Remarks by the Secretary. Professor Bryan reported for Professor Kingsland that there will be a Tuesday evening meeting on April 8.

She suggested as a topic for discussion the practice of inviting the Vice Dean from Arts and Sciences and the Associate Dean from Engineering to Council meetings. This has been done on a yearly invitational basis rather than by altering the by-laws. Dean Busch-Vishniac commented that since there is a high probability that the next Engineering Dean will not have had experience on Council, he/she might appreciate having Dean Douglas at the meeting.

Open Discussion. Professor Lattman said that the Appointments and Promotions subcommittee had a luncheon meeting recently to discuss how to help the Council establish a program for evaluating undergraduate teaching. One of the issues is that there is a huge amount of material out there, many schools have very detailed policies and handbooks, and it would be a shame to "re-invent the wheel." Another issue is whether the focus of the discussion should be just as classroom teaching, or as other aspects as well. The committee focused on two ideas. First, that teaching is important, and that this must be made clear to faculty from the day they are appointed. It was suggested that faculty should assemble a portfolio of materials such as class notes, sample student projects, or websites. After a period of years a substantial body of evidence would have accumulated.

The second idea is that teaching evaluation is a phrase that is too narrow. There are aspects of teaching, such as holding regular office hours, which are important to student perceptions of how much the faculty care about them. The information that Council wants as part of the Appointments and Promotions package needs to be determined and the Appointments and Promotions subcommittee requested Council's advice as to how to proceed. It was suggested that this topic be put on the agenda for an upcoming Council meeting.

Professor Naiman said that he had promised a faculty member that he would communicate a complaint about the ad hoc committee procedures of having to produce curricula vita for the referees. The faculty member said that this is an onerous task and felt that Council does not trust the ad hoc committees to do their job well. Professor Lattman suggested using a form instead of curricula vita. Provost Knapp suggested that the Appointments and Promotions subcommittee write a template. Several Council members spoke in favor of the current procedures. Another Council member commented that he knew many annoyed ad hoc committee chairs.

The promotion of Dr. John Toscano to Professor in the Department of Chemistry effective July 1, 2003 was approved.

The Council then turned to consideration of a proposed change to the Academic Council Procedures (Bylaws) regarding Section VI. Vacancies in Council Membership. Dean Falk commented that the Academic Council by-laws indicate that for all vacancies longer than four months there has to be a general election of the faculty to fill that. One semester vacancies are filled within the Council. He noted two issues that may cause the Council to re-examine the policy. One is that it is cumbersome when also doing five-year elections, which makes for a long process. Dean Falk cited the example of the Fall, 2002, where the elections were not completed until well into the semester. The other issue is that the Council has an interest in balancing its make-up to reflect the various disciplines, and if the Council were to elect one-year replacements itself, it would have somewhat more freedom to do so. The proposal is to change the by-laws so that one-year replacements would be filled by an internal election by Council members. The proposal would reserve the faculty-wide vote only for five-year members.

A Council member who spoke in favor of the proposal said that last Fall the strength of Council's committees was negatively affected by the length of time it took for the election process. Additionally, the lack of faculty responses was another reason to change the system. A Council member commented that the only objection he could think of is that in general Council is thought of as secretive and in-grown and that internal elections might be another step in that direction. He said he hoped Council could find other ways of being more visible and open to compensate for it. Another Council member suggested that the savings in overhead from election process be put to work in getting the minutes out promptly to the faculty. The matter was held over.

Professor Lattman, Chair of the Appointments and Promotions subcommittee reported that the following appointments were approved 1) Justine Roth as Assistant Professor in Chemistry eff. 7/1/03; 2) Joel Bader as Assistant Professor in Biomedical Engineering (WSE) eff. 8/1/03.

Professor Naiman, Associate Chair and Council Liaison of the Board of Review reported that the promotion of Gabor Fichtinger to Associate Research Professor in Computer Science was approved.

The meeting adjourned at 5:30 p.m.

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Last updated 08Sep03 by dgips@jhu.edu