Minutes
Faculty Assembly, School of Liberal Arts2:00–4:00pm Friday, September 9, 2016, LE 100
Anton, M.; Banerjee, A.; Barrows, R.; Beckman, E.; Bein, F.; Bell, L.; Bertrand, D.; Bivin, D.; Bjork, U.; Bomke, A.; Brant, H.; Cabrera Castro, T.; Carstensen, T.; Champion-Shaw, C.; Cohen, M.; Coleman, M.; Craig, D.; Cramer, K.; Curtis IV, E.; Davis, T.; De Tienne, A.; Ferguson, M.; Foote, C.; Friesen, A.; Goff, P.; Goldfarb, N.; Gondola, C.; Grossmann, C.; Guiliano, J.; Haberski, R.; Harrell, S.; Hyatt, S.; Jain, A.; Jettpace, L.; Jogi, S.; Karnick, K.; Kaufman- McKivigan, J.; Kryder-Reid, E.; Kubitschek, M.; Kuriyama, K.; Lamb, C.; Latham, K.; Laucella, P.; Lindseth, E.; Lovejoy, K.; Lulla, V.; Lyons, T.; Miller, L.; Moran, M.; Morgan, A.; Parrish- Sprowl, J.; Pike, L.; Polites, M.; Rebein, R.; Robertson, N.; Roesch, K.; Russell, S.; Saak, E.; Sandwina, R.; Schall, C.; Schneider, W..; Schultz, J.; Shaker, G.; Sheeler, K.; Shrum, R.; Steensland, B.; Strong, D.; Stump, S.; Thill, E.; Thuesen, P.; Upton, T.; Vincent, J.; Weeden, S.; Wheeler, R.; White, R.; White-Mills, K.; Wilson, J. J.; Wilson, J. S.; Wokeck, M.; Wood, E.
Guests: Conway, J.; Hamilton, E.; Hartsock, J.; Heard, D.; Heavrin, K.; Illg, M.; Julian, T.; Lankford, H.; McEvoy, T.; Millikan, E.; Rowe, S.; Safder, E.; Schmidt, L.; Schumerth, C.; Scott, M.; Smith, C.; Snyder, G.; Walters, S.; Watkins, L.
1. Call to order at 2:00 p.m. – John Parrish-Sprowl
2. Approval of the minutes from April 15, 2016
A motion was offered and seconded. The minutes were approved unanimously.
3. President's remarks— John Parrish-Sprowl
Asked the faculty to be proactive about encouraging colleagues to attend and to be a part of faculty governance.
Announced that because he is hearing impaired, he asked for patience in interactions with him during meetings.
4. David Heard, Director of Career Development Services in SLA
Heard opened by reintroducing faculty to the Career Development Services (CDS) office and he provided statistics on how graduating students are doing: a) 94% success rate b) 67% said they had a successful employment interview at around graduation. o What may seem a low percentage may have to do with some graduates not be looking for employment right away because of internships or other situations c) 42% indicated they were able to apply for major-related positions d) 66% know their career interests and goals.
Services of the Career Development Services office were reviewed. These include resume development, cover letter development, interviewing skills, steps to apply to graduate school, and other similar services.
Attending Career Development Services staff were introduced to those attending.
Faculty were encouraged to advertise the CDS office and to prompt the students to make contact with the office as soon as possible in their career planning.
Heard showed the faculty the CDS web site and indicated that faculty can log in and look at positions that are available for our students. In addition, the site breaks down the steps to graduation and it can be used to help students plan for graduation and a career afterward. Other information is available as well, including the kinds of skills that employers are looking for.
He closed by reminding faculty that CDS personnel can come into a class on days when faculty are absent to talk about CDS services.
Questions and discussion: o Question: Should students with internships be routed through his office? Answer: Yes, as much as possible. At minimum, data about how many have internships and where would be useful. The office can also help facilitate things for the internship. o Question: What is the 94% success rate based on? Answer: Based on students saying they are successful because of the help they received. o Question: Can you tell us how many actual responses you received that the 94% rate is based on? Answer: Yes, it is based on a 23% response rate among 118 students.
5. Edith Millikan, SLA Office of Research Administration (ORA)
Announced that a new series of workshops will occur for proposal development for externally funded research. The workshops will be designed to support career development, to help faculty begin actual proposals, and to invite interactions with faculty in other schools (particularly Herron and Informatics) and with the librarians.
A series of three presentations will occur in Fall 2016, each to be repeated in Spring of 2017.
The first workshop will focus on preliminary considerations, and it will be held on Sept. 29. Philip Goff, William Schneider, and Elee Wood will review the process of getting to know funders and will discuss engaging in the initial steps of creating a proposal.
The second workshop will focus on best practices for building a case for funding. Edith Millikan will discuss how the ORA can provide assistance, how they can work with important parts of any proposal, and what some of the mistakes can be in developing a proposal and how to avoid them.
