I. Leanne Parker convened the meeting at 4:15 p.m.

PRESENT:   Leanne Parker, Chair; Lana Elliott; Rik Brosten; Ray Esparsen, Diana Ames
ABSENT:     Pam Howard; Victor White
RECORDING:   Diana Ames for 12/01/04

II. MINUTES:  There were no minutes available from the 11/17/04 meeting; they will be
approved at our next meeting.

III. OLD BUSINESS
A. SRI's:  
1. Leanne Parker proposed that the Committee put together a proposal for SRI changes, along with a sample of a new form to present to Divisions early next semester. There was general agreement to do this.

2. Leanne announced that she has a meeting scheduled with Chet Herbst Weds., Dec. 15th @ 1p.m. in her office to discuss SRI's.   She encouraged all members of the Committee who can to attend.  Lana and Diana can be there; others are checking the date / time.

3. Henrik Brosten said that he felt the three most significant points from the previous meeting included the following:
-- that SRI's revert to hard copy;
-- separating questions about campus facilities from those about faculty & courses;
-- instituting a flexible schedule for assessment of courses [not every course every time it's taught].

There was quite a bit of general discussion about these points, and others.  

4. Lana Elliott made the point that we need to reemphasize the changes passed by the Faculty Association in April, 2004.  Those changes place responsibility for SRI policies and procedures with the Faculty Affairs Committee, which makes proposals to the Faculty Senate for consideration.  This Committee, then, is the 'clearinghouse' for SRI policy and procedures, and in consultation with our respective Divisional faculties, we develop proposals that we take to Faculty Senate for approval.

5. There was further discussion about eliminating 'numeracy' in the Likert  scales of the SRI's, and substituting a range of choices [such as 'strongly agree to strongly disagree or yes and no and n/a responses].  

6. There was general agreement that we would bring the following six  issues to the meeting with Chet Herbst for discussion on 12/15/04. 

1)  SRI's reverting to hard copy;
2)  The name of the instrument to become 'Student Response to  Instruction' [instead of 'Reaction'];
3)  The SRI's should assess faculty instruction and the course, not the campus facilities.  Those can be assessed at the same time, using a different form;
4)  SRI's need not be done for every course taught by every faculty member every semester.   With the understanding that there is a need to survey every course for some faculty some times [first and second year; those going for tenure / promotion; etc.], the idea is that faculty would choose which course / courses would be assessed, and when, in consultation with their Division chair.
5)  Replace numeracy scales with a range of qualitative choices;
6)  Develop a standard form for all faculty, with the possibility of sections for Divisional or Program-specific questions.

Again, committee members were asked to take these ideas back to their Divisions for feedback.

B. WITHDRAWAL POLICY PROPOSAL:
1. There is no new information about this [eliminating petitions for late withdrawal from courses by instituting a policy of transcripting W/F or W/P, indicating that the student was either passing or failing at the time he/she withdrew]. The Committee members will take this question back to their Divisions and ask for feedback.

C. GENERAL EDUCATION PROPOSAL:
1. Again, the Committee members were asked to survey their respective faculty about a proposal to restructure the Gen Ed Committee, making it a stand-alone committee of the Senate [rather than a subcommittee of Curriculum], and setting the number of members at 5, with 5 year terms. Our Committee feels that three or four year terms would be better, with seven members [including the
Chair of the committee elected out of those seven]. What do Divisions think?

D. KRAMER REPORT:
1. Barb Kramer has been invited to the first meeting of our Committee next semester to report on the results of her work with the PERSI group concerning  conversion of sick leave hours to money at retirement.  She has been working on this for several years, with some positive results. Some were wondering how or if this would affect VALIC and TIAA-CREF faculty as well.

IV. NEW BUSINESS
There was no new business.  

V. ANNOUNCEMENTS / ADJOURNMENT
Leanne announced the following meetings:
--Faculty Association meeting, Dec. 7, 2004 in the WCC.
--The first Faculty Affairs meeting of 2005 will be Monday, January 24th @ noon in Spalding 300.

She adjourned the meeting at 5 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,  
Diana Ames   12/01/04