Official EPC Meeting Minutes 2008-09

EPC meeting minutes are posted as soon as possible, after having been officially approved, which takes at least one week.

In Attendance
Faculty: Kenneth Hoffman (NS), Rachel Rubinstein (HACU), Donna Cohn (IA), Jane Couperus (CS), Students: Dillon Compton  (CS), Marissa Baker-Wagner (NS), Peter Graham, (HACU) Ananda Valenzuela (SS), Ursula Strauss (IA), Julia Partington (at large)

Dean of Faculty, Aaron Berman; Director of Central Records, Bobbie Stuart Unable to attend: Dean of Advising, Eva Rueschman; Dean of Natural Science, Chris Jarvis; Berna Turam (SS)

Facilitator: Professor Ken Hoffman

Minutes prepared by: Jean Sepanski

Agenda
1.	Approval of Minutes from 10/28/2008 2.	Reports LOGO update 3. Planning for the November 18 small group meetings Review the 11/4 Report to the Faculty on the most recent small group meetings.

Distribution: Are we ready to try specific proposals on the faculty regarding the original Motion 3? There are potentially three parts to the discussion: a. The “Four Things:” I think we are going ahead with this general structure for the distribution requirement. It would be good to come up with several possible models for the groups to discuss and modify. There are a couple of general types that have been proposed: 1. Specify four areas by discipline (Arts, Social Science, etc.) or 2. Specify four areas by mode of inquiry or general focus of study (e.g., the physical world, social/political world, created world, the human mind). In either case, it would be good to have some data on the actual faculty resources we might bring to bear under different organizational schemes. b. Whatever the categories, who decides what counts? Our original proposal said that the faculty member alone did, but there have a number of faculty have expressed concern that there needs to be some broader oversight, such as the school curriculum committees, the deans’ table, or a new College-wide curriculum committee. Do we have a proposal to suggest? c. How much flexibility should the advisor have in authorizing other kinds of activities as acceptable substitutes for 100-level courses?

Another issue we need to resolve: Do we want to re-shuffle the faculty into all new groups, or do we want to respect the request of some groups to continue?

Learning Goals: Is there any aspect of this we feel ready to follow up on next week, or would this be too much?

Continuing Items 6. Some calendar questions – continued Bobbie has some calendar-related issues that need to address fairly promptly. Details were distributed at our last meeting. No action needed today, but we need to make space for this discussion this semester. 7. The rest of the semester Do we feel it’s still realistic to aspire to bringing a formal motion of some sort to the December faculty meeting. 8. Spring agenda If there is time, it might be helpful to consider the topics we might want to address next semester – 7 vs. 8 courses for Division I? Projects in Div. I? The role of the advisor? Div. I contracts? Portfolio assessment? 9. Confidentiality of EPC documents and discussions Are all EPC minutes, reports, etc. presumed to be in the public domain unless specifically stated otherwise? Last year, I believe, we endorsed this policy and discussed ways of making EPC material more readily available. Many items are now available on Hampedia. Hampedia also says that our meetings are open for observation, but not for participation (unless guests are invited to speak). Do these policies conform to the current group’s understanding?

Reports
The LOGO Task Force garnered some resources and support from IT for LOGO, with the goal of implementing course evaluations for next fall. EPC students are working on a draft of the forms, and we have preliminary approval from STAR for their staff to manage the “vetting” process of the results. The link will be behind the intranet, not on The Hub.

Wabash Task Force will disseminate its report in week or two with a general release early in December.

Calendar Committee is meeting on 11/18 with Student Affairs and Financial Aid to discuss Jan term and the UMass for 2010 through 2012.

The financial crisis is affecting everyone. UMass announced hiring freeze that may impact us by their being fewer seats for our students at UMass.

Meeting Notes
11/18 meeting	We discussed what kinds of questions should be addressed and whether it was valuable to present back to the faculty two or three things they could work with. We decided to keep the groups from the last meeting, except for group five, whose members would be absorbed into the other five groups. We reaffirmed that the EPC members would once again be the moderators.

