COMMITTEE:           Academic Awards

 

MEETING DATE:    April 3, 2003

 

PERSON PRESIDING:      Jeffery Phipps

 

REGULAR MEMBERS IN ATTENDANCE:       Ellen Arnold, Chuck Boklage, Linda Wolfe

 

EX-OFFICIO MEMBERS IN ATTENDANCE:   Sylvie Henning, Mark Taggart

 

OTHERS IN ATTENDANCE:        Dot Clayton

 

 

ACTIONS OF MEETING

 

Agenda Item:  The committee reviewed the program for the Apr. 30 Teaching Awards Ceremony, and made minor editorial changes.  All Committee members are encouraged to attend the Ceremony.

 

Agenda Item:  Approval of minutes of Feb. 6 meeting

 

Action Taken:  Minutes were approved as stand.

 

 

Agenda Item:  Dot Clayton reported on the success of the videotaping of award nominees.  All tapes were made and viewed.  There were some problems due to scheduling difficulties and to the fact that Fall and Spring tapings were done by two different groups, so that there was no carryover of experience from one group to the next.  Next year, Darryl Davis, Asst. Vice Chancellor of Distributed Education, has agreed to have Instructional Technology do the taping;  Tracy Blake, Technology Consultant, will be in charge, and student interns from the program will do the actual videotaping.

 

Discussion:  Dot mentioned the fact that one faculty member did get some time cut from his/her video to eliminate some student time and show more of the teacher.  Procedures state that the tapes cannot be edited, that is rearranged, but it is acceptable to remove some time in order to create a 15-20 minute tape that features primarily the faculty member, rather than student discussion or presentations.  Chuck Boklage raised the issue of the importance of consistency to fairness, and the potential that having students do the taping may mean that the tapes may vary in quality.  He wondered if a professional might be hired for the taping, but other committee members observed that the difficulty of scheduling busy professionals at times desirable for the faculty had proved insurmountable in the past.

 

Agenda Item:  Reports from Teaching and Research Award Subcommittees

 

Discussion:  The Teaching Awards subcommittee will meet immediately following this meeting to make their final selections.  Chuck Boklage reported that the Research Awards subcommittee has already submitted its choices.

 

 

Agenda Item:  Discussion on suggestions to the Committee from Provost Swart

 

Discussion:  Item 1:  Creation of a new teaching award to recognize improvement

 

The committee agreed that a teaching award to recognize improvement in teaching would not be practical, Improvement being too difficult to judge.  What would the standards for improvement be?  What baseline data could be used for judging Improvement?  In addition, several members felt that to be nominated for such an award would be an embarrassment for many faculty.  Dot Clayton suggested that such issues might be more appropriate for consideration within the individual units, since ideas about “improvement” are likely to be very discipline-specific.  The committee reviewed the procedures already in place within units to deal with faculty who might have teaching issues:  annual reports (which offer rewards in terms of salary increases for improvement), peer review, mentoring by colleagues, referrals to the Center for Faculty Development.  Sylvie Henning observed that the most serious problems in her dept. tended to be with foreign faculty who were not familiar with the U.S. system, and with motivating older faculty. 

 

Item 2:  Weekly Seminars for new faculty

 

The committee agreed that it might be desirable to extend the Faculty Orientation process to include workshops or other resources for new faculty; however, this is not the purview of the Academic Awards Committee.

 

Item 3:  Development of new materials to improve teaching effectiveness

 

This falls under the charge of the Academic Standards Committee.

 

Item 4:  Support from Carnegie Foundation for new award

 

The committee agreed that more awards would be desirable, but since we do not feel an award for improvement is doable, this suggestion is moot at this point.

 

Action Taken:  None

 

Assigned additional duties to:  Jeffery Phipps will draft a letter to the Provost outlining the results of our discussion for committee approval.

 

Agenda Item:  New Business

 

Discussion:  Dot Clayton announced she is preparing the call for the Teaching Awards for next year to go out in April.  In light of the reorganization taking place in the University, the calls will be sent to the newly named divisions, in hopes that interim directors will pass them on to the appropriate persons.  A reminder will go out at the end of Second Summer Session.

 

NEXT MEETING:    Fall, 2003

 

ITEMS TO BE DISCUSSED:        Approval of Minutes

                                                                  New Business