Agenda for Social Science Department Meeting

SOCIAL SCIENCE DEPARTMENT MEETING

Monday, August 15, 2005

Aspen 145, 11:30 A.M.

CSI Mission Statement: The College of Southern Idaho, a comprehensive community college, provides educational, social and cultural opportunities for a diverse population of South Central Idaho. In this rapidly changing world, CSI encourages our students to lead enriched, productive and responsible lives.

In Attendance: Jim Gentry, Lee Ann Hagan, Susan Lehman, Susan McFarland, Mike McKenna, Chris Meyerhoeffer, Jerod Opsal, Brett Reid, Randy Simonson, Russ Tremayne, and Lauri Watkins

Our new Social Science banner, completed during the summer, is hanging in Jim Gentry’s office. Thanks Jim Woods!

Advising Schedule for Inservice week is below:

Social Science Department Advising Schedule for FALL 2005

Lee Ann Hagan, Chris Meyerhoeffer and Russ Tremayne, from our department, are coordinating Constitution Day at CSI on Friday, September 16. Chris Bragg and Tiffany Seeley-Case are helping as well. Every school receiving federal funds will have an event regarding the Constitution. At this point Russ Tremayne is going to speak on Thursday evening, September 15. Lee Ann Hagan, Chris Meyerhoeffer and Chris Bragg will cooperate on Friday day activities on September 16. They will call Doug Maughan and Eric Studebaker for advertising. If you have any ideas, please contact Chris, Lee Ann, or Russ.

Randy Simonson will continue to chair the Social Science Department Outcomes Assessment Committee; the Accreditation Report was complementary of our efforts. The committee will not meet monthly meeting but will play a key role in department assessment.

Jerod Opsal is coordinating the Mental Health Awareness Week from October 31-November 4, 2005. More information will be coming next month.

Jim Gentry distributed the 2005-2006 Contract Days for 9 month Faculty; if questions, check with him.

Jim handed out Dr. LueLinda Egbert’s rubric for “Statement of Informed Beliefs”, shared with her permission. This provides a good example of self assessment for an essay.

Jim passed out strategies to prevent faculty burnout. One method is to discuss concerns at staff meetings. Jim strongly encouraged us to attend Faculty Senate meetings where decisions are made; your input is important!

Jim provided a list of 25 books in our CSI Library related to Teaching & Assessment. The Table of Contents for # 13: Effective Teaching: A Guide for Community College Instructors is in the handout. As you are able, take a look at some interesting and helpful information.

Jim Gentry has good material from Maddy Hartwell’s 4/7/05 “Humor in the Classroom” workshop. It will make you think about humor differently. Contact Jim Gentry for information.

During the summer we added two part-time night classes: Ron James teaches ANTH 102 C03 on Thursday nights; Rosemary Wimberly teaches HIST 111 M01 in Burley on Thursday evenings. Also Kathryn Muscat from Jerome High School is teaching POLS 101 as a dual credit class. Brett Reid hopes to have LAWE 119 at Twin Falls High School as a dual credit class by Spring 2006.

Make students aware of our lower enrollment campus courses: ANTH 102 and SOCY 101 are both general education classes:

 Ron James ANTH 102 C03

 Randy Simonson PSYC 218 C01

 Mike McKenna SOCY 101 C08 (recently created because a need for more Sociology)

 Mike McKenna SOCY 102

On August 22-23 faculty are needed for an hour in the information booths which are set up to assist students and to distribute Student Handbooks.

We have a banner and we have brochures! See the sign up for the SOAR Social Science Department booth below:

S O A R Schedule - 10:00 – 3:00 - Wednesday, August 24th & Thursday, August 25th

Since our Social Science brochure includes our department goals and we are printing inserts which will include program objectives, review those before we print the inserts. Provide Jim Gentry with any changes.

We need to cut our copying costs! We need to print what is needed but think hard about printing. We will discuss this more later. We will no longer be providing color copy paper in the office once the color paper on hand is used. We have to purchase the color paper and then we are charged per copy through the business office for the copies we make on that paper, so we are actually paying for it twice. If you want color copies, please send them over to Joan Drown in the copy center.

On July 27th Mary Jo Benoit and Jim Gentry met to discuss Social Science scholarships. Jim would like to create in late September a Social Science Department Scholarship Committee with three or four people who have a passion for developing viable scholarships. It will take several years to develop these. Meanwhile by October 1 Mary Jo will provide for department use a list of Social Science Department program-related scholarships including the total money in the fund and the present scholarship provided from the interest from that money. In mid-October 2005 the committee will have it first meeting and establish guidelines. We will invite Mary Jo Benoit and Deb Wilson to join us for that first meeting.

We need to do several things through special committees; be thinking about where you wish to serve. We will check committee assignments during our September meeting.

Jim distributed information regarding the United States Achievement Academy. He asked if anyone was interested in investigating this to see if it is worth presenting to our students. It was agreed that when the Scholarship Committee gets up and going that they will investigate these types of issues, so it was put on the back burner for now.

Our department has been allotted 27 hours per week of work study time-3 students at 9 hours each per week. Jim Gentry asked earlier for work study requests. Lee Ann Hagan, Russ Tremayne and Brett Reid asked for help and they are receiving work study assistance. In addition, Lauri Watkins will also have a work study in the office (Sarah Hurst) to help with general office work. The student is expected to work during their scheduled time; not do homework as has been sometimes assumed in the past. If you have been granted a work study and you do not have work for them, please encourage them to ask other faculty for work, or release them for the day. Jim Gentry will be responsible for work study hours and evaluation.

The next department meeting will be held on Tuesday, September 6th at 1:00 in Aspen 145.