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Instructional and Research Support Committee Meeting: 05/28/2008

Instructional and Research Support Committee Meeting
May 28, 2008

Present: Nancy Place, IRSC Chair; Carolyn Brennan, Nives Dolsak, Cynthia Fugate, Munehiro Fukuda, Selina Mohammed, Pete Nye and Becky Reed Rosenberg

Guests:  VCAA Susan Jeffords

Adoption of Agenda

            Agenda was approved as amended.

Approval of IRSC minutes of April 30, 2008.

IRSC minutes of April 30, 2008 were approved as amended.

Old Business

A. Funding for faculty speaker series - Carolyn

Carolyn reported on funding for the faculty speaker series, using the Worthington endowment funds was not an option for funding these events.   Carolyn will arrange some "Brown Bag" luncheons Autumn Quarter until funding for the faculty speaker series can be secured. 

IRSC discussion

• Could the UWB Office of Public Relations and Communications fund and/or promote the speaker series?
• Funds in the UWB endowments are for faculty research, can these funds be used in the future?
• How is the Choice Words event funded?
• The faculty speaker series should support excellence in research.

B.     Research Support Recommendations - Carolyn and Pete

Nancy opened discussion on research support at UWB.  The committee reviewed a 2004 report completed by the IRSC, Pete and Nives provided feedback on the recommendations made at that time.  Nancy and Munehiro updated the information from the previous report, prioritizing items that still needed to be implemented.  Although faculty satisfaction is higher in some areas, the institution still needs to do more to build a strong research culture at UWB.  Carolyn talked about how growth at UWB will impact our infrastructure in support of research on campus and how the Office of Research Support will work in a central way to provide services to the programs.  The TLC is also working to provide ongoing support services.

IRSC discussion

• Communication must be a priority on campus; we must disseminate information on research at UWB through the webpage, speaker series, newsletters and public relations.
• Teaching loads continue to be one of the main issues for faculty in finding time to conduct research.
• Relationships at an institutional level impact research - program needs and individual faculty research needs.
• Some solutions for giving faculty time to devote to research could be stacking quarters or having larger classes taught by adjunct faculty.
• We need to make sure we do not affect the quality of teaching at UWB, especially at the undergraduate level.
• Staffing - hire a budget person for grants management, curriculum development, GIS expert.
• The Center on Reinventing Public Education may be a good resource for budget management.
• What does excellence in teaching mean? 
• Should UWB define its expectations and standards of research?
• Can we define our own tenure approach? 
• What are the expectations outlined in Chapter 24?  We must be certain of the decisions when faculty careers are on the line.
• Our research is community-based at UWB.
• How do we benefit from being an R1 institution and utilize the high level of resources with the UWB mission and vision?  What will support our values here?
• UWS provides research support for grants, we benefit from their support systems.
• The balance across programs at UWB in teaching, research and service may be different from an R1 institution; we can look at a different tenure approach.
• Some hiring practices at UWB may hurt us - we require 2 years of teaching experience, we are turning away post-doctorates with great research experience.

Susan commented that she appreciated the discussion and offered some observations:

• Increased support from the ORS - Carolyn is now fulltime and will be focusing on grant funding opportunities at a campus level and in collaboration with some of our community college partners (Global Studies).
• Currently there is a lot of individual development at the program level - we now have the opportunity for centralized support with the ORS.
• What are our institutional expectations - what does excellence in teaching mean at UWB?
• What is a reasonable balance in the context of being an R1 university between teaching and research? 
• UWB has a high standard of community-based research; we need to foster the opportunities to define our expectations of research and how this relates to promotion and tenure at this institution.  These are cultural issues to think about.
• What can we do at a campus level? - think about hiring a methods person, a statistician, lab techs, database assistant. 
• Teaching loads in different programs will influence the possibilities - the advantage of the quarter system is that it allows for stacking quarters.
• The fundamental issue that needs to be resolved is how we will define ourselves, as an R1 university or in a different way?  We need to define the self-identity that serves us.
• Faculty can work to their strengths in teaching, research or service if we do not set expectations on tenure equally across all areas, programs could define the balance they think is important. 
• The role of the IRSC in building the research culture at UWB should be carried forward.

Nancy will bring these issues to the attention of the EC and clarify the role of the committee.  Some matters regarding tenure may fall under the purview of the Campus Council on Promotion, Tenure and Faculty Affairs.  This sets the groundwork for the committee's work next year.   Recommendations for next year:

•  
  1. Agreement on what is means to be excellent in teaching and scholarship.
  2. How to achieve balance in teaching, research and service.
  3. Infrastructure - what does the institution have to provide to support the research culture at UWB?  Implement measures to make this happen (class size, TA/RA, PIPS). 

IRSC recommendations:

1. Come to agreement on what it means to be excellent in teaching/scholarship at UWB.  What kind of metrics do we provide to measure excellence in teaching?  What will be the evaluation process, how do we determine the effectiveness of the evaluation methods?
2. How do we achieve balance with teaching, research and service at UWB?
3. Infrastructure - what does the institution need to provide to support research at UWB (PIPs program, stacking courses,
4. The IRSC must continue to move the conversation forward on how to strengthen, support a research culture at UWB.
5. IRSC should continue as the advisory body for the TLC and the ORS.
6. Identify areas, people, resources that are needed to support research (methods person, GIS person) and as shared resources.
7. Faculty Speaker Series - Carolyn will start with Brown Bags.  Cynthia will speak with UWB Public Relations and Communications.
8. UWB webpage - get faculty research link, banner.

New Business

    A.     Job Announcement for TLC Director - Cynthia

The IRSC reviewed the position description for the TLC director.  Cynthia asked the IRSC for input on the job announcement.  She talked about the TLC being more student focused that some teaching, learning centers.  Nancy commented that the EC was not aware of all the services offered by the TLC when she reported on the center.  Communicating this information would be helpful to faculty and in the job announcement.  The announcement will be sent out Autumn Quarter.  Other general information on the TLC came up during the discussion, communicating on activities that faculty attend with TLC funding would be a good start in publicizing faculty teaching and research:

• Faculty attend conferences funded by the TLC, how does the information from the conferences become integrated back into the curriculum?
• The Research/Teaching Circles are some of the innovative things that faculty participate in that could be communicated to the UWB community.
• A series of report-back events from faculty receiving funding from TLC grants, etc would let faculty know what support services are available on campus through the TLC.

The meeting adjourned at 5:00 pm
This is the last meeting of the academic year.
Minutes submitted by Barbara Van Sant