SOS Steering Committee Minutes
October 7, 2005
Present:
Voting Members: Phil
Fastenau (Acting President & Secretary);
Absent: Carl Cowen (Dean), Andy Barth (PRES), Stephanie Sen (CHEM), Andy Gavrin (Assoc. Dean).
Fastenau called the meeting to order at 10:02 a.m.
I. Fastenau presented the agenda, which was adopted.
II. Fastenau presented the minutes from September 2nd for approval. They were approved without revision; there were no dissenting votes.
III. Administrative Reviews
Williams distributed administrative review forms used last Spring for reviewing the chairs and Assistant Dean Nguyen so that the SC could discuss any changes that should be made to create the annual “short forms.” Crowell raised a question regarding the rule for how long an administrator must be in a position to be reviewed because Dean Cowen and the Associate Deans will have been in their positions only 1 year as of January 2006, and Dean Cowen will have been in his position for only 18 months. Fastenau agreed to review the Bylaws before the next meeting.
Chin asked how data would be reported and recommended providing frequencies rather than mean values. Fastenau remarked that the frequencies were provided in the feedback last year for each response for each item, and Williams confirmed this.
Kemple asked if we would simply cut off the “Comments” section in order to create a brief quantitative review. Licht asked about the response rate on the last review. Williams responded that it was lower for Assistant Dean Nguyen, but speculated that this was due to lack of respondents’ knowledge of her position. Watson raised concerns that the Dean forms need to be tailored more to the position. It was mentioned that we had planned already to add a job description at the beginning of each review. Licht wondered if we should use a different model for evaluating deans (e.g., organizing focus groups of people who interact more with deans on committees). It was agreed that adding a bullet list of job responsibilities would help respondents to reply to the evaluations.
Fastenau commented that considerable effort, research, and thought were invested in the review instrument last year. Watson agreed that it was well received by faculty in his department. Fastenau suggested using a subset of items (perhaps 5), because faculty will complete 20 items for 6 administrators (chair and 5 deans), for a total of 120 items. Fastenau suggested a brief form could be a rating in each area of performance, with individual items listed below as bullet descriptors. After further discussion, it was decided to keep 20 items for the chair reviews.
Watson asked whether Assistant Dean Nguyen should be evaluated by this process since she is classified as staff rather than faculty. Crowell clarified that Assistant Deans are included in the process per the Bylaws. Nguyen remarked that, as someone with a doctorate in Higher Education, she considers the instrument to be well designed, capturing the essential characteristics of these university administrators.
The following action steps were delineated:
1. Verify who is to be reviewed (Fastenau)
2. Obtain job descriptions for Assoc. Deans, Asst. Dean, and Chairs (Fastenau to request from Dean Cowen).
3. Obtain job description for Dean from the Search & Screen Committee that conducted his search (Crowell).
4. Obtain organizational chart that shows who is responsible for whom and attach that to the Dean’s staff reviews (Fastenau to request from Dean Cowen).
5. Department Representatives: Ask departments for input regarding using web-based survey or scantron forms for simplifying the scoring process.
6. Williams will revise the current chair review form to a concise format.
IV. Bylaws Revisions
Chin
suggested using IUPUI Faculty Council policy.
Crowell proposed that the Secretary be a voting member of the SC
(current Bylaws stipulate that Secretary is non-voting member). Williams wondered if we should limit the
President term to 1 year. Crowell
proposed that having a Past President would be helpful.
V. Dean’s Office Announcements (Crowell)
1. Meredith Stravers is a new CL05 staff member, who will replace the students at the front desk in LD 222. She will have speed dial to all of the Dean’s staff here and at Waterway.
2. Construction on a room in LD required crossing over the ceiling of a lab, which was identified as part of the project. The resulting dirt/dust damaged equipment in that lab. Crowell wondered whether we needed a clear policy about how to communicate any construction to prevent untoward effects to labs in the future.
3. The university recently issued memos and notices alerting faculty and staff to uniform temperature set points for all facilities. If the temperature controls will affect anyone’s research, they need to contact Crowell.
4. In the Chancellor’s State of the
Campus address yesterday, he announced an allocation of $1 million per year to
renovate space in Science and Engineering for research. The deans of the two schools and other
faculty have discussed a plan, starting with renovation of a substantial amount
of space in the basement of the ET building.
Chin asked about space for Math; he said that they do not need wet labs
but need offices for graduate students.
Crowell reported that Dean Cowen just agreed to rent half of the 4th
floor in the new
Meeting was adjourned at 11:57 a.m.
Respectfully Submitted,
P. Fastenau, October 29, 2005.
Minutes were approved by the SOS SC on November 11, 2005.