April 13, 2006

[Note to College faculty: During the week of April 24 you will receive e-mail notification of the annual CPC election. Statements by the candidates and the official ballot will be available electronically.]

Present: Bob Becker (chair), Erik Bucy, Sandra Dolby, Roger Levesque, Rosemary Lloyd, Al Ruesink (recorder), Rob Shakespeare, and Rick Van Kooten.

The meeting convened at 4:15.

Minutes of the April 6th meeting were approved following minor amending.

Dean Catherine Larson joined us at 4:18 to discuss the latest activities regarding the development of General Education requirements for all students on the Bloomington campus. A version of the requirements dated April 12 is quite different from versions that were discussed through the month of March, and the CPC tried to understand what the implications would be for the College. The latest version would seem to undercut the position of the College as being the principal maintainer and purveyor of general education (liberal arts) courses, which the CPC considers unacceptable. Transition team leader David Zaret joined us at 4:42 and helped us think through the politics of the whole General Ed scene, involving the BFC, deans and faculty of all academic units, our Interim Provost, and our Trustees. CPC members decided that we should share our concerns and suggestions by letter with our College representatives on the BFC, since the General Ed proposal is scheduled to be considered by that body next Tuesday. (The letter was prepared but never sent because the situation changed.) Dean Larson left our meeting at 4:57.

David Zaret then briefed us on a number of transition issues. The Dean Search Committee expects to interview some 11 candidates off-campus before the end of April. There is no new budget news for the College. The campus has folded our request into the overall budget building process, which will produce a budget that includes lots of other academic and non-academic units. The final number of outside offers to our faculty seems to be just a bit higher than last year, with a few programs and departments being rather hard hit. The CPC considered the possible problem of some units awarding too many "course reductions" for service or special research work; we will consider it further if we find data indicating a real problem. David believes departments generally have good mechanisms for determining faculty merit--and hence salary increments. David left at 5:20.

After receiving a near-final update on the ballot for the CPC election from Erik, we thanked him enthusiastically for all the work he has done to pull it together.

Because of our concerns about the General Ed proposal that seems to be headed to BFC next Tuesday (18th), we spent some time agreeing upon ideas that we would like to incorporate into two letters, one to College members of BFC and the other to Interim Provost McRobbie. Our desire is not to derail the process of moving toward a General Ed requirement for the whole Bloomington campus but rather to ensure that the process is deliberate, based on good information, and involves many of the key players (i.e. faculty). (Because the situation changed, neither letter was actually sent.)

The meeting adjourned at 6:00.

Albert Ruesink, recorder

Questions or comments regarding the minutes and actions of the College Policy Committee may be addressed to co-chairs Judith Anderson (anders@indiana.edu --855-3845) and Bob Becker (becker@indiana.edu --855-3014). Past minutes and College Policy Statements can be found at the CPC web page: www.indiana.edu/~college/faculty/policy/policies.shtml.