Minutes of the Faculty Meeting

Roanoke College

Minutes of the Faculty Meeting

24 September 2009, Massengill Lecture Hall

Faculty Present: 93.

On Sabbatical: M. Kuchar, W. Larson-Harris, G. McDermott, A. Turpin, and H. Wilson.

On-Leave: A. Genova, P. Hanstedt, and J. Lauinger.

Absent: K. Anderson, K. Baker, S. Berger, J. Blaha, J. Cawley, A. Childers, D. Bouchard, E. Cooper, M. Fleenor, G. Fleming, S. Gibbs, M. Hagadorn, S. Hardwig, M. Henold, B.Huddle, D. Jorgensen, M. Mania, V. Miller, T. Peppers, M. Ramesh, E.Rothgery, J. Sandborg, C. Sarisky, D. Scaer, A. Shende, M.Vilhauer, and I. Wallace Fuentes.

Holding Proxies: H. Brown (T. Peppers), B. Crozier (M. Ramesh), D. Flores-Silva (D. Scaer), R. Grant (M. Fleenor), G. Hollis (B. Huddle & V. Miller), J. Ingram (A. Shende), T. Johann (C. Sarisky), A. Kassens (G. Fleming), C. Lassiter (J. Cawley & D. Jorgensen), J. Long (J. Blaha), J. Lyon (M. Hagadorn), J. Mania (M. Mania), E. Nik-Khah (S. Berger), B. Partin (J.Sandborg), D. Taylor (A. Childers), L. Velazquez (K. Baker & S. Gibbs), R. Willingham (M. Henold & I.WallaceFuentes), H. Zorn (M. Vilhauer),

The meeting was called to order at 4:32 pm.

1. The invocation was delivered by Chaplain Henrickson.
2. Minutes of the meeting of 26 August 2009.

The minutes were approved with the following corrections:

Dr. Poli’s announcement for FDC was left out of the minutes: Dr. Poli reiterated that URAP applications are due to FDC by Sept. 15; CTG grants are due Sept 11th; FDC is sponsoring an “Internal Grants Workshop” on Sept. 8th from 4:30-6:30pm in Pickle; alerted faculty to look online to remind themselves of the internal grant deadlines; and FDC recently updated the “successful grants” and uploaded them on GrantPro.

Page 3, paragraph 1, lines 12 and 13, should read: “important for the faculty to have programs that compare favorably with peer institutions. Roanoke wants to be nationally competitive and regionally distinctive.”

Under faculty absent: K. Hoffman should read Katherine Hoffman.

J. Lauinger should be added to the On-Leave list, and “M. Heller (V. Stewart)” should be added under Holding Proxies.

1. Report of the Vice President and Dean of the College, Dr. Richard Smith.

Dean Smith focused his message on the most pressing item on his plate – SACS.

The first step the College must take is the appointment of a leadership steering committee, which will include both faculty and administrators. This committee will oversee the entire SACS reaffirmation process which will officially begin January25, 2010. This roughly two year process will end in the spring of 2012. The Leadership Committee is comprised of President Maxey, Dean Smith, Kim Filer, Dan Larsen, Adrienne Bloss, and Jennifer Berenson. Additionally, a number of faculty will hold positions on the committee: Lyn Pysh (Chair, Quality Enhancement Project Committee), Charlene. Kalinoski (Chair, Compliance Committee—under previous reviews this was known as the Self-Study Committee). Three atlarge faculty, Greg Weiss, Jack Steehler, and Whitney Leeson, who will represent the three divisions of the college. The committee’s charge is to move forward and to develop highly satisfactory compliance reports.

