October 20, 2015 - Academic Council Meeting Minutes

1. Approval of Minutes of AC Meeting October 6, 2015 – Dr. Libby Gruner, Associate Dean 

Dr. Sam Abrash moved approval of the minutes of October 6, 2015. Dr. Bill Ross seconded. With no further discussion, the minutes were approved by voice vote.

2. New Minor in Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Design (cross-school minor) – Dr. Randy Raggio, Associate Professor of Marketing, and Dr. Eric Martin, Director, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Program 

Dr. Ted Bunn moved that the motion to approve the New Minor in Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Design (cross-school minor) be removed from the table. The motion to remove was approved by voice vote.

Dr. Libby Gruner, Associate Dean, invited discussion of the motion to approve the New Minor in Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Design (cross-school minor).  Dr. Libby Gruner introduced Dr. Randy Raggio and Dr. Eric Martin, who discussed the history and goals of the Entrepreneurship Minor and fielded questions from Academic Council.  

Dr. Linda Boland recommended that they clarify the learning goals for the inclusion of the course outside of the business school. Others in Academic Council echoed this. Dr. Raggio and Dr. Martin agreed that they would. 

Following discussion, Dr. Sam Abrash called the question. The motion to call the question was approved by voice vote.

Dr. Libby Gruner then motioned for approval of the New Minor in Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Design (cross-school minor). Without further discussion, the New Minor in Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Design (cross-school minor) was approved by voice vote.

3. Calibration of Annual Merit Scores Across Divisions 

Dr. Libby Gruner, Associate Dean, invited Academic Council members who are not assigning annual merit scores to recuse themselves from the remainder of the meeting. After they left, Dr. Ben Broening, Associate Dean, then gave a PowerPoint presentation on the “Calibration of Annual Merit Scores Across Divisions.” The members discussed Dean Broening's analysis of merit score data from last year.

4. Small Group Discussion Among Department Chairs 

According to the Guidelines for Merit Review: “Each October, Academic Council will dedicate one meeting to allow department chairs to meet in small groups to discuss discipline-sensitive benchmarks for applying the merit rubric. Individual cases will not be discussed in these meetings.” Following the presentation of analysis of the 2014-2015 merit review data, the department chairs discussed calibration of merit scores in different departments and different divisions.