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The Arts and Sciences Council and Faculty of Arts and Sciences Meeting, April 18, 2017, 3:30-5:00

Meeting Minutes

Representatives present: Sabahat Adil, ALC; Scott Adler, PSCI; Daniel Barth, PSYC; Paul Beale, PHYS; Christine Brennan, SLHS; Cathy Comstock, RAPS; James Cowell, LING; Charles de Bartolomé, ECON; Anne Dougherty, APPM; Erica Ellingson, APS; David Ferris, HUMN; David Grant, MATH; Ruth Heisler, IPHY; Leslie Irvine, SOCY; Berit Jany, GSLL; Daniel Jones, HNRS; Joanna Lambert, ANTH; Julie Lundquist, ATOC; Ramesh Mallipeddi, ENGL; Stephen Mojzsis, GEOL; David Paradis, HIST; Kathryn Pieplow, PWR; Fernando Riosmena, GEOG; Rob Rupert, PHIL; Kelly Sears, FILM; Ted Stark, THDN; David Stock, EBIO; Ding Xue, MCDB; Masano Yamashita, FRIT

Representatives not present: Julio Baena, SPAN; Andrew Cain, CLAS; Kim Dickey, AAH; Holly Gayley, RLST; Kwame Holmes, ETHN; Janet Jacobs, WGST; Carl Koval, CHEM

Also in attendance: Shelly Bacon, ADMIN; Leslee Broersma, LRAP; Donna Caccamise, ICS; Paul Chinowsky, ADMIN; Priscilla Craven, FRIT; Katherine Eggert, ADMIN;  Robert Erickson, ADMIN; Chris Kopff, HNRS; Mark Knowles, ALTEC;  Mary Kraus, ADMIN; William Kuskin, ADMIN; Steven Leigh, ADMN; Donna Louie, LRAP; Stephen Lawrence, ADMIN; Cory Pavicich, ADMIN; Cora Randall, ATOC; Alison Vigers, HPRAP;

The meeting was called to order at 3:31

Dean’s remarks, Steven Leigh

Dean Leigh thanked Rob Rupert for his work with the ASC for the last 2 years and acknowledged his work with important issues.

The Strategic Planning Committee has been formed and charged. The committee was put together with the help of Professor Rupert and the ASC Executive Committee. There will be one or two meetings this year, focused on orientation and then the planning process will begin next year.

There is a search underway for the divisional Dean for Arts and Humanities. The candidates are Bud Coleman (THDN), Susan Kent (HIST) and Ruth Ellen Kocher (ENGL). Dean Leigh will be sending out survey forms to faculty, students and staff for feedback on the candidates. Please contact Dean Leigh’s office if you want additional information on the candidates.

Graduation is Friday, May 12; Dean Leigh encouraged the faculty to attend.

Dean Leigh thanked the members of the ASC as well as the committee chairs for their work this year.

Chair’s remarks, Rob Rupert

The ASC ad hoc Committee on the Health Risks for Football Players is being formed. David Grant (MATH) has agreed to chair. Fourteen people have been nominated or self-nominated; there is a lot of expertise on campus to study this subject.

Professor Rupert told the assembled faculty that he enjoyed his time as ASC chair and thanked all the faculty members who, with their work with the Council and committees, help the University run the way it should with strong faculty governance. The attending faculty gave Professor Rupert a round of applause.

Committee Reports

Ad hoc-General Education Implementation Committee, Cora Randall

Currently the committee is working on course identification. A spreadsheet for each course in every unit in A&S was made and sent to the departments. The chairs have been asked to identify general requirements in the current core the class satisfies. Almost all spreadsheets have been returned and the committee is reviewing them. Currently the committee is considering only the courses they know will count in the A&S core.

Items the GEIC is discussing:

• Special courses: The ASC voted that independent studies, honors theses, internships or practica won’t count for general education credit.
• Courses identified with a division outside the home division: Arts & Humanities has asked to review courses from other units that identify as AH; presently the Social Sciences and Natural Sciences will give input only is requested.
• Foreign Language Courses: Discussed when they should count for A&H credit after the Foreign Language skill requirement has been satisfied.
• Cross-listed Courses: The GEIC is contacting departments when cross listed courses are identified with different divisions.
• Natural Science Courses: NS courses that already count for the core but not in NS will have to be nominated. Courses that are clearly labs will be accepted as such without nomination.
• Courses that have changing Gen Ed requirements when different faculty teach will now have separate course numbers.
• Evaluation procedures will we given to the chairs and directors for approval
• Nomination forms are being developed; will go to chairs and directors for approval.

