Faculty Council Meeting

Minutes for Meeting on June 12, 2006

1:00 PM, Woolworth Room

President:  Noreen Naiman                        Vice President:  Julie Graves               Secretary:  Tamar Castelloe

      1.      Approval of Minutes from January, March and May meetings

      A motion was made and seconded to approve each of the minutes from the January, March and May Faculty Council (FC) meetings.  The vote was unanimous to pass the motion.

2.   Announcements

Liz Coleman encouraged all faculty to attend Technology Workshops during the week of June 12^th. 

      Diane Futrelle first talked about the online database IBM passwords for remote access.  She reminded all faculty to return all equipment and library materials to the library during the week of June 12^th.  She also asked that purchase rec cards be sent to the library for this Fall’s needs.  Diane continued by reminding faculty who had not yet submitted their copyright requests to do so, and the library staff will perform the copyright clearance for them.

3.   Reports from the BOT Meeting

Noreen reported that Jerry Boarman talked about the Delta program and NCSSM’s accreditation by the SACS and announced the various awards our senior class won in the last year.  Steve Warshaw then talked about results of Sally Adkins’ trimester evaluation completed by the faculty.  He reported that overall, faculty is feeling overworked and that there has been a loss of rigor under the trimester system.  Steve did not have the opportunity to display the numbers associated with the results due to the abbreviated time he was given to present the data.

a.  Development Committee - Scott Laird

            Scott announced that Sally Adkins gave a report on Distance Learning and External Programs at the committee meeting.  It was announced that there were 13 interactive video courses, 3 online courses, 1 teacher collaboration and 27 different schools that participated during the 2005-2006 academic year.

            Scott then reported that Ken Steen gave a comprehensive year-end review of the Development department.  He stated that alumni participation at events during the 2005-2006 academic year rose from 4% to 11%.  He also announced that a profile of NCSSM appeared in Our State magazine, and alumni gifts to the Odyssey campaign are currently at 1 million dollars.  The Reynolds East/West breezeway will now be called “Alumni Hall” and will be dedicated during alumni weekend next school year.  There were 168 senior contributers to the senior gift this year, which is a greenhouse, and the class of 1986 has contributed $80,000 to the funding of the annual slide show.  Craig Rowe also reported at the BOT committee meeting and stated that the Alumni Connections page is now up on the NCSSM website.  The e-newsletter will be sent out to alumni during the middle of each month, and the Capital Campaign is currently in its 3^rd of 4 phases.

b.  Educational Policies and Practices Committee - Jim Litle

Jim reported that Joan Barber spoke at the committee meeting and announced the statistics on Supervised Study this year, which included that no students repeated Supervised Study for the third time in the Spring trimester.  Letita Mason then presented her statistics on the incoming junior class, which includes 310 students, at the committee meeting and talked about the potential impact of the tuition grant on the applicant pool.  Jim added that Tom Clayton reported on the research project and the Delta program at the meeting.

c.  Fiscal, Audit, and Human Resources Committee - Mary Roberts

Mary announced that the HVAC chiller and vent system is in phase 2.  The project should be complete by June 2007.  The NCSSM Foundation has approved $288,000 to renovate the soccer field.  David Smith, chair of this committee, will be talking to neighborhood members about the renovation.

      4.      Discussion of new proposed schedule for Faculty Contract Evaluation

Tom Clayton explained that he is in the process of updating the Procedures of Faculty Evaluations and wanted to show us his proposal of a revised order of faculty contract evaluations.  He handed out hard copies, and an electronic version is attached here:  Order of Faculty Evaluation-Tom Clayton 

Tom was asked whether changes made to the order of faculty evaluations require official Board approval.  Tom answered that they wouldn’t need Board approval, but changes to the order may potentially change the Procedures of Faculty Evaluations.  A faculty member asked Tom how our UNC constituency would affect the evaluation process.  Noreen answered that she is not certain how the UNC evaluation process is structured. 

Another faculty member suggested that the faculty evaluation process not be revised until we know how the BOT intends to interpret the regulations with regard to 1-year contracts.  (Secretary’s note: All references to the “1-1-2-year contract progression” that follow in these minutes are meant to refer to an interpretation of the Regulations on Faculty Employment that newly hired faculty’s first and second contracts would each be one year in length, and their third contract would be for two years.  The progression that would follow would be that which is described in the Regulations.)   She expressed interest in knowing whether the BOT endorses the 1-1-2-year contract progression interpretation before any changes are made to the evaluation order.  Discussion then followed about whether the 1-1-2-year contract progression for newly hired faculty will affect recruitment of new faculty, and it was stated by a faculty member that he has found that the science department’s applicant pool has decreased in size in the past few years.  One faculty member stated that the proposed changes to the order of faculty evaluations should not be adopted until the faculty knows whether the BOT endorses the 1-1-2-year contract interpretation of the Regulations.  Jerry Boarman stated that he would be willing to approach the BOT and ask that they take a close look at the Regulations to see whether they would like to clearly state the 1-1-2-year contract progression as policy.  However, Jerry warned that doing this would open the Regulations up to other things the faculty may not want the BOT to look at.  If revising the Regulations is in order, then Jerry said that the faculty, administration, and the BOT should be involved.

There was a suggestion made that Tom make the proposed changes for the 2006-2007 academic year only, so that he can get them completed in time for the new year and make sure that the changes would not be considered permanent yet.  According to the suggestion, corresponding changes to the faculty procedures could also be made temporarily.  A motion was then made to this point:

The Faculty Council recommends for the 2006-2007 academic year, and not beyond that without another vote, that we operate under the “Faculty Proposal” column of the document provided by Tom Clayton.

After the motion was made, there was discussion about newly hired faculty members’ knowledge of their status with regard to the contract progression.  Noreen argued that having the discipline report in the first year may help in this way, as new faculty would have some early feedback about where they stand and what is expected of them.

      The motion was then repeated and seconded, and the voting (administered by a show of hands) results were as follows:

                                                                                  Yes:  43

                                                                                  No:  3

                                                                                  Abstain:  2

      The motion was, therefore, passed.  Jerry will be meeting with the BOT Executive Committee in July and stated that he will discuss the Regulations on Faculty Employment with them to get clarification on what they would like the document to state with regard to the new faculty contract progression.

5.   Announcement of FC Officers for 2006-2007

Amy Sheck announced the new faculty council officers for the 2006-2007 academic year.  She stated that 58 ballots were returned, and the results are as follows:

                                                                    President:  Dan Teague

                                                                    Vice President:  John Woodmansee

                                                                    Secretary:  Tamar Castelloe

      6.      Other Concerns

A faculty member stated that he believes NCSSM’s connectivity (network) is very poor and that it poses quite a problem for him.  Jerry responded by saying that we do need more bandwidth and that he is working with Ed McBride on accessing more funds to correct things.  He stated that it is a major priority for the school.

The meeting adjourned at 2:00 P.M.