FACULTY FORUM MEETING MINUTES

JOHN CARROLL UNIVERSITY

NOVEMBER 16, 2000, 3:30PM

President: Ernie DeZolt

Vice President: Jerry Moreno

Secretary: Karen L. Gygli

Invocation: Mary Ann Flannery

Minutes from September 14 Faculty Forum Meeting: Approved as corrected (typographical error under “Announcements”). There was no Faculty Forum meeting in October of this year, since there was insufficient faculty attendance.

Announcements:

• Roland Madison will serve as interim secretary of the Forum during spring semester, 2001, while Karen Gygli is on Grauel Fellowship leave.
• The Forum committees have been given the faculty comments, concerns and questions about JCU for further study. They hope to have some progress to report by the March Forum meeting.
• The President has approved new policies on Emeritus status, academic honesty, final exams and graduate school plus/minus grades. In the future, all accepted new policies will be posted on the Web.

Committee Reports:

• Committee on Academic Policies: Jim Krukones will be leading an open hearing at today’s Forum meeting on a proposed track of study within the East Asian Studies program, a description of which is attached to today’s meeting agenda. Thus, he will not be giving a report until later, except to say that the committee will continue to hold additional open hearings outside the Forum meetings, and that CAP is also currently discussing a proposed Masters of Accountancy program.
• Rank, Tenure and Salary: No report at this time.
• Research and Faculty Development: Jerry Weinstein will be summarizing the committee’s report on Teaching Effectiveness later on during today’s meeting. The report is attached to today’s meeting agenda.
• Finance: Joe Kelly reported that the committee has had some productive lunches with Jonathan Ivec. They have begun to discuss tuition, as requested by faculty, and Ivec has stated that he would be happy to speak to the faculty on this issue at a future Forum meeting. The Finance Committee will also be looking into retirement issues and will be meeting two weeks from today on this issue. They are working to have proposals ready next semester.

New Business:

• Academic Vice President Search Committee Progress Report: Jeanne Colleran, chair of the committee, spoke to the faculty about the constitution of the committee, the President’s charge to the committee, the progress of the committee thus far and where the committee wishes to be by next semester. She publicly thanked the many members of the university community who have helped with the search process and urged faculty to contact her and members of the committee with their specific ideas, concerns, questions and comments. The big advantage in holding the search at this time is that the University is in good health and thus should be attractive to candidates. She thanked Fred Travis for leading the University to this position of strength. Responding to questions and comments from the floor, she stated that the Library faculty would be contacted for input soon, that there have been very few inside applications for the AVP, and that while the committee is always interested in staff concerns, their main charge has been to gather input from faculty and administrators. Further reports and information will be emailed to faculty and posted on the Web. Ernie thanked Jeanne for her summary.
• Report on Teaching Effectiveness from the Committee on Research, Service and Faculty Development: Jerry Weinstein, representing the committee, reminded the faculty that no vote would be taken today or through campus mail. Today’s meeting is only for discussion of the report. He referred to the report that is attached to this meeting’s agenda. Of the four major points in the report, the last one, on teaching evaluations, took the longest to formulate and has brought the report to a halt, with none of the proposals going forward at this time. The report is simply a summary of what the committee would have preferred to recommend. Weinstein then took questions from the floor. In response to one question, Weinstein answered that since no means of teaching evaluation could be agreed upon, it was felt that the other points could not go forward. He stated that he believes the administration would like common instrument for teaching evaluations and are concerned over a perceived lack of trust and/or enthusiasm for a common evaluation instrument. Weinstein discussed the use of peer evaluation, the variety of student responses depending on whether a course is introductory or higher level, sabbaticals vs. the Grauel fellowship, increased teaching loads, and the Faculty Handbook and its recommendation that the means of evaluation can be adjusted in response to circumstances. Weinstein stated that while the committee did support continuing the award of Grauel research leaves to untenured faculty and did see the need for some type of teaching evaluation, the committee did not survey what other schools do to evaluate and support teaching. Weinstein called for an ad hoc committee for this job, since the Committee on Research, Service and Faculty Development had a lot of work in addition to this report, and an ad hoc committee could better focus on getting information from other schools. Weinstein encouraged the faculty to contact him with feedback and ideas concerning the report. Ernie also added that the Forum should neither serve as a rubber stamp for the Administration, nor a legislative body that refuses to compromise with the Administration.
• Open Hearing on Proposal for a Language Track within the East Asian Studies Concentration: CAP chair Jim Krukones stated to faculty that this meeting was the second open hearing on the proposals. The last open hearing will be held Thursday, November 30 in the President’s Dining Room between noon and 1:30 PM. Krukones gave a brief summary of the report, which was attached to this meeting’s agenda. There was a consensus in the Forum that this proposal makes sense and is okay. Krukones reminded faculty that the next set of open hearings would be held on the proposed Masters Degree in Accountancy.

Meeting adjourned at 4:52 PM.

Minutes prepared by Karen Gygli, Secretary, Faculty Forum