Budget Committee, Paul Beale

Arts and Sciences received 2.7 million dollars in continuing money based on the undergraduate growth budget that was created two fiscal years ago. This money is based on increased A&S enrollment as well as the increasing number of students taking A&S courses who are rostered in other colleges. This money will be used, with the agreement of the Budget Committee, to fill holes in the budget that have been filled with temporary funds and free those funds to be used strategically. The college has been aggressive in hiring and is up to 725 tenure track faculty and the additional funds will be used in part for start-ups and faculty recruitment. Additional funds will also be going for staffing in ATOC to support the new major and faculty research accounts.

Dean Leigh has negotiated an increase in the portion of the summer incentive budget that is allocated to A&S resulting in an additional $500,000 returning to the college.

Curriculum Committee, Leslie Irvine

During this academic year, a moratorium was put on submitting courses for the existing core curriculum. Prior to that, the Curriculum Committee reviewed and approved 19 courses and 35 first year seminars.

The committee reviewed and approved one new B.A., 20 major or minor revisions and 5 certificate programs. They also reviewed a number of existing curricular practices for potential streamlining opportunities.

Diversity Committee, Erica Ellingson

A year ago, all units on campus were asked to participate in an exercise to define “Inclusive Excellence.” Those reports were reviewed by the Inclusive Excellence Steering Committee as well as the ASC Diversity Committee. The Diversity Committee wrote a report on its findings and distributed it to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAC). Several items of importance came up regularly with A&S staff and faculty as important to work towards Inclusive Excellence:

• Recruitment at all levels
• Increased Communication
• Working within units to create a culture of inclusiveness

The Diversity Committee’s report was also given to the Inclusive Excellence Steering Committee and with the inclusion of ASC representation, the Inclusive Excellence Committee’s aspirational goals reflect those of A&S and some positive strides have been made in hiring.

There will soon be an FTEP graduate teaching program series on inclusive pedagogy.

Professor Ellingson concluded with telling the ASC that the Inclusive Excellence reports the units wrote have been read and are effecting change.

Grievance Committee, Christian Kopff

Professor Kopff defined the committee’s role as advisory to the Dean in salary and non-salary grievances stemming from annual merit evaluations. When a faculty member has exhausted their options within the unit, the next stage is to appeal to the Dean.

This academic year the Grievance Committee reviewed two grievances.

Online Education and Information Technology Committee, Rob Rupert

The committee is working on a survey for undergraduate students to understand their perceptions of online education. They will be asking questions such as:

• What type of classes would you take online?
• How much experience do you have with online education?
• Do you expect the classes to be more or less rigorous?

The survey draft was sent to Rob Tubbs who has given feedback and work continues; the committee hopes to administer it in the fall.

The Committee has also put together guidelines for the construction, vetting, evaluation and teaching of online courses. Professor Rupert has been doing research outside the university with institutions that have robust online curriculum. They are successful with lots of support, financial and otherwise.

Personnel Committee, Scott Adler

The Personnel Committee has had the highest number of cases to review in at least the last 10 years. The committee reviewed 39 comprehensive review cases, 22 promotion to associate with tenure, 20 promotion to full, 8 instructor issues and 5 Professor of Distinction nominations.

Planning Committee, David Stock

The Planning Committee spent the current semester working on the issue of accommodations for students with disabilities.

Currently, faculty are responsible for providing the extra time and distraction-free environments for exams for students who are eligible for and request accommodations. In around 2008, the number of conditions eligible for ADA accommodations was expanded and the number of students registered with Disability Services had doubled. The Planning Committee looked at data from Disability Services and 9 out of the 10 departments with the highest number of accommodations in the fall of 2016 were in A&S. A testing center for the university seems to be the obvious solution; the committee will be meeting with Bob Boswell, Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Equity and Community Engagement to advocate for a centralized testing center.

RAP Task Force, Ted Stark

The task force was created by the Provost to examine the ARPAC and generate recommendations on how to address the concerns of the ARPAC committee. The task force consists of a variety of people to represent all interested parties: two current RAP directors, two faculty from the BFA, two faculty from the ASC, the Director of Assessment from Student Affairs and other administrators.

