Academic Affairs Committee

Minutes of April 27, 2004

Present: David Blankenship, Jason Carter, Lisa Chase, Ben Endres, Rachel Fetters, Glenn Geher (Chair), Russell Hilliard, Yoav Kaddar, Deb Miller, Chih-Yang Tsai, Gregory Wirszyla, Mohammad Zunoubi. Guest: Kelli Parmley (Institutional Research)

I. The meeting was called to order at 11:37 a.m.

II. The minutes of April 20 were approved as written,

III. Announcements: Glenn Geher recognized the recent accomplishments of committee members, Yoav Kaddar, for the success of Fresh Dance and, Lisa Chase, for the induction ceremony for the EOP Honor Society (XAE).

IV. SEI’s: Further review was given to Greg Wirszyla’s most recent drafts of the Faculty SEI Questionnaire and the Student Questionnaire. The following revisions to the language are marked with underlines on the attachment to these minutes. (Earlier revisions are represented with lines through previous text.) The committee unanimously agreed to accept the revisions.

Greg Wirszyla gave a recap of the ad hoc committee’s work on SEI’s to Kelli Parmley.

Kelli posed the following questions for consideration: Does the committee intend to focus just on the SEI Instrument or does it wish to also include consideration of the context in which it is used? (Such contextual elements include policy development; and the relationship between SEI information and the Tenure, Promotion, and Evaluation Process.) Does the committee want assistance from Institutional Research (IR) in administering the surveys? (Administration and subsequent analysis through a web-based format was offered as a possibility.)

The committee agreed to the assistance offered by IR and that administration of the faculty survey would take place mid-semester in fall 2004.

Kelli will speak with the Student Association about the student survey process since there has been prior concern about student/public access to SEI results.

Discussion included the possibilities for peer review and teaching portfolios as other approaches to the assessment of teaching. Consultation with the Central Committee on Tenure would be needed to given further consideration to these approaches.

over ---->

Glenn Geher summarized the time line for the Ad hoc committee’s tasks:

Survey Administration - Oct 2004; submit data to IR by November 2004; IR to complete data analysis by early Dec. 2004; report to the faculty in the first faculty meeting of spring 2005. The report to the faculty will summarize the data and make recommendations. Specific recommendations will go to the Administration. Comments from the administration forwarded back to the committee will be requested.

The meeting was adjourned at 12:30 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Lisa Chase

Secretary pro tempore