Official EPC Meeting Minutes 2007-08

Unfortunately, this is by no means a full collection. However, they will hopefully give the reader a relatively good idea of what the EPC discussed in the Spring of 2008 (which is when most of these minutes are from).

In attendance
Dean of Advising Eva Rueschmann, Natural Professor of Mathematics Kenneth Hoffman (NS), Professor of Politics and Environmental Studies Robert Rakoff (SS), Visiting Assistant Professor of Applied Design Donna Cohn (IA), Visiting Assistant Professor of Jewish American Literature &amp; Culture Rachel Rubinstein, Assistant Professor of Philosophy Laura Sizer, (CS), Student Representative Julia Partington (at large), Bobbie Stuart, Director of Central Records, Dean of Faculty Aaron Berman, Student Representative Dillon Compton (CS)

Unable to attend:), Student Represent Jaimie Moody (NS), Student Representative Ananda Valenzuela (SS ),

Facilitator: Professor Bob Rakoff, Professor Ken Hoffman Minutes prepared by: Bobbie Stuart

Report for the next faculty meeting
We can point to areas of consensus on the results of the last meeting. Sketch out a plan for the fall to give

We looked at Laura Sizer’s notes, which include points that all of the groups had in common.

Discussed some items not in Laura’s notes: There also seemed to be a desire for both simplicity and excitement. Need to maintain Div I as a transition period after high school.

Desire for negotiation, build more effort into the portfolio, allow more leeway in portfolio, but ultimately have advisor and prospective Div II chair or another small group of faculty evaluate the portfolios. This would take the pressure off of faculty who are acting as supportive mentors, leaving that call to another group. CS also discussed this approach, and there was consensus among the CS faculty present. The review might look at core skills such as writing or quantitative, and there should be a way for dissenting members.

Discussions in one group of excitement centered around notion of independent work. Students should be engaged with, not exposed to certain goals.

Competence in writing differs across the disciplines, but simply having elegantly express themselves would indicate a basic competence in writing across the disciplines. This can become an issue for the Division II chair – one sort of writing – vs. what we expect of every students for basic competence.

The discussion of meeting distribution beyond the first year came up again, and should we have an outside evaluator look at this. Can we separate the desire to do this separate from the mechanics of how to accomplish it?

A goal like quantitative skills could be different for students depending on their eventual area of study. Does this call into question what Div I is? Do we actually have basic competencies required, or are we looking at what’s appropriate for the individual. Maybe the latter is the role of the Div II committee. We can have some elements that are geared toward the individual, but there are certain things all students have to do. This means we need an assumption that there’s a minimum standard.

If we’re awarding degrees, we should be able to assert a graduate is minimally competent in certain areas. We have general criteria, and then we have the advisor. It may be powerful to tell students that they not only have to convince a supportive advisor of their competence, but a group of other people.

What we have now is really not working, in part because putting a portfolio together is a formality with the huge consequence for the student’s education. Separating these competencies from completion of Div I allows students to then acquire additional skills. Marlboro has a model for demonstrating writing competence that can be demonstrated in first, second, or third semester. We can’t create a writing requirement that we can’t fulfill, if we can’t get students the support they need. We have to watch out for the stigma around recommending remedial writing for students. We could train all faculty to better support students in their writing skills.

There’s a general consensus that perhaps the old Div I was more exciting/challenging, but the new Div I swung too far in the other direction. Some groups talked about advisors engaging in personal discussion was very important, and that it should begin before semester begins with new students, and advise students on course selection.

Consensus
Projects; portfolio assessment as a process, not a project; challenge.

Does that make learning goals less important? They should be addressed and linked in the portfolio. Learning goals then form the basis for structuring the portfolio. Having advisor do this is at odds with the idea of external standards that we agree on and having committee review this. One idea is to add a prospective Div II advisor do this. We need to have a way to assist advisors who don’t have the skills to judge fulfillment of goals – the instructors of the courses satisfying requirements are obligated to do this in the evaluation rather than the check-off. This is a place where a structural change is required in writing evaluations. We do have to talk about this – especially in training all faculty to write good evaluations.

One group talked about being more creative with distribution through big, co-taught interdisciplinary courses. Courses could fulfill multiple distribution, though NS would express reservation. Large course breaking up into smaller modules. Concentrate distribution to make it easier to fulfill.

Can we achieve buy-in, so that all faculty agree this is the plan. How do we continue discussions. There seems to have some excitement in our various groups. How can we ensure that changes actually happen, regardless of what they are? If we can get buy-in, then the faculty will be more supportive as we continue. We used to have committees that looked at Div I and II, and we lost this when we move to TheHub.

This would expect faculty to come in early as advisor, change courses, change writing evals. Raising the bar = more work without resources. We have contradictions. We want students to have ownership, but we expect them to do certain things.

For at least some faculty, this could mean more effort in certain areas. Some faculty struggle with keeping up with the changing rules, chasing students for things. These things are draining.

Re-working courses in a collaborative setting can be exciting. But faculty need support in teaching and advising. Students talk about it being difficult to decipher the evaluations. They don’t know where they stand. Sometimes its actually hard to tell if a student has completed the work. Best practices for faculty would give students a clearer understanding of what faculty expect. Students could use guidance on writing self-evaluations, particular areas to discuss would be useful, who is the audience. The evaluations are not as hard to fix as we might think.

Can EPC use Laura’s memo as a first draft for the faculty conversation. The first three bullets may need to be rephrased, as they indicate how we’re shaping the students. Can we include students as agents in the process. There are changes the faculty will have to make.

Recurring themes (not universal perhaps) that many but not all groups came up with. There are competing analyses and values. There are different sets of students – some come with ideas on what they want to do; others struggle with the lack of goal posts.

Report themes we need to continue addressing. We need to tell them we’ll have more meetings to look at problems that EPC is facing. Separating distribution from first year or not; is it a school/course-based distribution or interdisciplinary? Interdisciplinarity is different from breadth. This could be a source of excitement for students. Learning goals vs. distribution. Should one of them be the extremes of core competency/basic skills vs. flexibility.

