Executive Council Meeting
January 24, 2008, 3:00 pm, UW2 327
Present: Constantin Behler, Steve Collins, Bill Erdly, Dan Jaffe, Nancy Place, Gowri Shankar, Suzanne Sikma and Mike Stiber
Guests: Ann Cox, Art Haines, Don Whitney, Hung Dang and Jill Orcutt
Adoption of Agenda
The agenda was adopted as amended.
Reports of Officers
A. Chair - Mike
Mike updated the EC on STEM planning, the STEM Task Force held their first meeting last week. The Task Force focused on their charge, their scope of operations and how to approach setting priorities for planning STEM programs. The ASTP report laid the foundation for STEM planning at UWB, gathering information and data to address what kinds of science, applied science and technology majors, minors and/or concentrations UWB should pursue. The UWB Executive Council passed a resolution in support of the ASTP report and recommended a campus-wide strategic planning group to proceed with the next steps of the ASTP planning process. The task force will produce an outline report of a list of recommendations for STEM majors by March 21, 2008. The task force will present this report to the GFO EC once it is drafted and ask for feedback, input and consultation at a GFO forum scheduled the first week of Spring Quarter 2008.
B. Vice-Chair - Dan
VCAA Jeffords and Ann Cox asked the EC to work with the administration in their role as the campus leadership on UWB strategic planning. Dan submitted a resolution for consideration on the agenda on strategic planning for EC discussion with Ann, Art Haines and Don Whitney.
Approval of EC minutes of January 10, 2008
EC minutes of January 10, 2008 will be carried over for review at the February 14, 2008 meeting.
Reports of Committees
A. Campus Council on Academic Standards and Curriculum - no report.
B. Campus Council on Promotion, Tenure and Faculty Affairs
Constantin - the CCPTFA sent a promotion to full professor forward for approval.
C. Instructional and Research Support Committee
Nancy - the IRSC met and collaborated with Elizabeth Fischtziur, Jason Beard and Carolyn Brennan to set priorities on making faculty research and scholarly activity more visible internally and externally. Three members of the committee reviewed Collaborative Undergraduate Research Program grants. Nives made recommendations for a more comprehensive, streamlined application form. Another priority that the committee worked on was the issue of communication at UWB. Academic Affairs had published a newsletter last year highlighting faculty achievements and activities, with the loss of this publication, the committee would like to see a way to promote the intellectual capital at UWB developed. Carolyn suggested that Academic Affairs could include this in the job description when hiring an assistant for that office. The committee decided that a faculty speaker series could achieve one of the goals of the committee: to make visible the intellectual capital of the faculty. The IRSC will bring a motion to the EC recommending a faculty speaker series on campus.
Old business
A. The VCAA has requested that we formally partner with them for broad, campus-wide strategic planning. Three all campus workshops for strategic planning are to be held Feb. 8th, Feb 22 and March 7th.
Dan welcomed Ann Cox, Art Haines and Don Whitney to the EC discussion on strategic planning. Ann introduced Art Haines, Principal, Integral Strategy Group, he will help in the design and implementation of strategic planning at UWB. Art stated that we will begin the strategic planning process by identifying academic priorities, three workshops are scheduled this quarter, February 8, 22 and March 7, from 10:00 am - 2:30 pm for faculty and staff to gather input. Feedback from the campus retreat in September is integrated into the UWB Strategic Planning Blackboard site. This is an opportunity for faculty and staff to take a leadership role in developing broad-based priorities:
EC discussion
Art outlined some of the goals of the workshops:
EC discussion
Steve and Ann will work together to gather data and synthesize the information that has been received from the ASTP report, Dan Jacoby's survey and the North Campus report.
Please consider the following resolution:
UWB needs a thoughtful and useful strategic plan that will guide our decisions and program development for the next 20 years. This strategic plan should be developed with input from faculty, staff and students. The EC agrees to partner with the administration in strategic planning by acting as a participant in planning workshops, acting as an advisory board to the administration on strategic planning and helping draft final recommendations.
The EC decided that the resolution is already covered by the EC charge in Strategic Planning and is therefore redundant. The resolution was tabled, but there was clear consensus that the EC should play a lead role in the Academic Planning workshops.
B. Dan brought an issue to the EC for discussion/comment. Dan Jacoby has asked for input from the EC on a survey that he will conduct. The purpose of the survey is to learn more about faculty attitudes and concerns in four areas:
1. The SIS/North Campus
2. Tenure and Promotion
3. Sources of Job Satisfaction and Frustration
4. Campus Planning and Priorities
Conclusion
After a brief discussion, the EC agrees that the survey is useful. Any specific suggestions on the survey questions should be communicated to Dan via email.
New Business
A. Pre-major admissions-See attached flowchart and proposed modification at the bottom of the agenda. To ensure we get full discussion on this change, we will start discussions on this at today's meeting and hopefully vote at our next EC meeting.
Dan opened discussion on the pre-major admissions proposal. It was recommended by the EC that students get one acceptance/denial letter from the university. This is a process question, one letter leads to clearer communication for the student. The initial letter should come from UWB Admissions Office. The flowchart should be revised to reflect the policy.
Dan introduced the following resolution on revision to pre-major admissions:
The EC will allow admissions to make pre-major admission decisions for students with between 1-79 credits. These students will no longer need to be reviewed by a program. Once accepted as pre-majors students can take classes at UWB and then apply for acceptance into the major of their choice when all appropriate coursework is completed. This policy does not change individual program requirements for admission.
B. Direct admissions of freshmen into a program (Mike, Bill)
EC discussed the possible direct admission of freshmen into a program. The consensus was that this is not prohibited by UWB policies, but it should be considered carefully so as to ensure this is in the best interest's of any individual student. The EC recommended that should first be admitted by the university then may be considered by a program, consistent with the pre-major admissions decision.
C. Minor revisions to the GFO Bylaws
Mike brought a matter before the EC on minor revisions to the GFO Bylaws. Currently the Bylaws mandate GFO meetings to be pre-scheduled before Autumn Quarter begins, it may be in our best interest to change this requirement. We may also want to look at adding an amendment for electronic voting to the Bylaws.
The meeting adjourned at 5:00 pm.
The next meeting will be February 14, 2008
Minutes submitted by Barbara Van Sant
