Faculty Council Minutes

Faculty Council Minutes
Thursday, March 11
Cohen House

Present: Ed Akin (speaker), Lynne Huffer (deputy speaker), Stephen Baker, Steven Crowell, Deborah Harter, Tom Haskell, Patricia Reiff and Herb Ward Absent: Marjorie Corcoran, Rebekah Drezek, Michael Emerson, Julia Morgan, Hannah Landecker, Bob Patten, Caroline Quenemoen and Mark Wiesner

1. Minutes (Feb. 19): The minutes were approved with some noted revisions and pending approval from President Malcolm Gillis and Board of Trustees Chair William Barnett.

2. Academic Calendar 2005-06: University Council met March 9 to review the academic calendar for 2005-06. The following changes were made: 1) Move midterm recess to March 13-17 and 2) Delay spring recess by one week to April 13-14. The revised academic calendar was distributed to and approved by Faculty Council. The calendar will now be released to the faculty and student organizations.

3. Self-Scheduling of Exams: Registrar’s Office has suggested changes to the process for self-scheduled makeup exams redirecting students from the Registrar’s Office back to the individual departments. Faculty Council has received complaints from faculty members stating that this causes burden on faculty members and the departments. Another suggestion from faculty members is to reevaluate the concept of self-scheduled exams with the Honor Council. This item was to be discussed at the March 23 Faculty Council meeting.

4. Online Written Course Evaluations: The Student Association (SA) planned to place an article in the Thresher March 19 regarding posting of the written portion of the course evaluations on the Web site for students to reference prior to registering for courses. It is proposed that the SA will hire an outside firm to transcribe and post the evaluations on the Web. In the past, the provost’s office has pushed for course evaluations to be placed entirely online. A recommendation was made to Faculty Council to discuss with the Teaching Committee. Further discussion of this topic was to be made at the next Faculty Council meeting.

5. Courses for Distribution Credit: The Committee on Undergraduate Curriculum submitted a revised draft of the Recommendation for Approving Courses for Distribution Credit to the University Council March 9. University Council approved this revised draft, including the recommendations submitted by Faculty Council. A motion was made and approved to send Courses for Distribution Credit forward to discuss at the next general faculty meeting.

6. Bachelor of Science Degree in the Biosciences: The Undergraduate Curriculum Committee has reviewed two new bachelor of science degrees in biosciences, one in biochemistry and cell biology and one in ecology and evolutionary biology. The appropriate committees and University Council have approved both degrees. A motion was made and approved to send the two degrees in bioscience forward to discuss at the next general faculty meeting.

7. Master of Science Teaching: Patricia Reiff presented information on the proposed Master of Science Teaching Program. She stated that the primary focus of the program is content enhancement for existing science teachers. This proposed program, which is currently housed in physics and is in the pilot phase, received unanimous approval by the Graduate Council. Members of the Faculty Council discussed several concerns with the proposed plan, including issues with quality control and the perception of “diluting the Rice degree.” Members agreed that the plan was based on a great idea, but stressed concerns regarding the limited faculty participation and diversity of course offerings. Reiff distributed the proposal and sample curriculum. She stated that she has people currently waiting to sign up for the program. A motion was raised to put this item on the next University Council agenda. The motion passed with two members abstaining.

8. Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 1 p.m., with the next Faculty Council business meeting scheduled for 11:45 a.m. March 23 at Esther M. Cohen Dining Room, Cohen House.

Sarah Holloman
executive assistant

Faculty Council Meeting
Tuesday, March 23

Present: Ed Akin (speaker), Lynne Huffer (deputy speaker), Stephen Baker, Marjorie Corcoran, Steven Crowell, Rebekah Drezek, Deborah Harter, Tom Haskell, Hannah Landecker, Bob Patten, Caroline Quenemoen, Patricia Reiff and Herb Ward Absent: Michael Emerson, Julia Morgan and Mark Wiesner Guests: Ann Wright, vice president for enrollment; Jerry Montag, registrar; and Dustin Stephens, Student Association representative