We can have written report working off of Laura’s draft.

In attendance
Dean of Advising Eva Rueschmann, Natural Professor of Mathematics Kenneth Hoffman (NS), Professor of Politics and Environmental Studies Robert Rakoff (SS), Visiting Assistant Professor of Applied Design Donna Cohn (IA), Visiting Assistant Professor of Jewish American Literature &amp; Culture Rachel Rubinstein, Student Representative Julia Partington (at large). Student Representative Ananda Valenzuela (SS ), Bobbie Stuart, Director of Central Records, Dean of Faculty Aaron Berman, Student Representative Dillon Compton (CS)

Unable to attend:), Student Represent Jaimie Moody (NS), Assistant Professor of Philosophy Laura Sizer, (CS)

Facilitator: Professor Bob Rakoff, Professor Ken Hoffman

Minutes prepared by: Bobbie Stuart

Meeting called at 3:40

Issues
We’re still missing HACU and IA student representatives. HACU had a discussion about whether or not to have first-year students, and decided to support having only 3rd semester and beyond students as members, and to recruit students more heavily. Perhaps tutorial faculty should talk about the possibilities for students to become school members. Numbers of student school members are limited to having voting members proportionate to the faculty in the respective schools.

Donna Cohn had a question about a 300-level HACU class counting for distribution. The policy is 100- or designated 200-level course, unless there is some error and then the deans may grant an exception to policy. Why is it not possible to get an exception in advance, and why do students who make mistakes get exceptions? Deans generally look at whether or not the work students have done in the course fulfills any of the goals of Div Is. We continue to need a college-wide conversation about 100-level courses.

Approval of minutes
From April 8, 2008 and April 15, 2008. Unanimously approved.

Discussion: Should we put EPEC courses as a link on TheHub?
How can we make clear what the courses can and can not be used for in Div I, II and III?

Can we do something to separate the OPRA courses away from TheHub? Or, should we have EPEC as part of online registration? Some OPRA classes are more academic in nature (like Experiential Ed). We need to have a disclaimer on the EPEC web site to clarify the role of EPEC courses/workshops. Should we look at what other colleges do? What sort of responsibility and rigor should be put on this program? EPEC has been working with ideas of flexibility rather than toward “regular” courses. EPEC courses may be included as part of a portfolio, but many faculty are unaware of what EPEC does. If we expand Division I, we can explore the possibility of having this be an acceptable part of Div I.

When students search for classes, unless the EPEC courses are there, having a link may not be useful. They are now advertising to get proposals for EPEC, so we could work on getting the courses up and available at the right time. Continuity will be an issue to make this something students can count on.

Do we need to report this to the faculty? No, it’s just a link on the web site. As long as there is a disclaimer about what these courses can count for, we should be fine.

Action item: Amanda will draft a disclaimer and circulate it before having it added to the EPEC web site. Bobbie will have the link added to TheHub.

Discussion: Open Online Class Review System
Action item: Create task force to investigate how to accomplish this. Task force must being to meet early in the fall. Members will include Aaron, Bobbie, Dillon, Ananda, Julia from EPC and will invite Carol Trosset.

Action item: Task force will try to meet next week so we can get this underway to be ready for fall. We will be investigating the possibility of running this out of STAR and using a work-study student. Implementation issue: will it be IT or will it be a student-run initiative? Once it’s up and running, it could probably be handled by one student, but to get this up and running, it could take several students. Can we check with Amherst to see if they will share their system? Do we include courses at other campuses in this? . We should make it password protected on the intranet, especially if we are considering adding student reviews of Five College courses to the mix.

Action item: Dillon will email a student he knows and ask about system

Discussion: Independent studies with flexible dates
Discussed the number of hours spent in these studies with flexible dates. We now have flexibility in what evals students include in their transcript, except for transfer students. In practice, there won’t be a lot of independent studies in the first year. What if independent studies last for more than a semester? Do we need to give equivalents? The proposal forms should make it clear how many hours of work and faculty contact are expected and whether or not the independent study is equivalent to a course.

When are evals due? We will need to add a disclaimer on transcripts about independent studies. Should it be in the description? Maybe we should distinguish between ind studies and evaluated learning activities, with the evaluated activities equivalent to less than a full semester of work? Bob is interested in having more flexibility for faculty in teaching courses with different start and end dates.

We need to bring this to the faculty as a proposal. It has a different educational function if we think outside of the semester. Can we try to finalize a proposal now? Can we set this up to be a learning activity vs. an independent study if the proposed activity is less than a full semester?

How do we move this forward?

Agreed
EPC will meet on May 6 to talk about special faculty meeting and some of these issues, like the EPEC and the open LOGO type evaluation. We can debrief the April 29th special faculty meeting and decide what we will report at the final faculty meeting of the semester.

Meeting adjourned 4:55 p.m.

In attendance
Dean of Advising Eva Rueschmann, Natural Professor of Mathematics Kenneth Hoffman (NS), Professor of Politics and Environmental Studies Robert Rakoff (SS), Visiting Assistant Professor of Applied Design Donna Cohn (IA), Visiting Assistant Professor of Jewish American Literature &amp; Culture Rachel Rubinstein, Assistant Student Representative Julia Partington (at large). Student Representative Ananda Valenzuela (SS ),Student Represent Jaimie Moody (NS), Bobbie Stuart, Director of Central Records, Professor of Philosophy Laura Sizer, (CS), Dean of Faculty Aaron Berman

Unable to attend: Student Representative Dillon Compton (CS),

Facilitator: Professor Bob Rakoff, Professor Ken Hoffman

Minutes prepared by: Bobbie Stuart

Meeting called at 3:35

Approval of minutes from April 8, 2008
Tabled until next time. Amendments to minutes: Laura Sizer is not continuing; Jamie Moody is continuing. Students do not agree that tutorials and courses are the same.

Discussion of questions for April 29, 2008 Special Faculty meeting
Bob Rakoff indicated that ECF knows we would like to revise the format.

