Chairs Unplugged

Meeting of May 3, 2007

Minutes

Present:

Richy Bisk (Chair), Linda Larrivee, Don Bullens, Phil Burns, Ellen Fynan, Randi Wallen, Pat Benjamin (Today’s Secretary), Hank Theriault, Elaine, Tateronis, Renuka Jain, Penny Martin, Aparna Mahadev, Helena Semerjian, Al Cooper, Michael Hachey, Bruce Cohen, Steve Corey, Lori Dawson.

1. Minutes: April minutes not available.

2. Election of New Chair of Chairs: Lori Dawson was elected.

3. Gen Ed Proposal – Open Discussion:

$The General Education curriculum reform proposal was passed by the Curriculum Committee and will be considered by the All College Committee on May 8th

$The following is a sampling of views expressed in wide-ranging discussion.

$Richy Bisk and Randi Wallen shared their experiences with a similar reform at FitchburgState. Implementing a proposal of this type is a huge undertaking, because the need to approve large numbers of courses generates a massive amount of paperwork and is a huge time sink. At Fitchburg the focus shifted from thoughtful consideration of course content to a rush to push through whatever courses met the criteria on paper. It took five years to get enough courses. Advising was a nightmare.

$These comments generated a lively discussion about implementation. Individual chairs voiced concerns about:

- whether Fall ‘08 implementation is realistic; others stated that no one

expected full implementation at once; each year, more and more courses will be available

- possibility of getting sufficient course proposals written, given the complex

evaluation rubric

- given all that needs to be done, departments need a specific timeline laying out

priorities for course development and submission, for example, what curriculum, how many courses, for what audience; the Business Department volunteered to draw up a Project Management Plan

- confusion about vetting committees: how they’re structured; who’s on them;

practicality of getting 27 people to volunteer, given chronic under-staffing of current committees

- each department will need to develop an implementation strategy

  • Individual chairs also expressed concerns about the content of the proposal. This is a very contentious issue.
  • The Chairs agreed to send a “Sense of the Chairs” message to ACC on the subject of the GenEd proposal:

1. The Chair of Chairs requested a show of hands from those with concerns about the

proposal’s content. Ten chairs (of 18 present) responded.

2. There was consensus that departments need a specific implementation timeline and a

sense that implementation by Fall ‘08 is unrealistic.

3. Chairs have a number of miscellaneous questions, including:

- Handling transfer students; need to develop parallel systems

- Committee makeup (nothing in writing so far)

- Capstone

4. Survey of Chairs

$Last year Linda Larrivee and a couple of other chairs designed and administered a survey of department chairs about the workload of chairs. Mary Fowler analyzed the results and brought the data to today’s meeting.

$The results are attached to these minutes.

$The group requested that the Chair of Chairs send these results to Pat Markunas and Dan Shartin to inform the new contract negotiations currently under way

$The group commends Linda and Mary for their work on this.