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• Attendance
• Ad hoc committee on Faculty Assembly reorganization
• Name changes in Exercise Science
• Name change for Journalism and Mass Communication minor
• Two proposals from Classics
• CLAS procedures for promotion and tenure decision-making

Minutes of the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences Faculty Assembly

Attending: Birrell, Bork, Brochu, Cheatum, Cowles, Ehrstine, Franklin, Gavruseva, Joselson, Kim, Larsen, Leicht, Malanson, Mitchell, Moore, F. Nelson, G. Nelson, Oliveira, Onel, Parratt, Pelton, Piñeros, Ringen, Singer, Snider, Storey, Strohmer, Stroyan, Thomas, Trevor, Yuasa

Excused absence: Frankel, Gölz, Hurtig, Marra, Menninger, Oesmann, Pavlik, Plumert

Absent: Adams, Algan, Aprile, Blumberg, Boggess, Bolton, Buss, Cole, Filios, Fulton, Gatica, Geng, Gutiérrez, Harwood, Jones, Kimmich, Lawrence, Mills, Porter, Pusack, Robinson, Schnell, Schope, Tinelli, Tomblin, Vélez, Wittenberg

Guests: JoAnn Castagna, CLAS Administration; Raúl Curto, Executive Associate Dean; Helena Dettmer, Associate Dean; John Finamore, Classics; Craig Gibson, Classics; Carin Green, Classics

1. The minutes of the Faculty Assembly meeting of October 20, 2004 were approved with changes to the attendance record.

2. Chair's announcements. Chair Sarah Larsen (Chemistry) announced the composition of the ad hoc committee on Faculty Assembly organization, which the Assembly had voted in October to create. Assembly Vice Chair Jae-On Kim (Sociology) will chair the committee, and the other members are: Larsen, Richard Hurtig (Speech Pathology & Audiology), Sara Mitchell (Political Science), and Jon Ringen (Interdisciplinary Programs).

Larsen also announced that Provost Michael Hogan will address the Assembly at its meeting in March.

3. Name changes for the Department of Exercise Science and one of its degree program. Because there was no representative from Exercise Science present to discuss the department's proposals, Chair Larsen tabled discussion of this item until later in the meeting.

4. Name change for the minor in Journalism and Mass Communication. The School of Journalism and Mass Communication requested approval to change the name of the minor in Journalism and Mass Communication to Mass Communication. Member Jane Singer (Journalism & Mass Communication) briefly presented the school's rationale for the request. She said that students in the minor could not take skills courses in journalism, since accreditation requirements limited enrollment in those courses to journalism majors. The current name of the minor was therefore misleading, both to students and to their potential employers.

There were no questions or comments from the Assembly. Chair Larsen called for a vote, and the measure passed with no opposition.

5. Consolidating majors in the Department of Classics and establishing a post-baccalaureate certificate in classics. Craig Gibson, associate professor of classics, presented two proposals from the Department of Classics. The first would consolidate three undergraduate language majors, Latin, Greek, and Classics (Latin and Greek) into one: Classical Languages. The second would establish a post-baccalaureate certificate, which would bring students (primarily from small liberal arts and state colleges in the Midwest) to Iowa to study, for the purpose of taking undergraduate and lower-level graduate courses in Latin and Greek that are not available to them in their current institution.

Regarding the consolidation of three majors into one Classical Languages major, Gibson said that it would reflect current practice in the department and make the major more comprehensible to the outside world, as well as simplify undergraduate advising. He noted that not a single student majoring in the department within the past six years would have been inconvenienced by the proposed consolidation. It was possible, he said, that some students might have to take an additional English course, but most students took the proposed number anyway. In response to a member's question, he said the new major would not have separate tracks, but the emphases now represented by separate majors would still be available.

Regarding the establishment of a post-baccalaureate certificate program, Gibson said there were a few similar programs at other institutions, but they were all located hundreds of miles away. The program was designed for students who came to classics late in their undergraduate studies or through another field, and who wanted to pursue graduate work that would require competence in classical languages. The certificate would be a credential that said they had achieved linguistic competence and were ready to do graduate-level work. Gibson said the courses and faculty were already in place and the program would require no extra resources, and in fact the department had two post-baccalaureate students already on special student status who were pursuing a similar program of study without earning a certificate.

In response to member questions, Gibson said the post-baccalaureate students would receive no financial support and would probably have to work an outside job to support themselves. He also said they would be given no special advantage in the admissions process. Carin Green, associate professor of classics, emphasized that the certificate students would not be graduate students and admission to the program would be through CLAS, not through the Graduate College. Asked whether there were other post-baccalaureate programs at the UI, Gibson said there were not, and this program would require approval by the Regents before it could be implemented.