Discussion of ideas for questions

What are the goals and aims of Division I?

What are the respective purposes of the learning goals and the distribution requirement?

How can we make Division I more exciting, ownership/independence?

Where does addressing the issue of challenge from Wabash fits in?

How can we balance the call for challenge/rigor and flexibility?

How are we going to structure the conversations in the fall? We should tell the faculty how these questions will incorporate into these discussions. These will be continuing discussions, and the April 29 meeting is just the first of the discussions in response to the faculty concerns that the November EPC proposal EPC was perceived as being presented without sufficient prior faculty discussion.

These questions listed above apply equally to faculty and students, especially since we're interested in creating a sense of excitement and ownership of Division I.

We have Div I because we think students aren’t ready to start Div II when they enter the college. Left to their own devices, will students come up with a program that exposes students to a wide variety of areas of study?

What skills do students need? Prep for Div II, work with faculty, collaborative work, independent study. Academic Skills, Liberal Arts Distribution.

Does this list of skills get at the excitement of Division? Div I should be seen as a period of exploration, a time to identify student interests and to meet appropriate faculty to work with in the areas of interest.

Bob Rakoff will add some context to the questions we present for discussion, so faculty don’t feel like the questions are coming out of left field. But, we need to ask questions that generate something other than predictable responses. Overall, there’s a sense we should have distribution, but there’s an uneasy relationship between this and student independence.

How can we incorporate a sense of independence and ownership and still meet the stated goals of Div I within the context of limited resources? Are these two things actually one of the goals of Div I? Students seem to be unhappy with content of courses. Perhaps it’s the alignment of students with courses. We don’t have a curricular vision for Div I.

There’s a tension that exists: How can we focus our attention on the students who are ready to move on to Div I vs. students who are meeting only the minimum requirements? How do we get at the thorny questions, such as a student who has four terrible evals: does the advisor have the ability to say this student is not ready to move on, even though she may technically have four completed courses?

We need to give students something to be excited about.

Things to incorporate into the background for the faculty questions: preparation for Div II ( identify interests and faculty, collaborative work, independent study) – Academic Skills – Liberal Arts distribution&gt;

We should attach our report from November summarizing Wabash report; and possibly the NEASC report to the questions we submit.

We should ask these questions of all groups.

Questions for initial faculty discussions
1. What are the goals and aims of Division I?

2. How can we better incorporate independence and ownership into the Division I experience?

For the next round of discussions, we’ll have specific questions about more specific proposals.

What counts a successful completion? What are the standards?

What are our expectations for student accomplishment?

Discussion of proposals that we might implement easily
Ananda presented, in collaboration with Re-radicalization of Hampshire the attached, with some ideas for things that might be easy to implement.

Suggestion # 1: Student evaluation of faculty and courses
At the start of the meeting, we looked quickly at the model Amherst College uses, www.amherst.edu/~Scrutiny. This system may not be well utilized recently. But, if we made it part of the self-evaluation process that students had to complete it and is required, we’d get better results.

The goal of the Amherst system is to give students a way to select classes, not a “bitching” session about the faculty. There has to be a sense of responsibility. Is there a screening mechanism?

What is the standing of this system regarding the reappointment process? Could candidates include this in the file? How can we guard against this system deteriorating into rants about faculty like RateMyProfessor.com? Does it need to be developed as part of the existing system? The fact that the current system goes directly to faculty is unusual, and maybe needs to be changed. Will our current evaluation system, which is not available to all and is anonymous, go online?

We should put together a task force to figure out how this would work? Task force should include DoF representatives, STAR student representatives, Carol Trosset. Ananda and Julia are interested, Bobbie. We need HubCaps.

We also have a need for evaluation of advisors. We should invite Carol Trosset to present results from last year’s survey.

Suggestion #2: Linking EPEC courses on TheHub
EPEC courses don’t count for Div I or Div III, but they can be incorporated into Div II. Students do not register for EPEC courses, but may use them in portfolios. The current EPEC coordinator is a work-study student, but under the Student Leadership auspices.

If we do create this link, the EPEC web site information must be clearly vetted.

Agenda items for next meeting
We will continue EPEC discussion next week. Bobbie will check into where it could link.

We will also discuss issues of flexible dates for independent studies, and perhaps more.

Meeting adjourned 4:56 p.m.

Attending
Dean of Advising Eva Rueschmann, Natural Professor of Mathematics Kenneth Hoffman (NS), Professor of Politics and Environmental Studies Robert Rakoff (SS), Visiting Assistant Professor of Applied Design Donna Cohn (IA), Visiting Assistant Professor of Jewish American Literature &amp; Culture Rachel Rubinstein, Assistant Professor of Philosophy Laura Sizer, (CS), Student Representative Julia Partington (at large). Student Representative Ananda Valenzuela (SS). Student Representative Dillon Compton (CS), Bobbie Stuart, Director of Central Records

Unable to attend Dean of Faculty Aaron Berman, Student Represent Jaimie Moody (NS) Facilitator Professor Bob Rakoff, Professor Ken Hoffman Minutes prepared by Joyce Dorow

Approval of Minutes
Meeting called at 3:30. Minutes from April 1, 2008 approved.

Agenda
Finalize questions for next faculty meeting.

Discuss short-term changes to Division I.

Project Discussion
Discussions of charging a summer group with the issues discussed in EPC.

The following faculty and students will continue on with in the Fall: Donna Cohen, Ken Hoffman, students will continue. Student Representative Julia Partington (at large). Student Representative Ananda Valenzuela (SS). Student Representative Dillon Compton (CS). Student representative Jaime Moody (NS)

EPC discussed the idea of continuing the responses from the faculty and trying to address the concerns of the questions raised. A proposal was made to take the working group during the summer, and to take the reports from the sub groups and pull together some suggestions to start with in the fall or waiting till the fall. There were mixed feelings because the students would not be available and the availability of the faculty.

