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
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