Announcements:
Peggy
Craft requested that faculty be aware of letting students out on time from
classes.
Steve
Warshaw stated that the meetings to discuss the judicial system with the
students will be rescheduled to a better time for the students. He will let
faculty know.
Dot
Doyle announced that Chuck Roser and Julie Sikkink have agreed to serve on the
committee that will determine procedures for naming rooms after individuals.
Peggy
Craft and Lucia Stadter agreed to help plan the staff appreciation day on
10/20.
Julie
Graves, Jon Miller, and Noreen Naiman have agreed to work with Joan Barber in
developing the first draft of the 2000-2001 calendar.
Brief
reports were given from the liaisons to the 3 board committees.
The
Finance Committee discussed the construction update (e-mailed to faculty) and
the future of the Director’s house. They
also discussed fundraising goals and increasing efforts to provide
opportunities for the Board of Trustees to be involved in school activities and
fundraising.
The
Educational Policies and Practices committee discussed issues related to SACS,
the Action Plan, and outreach programs.
Kevin
Currie is the new liaison to the personnel committee of the BOT which discussed
the conflict of interest policy and the external activities report.
The
Welfare committee will be looking into the election of the evaluation
committee because of concerns raised that the same individuals are chosen year
after year.
Phil
Nelson announced that he will serve as interim director until July 1 and that
he will be meeting with the new director several times in the coming year. He also reminded the faculty about the
upcoming visit by the Board of Governors.
Dot
announced that faculty/academic issues will be the focus of the full board
meeting in March.
Tom
Clayton stated that the list of mini-term courses was very impressive and that
it would be sent to students and parents to prepare for the registration
process.
Tom
also announced planning taking place to possibly take the school to aid in the
clean up efforts in eastern
Minutes from the last
faculty council meeting were approved.
Third Decade Discussion:
Dot
encouraged faculty to have a candid discussion on these issues and reminded
faculty of guidelines to achieve a productive exchange of ideas.
The
faculty addressed the following question:
What
can we do to meet the future needs of our students?
The
following notes were recorded by Donita Robinson during the discussion:
What can our program do…
·
Do a needs assessment and ask students.
·
We need need a stronger computer science curriculum.
·
Need a broader definition of technology (test tubes, probes, microscopes
etc.).
·
Look at budgets.
·
Classrooms across the school that allow groupwork (a variety of teaching
methods)
·
Up to date VCRs, overheads, etc (foreign language, for example).
·
Look at how we set up classes:
- more
faculty?
- more
diversity to meet student needs.
- smaller
classes?
- able to
give more attention to student needs.
- we’ve lost
faculty positions.
·
Bringing in more students who aren’t independent learners and were trying
to do more - we aren’t able to give the individual attention necessary.
·
Make residential program a focus as well as the academic program.
·
Afternoon “catch-up” courses temporarily.
·
Think about what we want our graduates to have taken from NCSSM if we
check 5 years after graduation.
·
Summer “catch-up” courses (prior to junior year).
·
Find out why some students from the top H.S. don’t come to NCSSM (or
don’t apply).
·
Other schools have gotten better - we began at a pretty high notch, but
still need to make improvements.
·
FOOD.
·
Assuming students are focusing on math and science, we could spread these
topics across the entire NCSSM curriculum.
·
Have a broad discussion across the faculty about how to make the separate
disciplines more continuous and fluid for the students.
·
Involve experts as teachers (alumni, military for example).