The President is asking that the governance bodies to become stronger and having decisions and proposals coming from the governance committees. This would charge the President with the decision to streamline the recommendation and take to the faculty or reject it back to the committee. By having the President make this final decision to take to the faculty for vote and no further discussions would be addressed at the faculty meeting just the vote.

EPC would like to define the groups and the goals of the EPC report. There has to be a structure for 2 questions instead of 6 to make clarity and definitions.

Questions
What are our goals, what are what the faculty decisions and why?

What are the goals of Division 1, distribution/skills, learning goals, roles of the advisor, common goals, and student experience?

Students questioned if there really was a difference between tutorials and other 100-level classes. In discussion, we confirmed that the tutorials were a successful component of Division I because of the advising relationship.

First year is important to lay the foundation (learning goals) for students to get to Division II and Division III. Learning goals should be balanced across schools, prior proposals showed that the portfolio had to address the learning goals; every portfolio needs to have meaning.

Next meeting, go back and look at the November report and Bob Rakoff will give ECF new questions. The next meeting EPC can look at short-term items that can be addressed.

Summary
EPC met and talked at length about the kinds of questions we should ask small faculty groups to discuss at a special meeting. We think that we should pose 1 or 2 broad questions to each group -- that this would give us better guidance on the direction the faculty wants us to proceed as we try to reform Division I. The questions will be based on the questions we originally posed in our report of last November. Our plan is to draw up the final wording in the first 15 minutes of our April 15 meeting and send them to you immediately. Our understanding is that any new faculty meeting won't take place before April 22, so this should give you plenty of time to prepare an agenda.

Update: The next faculty meeting is Tuesday, April 29, 2008 at 3:30 p.m.

Adjourned at 5:00 PM.

Next meeting
Tuesday, April 15, 2008, CSC 121

Attending
Dean of Faculty Aaron Berman, Dean of Advising Eva Rueschmann, Dean of Natural Science, Chris Jarvis, Professor of Politics and Environmental Studies, Professor Robert Rakoff (SS), Visiting Assistant Professor of Applied Design Donna Cohn (IA), Assistant Professor of Philosophy Laura Sizer, (CS), Director of Central Records, Bobbie Stuart

Student Representative Julia Partington (at large),

Student Representative Jamie Moody (NS),

Student Representative Ananda Valenzuela (SS)

Unable to attend Natural Professor of Mathematics Kenneth Hoffman (NS), Visiting Assistant Professor of Jewish American Literature &amp; Culture Rachel Rubinstein (HACU)

Facilitator: Professor Bob Rakoff Minutes by: Joyce Dorow

Agenda
Approval of minutes from 3-11-2008

Correction from the March 1, 2008 Minutes: Student Representative Julia Partington did not attend the March 11, 2008 EPC meeting.

EPC will discuss Division I workload issues directly and discuss two possible proposals: Reduce the number of courses, from 8 to 7 for students to do Division I and reduce the number of courses to give tutorial teachers/advisers a one-course release. The average numbers of student seats are roughly 400.

Faculty Discussions
Since the outcome of the last faculty discussions proved inconclusive, both committees agreed that the EPC would need to be clear about the process of Division 1. It is evident that Division 1 does not have it’s own identity right now. There is a need to look at the prerequisites, look at the academics; there are several ways this could happen. Larry Winship’s spread sheets are here to help us estimate the consequences.

• This meeting will determine if this is feasible and how and if it can work.

• Schools are counting their classes to see if this will be feasible.

• There are a lot of variables. The amount of time in class may be longer.

• The question would be 4 or 5 schools that would change the numbers and workload.

• Portfolio assessments would be very important.

• Faculty learning goals are to be evaluated within the course.

• Policy needs to change before the Hub and courses changes. The Hub needs to be changed, if Division I changes.

• Question raised; If EPEC courses would relieve this demand would it be feasible? Answer: If there are new courses the faculty must approve them.

• Reappointment and Promotion was brought up about the number of courses that the faculty must teach.

• Need to evaluate Advising (CASA), they don’t want (implementation or evaluation) make faculty aware of these policies to improve the standards of achievements.

• In Division 1, if the faculty member and the student approve the evaluated learning activity, would it count?

• We need to follow what the auditors are looking at in accreditation.

• The school of NS is different in Division I and Division II from other schools.

To be presented at the April 1 faculty meeting
• There will be 2 questions at the faculty meeting. The meeting that will consist of roughly 8 groups of 10 faculty from each school, Deans, ECF members and from each school there will be school members and ECF student members.

• 45 minutes for bullets reports

• There will be one person per group to take minutes and report in each group.

Next meeting
We will meet from 3:30 to 5:00 in CSC 121 on April 8, 2008.

Attending
Dean of Faculty Aaron Berman, Dean of Advising Eva Rueschmann, Natural Professor of Mathematics Kenneth Hoffman (NS), Dean of Natural Science, Chris Jarvis, Professor of Politics and Environmental Studies Robert Rakoff (SS), Visiting Assistant Professor of Applied Design Donna Cohn (IA), Visiting Assistant Professor of Jewish American Literature &amp; Culture Rachel Rubinstein, Assistant Professor of Philosophy Laura Sizer, (CS), Student Representative Julia Partington (at large),

Student Representative Jamie Moody (NS),

Student Representative Ananda Valenzuela (SS).

ECF members: Professor of Botany Larry Winship (NS), Professor of Communications Jim Miller (CS); Professor of Humanities Bob Meagher (HACU); Associate Professor of Anthropology Michelle Bigenho (SS);

Outside student observer: Diana Feves

Unable to attend Director of Central Records, Bobbie Stuart, Facilitator Bob Rakoff and Ken Hoffman Minutes prepared by Jean Sepanski

Agenda
EPC will meet jointly with the Executive Committee of the Faculty (ECF) to review the March 4 faculty meeting and plan for a discussion of the goals of Division I at the April 1 faculty meeting. We will meet from 3:30 to 5:00 in EDH 2.

