals 2012-2013
5. Presentation of the FY13 Budget
6.  Dean's Advisory Council 2012-2013 membership
7. Science Initiative
8. Arts Initiative
9. Chair compensation policy 

 


Next A&S faculty meeting will be October 10, 2012 in the Keller Hall Reception Room. 

September 4, 2012 Academic Council Minutes

Dean Skerrett called the meeting to order at 10:31 a.m. The dean explained the purpose of this meeting was to preview the agenda for the semester, and to answer questions as the new year begins. 


Discussion agenda

New chair website:

Dean Skerrett introduced the new department chair web page  that is accessible from the dean's page on the University website. Kathleen thanked Lisa Gentile, Malcolm Hill, and Catherine Amos for creating and rolling out the new design. This web page is organized as a calendar of chairs' major assignments with hyperlinks to relevent policies, deadlines, and documents.


Course approval or revision proposal:

Associate Dean, Malcolm Hill presented the timeline for new course approvals for fall 2012.   Dr. Hill encouraged faculty to submit proposals and revisions as soon as possible for next fall.

Annual performance reviews:

The dean reminded Academic Council of the November deadline for annual performance review reports. A question was asked about how to rank a faculty member away on sabbatical. Dean Skerrett is aware that this issue will need to be determined as there was a lot of variation by department last year on how those cases were handled. The dean suggested to follow past practices for now. The dean's office plans to follow up  on other remaining issues associated with the annual review process.  A question was asked if a triennial schedule was required for every tenured member of a department. The dean confirmed that it is a department decision on whether to participate or not in the triennial schedule. 

On October 2nd, Academic Council members will meet and then break into small groups to discuss and discover how departments calibrate merit scores. This will serve as an opportunity for departments to discuss shared practices so that everyone is moving towards best practices. It was suggested that this should be a time to calibrate across divisions instead of dividing into quadripartite divisions.

 


Program based budgeting:

Vincent Wang has been working on program based budgeting for Arts and Sciences. The dean assured Council that this will not be zero based budgeting. The dean's office is hoping this budget will empower each department to make budget decisions.  Departments will be asked to re-examine their missions and propose budget enhancements if needed. All request for program based budgeting will be due this fall.  Throughout the month of October,  the dean's office will be willing to make individual appointments with departments to walk through this new process.We will introduce the program based budgeting process at the September 18th Academic Council meeting.

Department chair stipends:

Each department chair or program coordinator received a letter this summer reflecting a standard scale for department chair stipends.  In the past, the dean's office informed chairs of their stipend at the end of the year of service and the chair received the stipend the following academic year. The standard scale is based on how many are in a department. There were a few cases where there were  declines in compensation. According to the plan, by FY15 all chairs and program coordinators will be paid in the year of service.


The meeting adjourned at 11:41 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Zandria Ivy