The task force has been meeting, generally biweekly, since October, and began by examining the RPAC documents and the issues that internal and external reviewers highlighted as well as responses provided by the RAP directors to the reviewers; hypothesizing different approaches to address different problems.

A draft of recommendations will be submitted to interested parties for feedback and after any revisions, a final set of recommendations will be presented.

Vote for the new ASC Chair

Steve Mojzsis (GEOL) is the sole declared candidate; there were no nominations from the floor.

Professor Mojzsis expressed his appreciation of Professor Rupert’s leadership and the ASC committees’ work. He is passionate about faculty governance and looking forward to serving the college.

Professor Mojzsis left the room, ballots were passed to the ASC representatives, Professor Mojzsis was elected with 26 positive votes, no negatives and no abstentions.

Discussion with William Kuskin, Vice Provost and Associate Vice Chancellor for Strategic Initiatives, about online degrees

Vice provost Kuskin attended the meeting with Katherine Eggert, Quality Initiatives Leader; Steve Lawrence, Associate Dean in the Graduate School; Cory Pavicich, Digital Learning Initiatives Director and Bob Ericson, ECEE.

VP Kuskin collaborates with several groups who are building opportunities for online education. He works with the Regents and the System on ���������� Connect which is a 4-campus webpage that presents all of our online courses; students can log in and choose courses.

Two years ago the Regents put out a call for proposals for inter-campus degrees.

All three comprehensive Universities have committed to working on intercampus degrees; Denver has an inter-disciplinary degree that they are ready to field; Colorado Springs is working on one; Boulder doesn’t have one. The goal is for the three different campuses to collaborate while remaining autonomous, sharing agreed upon courses.

The assembled representatives asked questions about the Regents motivation for developing intercampus degrees and their understanding of the faculty’s ownership of the curriculum.

Steve Lawrence, the Associate Dean for Program Development in the Graduate School, spoke on his responsibility: Distance Education courses at the graduate level. The University has been offering distance courses since 1968. Distance education is regular courses, using technology which allows students off campus to participate. These courses cater to adults who can’t attend courses on campus. This expands the reach of our university without sacrificing our quality, values and goals. The FCQ’s  and grades from on campus students and distance students are the same. This academic year we Boulder had 1,561 enrolled distance learning students. OIT and the campus pay for any additional cost and provide the operator filming the classroom. 

Discussion with Mary Kraus, Vice Provost and Associate Vice Chancellor for Strategic for Undergraduate Education, about the first year experience

Vice Provost Kraus attended the meeting with Associate Vice Provost Paul Chinowsky for Student Success and Assistant Vice Provost for Advising Shelly Bacon. All three are active in developing the first year experience.

A Freshman Interest Groups (FIG) is a small cohort of courses taken by a small group of students. VP Kraus’ office will provide the funding for these groups at $10,000.00 per interest group. The pilot program will have four groups. Each group will have 25 students who will live in the same residence hall. They will take a first year seminar and one other class together. The point is that the group of students gets to go to two classes together and the director will also develop co-curricular activity. These are meant to be exploratory experiences and hope that students don’t pick courses that will fold into their major.

Housing is advertising these programs and making the selections.

Concern was expressed that students who are at most risk for leaving in their first year tend to be students who are the last to be admitted and may not get into a FIG. VP Kraus said her office is aware of this and are working to solve this problem  Currently, the program only operates in the fall but they are working on possible follow up activities for the spring.

Paul Chinowsky spoke about first year seminars. The spring semester was the first test semester, with 23 sections being offered. Ninety-five percent of the respondents said they would recommend taking a first year seminar and most said it was worth their time and helped with their studies. Students feel that they still needed more information on resources available on campus. Next fall there will be 45 sections; in the future, they will be housed in the fall. To teach a first year seminar a faculty member must be full-time.

The Provost’s goal is 100% freshman participation in some structured first year experience, RAP, First Year Seminar, etc. All interested parties are working on access equity. There will be a “rolling release” of seats in some programs so it isn’t first come, first serve.

Hard decisions need to be made on using resources to serve the students who need it the most.

The meeting was adjourned at 5:08.

Minutes submitter by Janice Jeffryes