An underlying goal for us is to create in Div I an experience more closely mirroring what is expected in Div II by engaging students in conversations about their program. Some of the possible models for the distribution requirement are creating four entirely new areas, not school based; not making distribution mandatory; focusing on learning goals; separating curriculum courses in Div I, so they are not tied in with schools at all

The members agreed that those who could do so would meet in the WLH at 3 o'clock on Tuesday to go over tactics and strategies.

In Attendance
Faculty: Kenneth Hoffman (NS), Rachel Rubinstein (HACU), Donna Cohn (IA) Students: Julia Partington (at large), Dillon Compton (CS), Marissa Baker-Wagner (NS)

Dean of Faculty, Aaron Berman; Dean of Advising, Eva Rueschmann; Dean of Natural Science, Chris Jarvis; Director of Central Records, Bobbie Stuart.

Visiting: Student Sean Harper (NS)

Unable to attend: Peter Graham, Ananda Valenzuela, Jane Couperus, Annie Rogers

Chair: Ken Hoffman

Minutes taken by: Jean Sepanski

Agenda
1. Approval of minutes 2. Reports 3. Division I

* Do we want to organize some more small group discussions for the faculty? If so, when, and what question would we like them to address? * What do we want to say at the next faculty meeting on 10/7?

4. LOGO Task Force Discussion

Approval of Minutes
Minutes of the 5/5/08 meeting were approved.

Reports
Donna Cohn has been added to the Logo committee.

LOGO Task Force Report Discussion
Bobbie Stuart and Dillon Compton reported that the LOGO Task Force met on 9/22 and was waiting for a faculty member at large to join. They summarized the history of the original LOGO system and distributed an example of old LOGO evaluation. They explained what needed to happen to start a new LOGO, namely, funding for initial start-up costs, strong IT support for programming, and a home to sustain it. The primary goal is to have it be a resource for students to help them decide on courses.

The old LOGO was supported by EPC. What kind of support should EPC provide now? One reason for going through EPC originally was to make faculty comfortable with the process. Among the questions raised were what does it means to have it “student run;” should there be an overview committee; what has been the experience of the Amherst system and what problems have they encountered; and would need faculty meeting approval.

The Task Force intends to continue exploration of what financial/time commitment would be involved and providing an outline for all schools asking for input, so that faculty could raise their concerns.

Division I
Committee read over the Summary of what five groups said last May.

We will ask for twenty minutes in the October faculty meeting to present the summary of last May’s small group meetings and suggest two more extra small-group faculty meetings – one in October and one in November. These sessions would be more focused than last year’s, and we need to develop specific topics for the small groups to explore – e.g., increasing flexibility in Division I, developing ways to ensure that students have a broad range of explorations that is more sustainable given our resources than the current “one course from each school” model, looking at other ways of incorporating the learning goals into the first year program.

Revisited Div I questions from last year:


 * Should distribution requirements be divorced from schools?
 * How can we make the learning goals more integral, less of a check-off?
 * While there seems to be broad support for the general idea of a distribution requirement, there are quite different conceptions of what it should do. Are students being held to different standards?
 * How to structure a new Div I system to sustain Div II and III courses.
 * Why is it that there are courses on similar subjects taught in different schools that “count” for different distribution requirements? Should we be encouraging more jointly taught interdisciplinary courses?
 * There was a concern about content and curriculum issues and that perhaps a curriculum committee is needed, to have ongoing oversight of many of these issues.

Before our next meeting, Committee members should look at the recommendations from our reports to the faculty last year to develop possible questions for the next two small-group meetings and to think about what we might propose to the faculty for a schedule this fall.

It was also recommended that EPC members give a short weekly report to their schools about our discussions to give them a sense of how the discussions are proceeding.

In Attendance
Faculty: Kenneth Hoffman (NS), Rachel Rubinstein (HACU), Annie Rogers (SS), Jane Couperus (CS)

Students: Julia Partington (at large), Ananda Valenzuela (SS), Dillon Compton (CS), Peter Graham (HACU), Marissa Baker-Wagner (NS)

Dean of Faculty, Aaron Berman; Dean of Advising, Eva Rueschmann; Dean of Natural Science, Chris Jarvis; Director of Central Records, Bobbie Stuart.