Discussion
Facilitators Bob and Ken gave a brief overview to the ECF members of the EPC committee’s recent dialogues and proposals, this academic year’s EPC meeting history regarding Div I, and went over the motions presented at the March 3rd faculty meeting. They discussed the issue of whether to vote on the motions before the year’s end. But most of the meeting was spent determining what kind of questions to ask and the best way to present them to the faculty at the next faculty meeting.

Since the outcome of the first faculty discussions proved inconclusive, both committees agreed that the ECF committee would select four or five faculty groups of around 15 people, email them a specific question before the April 1st meeting and remind them that the Wabash and NEASC studies are available online. Then, at the April 1st faculty meeting it is the hope of this committee that these each of these groups will come to a consensus on their question. It was agreed that an EPC student would be involved with each group.

Questions to be presented at the April 1st faculty meeting
1) What are the respective purposes of the learning goals and the distribution requirement? How are they related to each other? Could (or should) one be incorporated into the other?

2) How can Division I best prepare students for Division II?

3) What should the role of the Division I advisor be?

4) What should the role of 100-level courses be in the first year program?

5) How can we best respond to students' desire for more flexibility in designing and completing Division I?

6) How can we better assure academic engagement in the first year? What would make Division I more exciting for students?

A motion was made to wait until the next meeting to approve the February 26th minutes. Meeting was adjourned at 4:52 PM

Next meeting: March 25th at 3:30 – 5:00 PM in the Cole Science Center, Room 121.

Attending
Dean of Faculty Aaron Berman, Dean of Advising Eva Rueschmann, Natural Professor of Mathematics Kenneth Hoffman (NS), Professor of Politics and Environmental Studies Robert Rakoff (SS), Visiting Assistant Professor of Applied Design Donna Cohn (IA), Visiting Assistant Professor of Jewish American Literature &amp; Culture Rachel Rubinstein, Assistant Professor of Philosophy Laura Sizer, (CS), Student Representative Julia Partington (at large). Student Representative Jaimie Moody (NS), Student Representative Ananda Valenzuela (SS).

Unable to attend Director of Central Records, Bobbie Stuart, Dean of Natural Science, Chris Jarvis Facilitator Bob Rakoff Minutes prepared by Jean Sepanski

Agenda
4 minutes 1. Approval of minutes from 2/19.2008

20 minutes 2. Draft of Report to Faculty: We will need to send out a report to the faculty promptly. To focus our consideration of this a draft of such a report will be sent around later today. We will need a subcommittee to prepare the final report in the next 24 hours. The suggestion is to keep it relatively terse, referencing our November report for background. The November report and the ReRad Proposal would also be sent out.

20 minutes 3. Project Discussion: How do we provide for more substantial independent project work? Should projects be specifically localized in the Tutorial, or should we try to strengthen the project aspect of all 100-level courses? Please read the ReRad proposal on this subject.

20 minutes 4. Distribution: We seem to be moving to decoupling the course distribution requirement from the Schools, with work needing to be done in each of four general areas. For discussion, here is Bill Brayton’s division

I. Arts (Visual and Performing Arts, Design and Creative Writing)

II. Social Sciences

III. Natural and Cognitive Sciences

IV Humanities, Cultural Studies and Language Study

There are a number of loose ends here that we need to nail down before we can bring this to the faculty.

15 minutes 5. Role of the Advisor: Let’s revisit this to make sure we’ve said what we mean, since this is likely to be scrutinized for work-load implications.

Approval of Minutes
Meeting called at 3:40. Minutes approved.

Draft of Report to Faculty
Ken drafted an outline of a report for the faculty meeting. First part refers readers to a December previous report and RERAD. First couple of pages outline some main considerations, laying context with specific recommendations. Proposal 1: First concern is what we agree on. Helpful to say what goals unite Div I, II, and III. Review contract start dates. If Div I will be more of a contract or proposal, faculty will need to come earlier during orientation. Talked about Div I students’ tutorials starting a week earlier, with entering students meeting the Thursday or Friday before classes start to have individual meetings and build relationships with advisors/and/or faculty. Want to revisit at the next meeting the fact that Div II students are not allowed to register for Div I classes right now. Discussed the effectiveness of common readings and the possibility of a contract tutorial students would generate over the summer.

Proposal 2: Reaffirm and strengthen learning goals to follow student in all Divisions. Since not all facuty are experts in all learning goals there is an array of writing styles from advisors. The question was raised how can faculty evaluate quantitative work if it not their specialty. Suggestion was made for EPC to set standards (including clear statements and consequences) for evaluations since right now there are no guidelines.

Project Discussion
Proposal 3: Is closer to Rerad structure. Left vague under current system, for now this committee will just adjust parameters of this proposal.

Talked about mentored independent study needing more structure and support. Since it is so hard for students to find a faculty member for independent study need to emphasize to faculty their role is as an advisor and not experts in the field. Focus for mentored independent study should be on process. with clear consequences for the student.

IT was suggested that there should be requirements for Div III readiness.

Summary
Revise draft report via email ready for ECF on Friday, February 29th. Adjourned at 5:00 PM.

Present an EPC Division I Report at Faculty Meeting on March 4th.

Next meeting: Joint Meeting with ECF,Tuesday, March 11, 2008, EDH 2.

Attending
Dean of Faculty Aaron Berman, Dean of Advising Eva Rueschmann, Natural Professor of Mathematics Kenneth Hoffman (NS), Professor of Politics and Environmental Studies Robert Rakoff (SS), Visiting Assistant Professor of Applied Design Donna Cohn (IA), Visiting Assistant Professor of Jewish American Literature &amp; Culture Rachel Rubenstein, Associate Professor of Psychology and Childhood Studies Rachel Conrad, Director of Central Records, Bobbie Stuart, Dean of Natural Science, Chris Jarvis, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Laura Sizer (CS).

Student Representative Julia Partington (at large). Student Representative Jaimie Moody (NS), Student Representative Ananda Valenzuela (SS).


