Steering Committee Minutes – April 23, 2008

 

Present: Voting Members: Martin Bard (Bio), Marvin Kemple (Phy), John Kremer (Psych), , Snehasis Mukhopadhyay (CIS), Steve Randall (President), Stephanie Sen (Chem), Non-Voting Ex-Officio Members: Ray Chin (Past-President), Jane Williams (Secretary), Pam Crowell (Associate Dean), Andy Gavrin (Associate Dean) Absent: Kathy Licht (Earth Sciences), Will Geller (Math)

 

  1. Pres. Randall started the meeting at 10:05.
  2. Some changes were noted for the previous meeting minutes and were then accepted.
  3. The committee reviewed some proposed changes to the bylaws to include or allow for electronic balloting. A provision to the bylaws was added and the issue will be discussed at the Spring Faculty Assembly next week.
  4. The Undergraduate Education Committee has asked that we reconsider the name change that took place last month. They would like the term ‘policy’ to be put back into the title of the committee. The Steering committee discussed this and decided that since no changes have been made to the committee’s duties, that the entire SOS faculty voted for the name change we would leave it at this time and a motion was made to do nothing to the request to revisit the name change.
  5. Steve Randall introduced an issue regarding how P&T policies at the departmental level are made. He was concerned that the process is not similar in all departments. After some discussion it was determined that Dean Ng will have a conversation with the faculty in one department to discuss how the departmental P&T guidelines were developed and communicated within that department. The Steering committee discussed somewhat whether we should have a statement in the bylaws about departmental guidelines specifically, but no action was suggested at this time.
  6. The upcoming Faculty Assembly meeting was discussed. The main issues to be discussed are the change to the bylaws noted above, voting for the SC Secretary and having the Dean’s and Committee reports.
  7. Dean Ng provided the committee with some updates regarding the budget. The school should be in the black next year and he is having conversations with central administration about the Delware Data. He will share some of this data with us at the Faculty Assembly Meeting
  8. The state allocation to the School is flat this year.
  9. The Dean is really focused on how we fund graduate students and will try to have budget information to departments earlier in the year to match with the recruitment cycle.
  10. Discussed the Master Planning project in conjunction with the Innovation Center. Dean Ng, along with the Department Chairs and faculty representatives are going to Bloomington later in May to speak with administrators and researchers down there about what steps they took in planning the Simon Center.
  11. The SAR then met to discuss the administrative reviews. It was decided that pairs of individuals would summarize the open-ended responses and get them back to Jane Williams by May 2nd, to be included in the reports that will be distributed to faculty.