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MINUTES
FACULTY COUNCIL MEETING
OCTOBER 19, 2007
Present: {Faculty Council Members} Greg Bassham (Chair), Derrick Boucher (Chair-elect), Joan Coffin (A&P Chair-elect), Kristi Concannon (C&T Chair-elect), Sheileen Corbett (At-large Rep.), Howard Fedrick (Div. B Rep.), Dan Ghezzi (A&P Chair), Michele McGowan (Div. D Rep.), Brian Pavlac (C&T Chair), Regan Lance Reitsma (Div. C Rep.), Jeremy Simington (Div. A Rep.) {Guests} Beth Admiraal, Margaret Corgan, Joe Evan, Nick Holodick, Hamid Hosseini, Daniel Issing, Valerie Kepner, Paul Lindenmuth, Michael Little, Jennifer McClinton-Temple, Ed Ockerman, Margarita Rose, Jim Wallace.
1. The meeting was called to order at 2:01 PM in Room 109 of the Sheehy-Farmer Campus Center.
2. General Business:
a. The Minutes of the September 28 Faculty Council meeting were approved with
minor revisions.
b. A motion was approved to formally “record and express” Council’s appreciation
to Valerie Musto for her work on campus blood drives.
c. A motion was approved to delegate to A&P the task of revising the form
Chairpersons use to evaluate faculty within their own departments. The form and
the Faculty Handbook are inconsistent.
d. A motion was approved to task A & P with reviewing the updated Faculty
Handbook.
3. C&T Committee Report
a. Dr. Pavlac, Chair, reported that C&T has fulfilled the expectation placed
upon it by Faculty Council in May of 2007. Many Social Science faculty had
concerns about the Core proposal C&T presented to Faculty Council last spring.
Faculty Council mandated that C&T work with the Social Science Division to find
a solution. A compromise has been reached, one which C&T approved at its October
16 meeting.
b. A motion to approve C&T’s Core Curriculum proposal was made and seconded.
c. Guests of Faculty Council were given the opportunity to speak. One guest
spoke in favor of the compromise between C&T and the Social Science Division.
The compromise preserves Core 150, versions of which will appear in several core
categories. In this faculty member’s view, Core 150 is a “truly
interdisciplinary course,” which encourages “breadth of knowledge,” and has been
well-received by his students.
d. Each member of Faculty Council was given three minutes to comment on C & T’s
Core proposal. What follows is a list of the unfavorable and favorable remarks,
in no particular order. The unfavorable remarks were that the proposal provides
“too much choice” without having an adequate “plan of learning,” permits
business-minded students an opportunity to “skirt” key Humanities courses in the
Core, marginalizes American History, will create significant advising
difficulties, does not provide for the hiring of the necessary faculty to teach
courses in the Arts category, “gives over” too much to the “150 folk,” permits
overly narrow courses (such as “Aging in America”) in the Core, and fails to
“take seriously many objections raised by the faculty vote last spring.” The
favorable remarks were that the proposal is “an improvement over the previous
core,” provides a “workable solution for professional programs that have to meet
outside accreditation requirements,” satisfies the concerns raised by the Social
Science Division, includes a “real place” for the arts, and preserves the
Catholic liberal arts tradition by making room for two theology and two
philosophy courses.
e. In open discussion, members of Faculty Council and guests discussed whether
(some, many) business courses are interdisciplinary, and whether, if so, this
means that business-minded students who take “International Business” and/or
“Macro Economics” in the proposed Core will really be “skirting” traditional
liberal arts requirements (e.g., American History, American Government) by
taking overly specialized or professionally oriented courses. Several members of
Faculty Council stressed that, if the Core proposal passes, it will be necessary
to review the academic advisement process.
f. The new Core proposal went to vote and passed by a count of 8-3.
g. Faculty Council approved a motion to publicly thank, for all of their hard
work, the relevant chairs of C&T, previous and current: Trent Snider, Jennifer
McClinton-Temple, and Brian Pavlac.
The meeting adjourned at 2:49 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Regan Lance Reitsma