 * Facilitators: Ken Hoffman and Bob Rakeoff


 * Minutes prepared by Jean Sepanski

Agenda
4 minutes 1. Approval of minutes from 1/29 and 2/12

10 minutes 2. Academic Calendar The main issue that came up last time concerned our policy regarding making certain religious holidays no-class days. This is especially problematic next fall, when Yom Kippur falls on the Thursday before the beginning of October Break, potentially leading to a potential de facto 6-day weekend rather than the usual 4-day one.

Division I Discussion The rest of the meeting will continue the discussion of proposals we will bring to the March Faculty Meeting. Last time we seemed to agree on the following general guidelines:

A. We want to increase the opportunities for substantial self-initiated student projects.

B. We want to increase the importance of advisor/advisee discussions in shaping a student’s Division I program.

C. We want to provide greater flexibility in the design of a student’s program. A number of possibilities for this have been raised – making it easier to use 200 level courses, independent projects, etc. – but we have not agreed on the details.

D. We are in favor of distribution requirements, but these should be phrased in terms of general areas, rather than schools. There seemed to be a general sense that we wanted to go with 4 areas, though we still need to agree on the specific of what those 4 might be.

For tomorrow, let’s continue with the following. To focus the first two items, each is phrased as a specific proposal summarizing what seems to be a sense of some EPC members.

15 minutes 3. Learning Goals: Learning goals are to be used by the advisor and student as guidelines in shaping the student’s Division I program. The advisor will evaluate the student’s development in each of these areas in writing the final Division I evaluation. Faculty will consider these goals in designing their 100-level courses and, as an aid to the advisor and student, will continue to list the goals dealt with in each 100-level course. The learning goals will not be part of a check-off on TheHub.

30 minutes 4. Closure to Division I and Transition to Division II: Normal expectation will be that students complete Division I at the end of the second semester by assembling a portfolio of their work. Advisers will evaluate and pass at this time rather than in the 3rd or 4th semesters. Also during their second semester, prior to the spring registration period, students will write up a preliminary Division II contract and have discussions with appropriate faculty about courses to take during their third semester. A Division II contract would then be filed in their third semester. Question: Might there be cases where it would be appropriate for a student to file a Division II contract in the third semester, even though one distribution requirement had not been met?

30 minutes 5. Independent Project: How do we provide for more substantial independent project work? Should projects be specifically localized in the Tutorial, or should we try to strengthen the project aspect of all 100-level courses? Please read the ReRad proposal on this subject.

Hard questions still to be dealt with:

A. Do we want to reduce the number of evaluated activities from 8 to, say, 6?

B. How do we get the advisor more involved in a student’s activity choices for the first semester? Several ideas have come up, such as having faculty in contact with students over the summer, advising meetings during the orientation period, etc.

C. What kinds of activities “count?”

D. What is the difference between a 100- and a 200-level course, how important is it that students experience 100-level courses, and under what circumstances should a student start with a 200-level course? Who decides – advisor, instructor, or both?

Approval of Minutes
Minutes from January 29 and February 12 were approved.

Academic Calendar:
Approved the calendar as drafted, but will make a recommendation that we revisit the larger question of what religious holidays should be no-class days. Questions were raised about religious excused absences for staff, providing day care for college break times, and Yom Kippur.

Division I Discussion:
Committee was comfortable A, B, C, D, with the notion of decoupling distribution from schools, however, questioned the best way to organize curriculum. We did not fully discuss A. Noted that lowering the courses from eight to six raises the question of who decides which courses cover what areas.

Earliest change would be in the 09-10 academic year and some of the changes would need to be approved by the Board of Trustees as well as faculty. Aaron will look into this to see what kinds of changes the faculty can make without Trustee approval. Draft proposals are close to what EPC proposed at close of last year. It was strongly felt that proposals be ready next week for discussion at the school’s meetings. In light of this timeline, a more modest proposal and narrowing of scope was suggested.

Learning Goals
Talked about redefining and reinterpreting learning goals, how they would be framed (i.e. portfolio assessments), and having a set of questions posed by the advisor rather than a check-off list on The Hub. Some questions would include skill assessment. The idea of a Division I contract was acceptable to all.

The material difference in this proposal is the check-off boxes would be eliminated, requiring uniform portfolios and the course evaluations explicitly speak to goals. Success of this concept that ties into the Wabash study hinges upon fundamental changes in faculty culture, with faculty being deeply committed to all the learning goals and extremely detailed course evaluations.

Closure to Division I and Transition to Division II
Agreed that filing a preliminary Division II or at least a Statement of Interest at the end of the second semester would be good, especially for those students who have not filled their requirements.

Using that week after the end of classes for advisors could address issues to first year students was suggested, although there was a concern about packing too much at end of first year.

Reviewed the process of once passing Division I, the logistics and problems in getting an advisor and registering for classes in Division II. For pre-registration for the third semester, it is important for students to get to know faculty and obtain relevant advice before third semester begins. In the first week of classes in their third semester, students finishing Division I should be able to go around and talk to relevant faculty. At present, there is no structure encouraging students to get this kind of advice during the pre-registration period for the fall. Send first year students home anticipating what they are doing in fall and having conversations at end of school. (include readings).

Discussed portfolios deadlines and assessments, suggesting the week before the start of the third semester to do portfolio assessments. Separating out advising times at the end of the second semester and beginning of the third semester would be good. The calendar might have to be revised.

Division I portfolio process agreed to be important to most here. Adding two days to the beginning of the academic year would be appropriate for faculty either finishing the evaluations of their Division I students or for those involved in Orientation of a new group of entering students. We should explicitly plan on using the week after classes at the end of the second semester to help students prepare portfolios and talk about Division II and III.

Independent Project
Will discuss next week.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Official Minutes from the EPC meeting that occurred on Tuesday, February 12, 2008.