The third workshop will focus on turning ideas into funding. This will be a hands-on workshop led by Jennifer Guiliano, who has considerable grant writing experience. Jennifer will lead attendees through key grant writing concepts, will help them to develop a one-page statement of significance, and will help them to engage with helpful online resources.
Questions and discussion: o Question: If workshops occur when people are teaching, will resources be made available online? Answer: Yes, but the plan is to hold these on Thursdays and Fridays. o Question: Are social scientists allowed to come too? Answer: Yes. The discussion may focus on humanities-oriented proposals, but the basic principles will be covered and these can apply to social scientists. o Question: Are staff allowed to attend as well? Answer: Yes. Targeted invitations will be used, but others may attend as well.
6. Introduction of new faculty and staff members – Tom Davis
The dean introduced the new faculty in the school, and he pointed out those who have changed roles in the school: a) [See the related PowerPoint at http://liberalarts.iupui.edu/fa/index.php/agenda/].
7. Dean's remarks: State of the School and Q&A—Tom Davis [See the related PowerPoint at http://liberalarts.iupui.edu/fa/index.php/agenda/]
The challenges: a) Finances—the school continues to be in the red. The amount of the deficit did come down over the last year. Davis anticipates a three- or four-year process to bring the deficit to zero. He explained that the greatest expense for the school is in supporting salaries. Upcoming retirements will help the school to save money. Income for liberal arts has dropped as credit hours have gone down, and recently, credit hours for liberal arts have gone down. For example, we have a 2.7% drop in majors, although there has been an upward trend in the number of freshmen. SLA does tend to trend higher on retention than the rest of the campus, which is a good trend. In general, 75% of the SLA credit hour income comes from 100-level and 200-level courses. Adding an extra course for tenure-line faculty has been a way to address the deficit. This difficult adjustment has led to a $200,000 budget savings. b) Staff reorganization—because of the deficit problem and in order to update the structure of the work flow, a staff reorganization process is occurring. Without the staff reorganization, no new hiring can occur. The process is difficult, but the school has the support from a new committee and the Human Resources office. The reorganization effort is happening across campus, and it aligns with national efforts to reconsider staff organization. c) Money from the school was not put into the travel account.
What we can celebrate: a) Promotions to Full Professor—Beth Goering (Communications), Sue Hyatt (Anthropology), Kim Lovejoy (English) b) Promotions to Associate Professor—Chad Carmichael (Philosophy), Andrea Jain (Religious Studies), Jaesoo Kim (Economics), Pam Laucella (Journalism and Public Relations), Jeremy Wilson (Anthropology) c) Promotions to Senior Lecturer—Amira Mashhour (World Languages and Culture) d) Trustees Teaching Award winners— [for more information, see the April 15, 2016 minutes] e) New degree programs—LAMP; six-year BA/JD; MA TESOL; PhD in American Studies f) Many accomplishments have occurred in research and creative activity, including that 74% who applied received internal awards. g) Civic engagement—as previous minutes show, a large group of community engagement initiatives are occurring in school-based projects. h) Students Rebecca Harris and Frank Gogola reported from the Summer Olympics. i) Students were able to use $295,000 in scholarships, to study abroad in particular. The dean reminded everyone that the university will match donations for scholarships. j) Staff—the dean acknowledged the hard work of the staff and asked the assembly to stand in appreciation. The faculty offered a standing ovation. k) Over $6 million dollars in grants and contracts were won (proposals were down, but award dollars were up). The dean then drew attention to the external award and internal award winners, of which there were many. [See the PowerPoint referenced above.] l) Fund raising—donations are above expectation. As a result, new scholarships have been created. The dean reminded the faculty that they can contribute using the attachment to the agenda seen on the Faculty Assembly web site.
Questions: No questions were asked.
8. Old business
None raised.
9. New business
None raised.
10. Announcements
Undergraduate Curriculum and Standards Committee – Eric Saak a) Saak announced that new course submissions should occur by noon on Sept. 30 so that they can be considered at the next UCSC meeting, which is on Oct. 6.
Dean Davis announced that he will be out for the next three weeks. Jeff Wilson will be handling immediate concerns.
Charmayne (Charli) Champion-Shaw, Director of the American Indian Programs at IUPUI, asked faculty to identify connections that occur within their courses to concerns of the American Indian Program, Africana Studies, and so on. They would like to coordinate with faculty.
Kristy Sheeler, Associate Dean for Academic and Graduate Programs, announced that any courses intended to be included in the undergraduate core need to be submitted to the Undergraduate Affairs Committee by its Nov. 30 meeting. Sheeler encouraged the group to submit new courses this year. a) Question: Can courses be added? Answer: They should be developed quickly to get through remonstrance process as soon as possible.
11. Motion to adjourn
Motion offered and seconded. Motion approved.
12. Adjournment
Adjournment occurred at 3:35.
Respectfully submitted by Scott Weeden
