Apr 2 2007 Draft
From MWCSWiki
The meeting commenced promptly at 3pm. All faculty expressed heartfelt gratitude for Sam's, Juliette's, and Robert's participation as the student representatives at this year's meetings. Enthusiasm for Sam's and Juliette's continuing participation next year, too, was unanimously voiced.
The dept research symposium will be April 9th at 3pm in B-36. Karen will keep time, and strive to keep the entire event to under 2 hours. Sebastian and Robert will have 20 minutes each for their presentations; all others will be held to 10 minutes.
We also need to advertise the research symposium so that we get a good turnout.
In addition to the dept research symposium, there is also the campus-wide symposium on April 20th from 10-5, which we feel we ought to be represented at. Ernie will see about getting some of his Ajax students to participate.
Karen brought up several FAC motions that were on the table, and we had a lengthy discussion about the proposal to change the way faculty evaluations are made. One concern Ernie had is that service seems to be such a minimal component of the overall score, reflecting a possible bias of research over service. Jennifer also wanted clarification on the "level 0" rating description for teaching, since it seemed ambiguous in parts, and left the impression that one could drop straight from, say, level 2 to level 0 in a single semester. Another issue was that the faculty member and the chair are evidently supposed to agree on a plan and criteria metric, but no provision is mentioned for resolving disagreement about these items. Marsha also observed that the new motion may require skills of the dept chairs that they do not currently have, and that some training might be required. Karen noted all of these concerns and will reflect them at the faculty senate meeting.
The attendees were heartily unanimous in supporting a resolution for the University to observe Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
The attendees were heartily unanimous in supporting Jennifer's pursuit of an SI designation for the new CPSC 310 course.
After discussion and negotiation, Ernie, who was not in the least bit personally interested in acting as a First-Year Advisor next year, nevertheless agreed for the good of the department (and in the interest of distributing work fairly) to serve in this role. He and Stephen will represent the department in this program next year.
Ernie was appointed to follow-up on the math joint reception.
A discussion ensued about next year's department service responsibilities. Marsha suggested that these jobs be ranked on a 1-to-3 scale, where "1" means "hardly any work required" and "3" means "good luck getting anything else done." All agreed to this suggestion, and it was further recommended that we use these rating numbers in allocating work equally among the faculty members. The resulting Department Service Roles, together with their ratings, is now posted on the Wiki.
Ernie introduced a motion to amend the dept policy handbook with a policy that requires all faculty members to approve waivers of prerequisites for individual students. (Current policy is that only the instructor of the course and the dept chair must approve such waivers.) This motion was passed by the faculty, subject to a few grammatical changes in the wording.
Stephen presented his opinions about the comfort and aesthetic appeal of various chairs he had investigated at Staples, and the attendees unanimously endorsed his recommendation of the Staples Acadia Black Multi-Function Task Chair, Item 570621, Model 11745-US, at the temporary low low price of $119.99 per chair. He will inform Jodie of this decision, and she will set into motion the purchase of the requisite number of chairs for the lab.
Action items:
- Ernie - get Ajax students to volunteer to participate in April 20th campus-wide symposium.
- Ernie - follow-up on the math joint reception.
- Everyone - Advertise the research symposium.
