Remarks by the Secretary. Professor Kingsland said that the topic of discussion for the evening meeting on Tuesday, March 11 is how the Graduate Board Orals (GBOs) are conducted. Deans Falk, Ostrander and Dean Douglas will be invited to attend the meeting.

Professor Kingsland asked Professor Hobbs to talk about the review of the GBOs which is going on in the Krieger School and was reported at the Graduate Board meeting. There is an interesting diversity of views as to whether the GBO exam is useful, why it is useful and the ideal make-up of the review committee. Dean Falk pointed out that the discussion of the GBO is a small part of a very general review of graduate programs in the Krieger School.

Professor Nirenberg asked if a discussion about the Commission on Undergraduate Education's (CUE) recommended schedule change could be discussed at the evening meeting. Professor Lattman, saying that he had missed the Faculty Assembly meeting on March 4, asked if someone would summarize the discussion about the interim report of CUE. Professor Rugh said that one professor said that from his experience institutions that have a Monday, Wednesday, Friday schedule suffer a loss of attendance from Friday classes and find it disruptive. Professor Ball said that professors from the Department of Physics and Astronomy said that many of them travel to centers to do research over several days. At other institutions, a Friday class is often covered by a graduate student, so the Hopkins system facilitates the senior faculty teaching the basic classes because they have Thursday and Friday open to go to centers. He added that there was some confusion among the faculty that this change in schedule was going to mean a change in the amount of time spent teaching, which it does not. The Provost added that people had misinterpreted the CUE report: where it was describing hours, faculty members thought CUE was adding minutes to the class times. Dean Douglas said that up until 1976 there was a Monday- Wednesday- Friday, Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday class schedule. Dean Falk added that there were only a couple of dozen faculty members present at the Faculty Assembly meeting. Many of the issues raised vary according to discipline and department.

Professor Ball suggested that the schedule could be one piece of a much bigger process. Dean Douglas shared how some peer institutions handle scheduling. Dean Weiss added that CUE has many recommendations that are worth discussing, and the schedule is one of them. Before making any recommendations to change the schedule Dean Weiss said that he would want to study the problem and have faculty involvement. He added that CUE has not yet handed in a final report. When it does, if the report recommends a change in schedule the Deans would discuss the issue with the faculty. No action would be taken without extensive consultation. He reminded Council that this is a process and it may take awhile. The Provost said that the real motivation for the calendar change came not out of academic issues committee, but out of the student life issues committee. The consideration is the effect the schedule has on the students' sense of community, which seems to be one of the sources of the deepest angst among the students.

Open Discussion. Professor Lattman recounted a teaching story he had heard while he was attending a meeting of the Biophysical Society. His colleague from another university said that an assistant professor in his department came up for tenured promotion to Associate Professor who had a million dollars in grants, a string of papers in Science and Nature and a below average undergraduate teaching record and he was "canned". Professor Lattman added that when thought is given to what Hopkins is up against, that story is one example.

Professor Chirikjian commented that Dean Douglas had said that at some universities classes above a certain size are videotaped and made available to students. He said that this would also make it easier for faculty to assess other faculty's teaching. Another Council member commented that it was hard to see how videotaped classes would build community.

The promotion of Dr. Lingxin Hao to Professor in the Department of Sociology effective July 1, 2003 was approved.

Remarks by the Deans. Dean Weiss circulated a copy of the Tenure Policy Review Committee's report along with a letter from Deans Busch-Vishniac, Douglas, Falk and himself outlining their response to the report. He asked Council to review the report and letter in order to have a substantive discussion at the March 19 Council meeting.

Dean Douglas made no remarks.

The meeting adjourned at 4:30 p.m.

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Last updated 08Sep03 by dgips@jhu.edu