Faculty Council Minutes 

January 20, 2005

Present:  T. Catalano, D. Erb, M. Joliat, K. McDaniel, M. Tager (recorder-in-turn), R. Walker, M. Young, S. DeWine, J. Scott, Mary Bea Eaton (guest), Suzanne Walker (guest).

1.  The meeting was called to order at 12:30pm

2.  The minutes of 1/13/04 were approved.

3.  R. Walker distributed an updated emergency phone tree to members.

4.  Mary Bea Eaton, the recently hired Disabilities Specialist, expressed her desire to solicit faculty perspectives, and to keep them informed of her work projects.  These projects currently include:

            a.  reviewing student files and past accommodations, and working on current accommodations

            b.  developing disability services policies and guidelines (heretofore decisions have been made largely on a case-by-case basis)

            c.  assessing the disabilities program

            d.  developing goals for future services, including writing a 12-18 month plan, building resources, improving availability of adaptive equipment, reviewing the physical plant accessibility plan, improving communication with faculty and students, creating a system to re-evaluate services

            In response to questions M.B. Eaton discussed the nature of legitimate accommodations, how we might help students adapt to a post-graduate environment that may lack accommodations for their disability, and about the procedures her office uses in coming up with a recommended accommodation.              

5.  Council discussed whether there still needs to be a paper copy of changes to the Appendices in the Faculty Manual distributed to faculty members, or, due partly to the volume of recent changes, it might be better to place them on the web-site, alerting faculty to the URL addresses of the updated material.  This led to a discussion of the navigability of the web-site, and Faculty Council decided to consult with Frank Diller and Gary Craig to see if the web-site’s accessibility and platforms could be improved before going to a solely electronic distribution of changes to the Appendices.

6.  Council appointed Dan Monek, Dottie Erb, and John Tynan to the search committee for the new Vice-President of Advancement.  The committee is being chaired by Sid Potash.              

7.  Council considered a proposal submitted by Fraser MacHaffie that Council recommend to President Scott that she reduce from two to one the number of  Jewett speakers at graduation.  Suzanne Walker argued for keeping two Jewett speakers, noting that the practice enabled the college to showcase its core values of liberal arts and leadership, demonstrate the diversity of its majors and programs, uphold a long tradition, and that there were quality controls in the selection of the speakers and the development of their speeches.  On behalf of Student Senate M. Joliat also spoke in favor of keeping two Jewett speakers to maintain a student-focused ceremony.  Council discussed whether to limit the two Jewett speeches to five minutes each, whether the quality of the speeches justified the presence of two of them rather than one, whether there were other segments of graduation that might be eliminated instead of a Jewett speech to streamline the ceremony, and whether the gain of shortening the ceremony by ten minutes was worth the costs raised during the discussion.  Council recommended that President Scott reject F. MacHaffie’s proposal and keep two Jewett speakers at graduation by a 4-1 vote (Tager dissenting).              

8.  Council discussed and recommended appointments to the search committee for a new Men’s Crew Coach.

9.  Council had some preliminary discussion of assessment data showing the college was not as successful as anticipated in improving students’ critical analysis skills.  The topic will be considered further at a subsequent Council meeting.