Clerk’s Committee Meeting Minutes, October 26, 2017

Clerk’s Committee Meeting Minutes

Thursday, Thursday October 26, 2017

Present: Frank Boyd (recording), Dave Dobson (Clerk), Don Smith, Darryl Samsell, Alfonso Abad Mancheño, Jill Peterfeso, Eva Lawrence, Jeffrey R. Ray (CCE Representative)

Minutes

  1. The meeting began at 8:38 with a moment of silence.  Frank assumed the drafting of the meeting’s minutes.
  2. The committee reviewed and approved the minutes from the previous meeting.
  3. There were several directed queries about the long-overdue website.  Frank issued additional promises about the site being live by the November Faculty Meeting. There were some questions about the veracity of this claim.
  4. The committee discussed the minutes from the faculty meeting.  The minutes were discussed and reviewed.
  5. The committee returned to the issue of the SACS monitoring reports that are due in the spring.  We discussed the best means of both sharing the substance of the work that is to be done and the best means for providing access to the letter for the faculty.  Frank agreed to report back to the committee on November 3.
  6. The committee devoted considerable time to the committee structure, some of the challenges presented by that structure, and some of the solutions that have been proposed. The Clerk’s analysis indicates that there are a number of factors to be considered:  insufficient number of faculty, the inscrutable means of appointments for some leadership positions, and minimal transparency regarding the length of tenure and compensation for some positions.  There was some discussion about a point system that would more precisely quantify faculty service, and additional time devoted to discussing a tiered system in which there would be some differentiation among the committees.   The committee agreed that additional analysis is needed, beginning with a list of the committees and a comprehensive list of the course releases.
  7. In the final minutes of the meeting, the committee discussed some of the feedback on a proposed calendar revision.  There are significant concerns about the ability to transition our current curriculum into the new structure, and there is also considerable interest in the innovative opportunities available in a new structure.  Regardless of the action taken, there was agreement that it should be discussed with the collective faculty and also that there needs to be some clarification of where the locus of decision-making lies for the college calendar.   
  8. The meeting closed in a moment of silence at 9:56.