 * Minutes prepared by Jean Sepanski

Members
Dean of Faculty Aaron Berman, Dean of Advising Eva Rueschmann, Natural Professor of Mathematics Kenneth Hoffman (NS), Professor of Politics and Environmental Studies Robert Rakoff (SS), Visiting Assistant Professor of Applied Design Donna Cohn (IA), Visiting Assistant Professor of Jewish American Literature &amp; Culture Rachel Rubenstein, Associate Professor of Psychology and Childhood Studies Rachel Conrad, Director of Central Records, Bobbie Stuart, Assistant Professor of Philosophy Laura Sizer, (CS)

Student Representative Julia Partington (at large). Student Representative Jaimie Moody (NS), Student Representative Ananda Valenzuela (SS).

Agenda
1. Introductions and Agenda Review

2. Selection of EPC Chair

3. Check in about student member status by schools

4. GEO task force creation

5. Presentation of Div I proposals

6. Discussion of how to proceed

7. Creation of subcommittees as needed/Homework assignments

Introductions
Everyone introduced themselves to the new Student Representatives.

Selection of EPC Chair
Motion was made to pick a chair and, after reviewing the duties of the chair, a motion was passed (at the end of the meeting) that Hoffman and Rakoff co-chair for this semester.

Check-In by Student Member Status by School
The schools currently represented by student members are: Social Science, Natural Science, and at large.

Student members still missing are from Interdisciplinary Arts, Cognitive Science, and Humanities, Arts, and Cultural Studies. Discussed changing HACU’s third semester rule for student members, that, out of the two student members IA has, only one can come to this meeting, and that CS in flux because their student members graduated in January and haven’t had their first meeting of the semester yet.

GEO Task Force
GEO Task force creation. Tabling it for now. Director Vanessa Paulman should come in and talk.

Discussion of Division I Proposal and How To Proceed
Aaron started off by saying that he had a good conversation about the Wabash survey at the recent Trustee meeting and reminded the committee members that the Division I proposal requires agreement of trustees and faculty. He also suggested that Carol Trossett, Director of Institutional Research come to a meeting as a resource if anyone had a question about data (references to various internal studies on campus). It was decided to wait on inviting Carol to a meeting.

The Committee looked at Dean Brayton, Rakoff and Re-Rad’s Division I proposals. They all agreed that Dean Brayton’s was similar to the other two. We decided to use Rakoff’s list to structure our discussion.

Some of Rakoff’s proposed suggestions included enhancing the role of advisor, thus empowering both the student and the advisor; having first years choose only tutorials before arriving on campus; and that learning goals are guides for schools going through the curriculum and for advisors and students should be guides for conversation as opposed to a check-off list.

Spoke about the challenge of interpreting 100 level courses in each school, especially if counted as distribution, the concept of projects being crucial as preparation for Div II and III, which was also expressed in Brayton’s and the Re-Rad proposals, and the question of how do we train advisors to commit to their task and take their role seriously and support one another. Also want to steer away from students signing up for classes and then asking faculty to okay this after the fact.

The subject of writing research papers was raised and it was agreed that there needs to be some way to guarantee those skills are taught before students take 200 level courses (where the assumption is made this skill has already been acquired).

Went over separating distribution from the schools and course limits concerns were raised and the number of under-filled 200 level courses will be checked by next week’s meeting. Schools will have to come together to classify expectations in each class.

Calendar
Director of Central Records Bobbie Stuart passed out a draft copy of the 2008-2009 calendar for review. Review included double checking the first/last days of classes, Jan Term dates and how deadlines will be different next time because of the way January 1st falls, making it a short term.

Because the calendar is worked on three years in advance, the committee members will bring any calendar concerns to the next meeting as an agenda item, including the principle of having religious holidays off and add/drop suggestions.

Summary
Distribution not school based; four areas somehow defined; advisors will have more power. Propose thinking about what came up in item 1 and think about item 3 in Rakoff’s list for next meeting.

Suggested frame of conversation for next meeting: consider the role of learning goals; do we eliminate them entirely; should they be seen as providing guidelines that inform the advisor/advisee discussions, or are there certain things that need to be accomplished to get a degree?

Motion was taken to approve the 1/29 minutes next week.

We will have suggestions 1,3, 5 in Rakoff’s memo ready for the ECF meeting next week. These may lead to suggested modifications in the existing system for next fall; the major overhaul will take effect in fall 2009.

Voted all in favor for Bob Rakoff and Ken Hoffman to co-chair this committee this semester. Voted to adjourn at 5:00 PM.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Official Minutes from the EPC meeting that occurred on Tuesday, January 29, 2008.


 * Minutes prepared by Jean Sepanski

Present
Chairperson &amp; Assistant Professor of Cognition and Education Laura Wenk (CS), Dean of Faculty Aaron Berman, Dean of Advising Eva Rueschmann, Natural Professor of Mathematics Kenneth Hoffman (NS), Professor of Politics and Environmental Studies Robert Rakoff (SS), Visiting Assistant Professor of Applied Design Donna Cohn (IA), Visiting Assistant Professor of Jewish American Literature &amp; Culture Rachel Rubenstein (HACU). Student Representative Julia Partington (at large).

Absent
Director of Central Records Bobbie Stuart, Student Representative TBA (NS), Student Representative TBA (HACU), Student Representative Sara Ahmed (IA).

Review
Chair Laura Wenk discussed the communication aspect of EPC, the new chair/new student members, members of the BOT Academic Affairs and Budget and Priorities committees, report on First Year, need for task forces, EPC Spring schedule.

Old Business
Laura to check with Yaniris to make sure everything is posted on the EPC website, including minutes, topics, and agenda, with links to papers and reports and have her add an EPC link to the bottom of the Dean of Faculty website page.

Will need new student members, as the CS student representative graduated and the IA student rep has a class at this meeting time. Still looking for other school student representatives, and Aaron will email the Deans to that end. Discussed ways of adding students and Julia knows some HACU first years, but that would mean changing HACU’s requirements (third semester students only eligible at this time).

Decided to email the minutes to The Climax and that any student may attend these meetings, but not participate.

Continued discussing Laura’s replacement for new chair and considered Marlene Fried stepping in for the chair at the BOT Academic Affairs or the DOF Budget and Priorities meetings. Aaron briefly spoke about presenting the budget to the BOT.

