Revised on 10/17/02
Executive Council Meeting, Sept. 24, 2002
Room 211B, noon - 1:45
Present: Mary Abrums, Andrea Anderson, Frank Cioch, Patricia Kelley, Sandeep Krishnamurthy, Carole Kubota, Linda Watts
Absent: Barbara Van Sant
Plan for Coming Year
Sandeep distributed a tentative GFO meeting plan for the year. The plan described two GFO meetings per quarter plus at least one brown bag. After discussion, it was decided that the meetings would have the following foci:
| Fall Meeting 1 | Get to know your GFO Welcome by Warren, Jane Decker New faculty will provide a short paragraph about themselves. A handout will be distributed before the meeting. At the meeting, new faculty members will stand up and briefly introduce themselves. A general Q&A will follow. The main focus of the meeting will be to re-evaluate the role of the GFO in general and GFO Meetings(GFOMs) and the EC. Questions such as what do you want EC/GFOM to be? To do? Will be addressed |
| Fall Meeting 2 | Promotion and Tenure A panel of directors and senior faculty will talk about teaching, research, service, promotion and tenure. |
| Winter Meeting 1 | Celebrating Teaching and Research Presentations by - Teaching Award winner Panel of previous Worthington Scholars and Technology Award winners |
| Winter Meeting 2 | Faculty Organization and Structure/Strategic Planning and Policy Task force will report? |
| Spring Meeting 1 | To Be Announced (Linda Watts cautioned against having too much planned in light of the discussions in the first meeting of the Fall.) |
| Spring Meeting 2 | Student commencement speaker selection End of year reception |
Still to be determined are the dates for these GFO meetings. The meeting topics may still change according to the reports we receive from the retreat breakout groups. Once we receive these retreat reports, we can decide if any of the meeting foci need to change.
EC Meeting Schedule was set for fall quarter. The fall quarter EC meetings will be held from 11:30 - 1:00 on the following dates: Oct. 8, Oct. 22, Nov. 12, Nov. 26, Dec. 10.
Carole and Sandeep were to follow up with Shari about potential meeting times for the GFOM.
An organizational chart was requested, Carole will provide it at the next EC meeting.
Faculty Organization and Structure/Strategic Planning and Budget
Sandeep proposed that a task force be set up to evaluate from first principles if the current committee structure is meeting faculty needs. This task force could be asked to look at redefining the charge of certain committees, eliminating or merging others etc.
Frank Cioch said that this would not be a good idea since a more integrated view of faculty governance needed to be taken. He felt that such an effort needed to originate from the Chancellor if it was going to have a major impact and looking at the charges and structure of our committees was pointless. Linda Watts suggested that we needed to better define the role of the chair and the vice-chair in Acad Council and Cabinet meetings. Carole and Sandeep will follow up on this when they have 1:1 meetings with Jane Decker and Warren Buck. Linda also suggested that there needed to be a single planning process (rather than parallel ones) and faculty need a seat at the table in this process.
It was decided not to vote on the creation of a task force at this point.
Discussion of GFO Budget
Carole distributed copies of this year's GFO budget. Sandeep and Carole have been in conversations with Bill Kelleher and Jane Decker regarding long term plans for GFO office space and staff support. These discussions will continue and Carole/Sandeep will report back to the EC. Discussions center around the need for the GFO to have its own office space, to be able to store GFO materials in a secured area, to be able to have a space for faculty to gather. Additionally, while we receive good support from the GFO Administrative Coordinator (Barbara Van Sant) the EC recognized the potential conflict of interest since she is also in a support position for the Chancellor's office.
Electronic List Design
The EC discussed the need for an electronic list limited to voting faculty- separate from NBFAC. A motion to create a new list called NBGFO limited to GFO voting members was approved unanimously. NBFAC will continue as is.
Sandeep will proceed with Joe S. on the formation of such a list. EC also discussed the possibility of other lists such as lists of only Associate Professors or only Full Professors. There was little enthusiasm to create any other list.
GFO Committee Documentation
The EC discussed the need for historical documents, such as minutes and annual reports, from the various GFO committees. These documents could be available on the web or in hard copy and stored in a central GFO location (e.g. the hoped for GFO office space). Starting this year, each committee will be asked to prepare goals and objectives for its work this year, and recommendations for future work. As before, committees will be asked to write annual reports.
Sandeep will work on expanding the GFO website and talk to the committee chairs to obtain committee information for the website. Questions such as who has access? Where is the information? Does it need to be password protected, still need to be answered.
Carol Zander has created a web site to put the minutes and annual report for the curriculum committee online. The EC agreed that she must be asked to take this site down while the discussions on how best to share this information was finalized.
Task Forces for this Year
EC discussed setting up task forces to look at specific issues such as pay equity and faculty organizational structure. In regards to faculty organization structure, Sandeep will prepare a document describing a short history of the GFO and EC and how the roles and responsibilities have changed for the two entities. This document will be used as a discussion paper for the EC representatives to take back to their departments for feedback and input to help answer the question'what do we want GFO to be and do? This will also help inform the EC to understand the needs of the faculty and how they are being - and could be - met.
Past Minutes
Minutes from June 12, 2002 EC meeting were distributed. Approval of these minutes will be done at the next EC meeting in October.
Minutes recorded by Carole Kubota
