Draft

FAEC meeting w/Provost Barnett

October 25, 2006

Board Room

Members Present: Eric, Susan, Irene, Maria, Steve, Jason, Anita, Marcia, Amruth, Erin, Beth

Agenda:

Summer Task Force

Interdisciplinary Task Force

Experiential Task Force

Funding for Faculty Scholarship

New/Old Business

Topping Off ceremony and reception-additional donation/generous gift for business school bringsing the total amount to $6 million dollars; Money will be used for compensation for academic qualifications/scholarships, Dean Chakrin will discuss in Dean’s council regarding: funding strategy; business school faculty scholarship funding will come from gifts not college funds.

Task Forces-see draft documents. Task Force on Summer School and Summer Programs, Task Force on Interdisciplinary Curriculum, and Task Force on Experiential Learning are being set up.

Provost and FA President may meet with each Task Force; Provost will revise as needed and send to FAEC for additional review

1.Summer Task Force:

  1. Tto review both special summer programs and regular summer school:
  • Will provide iInterim report for 1 April 2007 to Provost with/ copy to FAEC; Final report for 1 October 2007 to Provost with/ copy to FAEC
  • Will sSet up information & evaluation system
  • Unit representation will be voted on by individual units

Still waiting on formal document from Angela

Add statement to ensure quality of learning not just program assessment and review

Reps should focus on constituent ideas not just personal feelings

  • Possibly add dean’s rep to Task Force-appointed by Provost
  • At large/under 10 year representative addeds to committees

2. Interdisciplinary Task Force

Add statement for reaffirmation of mission not revision

Will Mechanism to examine what is currently in practice,

  • gather Possible benchmarking/gather data

Teaching assignments-faculty only allowed to teach in one school

Quality control

  • Reps from interdisciplinary groups

3. Experiential Learning Task force

Will eExamine and recommend for current practice,

  • Possible gather data

Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC)

Issue came up at 10/18/06 FA: need further clarification; agreement-honor confirmation of courses already designated as WI; all faculty who want to teach WI will need to attend workshops with/ renewal schedule; can’t accommodate all faculty who can teach WI, budget will not stretch to cover suggested caps; deans will review schedule and decide on potential spring courses; for next meeting or next meeting w/Provost-invite interested parties for WI.

Special presentation by Steve Perry & Martha Ecker on Greater Expectations

Presented hHistorical context of changing curriculum and mechanism for monitoring new curriculum; Ramapo sent two teams to the Greater Expectations Institute under Association of American Colleges and Universities (AACU) in two consecutive years. Issues considered include; students would take fewer courses but be more academically intense at 4 credits; document embracing the pillars of mission to enrich the curriculum; held faculty in-service days; second team sent to Institute with focus on general education program and its link to majors/minors; how do we know our students are getting what they need out of our programs? Assessment piece is especially important with/ Middle States review coming up; start with individual courses and teaching styles; Dee Fink’s workshop on active learning; Faculty Resource Center has already been focusing on teaching and learning styles; added student input since curriculum impacts them the most; how to get pertinent information and actions to all faculty beyond large group in-service; Phil’s teaching circles were very successful in terms of revising individual courses; needs to get to convening group and unit level; train the trainer; how to show what people are doing in sharing sessions; Phil’s teaching circles will be asked to display do a posters displayed somewhere-possible connection during w/ January in-service; identify research/resource person in each convening group for best practices; how can best practices this be institutionalized? What are expectations especially for newer faculty? No single course can follow the same model; buy-in problem; terminology questions-what is already being done vs. how its said; It was suggested that apractical application-document for convening group w/ timeline for assessment on Middle States review; experiential component-giving people ways to fulfill those 5 hours for each course; shift is towards learning goals and experiences; need glossary of terms be provided to help faculty describe their classroom practices. that covers what faculty are doing; amount of time it takes to re-conceive course especially 1 at a time; change as course is taught not always from the beginning-small changes over time result in same quality; what is proof of completion of experiential learning component? Incentives to support quality of teaching i.e. financial compensation. Suggestions or comments still welcome.

Meeting schedule review

Academic meeting schedule for spring-Faculty Assembly with time for Unit Councils and convening groups was reviewed. During spring in-service, ; focus on faculty accomplishments-will be showcased.faculty assembly lite.

Submitted by M. Sexton, October 25, 2006