MINUTES

Meeting of the Economics Department

Monday, October5th, 2015, called to order at 3:33 PM

Present: Ahmad (Chair), Das, Ersal, Guo, Heinrich, Kashian, Lovett, Marks, Teferra, Tao, Welsch, Winden, and Xue

  1. Approval of September14th, 2015 meeting minutes:

Winden moves, Welsch seconds. Motion passed unanimously.

  1. Announcements:
  1. Reminder for Scholarships: Deadline for scholarships isNovember 16th, 2015 (Monday). Ahmad requested that faculty announce the scholarship opportunity in all upper level classes. The scholarship committee will meet November 17th Tuesday and the recipients will be announced during the December DoE meeting.
  1. Assessment committee to review Econ 201 and Econ 245 questions in Management 489: Admin Policy course.
  1. Amanda Howell - Business Librarian:

Howell informed us abouttwo new databases, Data Planetand Statista. She also informed the department about the D2L course “Information Literacy for Business Students – 01”, which could be embedded to courses faculty teach and could be used to assess information literacy. Information literacy is one of the LEAP essential outcomes to be assessed.

Kashian asked Howell about the library hours during weekends. Library is open 10 am – 6 pm during Saturdays. Kashian expressed interest in extended hours during weekends.

  1. Assessment (Kashian) +6. MS Applied Economics (Welsch)

Welsch asked for more participation from faculty in recruitment of graduate students and in supervising master’s theses during summer. Kashian emphasized importance of building personal relationships with other universities and colleagues at these other institutions to accelerate recruitment.Kashian asked faculty to reach out to personal contacts. Further discussion ensued.

Ahmad proposed reflecting on the issues brought up during the week and asked the volunteers to meet next week Monday at 3:30pm to brainstorm recruitment ideas.

  1. Feedback to Research Committee (Das)

The input from faculty on metrics for impact of research was reviewed. Das informed that this is a reference list to assess impact and it will be aggregated at the college level. Ahmad suggested leaving the items within each category and reporting the achievements under the aggregated categories. Welsch also recommended not taking items out, and even possibly adding items to increase the applicability of the categories to different departments.The department opposed to elimination of any of the items and if at all, suggests adding more items under each category.

  1. New Business

Xue, on behalf of the CoBE International Committee, asked for feedback from the department for issues that the department wants the committee to cover. Xue suggested international recruitment for the master’s program could be one such topic. Tao suggested recruiting through exchange students for the masters program.

  1. Old Business

N/A

  1. Personnel Reviews

At 5:00 pm, on a motion byWelsch, seconded byKashian, the meeting was moved to CLOSED sessionto discuss personnel reviews, as permitted by Wisconsin Statutes 19.81-19.98. The motion was approved unanimously by the tenured faculty in the Department of Economics.

Respectfully submitted,

EylemErsal-Kiziler

Secretary Pro Tem