Discussed minor changes made to the First Year report, added in recommendations and considerations, and went over aspects of the report, including the aim of Division I, what are the nature of experiences and should they meet those aims, the relationship of Div I to Div II and III, how Div I prepares students for Div II and III.

New Business
The Wabash study has opened huge amounts of things that need work. While continuing to advance the First Year plan, want to develop some EPC task forces. This would include task forces for GEO and the academic calendar. Proposed changes to schedules included moving budget from December to February; having Ralph come here to be in sync with the Making of the College; presenting a proposal at the March faculty meeting and presenting the aims of the Div I proposal with specific changes for next year in May.

Examined the connection between the common readings and sense of community, perhaps having clusters of courses sharing lectures and/or readings, and whether the common reading should be in the orientation group rather than the tutorial group.

Bob will tell Michelle we will have motions for the March faculty meeting as a tiered proposal. The Committee decided to either work in groups of two or individually to go over the report.

Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Official Minutes from the EPC meeting that occurred on Tuesday, December 11, 2007.


 * Minutes prepared by Jean Sepanski

Present
Chairperson &amp; Assistant Professor of Cognition and Education Laura Wenk (CS), Dean of Faculty Aaron Berman, Dean of Advising Eva Rueschmann, Dean of Natural Science Christopher Jarvis, Professor of Mathematics Kenneth Hoffman (NS), Professor of Politics and Environmental Studies Robert Rakoff (SS), Visiting Assistant Professor of Applied Design Donna Cohn (IA), Director of Central Records, Bobbie Stuart, Visiting Assistant Professor of Jewish American Literature &amp; Culture Rachel Rubenstein HACU).

Student Representative Samantha Kimbell (CS), Student Representative Julia Partington (at large), and Student Representative Danielle Squillante.

Absent
Student Representative Erica Moffet (NS), Student Representative TBA (IA), Student Representative TBA (HACU).

Review
Chair Laura Wenk discussed Spring 2008 membership, namely a new chair and student representatives, the spring agenda, and academic calendar.

I. Membership
As Laura Wenk is going on Sabbatical this spring, there was a discussion about her replacement, but it was determined there is no quick solution. Laura Sizer replaces Laura Wenk as a CS member. Three schools need student reps, HACU, CS and SS and it was emphasized that the schools have to be responsible for getting students. Erica Moffet is not continuing, but Chris found a replacement for her.

At large question arose and Aaron suggested staying with Julia until we could work out the procedure for a student election. Suggestion was made about reporting EPC meetings to the student community, having a student governance committee, and amending the campus constitution.

II. ECF and EPC Communication
Question arose if ECF and EPC should make their agenda before we want or need them in the faculty meeting. Timing is an issue, as there are too many items in the agenda. Suggestion made that the EPC chair should be member of ECF, and if there was a better way for chair of each committee to meet regularly.

Pointed out that on the fourth Tuesday of the month students could have an open meeting with other students. Would have to grow over time and be well publicized. Approved that abbreviated EPC minutes would be posted to the EPC website, (putting in Hamp Announce who is in charge of the website), including what EPC is, who the committee members are, and welcoming responses. Suggested inviting reporter from The Climax to come to the meetings. It is an open meeting and people can sit and listen, but not participate.

i. 2008-2009 Academic Calendar
Bobbie Stuart talked about the next two academic year calendars, giving a rundown of past and present 5-College coordination.

In 20I0 UMass starts a week before we do, as they are eliminating Jan Term. Bobbie would like to again see a subcommittee to discuss 09/10 problems, namely to figure out a way to keep our Jan term and let students take UMass courses on January I9th. An EPC task force was suggested, with the Business Office represented for housing and possible refunds for Jan Term.

Task force will also need to address the issue of interchange registration with the new calendar, as well as minimum number of class meetings, advising days, and religious holidays.

Questions arose concerning Advising day, ranging from should it be a committee meeting day, or as an Advising Day for Div II and III students and a Div I presentation day.

Need to know how faculty are using advising days and the exam week when redesigning courses. Students who stay have Presentations during exam week and we should try to encourage faculty and programs to do this. Students have poster sessions for Div II and III. A problem Julia noted is that most professors have portfolios due in the week after to finish papers and final projects. Students, however, often leave early and are not here for feedback.

Bobbie will bring the 08-09 calendar to EPC and we will report to the faculty when we approve it. At that time we will let them know any big issues for 09-10.

ii. Proposal for Moving Forward on the Div 1 Plan
Laura will write a revision to clarify places where students have responded. Discussed distribution and learning goals and how they are interpreted differently in the five schools.

No learning goals okay as long as you have expectations for a four- year degree. Div I should do something to prepare for Div I and II Learning goals can come from courses and can solve a lot of problems of dissatisfaction. Burden of learning goals should be on the courses.

Recommend this spring to have small group discussions to play around with ideas; have faculty discussions and committee to talk about what we look for in student, fleshing out if they are really up for the challenge of independent study. What support systems are there for student life. Bobbie wants changes for next year, i.e. having a contract or agreement that during exam week students will meet with advisors and have a revision of contract at end of the fall semester.

Discussed a pilot program where tutorials would begin a week early perhaps contacting them through email before arriving, enlisting student affairs to offer orientations group as tutor groups, and implementing contracts and what that might involve.

Incorporating these additions, however, could place a burden on new students to accommodate everything. Not talking about coursework or academic coursework during this time would not be good. Would have to determine which pieces negotiable. Perhaps some contract and course website work could begin over summer, such as writing advisors letters regarding students’ strengths and weaknesses, have faculty start by writing letters and start discussion boards for suggested readings.

Bobbie would like a return to having the students just pick their tutorial. Post class description and choose six tutorial options and ten for regular classes. Julia reported she didn’t get her top three choices.

Make 2nd semester more individual and advisor would be more empowered. Base second semester on first semester results would be incentive to look ahead. SI00 level sets tone for 200 courses.