SOS Steering Committee Meeting 3/8/2002

Minutes

________________________________________________________________________

Attending: Jack Breen (Chem), Pam Crowell (Biol), Kathy Johnson (Chair), Fritz Kleinhans (Sec), Joe Kuczkowski (Assoc Dean), Jon Luke (Math), Beth Neal-Beliveau (Psych), Kim Nguyen (Assist Dean), Joe Pachut (Geo), Gautam Vemuri (Physics).

______________________________________________________________________________

Faculty Council Report:

Bob Rigdon, (math) volunteered to be our new Unit Representative. Bart Ng will run for VP. David Stocum's Administrative Review has been officially released and is at

<www.iupui.edu/~fcouncil/documents/stocumreview.htm>

Allied Health will be dissolved with departments finding new homes elsewhere on campus. Respiratory Therapy still needs a home. An MS in Clinical Research has been approved, to be offered by Medicine-Dentistry-Nursing.

A Faculty Council task force has raised some issues concerning the unlinking of class room hours from credit hours. In part this is driven by Internet use issues. See Plater's white paper about IU OnLine at <http://online.iupui.edu/>. It appears that there is a lot at stake here.

Bepko officially retires May 30, 2003. A search will begin soon. There will be a lot of change around this time as our Dean, DS, retires at the end of the 2003-2004 academic year and Joe K retires by the end of 2004.

Course Evaluation Issues from Joe K:

Joe brought up the issue of problems with the interpretation of Course Evaluation results within the school. Math uses a different scheme than the rest of the Depts. which makes comparison difficult. This issue came up in the Awards Committees deliberations and apparently has come up in Promotion and Tenure Committee deliberations. It was the Steering Committee's sense that this should go to the Teaching and Learning Committee first. In the interim, it was suggested that Math prepare a sheet showing average scores, standard deviations, and high/lows to assist in interpretation.

Administrative Reviews:

KJ handed out our review assignments. Teams of two will summarize faculty comments, present to/discuss with the administrator, and write a final report for distribution to the faculty. For Dept Chairs, teams will include one member from the Dept being reviewed. The proposed time table is i) draft summaries by end of March, ii) meet with administrators by mid April, iii) submit final reports by the end of April.

Two possible changes to our review process were discussed and will be taken to the faculty for input by Dept reps. Should the reviews be done less frequently; perhaps after two years for new administrators and every four years for continuing administrators? A second question pertains to expanding the 'rights' of Senior Lecturers. Should they be allowed to participate in administrative reviews? The sense of the committee was yes, but there are larger issues also, as Senior Lecturers would like other privileges such as voting rights in Dept faculty meetings.

President and Secretary:

We are still searching for candidates to the position of President and Secretary to the SOS faculty. Nominations and/or interest should be forwarded to Kathy Johnson <kjohnso@iupui.edu>.

___________________________

Fritz Kleinhans

Secretary SOS Faculty

March 13, 2002