1. Minutes (March 11): The minutes were approved.

2. Online Written Course Evaluations: A member of the Student Association (SA) was invited as a guest to attend the Faculty Council business meeting to discuss and address concerns relating to the proposal to place the narrative portion of the course evaluation online for public access as mentioned in an article from the March 19 Rice Thresher entitled “Course Evaluations will be Online.” A copy of the article was distributed. Akin opened the discussion by summarizing that course evaluations are important to the faculty and were developed to improve teaching. Currently instructors, chairs and the provost look at these course evaluations. Faculty members brought up concerns about posting the narratives for the SA representative to address. These concerns included: 1) The process for determining if the information was not relevant to the subject and, if determined irrelevant, what would be the process for removing that information from the narrative posting
2) Confirmation that this information would only be available to current Rice students and faculty members 3) The additional burden this will place on the provost’s staff, who will be charged with overseeing the approval and appeals process. The SA representative confirmed that they are not looking at having online completion of course evaluations as they also agreed that this would reduce the number of evaluations completed. However, they wish to make available to prospective students considering taking a course the narrative portion of the evaluations in order to help make more informed decisions. He stated there would be two levels of screening in place before the evaluations would be placed online. First, the student making the evaluation would have to check a box indicating that this evaluation could be made public. The second level of screening would give the faculty member 30 days to review the evaluation and make an argument to remove the information. The request for removal would be made through the provost’s office.
Faculty members brought up the need to be able to track the number of evaluations received versus posted and also the importance of allowing the faculty member to make a written response to the evaluations. In addition, it was mentioned that course evaluations are voluntary and currently are not distributed to graduate classes and classes with large attendance. Montag stated that the course evaluation process would stay the same as it currently is, with course evaluations distributed voluntarily by the faculty member. With the new process, the evaluations would then be scanned and available through the Faculty Information System that is already in place. Akin dismissed the SA representative and stated that the Faculty Council will take a position on the proposal for online course evaluations and, based on that position, will make the necessary recommendation at the general faculty meeting.

3. Self-Scheduling of Exams: The Registrar’s Office proposes to move the administration of self-scheduled exams back to the departments. Montag and Wright were invited to discuss this topic. Wright stated that self-scheduled exams have, over the years, become very difficult to administer, stating that in several cases the students do not show up to proctor or pick up the exams. Montag and Wright want to make a suggestion for improving the process and evaluate whether this is the right process for Rice. Harter suggested that this topic be brought before the teaching committee. The following recommendations were made to the provost’s office: 1) increase the number of days between the deadline from three days to five days; 2) offer self-scheduled exams in 37 courses; 3) better announce and advertise the process and procedure; 4) if the student fails to register for a self-scheduled exam or does not show up, the student will then be directed back to the department. A request was made by the Faculty Council to review the process and procedures that were already established and approved by the faculty. In addition, a recommendation was made to consult the teaching committee to come up with some alternatives. One suggestion was to automatically assign a grade of incomplete to students who miss their self-scheduled exams.

4. Graduate Council Response: A motion passed unanimously to place on the agenda for the April 6 general faculty meeting the Graduate Council’s recommendation to change the title for the thesis master’s degree in earth science from “master of arts” to “master of science.” Akin reiterated the need for these types of issues to be presented to Faculty Council before being passed to the general faculty. A motion also passed to add the elimination of the graduate degree program System Theory, which has been inactive for 10 years.

5. Athletic Report: Discussion of distribution of the Athletic Report and cover letter. Two cover letters were drafted, one by Akin and one by Haskell. Faculty Council chose to include the cover letter drafted by Akin as the official cover letter to accompany the athletic report and the second copy of the letter to be included in the Faculty Council minutes. The deputy speaker presiding and Faculty Council approved unanimously. A special thanks was noted to all members involved in preparing the Athletic Report. Discussion followed about how to release and distribute the Athletic Report. A motion passed to provide paper copies to colleges, departments and the Student Association with excised material marked as “removed.” Members agreed on the importance of being able to download a digital version of the document. An electronic version was to be available to all interested individuals including faculty, student and alumni.

6. Athletic Poll: Deputy Speaker presiding. The Faculty Council Subcommittee on athletics distributed a proposed faculty poll on Athletics, which is a revised and updated version of the poll used in 1992. The poll in 1992 had a
61 percent return rate. Haskell consulted with Emerson, who is an expert in polling. The desire was to get the poll sent out to voting faculty members as soon as possible to allow enough time to return and analyze the results prior to the end of the academic semester. Data will be tabulated and analyzed by an outside firm to ensure integrity of the results. The deadline for return was to be 10-14 days after receipt of poll. Haskell was to draft cover letter and instructions. The Faculty Council agreed to send out poll with minor revisions.

7. Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 1:30 p.m., with the next Faculty Council business meeting scheduled for April 13 at 11:45 a.m. at the Cohen House.

Sarah Holloman
executive assistant