October 1, 2003
Noon, Faculty House

Attending: Ralph Savarese, Susan Ireland, Bob Cadmus, Vince Eckhart, Martha Voyles, David Ellison, Kevin Engel, Helen Scott

The Committee approved the minutes of 17 September 2003 as written.

The Committee approved proposals from two on-going faculty discussion groups (STALG, $1080, and CFFLS, $1200).

Guidelines for Requesting Support for Teaching and Curricular Development. The committee discussed whether the list of areas supported should be removed to make it clear that proposals outside of these areas may also be supported. Arguments in favor of retaining the list are that it is helpful for new faculty to see examples of areas to help them focus proposals, and that it helps the Associate Deans' Office direct proposals to the proper committees for recommendation.

The Committee decided to delete the list of areas, but also to change the first paragraph of the Guidelines to read, "Examples of persuasive justification might include, but would not be limited to, projects adding diversity to the curriculum, promoting interdisciplinary connections such as contributions to Concentrations, or using new pedagogy or technology to enhance learning."

The Committee then discussed possible methods to apply in identifying areas (e.g., concentrations) to which proposals should be directed. Suggestions of departmental statements of support and/or Chairs' signatures were discussed and rejected. Instead, a line will be added to the form, a line asking either where in the curriculum the course would fall or what course designation the course would likely have.

Areas of faculty development funding that fall outside ISC's purview will be identified later.

One member requested clarification of the definition of a course module and how it differs from a regular course update. The Committee agreed that a new course module should be a significant change in a course of approximately 3-4 weeks’ duration, but no definition of a module was added to the Guidelines.

The Committee added the following line to the curricular development proposals section: "Budgets normally do not exceed a maximum of $2000."

The Committee will review summer workshop reports before deciding on final language in the Guidelines.

Fieldtrips were changed to "Course" Fieldtrips, and the Guidelines should make it clear that if a department regularly offers the same fieldtrip, it should be built into the departmental budget. Increasing departmental budgets to support field trips will most likely decrease ISC's budget eventually. One-time or experimental fieldtrip proposals should be submitted to ISC.

Online Resources Survey. Kevin Engel reported that 22 faculty responded (< 20%). Low response rate may mean that faculty, in the aggregate, are ambivalent about the issue. Those who use online resources most may have been most likely to respond, while faculty who do not use online resources may have felt they could offer no input. Some faculty experienced technical problems and chose not to re-submit their surveys.

Kevin summarized the responses.

The most frequent comments about electronic resources in support of faculty research were that important materials are not available online in all areas, that online resources can make accessible things the College doesn't own in print , and that it is convenient that electronic resources can potentially be accessible from anywhere.

Frequent comments about electronic resources in support of student research included that these resources can allow access to things the College doesn't own in print, and that online resources can be searched in ways not available with materials in paper format.

The majority of respondents agreed that paper copies of journals should continue to be received and retained. Journals in paper format and journals available online were judged to be of equal preference.

If faculty would like to recommend online resources to the Library , they should do so by May. The Library decides in June /July (at the beginning of the new fiscal year) which online resources to add. It is generally much more cost effective to subscribe to these resources through a consortium of other colleges and universities, which sometimes needs to be constructed. Creating a consortium takes, at a minimum, a few months to put together.

The Library faculty will discuss the results of the survey and provide a recommendation about whether the survey should be sent out again and, if so, when and in what format.