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College of Arts and Sciences Policy Committee Minutes
April 18, 2005

Present: Rob Shakespeare (chair), Judith Anderson, Erik Bucy, Katy Fraser, Roger Levesque, Al Ruesink (recorder), Yasuko Watt

The meeting convened at 2:30.

Minutes were approved unanimously after the usual small amendments were made. The election ballot is complete, with two candidates listed for each of four vacant spots on the CPC. The candidate statements are in hand. Today an e-mail will go to all College faculty and the election will be held electronically. Voting must be concluded by this Friday, April 22nd.

A brief discussion was held regarding the impact on the College of some possible changes being contemplated by the Bloomington and University Faculty Councils in the system-wide General Education requirements. Some proposed changes, such as the need to get a C- and not just a D to count a course for distribution credit, while intended to raise academic standards, would have a chilling effect on student retention and progress toward a degree, in addition exerting even greater pressures to inflate grades.

Some attention was devoted to enumerating issues on which the CPC has not achieved closure this year. It appears that we shall be willing the following items to our successor committee for further attention next year:

    1. Issues relating to academic publication: Opportunities for faculty to publish; health of university presses; dealing with electronic vs hardcopy publication scenarios.
    2. How can non-tenure track faculty positions be regularized and supported? How much stability can be provided by long-term contracts?
    How should these faculty members be involved in governance at various levels? 3. Should we (and could we?) generate "best-practices" documents for use by chairs and directors within the College?
    4. Should we do a study and a report on the status of minorities similar to the one we just completed regarding women? (See minutes of April 11.) 5. Should we encourage more faculty involvement in the service part of IUB's mission, and if so how?
Dean Swamy joined the meeting at 3:16.

Regarding the possible changes in Gen Ed requirements, Swamy believes that nothing will be finalized until there is further study of the issues in the fall.

Most of our time with Swamy was devoted to discussing our report to him regarding the proposal for the restructuring of a Department of Second Language Studies in the College. Both Swamy and the CPC believe it would be wise to move carefully and deliberately on this matter. And both believe that there should be guidelines and restrictions in place that allow this newly constructed department to grow and prosper without the removal of financial or faculty resources from related units. Swamy asked us to prepare a version of our report that eliminates much of the reference to specific individuals, a version that he can then send to the Task Force proposing the new department for their edification and reaction. If approved, the implementation would necessarily be somewhat slow because it would involve both some new hiring and the seeking of approval for a Ph.D. in Second Language Acquisition.

Before adjourning, we briefly discussed some of the "best-practices" issues that seem essential to good departmental management. Swamy believes he and the CPC need to work together on this. Perhaps it would be helpful for members of the CPC to attend part of a chairs/directors meeting for the purpose of describing some of the key concerns about department management that the CPC has identified. Swamy left and the meeting adjourned at 4:00.

Note: Apparently some readers of the minutes last week did not scroll down far enough to find the full text of the Gender Bias report that accompanied the CPC minutes of April 11. Those minutes can be found at the URL http://www.indiana.edu/~college/faculty/policy/minutes/min041105.shtml or you can e-mail me (ruesink@indiana.edu), asking me to send you a document file in a more attractive format.

Albert Ruesink, recorder

Questions or comments regarding the minutes and actions of the Policy Committee may be addressed to Rob Shakespeare, Dept. of Theater and Drama, Theater and Drama Ctr. A300H, 5-4367, shakespe@indiana.edu. Past minutes and College Policy Statements can be found at the CPC web page: www.indiana.edu/~college/faculty/policy/policies.shtml.