SOS Steering Committee Minutes

February 16, 2007

 

Present: Voting members: William Bosron (DEAN), Ray Chin (PRESIDENT), John Watson (BIOL), Stephanie Sen (Chem and Chem Biol),  Mihran Tuceryan (CSCI), Kathy Licht (EARTH), Michal Misiurewicz (MATH), John Hazer (for Silvia Bigatti PSYC).  Non-Voting Ex-Officio Members: Andy Barth (PAST PRESIDENT), Steve Randall (SECRETARY), Pam Crowell, Andy Gavrin, (ASSOCIATE DEANS), Guests: None, Regrets: Durgu Rao (PHYSICS),

 

Note: The SAR met from 9-10am. The amended administrative review instruments were approved. Major discussion ensued regarding who should be part of the Administrative review process.  This discussion continued into Steering Committee meeting and the outcome of the discussions is summarized below.

 

 

10:00 President Chin opened Steering Committee meeting.

 

Agenda was adopted and the minutes of 01-19-07 were approved with minor revision.

 

A meeting (to make arrangements to begin search for a Dean of the SOS), with Vice Chancellor Sukhatme and the Steering Committee and the Department Chairs is still in the process of being arranged.  The Dean’s office is taking the lead in this effort. 

 

Chin reported that the Open letter to the IU Board of Trustees and the New President of IU for the IUPUI Faculty council to the IU President received an essentially (one department reported no dissent) unanimous endorsement from the school. This will be presented by Bart Ng at the next Trustee meeting that meets in Indianapolis.

 

A discussion regarding who (staff or non-tenure track faculty) in addition to tenure-track faculty should be surveyed using the administrative review instruments for the Chairs and Deans.   The SOS Bylaws state that the Administrative reviews are based upon the survey of voting faculty (defined in the By-Laws as tenure-track faculty).  Some discussants interpreted this to mean that only voting faculty to participate, others interpreted this to mean that inclusion of voting faculty to be the minimum.

 

After some discussion the following was decided by consensus.

 

1)       Solicitation to participate in the administrative reviews would be extended to all faculty (voting and non-voting) and staff.

2)       Based upon the SOS By-Laws a separate summary of responses would be constructed for the Voting Faculty, Non-voting Faculty (research scientists and lecturers), and Staff.

3)       While the Dean and the Chairs will receive verbatim responses of the voting and non-voting faculty; the report of staff responses will be amalgamated across all departments and be reported in a numerical fashion.  Comments will be modified to be made department neutral. The requirements for staff evaluations is per their concerns for increased anonymity.

 

Deans announcements:

 

Dean Bosron spoke about progress in Strategic Planning with intention to get all groups together  soon to wrap up the planning.

 

The Dean reported that the CSCI review is done (self-study).  He has yet to meet with Trudy Banta and other university administrations regarding this study.  He also announced that he intends to use the money saved from two senior faculty to hire two new faculty to the CS department.

 

He reported that Dean Sukhatme will try to provide some assistance in start up packages for new faculty.  He also reported that Dean Sukhatme plans to attend a P&T Unit Committee meeting to discuss expectations for promotion and tenure.

 

Meeting was adjourned at 10:55

 

Minutes approved: 2-16-07