Academic Council minutes - March 1, 2016

1. Approval of Minutes of Academic Council Meeting minutes from February 2, 2016

Dr. Bill Ross moved approval of the minutes of February 2, 2016. Dr. Michelle Hamm seconded. With no further discussion, the minutes were approved by voice vote.

2. New/Revised Course Proposals

ANTH 304 was brought to the floor as a new course proposal. Dr. Bill Ross motioned to approve. Dr. Jon Dattelbaum seconded. With no further discussion, ANTH 304 was approved by voice vote.

A proposal to change course codes from MLC to LLC was brought to the floor. Dr. Jan French motioned to approve. Dr. Mike Kerckhove seconded. With no further discussion, the proposal was approved by voice vote.

3. Academic Retention Working Group – Dr. April Hill

Dr. April Hill provided an overview of the charge that was given to the Academic Retention Working Group and presented a Summary of Discussion and Recommendations, the entirety of which is attached to the agenda.

Dr. Bill Ross asked whether the new policy would override or change the current pass/fail policy. Dr. Ross also wondered about the implications of pass/fail on students transferring credits to other schools, such as Business.

Dr. Mari-Lee Mifsud asked what was being achieved by extending the withdrawal deadline from 7 weeks to 10 weeks.

Dr. Jon Dattelbaum asked when the School of Arts & Sciences planned to begin looking at the data. Dr. April Hill responded that there is already a committee formed to perform this function: the Data Group.

Dr. Doug Winiarski wondered why General Education classes were able to be taken pass/fail, but not FYS or classes within the major. Dr. Abigail Cheever expressed her concern about students being able to take Gen Ed classes pass/fail, and asked why differentiate between taking Gen Ed and FYS on a pass/fail basis. Dr. Libby Gruner, Associate Dean, answered that because FYS is considered foundational to everything else, they wanted to signal its importance by exempting it from pass/fail.

4. Policy for Promotion Bumps – Dean Skerrett

Dean Skerrett announced that, working with the Provost’s Office, the School of Arts & Sciences Dean’s Office policy for salary “bumps” associated with promotions will change, effective for the newly promoted faculty. Dean Skerrett explained that for the past four years, promotion to assistant provided a $3,000 bump and promotion to full provided a $5,000 bump. This year and in future, the salary bumps will be $5,000 for promotion to associate and $7,500 for promotion full. Newly promoted faculty members will see these salary “bumps” in their pay for FY17.

Dr. Jon Dattelbaum asked if the new policy would create compression or inversion with the salaries of those promoted in the previous four years. Dean Skerrett said that the new policy will not have that effect. The new salary “bumps” align with the dean’s salary model, which reflects the University’s ongoing commitment to benchmarking faculty salaries by peer rank.

5. B.S. Degree Requirements Discussion continued—Dr. Kristin Nolin

Dr. Kristin Nolin, Chair of the Committee reviewing the B.S. Degree Requirements, presented an updated proposal, the full document of which is attached to the agenda.

Substantive changes centered around language in “Proposal 2” and “Requirements for the Major”: “The B.S. degree will require… a second course that focuses on advanced quantitative methods and has a prerequisite of Math 211 (or equivalent).”

Dr. Bill Ross queried the clause “advanced quantitative methods” and offered that the updated proposal still does not resolve the issue he had before with the previous proposal. The language in the proposal is too vague, in his opinion. Dr. Michelle Hamm echoed Dr. Ross’s concerns and suggested that the language be more concrete because Academic Council is not the right place for debates about this criterion each time a course is proposed. Both Dr. Hamm and Dr. Ross advocated for a more concrete governing philosophy that lays out goals for a course involving “advanced quantitative methods.”

Dr. Beth Crawford, on the other hand, spoke in favor of the proposed language, saying that it offers flexibility for the departments to make the case in their respective course proposals.

Dean Skerrett asked Academic Council if the proposal was close enough to come to a vote. Debate ensued. In the end, it was decided that one further round of drafting would serve the proposal well. Dr. Kristin Nolin agreed, and Dean Skerrett confirmed that the proposal will be brought to a vote at the next meeting.

The meeting adjourned at 11:45.