A&S Faculty Assembly Minutes Dec 2 2005

College of Arts and Sciences

Faculty Assembly Meeting

December 2, 2005

 Registering Attendance:

Anthropology: C. Tillquist

Biology: R. Fell, M. Klotz, W. Pearson, M. Perlin

Chemistry: B. Buchanan

Classical & Modern Lang: R. Buchanan, W. Cunningham, M. Dalle, J. Greene, H. Hutcheson, A. Leidner, A. Mastri, W. Pfeffer, C. Sullivan,

Communication: J. Ferre, A. Futrell

English: M. Biberman, D. Billingsley, B. Boehm, T. Byers, K. Chandler, G. Cross, K. Czarnecki, J. Dietrich, A. Golding, S. Griffin, K. Hadley, D. Hall, S. Henke, A. Jaffe, K. Kopelson, E. Lin, C. Mattingly, A. Powell, A. Rabin, G. Ridley, D. Tanner, J. Webb, A.E. Willey, B. Williams, T. Yohannes

Geography/Geosciences: J. Anderson, C. Hanchette, C. Leuthart, K. Mountain

History: A. Allen, W. Lee, S. Levi, J. McLeod, R. Njoku, L.S. Weissbach

Humanities: K. Gray, D. Pecknold, N. Polzer

Mathematics: B. Bradley, M. Das, L. Gibson, L. Larson, T. Riedel, S. Seif, D. Swanson

Pan-African Studies: E. Bani, J. Hudson, T. Rajack-Talley

Philosophy: R. Kimball, A. Kolers, O. Wiggins

Physics: D. Brown, C. Jayanthi

Political Science: M. Brittingham, A. Caldwell, J. Farrier, S. Hua, S. Matarese, R. Payne, L. Rhodebeck, R. Vogel, C. Ziegler

Psychology: S. Meeks

Sociology: J. Busch, C. Negrey

Theatre Arts: G. Brown, L. Thomas, R. Vandenbroucke

Women’s & Gender St: D. Heinecken, N. Theriot

Professor Hall, Chair, called the meeting to order.

The chair requested and was granted unanimous consent to change the order of the agenda and approve the candidates for August and December graduation prior to returning to old business. The Chair recognized Assistant Dean Taylor who moved approval of the graduates of August 2005 and the candidates for December 2005, pending their successful completion of all requirements. The motion was seconded. The Chair put the question and the motion for approval of graduates carried.

The chair then recognized Professor Negry, Chair of Sociology, who announced the death of Dr. John McTighe, a long-time instructor in the Sociology Department.

The minutes of the Assembly of November 4, 2005, were approved as distributed.

Returning to old business, the Chair recognized Professor Byers for the Personnel Committee. Professor Byers reminded the Assembly that at the meeting of November 4, two items from the proposed changes to the personnel policy had been remanded to the Committee: 2.2.F.2 (“Teaching,” page 10 of revised document) and 2.1.A. (“Areas of Activity,” page 6 of revised document).

Professor Byers said that the Committee now proposed a substitute motion for its original revision of Section 2.2.F.2.. By making this change, the Committee also recommended elimination of Section 2.2.I.6. The substitute motion read:

“Student evaluations must be complemented by a peer review of teaching effectiveness and other relevant evidence. Examples of such evidence may include, but are not confined to: teaching awards, course syllabi and other instructional materials, evidence of mentoring students, and/or other indicators of proficiency of teaching.”

Discussion included Professor Allen, who proposed amending the substitute motion by inserting “recent” before “peer review.” The amendment was accepted as friendly.

Profession Weissbach proposed substituting “not limited to” for “not confined to” and deleting the final phrase “and/or other indicators of proficiency of teaching.” This also was accepted as friendly.

Hearing no call for further discussion, the Chair put the question and the substitute motion was accepted, as amended. The Chair then put the question on the substitute motion, which also included the deletion of Section 2.2.I.6. The motion carried.

Professor Byers then asked the Assembly to return to Section 2.1.A. (“Areas of Activity), and to the proposed addition to that section which had been tabled at the last meeting. He said that the Personnel Committee now recommended that the Assembly defeat the motion to amend 2.1.A. by the addition of the following language: “Assigned responsibilities are defined in the letter of hire and the Annual Work Plan (AWP). The AWP should reflect the expectations in the letter of hire, unless the faculty member, the unit Chair, and the Dean agree, in a separate signed document, that there has been a significant change in expectations.”

Discussion included Professors Pfeffer, Byers, Boehm, Perlin, and Griffin and Dean Hudson.

Hearing no call for further discussion, the Chair stated that a vote of “yes” would add the above language to the personnel policy; a vote of “no,” as recommended by the Committee, would defeat such an addition. The Chair put the question and the motion was defeated.

Professor Byers then opened discussion on Section 2.1.B (“Procedures”).

The Committee recommended that 2.1.B.1. read “Every instructor shall be reviewed annually.”

Discussion included Professor Boehm, who advised the Assembly that “instructor” was used in the Rebook in a very specific sense, which made it a poor choice in this statement. Further discussion included Professors Weissbach, Ferre, Byers, and Meeks. Professor Byers proposed that “instructor” be changed to “faculty member and instructor of record.” This amendment was accepted as friendly.

Discussion then turned to 2.1.B.2.a. and the addition of language stating that the individual faculty member will be responsible for maintaining the documentation supporting annual reviews “for all future reviews, to which such documentation may be relevant.”

The Chair recognized Professor Billingsley, who proposed deleting the phrase “to which such documentation may be relevant.” This was accepted as a friendly amendment.

The Chair recognized Professor Weissbach who asked who could exercise the option of extramural reviews referred to in 2.1.B.2.b.

Discussion included Professors Klotz, Weissbach, and Ferre.

Professor Weissbach proposed that the second sentence of 2.1.B.2.b. be amended to read “Tenure-track and tenured faculty are entitled, upon their request, to extramural review in annual review.” This was accepted as a friendly amendment.

Hearing no call for further discussion, the Chair put the question on approval of the changes to Sections 2.1.B.1. and 2.1.B.2., as amended. The motion carried.

The Chair recognized Joanne Webb, a representative for the College’s part-time instructors, who asked the Assembly to consider a document circulated at the beginning of the meeting which presented proposals for changes to the Personnel Committee’s recommendations concerning the evaluation of part-time faculty.

The Chair ruled that this was a motion to substitute item #1 in the part-time faculty document for Section 2.1.B.3 in the Personnel Committee document.

Discussion included Professors Riedel, Pfeffer, Byers, D’Antoni, Johannes, and Griffin.

Professor Byers, seconded by Professor Perlin, moved to delete the final sentence (“Results of performance evaluations will be applied toward the process of promotion as stipulated in the Redbook.”) from the substitute motion.

The Chair put the question and the motion to delete carried. With this change, the substitute motion read: “Each part-time faculty member must provide materials to a designated department administrator who will submit a performance evaluation to the Dean. Copies of results of student evaluations for all courses taught at the University of Louisville during the review period must be submitted, along with any other teaching materials already in existence as the individual department shall require.”

The Chair announced that business was now suspended so that Professor William Pierce, Chair of the Faculty Senate, might address the Assembly. Professor Pierce discussed the role of the Faculty Senate and distributed a document which is appended to these minutes.

Following the conclusion of Professor Pierce’s remarks, the Chair declared the meeting adjourned.

[12/15/05]