Answering a question on how many students could be accommodated by the program and how many were anticipated, Green said they could probably accommodate 20 to 30 students per year under present circumstances, but they expected only six to ten each year. She noted that at disciplinary organization meetings over the summer, informal conversations indicated that there was definitely interest in having this kind of program in the region.

In response to another question, Gibson said that it would take students one to two years to complete the certificate, depending on their academic background and how much experience with the languages they already had.

There were no further questions and Chair Larsen called for a vote on the two proposals. Both passed on separate votes with no opposition.

6. Exercise Science name changes. Chair Larsen returned to the request of the Department of Exercise Science to change its name and the name of one of its undergraduate majors to Integrative Physiology. She asked if anyone had arrived who could speak for the proposal.

Executive Associate Dean Raúl Curto said that the request stemmed from a recommendation of the departmental review, and the department was strongly in favor of the proposal. JoAnn Castagna, CLAS administrative staff for the EPC, reported that the Carver College of Medicine, which has a Department of Physiology & Biophysics, had voiced no objection to name change. She also said that there were departments of integrative physiology at other universities, located in colleges of liberal arts and sciences. Associate Dean Helena Dettmer said that the discipline had moved away from an earlier emphasis on physical education and the proposed name reflected current terminology.

There were no questions or comments from the Assembly, and Chair Larsen called for a vote. The proposal passed with no opposition.

7. Draft revision of the CLAS procedures for promotion and tenure decision-making. Dean Curto went over the proposed changes in the College's procedural guidelines for promotion and tenure decision-making. He divided the changes into two types: changes required by revisions in University-level procedures, and changes specific to the College. He noted that most of the changes were a result of recommendations from a University committee chaired by Betsy Altmaier, which was charged with finding ways to improve the promotion and tenure process. He also noted that the University-level guidelines had been approved.

He asked if there were any questions or comments on changes in the University-level procedures. A member asked when the new guidelines would take effect, and Curto said he expected them to be in effect fall 2005. He then went over the proposed changes to College-specific guidelines point by point.

He said that the Altmaier committee made a strong recommendation, and the College agreed, that faculty with unsalaried (0%) joint appointments in a department not be members of the departmental consulting group. In response to a member's question, Curto said this guideline applied only to complimentary appointments, not to faculty who were normally salaried but whose appointment had been reduced to 0% temporarily because of work on grants or other circumstances.

Curto said the College proposed that, when a faculty member requests early review for tenure or review for promotion to full professor, any book central to the decision must normally be in print. That would represent a more stringent requirement in the book disciplines, since at present only a contract for publication is required. He also went over a new checklist reporting progress toward publication of a book in the dossier. He emphasized that the checklist did not evaluate the book's merit, only indicated how close to publication it was. He also emphasized that the requirement that the book be in print applied only to faculty undergoing a voluntary review for tenure or promotion.

Member Glenn Ehrstine (German) requested that the checklist include a direction to enclose readers' reports after the item "The manuscript was recommended for publication by the press's external referees." He observed that several other items on the checklist had similar directions. Curto agreed that such a note made sense and said it would be added to the checklist.

Curto noted additional documentation to be included in the dossier: verification of exhibits, installations, and productions; the request for and follow-up report on flexible-load assignments for tenure candidates; and materials from the third-year contract-renewal review and all subsequent probationary reviews of tenure candidates. Regarding the last item, he noted that it would give the review committee and consulting groups more points of reference to see the trajectory of the candidate's progress.

Curto explained that two of the proposed changes simply made current policy explicit. (1) No letter of invitation may be sent to an external evaluator until approval has been received from the Dean's Office. (2) The DCG faculty who submit confidential comments for the promotion record must be advised that their comments may be made available to the candidate after redaction in the case of a negative tenure or promotion recommendation.

Curto then explained the rationale behind the proposed change in the criterion for a positive vote, in the DCG and the Collegiate Committee on Promotion and Tenure, to a 60% majority of those present for the discussion and vote. Regarding DCGs, he said the College wished to have a consistent standard from department to department. The 60% criterion would be a majority of a five-person committee. A DCG must have at least four members, and the majority of both a four-person committee and a six-person committee would meet the 60% criterion. A few departments would be lowering the criterion for a positive vote; most department would be raising the criterion from a simple majority. Regarding the Collegiate Committee on Promotion and Tenure, a majority of the six-member committee would be 66%, and if a member were absent or abstaining from the vote, the 60% criterion would still represent a majority of a five-person committee.

There were no more questions or comments from the Assembly, and Chair Larsen asked for a motion to approve the draft revision of the CLAS procedures for promotion and tenure decision-making. A motion was made and seconded. The motion passed on a voice vote with no opposition.

8. Adjournment. With all business on the agenda completed, the meeting adjourned.

Respectfully submitted,
Alvin Snider
Secretary, 2004-05