Unable to attend: Visiting Assistant Professor Donna Cohn (IA)

Facilitator: Professor Ken Hoffman

Minutes taken by: Jean Sepanski

Agenda
1. Introductions 2. Choose a chair for the coming year 3. Report on Wabash Committee 4. Division I

What we want to accomplish this semester How we want to accomplish it      Rough timetable

Approval of Minutes
Meeting called at 3:40. Minutes of May 5th meeting to be approved 9/23.

Introductions
New committee members were introduced.

Choose a Chair
Overview of responsibilities of the chair. Kenneth Hoffman will assume chairmanship for this academic year.

Report on Wabash Committee
Co-chair of the Wabash committee, Annie Rogers, gave an update. Concern was raised about the overlap between EPC and the Wabash Committee. Wabash differs from EPC in that their members include alums and cabinet members, and its scope goes beyond Div I and II’s and education policies; issues around community and student affairs.

The Wabash Committee has access to more detailed data than were originally summarized for Hampshire. They will be having a weekend retreat on October 16th and 17th out of which they will be issuing a report and making recommendations to appropriate governance committees.

Other Reports
Deans this summer focused collectively on number of issues at school level. Would like every faculty member to visit another faculty’s class. Schools are organizing now (visit within own school). Deans are reading all Div. I, II and III evals wanting to make sure they are informative and substantial. May in fact be easier to write evaluations if we organize eval writing support groups.

In terms of academic policy no big changes over summer The administrative anti racism plan may have some connection to EPC, i.e. admissions audit this fall; hiring Dean of Multicultural Education. In response to accreditation, Ralph mentioned in his welcoming letter the amount of time for reappointment meetings and that Marian MacCurdy, Special Projects Assistant to the President, will be working trying to engage faculty around effective governance issues and the reappointment process.

The community-based learning initiative was implemented this year. We need to encourage student and faculty to have the activity be a core part of any Div II, emphasizing collative learning accompanied by a reflective piece.

Hampshire has received a Mellon Language Grant for $738,000, to increase the opportunities for students to study languages in the classroom and independently. It will also support faculty in developing interesting courses that use language as a tool. There is a current search for a Language Coordinator.

Division I
EPC got faculty to talk about Div I in small groups last April. Since the schools are so different, the faculty as a whole need to have a good understanding of the different issues schools are wrestling with. It would be helpful to have a couple more of small group faculty meetings this semester.

It was proposed that we create an on-line forum with topics on specific issues working in tandem with EPC. A point was made to change the pattern EPC goes through of when an issue is presented to faculty time runs out and the same discussion is held again and again. Remedy might include going to a website discussions with faculty.

Ananda will compile a list of relevant documents to be sent out to all members of the Committee. Ken will compile the reports from the faculty small group discussions last April and send them out.

At our next meeting we will work out a plan for reporting to the faculty and engaging them in a more effective consideration of the issues and options surrounding Division I than there was time for last year. We should have a proposal ready for the faculty in December.

Other Business
Calendar: Committee needs to do a three-year calendar. We need to consider religious holidays, the impact of Umass’s earlier start to the spring semester, and advising days. A subcommittee (Bobbie, Ananada, Rachel) will meet and in October will lay out the issues to EPC. Needs to be approved in faculty meeting by early Spring at least for next year’s calendar.

Teaching Evaluations: NEASC noted concerns about student evaluations of faculty teaching. At present, these are the property of the faculty, and there is no opportunity to use them as diagnostic tools for the overall improvement of teaching. Deans don’t have access to the evaluations. If EPC wants to address this we could bring to the faculty that we want to reconsider how evals are done and used. Deans as well as the President and the trustees would also like this addressed. Aaron will see if he can locate the faculty minutes of the discussion of the use of teaching evaluations leading up to the present policy. Schools can vote on Deans seeing evals (as is done in CS).

Open Online Course Review: Last April 22, we set up a task force (Aaron, Bobbie, Dillon, Ananda, Julia) to set up a LOGO-style system online for student evaluation of courses, similar to a system recently established at Amherst. This task force will meet next week to see where things stand.