Dean Smith is most worried about core requirement 2.5—Institution Effectiveness. This and several other requirements are related to assessment in the academic area, as well as assessment across the board (student life, academic support, etc). This is referred to as a core requirement. SACS has two kinds of standards: core requirements and comprehensive standards. An institution must be in compliance with the thirteen core requirements to be successfully reaffirmed. Noncompliance in these areas creates major issues. There is more leeway with the comprehensive standards. Many people are working hard to position the College in order to tell the SACS reviewers the good story of Roanoke College. This requirement has a number of different foci. The first is the administrative side, in particular strategic planning and, later on, budget decisions. This requirement covers the “ongoing, integrated, institution wide, research based planning evaluation processes that involves the intuition’s mission, goals, outcomes, the goals for continuing improvement.” The mission, goals, planning processes, budgeting processes are combined with the feedback to determine how successful the college is in meeting its goals. These are all tightly connected. Right now, they are not as tightly connected as they need to be. With the support of President Maxey, the Cabinet and various faculty committees, the tightening up process has begun. There has been discussion in Cabinet to rethink the strategic plan in ways that better relates that plan to missions and goals of College. At some point the budgeting process will undergo the same review.

A third area pertains to the goals in academic area. Dean Smith is concerned that the College has a large number of goals—nineteen liberal learning goals, with nine more that have been developed as part of trying to take the liberal learning goals and allow the college to go forward with the assessment of learning outcomes. SACS expects to be shown evidence that the institution is achieving its stated goals. This expectation led to a series of conversations between Dean Smith, Lyn Pysh, and Kim Filer (the newly hired Director of Institutional Effectiveness & Assessment). As they talked, they came to the realization that there needed to be work on how the College and its goals were presented to successfully respond to this core requirement.

Agenda item seven is being brought before the faculty to modify the liberal learning goals. Dr. Pysh and Ms. Filer will explain the proposal’s rationale later in the meeting. Dean Smith wanted to set the proposal within the larger context. A faculty wide decision is needed on this issue now. The College is behind where it needs to be on assessments to support this institution wide planning and evaluation process. Ms. Filer has been diligently working with both the administration and department chairs to move the College forward on the administrative side. In order to move forward on the assessment side, it needs to be clear what goals are to be assessed.

Dean Smith stressed that today’s objective is for the faculty to understand the source of this proposal and why it would be preferable to focus on nine goals rather than nineteen. In light of the time crunch, Dean Smith would like to see a decision made today. He does not want a lack of understanding to get in the way of a good decision. If needed, the decision could be postponed to the October meeting, but that is not ideal—the College needs to move forward with other parts of the assessment process. If everyone is comfortable making a decision today, fine.

While Dean Smith, Dr. Pysh, and Ms. Filer have a preferred outcome, they are also comfortable staying with the status quo—the nineteen liberal learning goals. If the majority wants to retain the nineteen goals, a way will be found to make that happen, but it will be more difficult.

At the last faculty meeting, Dean Smith mentioned that there are mixed feelings about the whole area of assessment. He shares those mixed feelings. Because of this core requirement, assessment is something that has to be done. He reiterated his request that the faculty pull together in order to put the College in the best position relative to SACS.

1. Introduction by Vice President of Student Affairs, Dr. Gene Zdziarski.

Dr. Zdziarski explained that there has been some restructuring in order to enhance the College’s counseling services. Historically, the counseling that has been provided by the college has operated under the pastoral care model through the Chaplain’s office. Chaplain Henrickson saw a greater incidence of more significant issues and hired professional, licensed counselors to serve in that role. The College further sought to enhance those services and take it to where there is an independent counseling center separate from the Chaplain’s office. In creating this center, the college has added the position of Director of Counseling. Filling that position is Dr. Hap Cox. Dr. Zdziarski turned the floor over to Dr. Cox.

Dr. Cox wanted the faculty to become acquainted with him. He was struggling to associate new names and faces, but there is an advantage to being in a small place.

