APPC Minutes—2/8/2008
8:40-9:30 a.m.
Present: Professors Gagnon, Goddard, Klitgaard, Olson (chair), and Siamundele; Associate Dean Speaker, Librarian Godbout, Registrar Leybold-Taylor; students Nancy Bates, Raquele Laury, Aleris Pizarro-Lopez.
Minutes: The minutes of the 11/30/2007 meeting were approved unanimously. The second set of minutes of the 2/1/2008 meeting was approved unanimously; the first set should be disregarded.
APPC webmaster: The resignation of Professor Bailey, who assumed a vacated position on ASA, left APPC without a webmaster or –mistress; Associate Dean Speaker offered to have her assistant, Phyllis Siemiatkowski, take on this responsibility.
Position Requests: A chart listing six positions requested for search during the upcoming academic year was distributed. Dean Miller-Bernal had previously made clear in an e-mail message to the committee that the request for a Latin American/Spanish (or vice versa) position should be dealt with separately from the others since this is an existing tenure track line and does not, therefore, require board approval.
Dean’s Council and APPC simply need to weigh in on whether the line should revert to one similar to the one occupied by retired Professor Greenwood or should be reallocated elsewhere. Dean Miller-Bernal would like quick action on this. However, the committee agreed to table the request until its 2/15/2008 meeting and seeks, in the meantime, a copy of the full position request and description that was sent to Dean’s Council. Associate Dean Speaker will distribute this.
Chair Olson requested that APPC members rank the remaining five positions as “homework” before the next meeting.
Course Evaluation Forms: After some discussion of last May’s faculty meeting’s comments on the proposed new course evaluation form, APPC voted unanimously to begin using it (the “new, new” version) for course evaluations this spring, for a period of three years, after which time the form would undergo review. APPC will announce this to the faculty at the March faculty meeting, since the February meeting has a full agenda.
Further, APPC directed the course evaluation subcommittee to research and develop plans to automate the course evaluation process. The committee also stated its gratitude to the subcommittee.
Middle States Self-Study Questions for APPC: Associate Dean Speaker asked APPC members to think about the questions directed toward us from our perspective as APPC members and iterated that the steering committee is not expecting back a “publication quality manuscript,” but rather hopes, at this point, to get people talking and thinking about the questions asked, perhaps with a view toward developing ideas for the future.
Adjournment: Chair Olson adjourned the meeting at 9:30 a.m.
Respectfully submitted, Karla Leybold-Taylor, secretary pro tem