He views the process of establishing his office as a combination of building and starting over. He has taken the attitude that if he is going to start again and not just continue on with what has been done before; he needs to determine how things should be done. He is counting on the faculty to let him know from their perspective, what Roanoke’s students, institution and faculty need to succeed. He looks forward to hearing what the faculty thinks the counseling center could best do to help both faculty and students. He thanked the faculty members who have already contacted his office concerning situations that have arisen. He hopes that all faculty will feel free to contact him. Please tell him how the center has been a help and how it can help in the future.

1. Report of the Curriculum Committee, Dr. Howard Warshawsky.

Curriculum Committee recommends approval of the following:

Elimination of the Computer Information Systems [CIS] Major

Rationale: The most recent CIS PEP report recommended discontinuation of this program in favor of a new concentration in Management of Information Technology. The recent hiring by the Business /Economics Department of an additional faculty member with a specialty in Information Technology will allow the development of a forthcoming proposal to establish this new concentration. Historically low enrollment in the CIS major program has led to some required courses being taught as tutorials.

If this motion is approved, the Registrar will notify all current students. Students will be allowed to declare a CIS major until March 31, 2010. The Business/Economics Department is committed to support that major for any student who has been formally accepted into the program by that date.

Dr. Nazemi asked why the March 31, 2010, date was this chosen.

Dr. Warshawsky answered it was to give all students who came into the College this year, under the old catalogue, sufficient time to declare a CIS major.

Dr. Nazemi indicated there are some freshmen in the pipeline and March 2010 may be too early for them to declare a major.

Dr. Ingram added that there are several freshmen taking Introduction to Computer Science. These students think they want to do the CIS major.

Dr. Warshawsky asked how many students might be affected.

Dr. Berenson commented she did not have the number. If the effective date was delayed until fall of 2010, then the College would be implicitly telling the next entering class that this major would be available to them as well. She would not recommend pushing the decision date into the next academic year.

Dr. Nazemi indicated his comments were aimed towards accommodating the students who intend to become CIS majors. If the date can be pushed back to the end of the semester it would be better.

Dr. Larry Lynch agreed that the major needs to be removed from the catalogue. The department has often taught the upper level class in this major as a tutorial because there were not enough students to fill a class. He would argue that the March date would be fine if the entire faculty is aware that if they have any advisees who are considering this major, these students need to be made aware the major will not be available later.

Dr. Nazemi added that those students in the pipeline should declare the major now, and if they so choose, change majors later.

Hearing no further discussion, Moderator McCart called for a vote. In favor: 97. Opposed: 5. Motion passed.

Curriculum Committee recommends approval of the following:

ARTH 343: Early Netherlandish Painting. Robert Campin, Jan van Eyck, and Rogier van der Weyden set the tone for the art of the Netherlands in the fifteenth century. This class will study each artist’s oeuvre and how it reflected contemporary concerns, particularly the interrelationship between the historical context, religious life, and social standing of the artists who made the paintings and the patrons who commissioned and used them. (1) Lecture: 3 hr/wk. Instructor: Long. Prerequisite: ARTH 146. This course will be an elective in the ART HIST and ART majors and minors.

ARTH 348: Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Raphael. In the 21st century, Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael are considered the three artistic geniuses of Italian Renaissance art. This class will study each artist’s oeuvre and how it reflected contemporary concerns, examine the interdependence of career and biography, and consider notions of genius in the study of art. (1) Lecture: 3 hr/wk. Instructor: Long. Prerequisite: ARTH 146. This course will be an elective in the ART HIST and ART majors and minors.

ARTH 353: The Dutch Golden Age: Rembrandt and Vermeer. Rembrandt and Vermeer are among the most popular “Old Master” painters. Exhibitions of their works and movies and books about their lives attract huge audiences. This course explores the oeuvres of these two painters, comparing what we know (and want to know) about them as art historians with how they have been seen by non-scholars in the past twenty-five years. (1) Lecture: 3 hr/wk. Instructor: Long. Prerequisite: ARTH 146. This course will be an elective in the ART HIST and ART majors and minors.