COMMITTEE:                    Calendar

 

MEETING DATE:               January 26, 2007

 

PERSON PRESIDING:       John Crammer

 

ATTENDEES:                      Jonathan Dembo, Johna Faulconer, John Crammer, Shanan Gibson, Donna Kain, Punam Madhok

 

EX-OFFICIO:                       Austin Bunch, Mary Farwell, Michael Rastatter

 

VISITORS:                          

The meeting was called to order at 2:00 pm in Rawl 142 by John Crammer.   Shanan Gibson moved (Johna Faulconer seconded) approval of the minutes for the November 30 meeting as submitted.  Motion passed.

Austin Bunch reported on the discussion at the Staff Senate meeting regarding making Memorial Day a holiday for staff.  He had attended the meeting.  Staff Senate members commented both for and against the change.  They overwhelmingly supported making Memorial Day a staff holiday if the Executive Council approves.  ECU will recognize Veterans on Memorial Day and will also have some activities on Veterans Day.  Gibson pointed out that we no longer need to do surveys of faculty and students on the issue.  Mary Farwell and Gibson said that they appreciated the decision by the Staff Senate.  Bunch said that one staff member in Academic Affairs noted that there are things they need to do on Memorial Day.  The Executive Council has not met yet (they will meet on February 4 or 5).  He also said that by our next meeting there should be changes in the Commencement schedule beginning in spring 2008.  He will have news by the next meeting; the committee has met and the Chancellor has responded.  Michael Rastatter asked for a hint as to what the answer is.

The committee continued work on the 2008-2009 calendar.  The plan is to have the calendar ready for the Faculty Senate’s March meeting.  The word “Break” was removed from the Memorial Day entry in the summer session calendars.  Angela Anderson had pointed out in an e-mail that the drop-date entries for graduate students should specify “by 5:00 pm” as is done for drop-date entries for undergraduates.  Paul Gares had inquired about the date for undergraduates to remove incompletes.  The committee has been using three weeks prior to the last day of classes rather than three weeks prior to the end of exams (Crammer had found both forms in old catalogs with the change to the current policy in the 1991-92 catalog).  After referring to the current catalog that is in the meeting room and further discussion the committee decided to adopt the “three weeks prior to the end of exams” rule.  Several members of the committee noted that faculty members may require their students to remove incompletes earlier than the deadline in the catalog, but they cannot choose a later date.  There was also discussion of the deadline date for graduate students to remove incompletes.  Crammer noted that the Graduate School had informed the committee of the current policy a few years ago.  The catalog also stated that the 40 percent of classes for the last day for undergraduates to drop a class should include the exam period.   This would be the 30th day of classes for the current calendar rather than the 28th day.  There had been a question as to whether the term included exams.  Faulconer asked about block courses mentioned in the drop-date entry.  Several members pointed out that block courses still exist.  Crammer said that because undergraduates have a limited number of drops allowed, he would prefer 60 percent to the current 40 percent, but this committee does not make that policy.  Rastatter asked whether the graduate student removal of incomplete date included doctoral students.  Donna Kain replied that it does.  Crammer will make the changes to the proposed calendar and have it ready to be voted on at the next meeting.  He asked that the members of the committee carefully proofread the proposed calendar.

The committee moved on to discuss the unofficial preliminary calendar for faculty.  Kain asked whether we should include dates for faculty personnel actions in the faculty calendar.  Everyone agreed that we should (application for promotion and tenure, annual reports, reappointments, PAD dates, dates for external peer review...).  Crammer said that the committee could send this unofficial preliminary faculty calendar to the Faculty Senate for information purposes.  Gibson said that it would be useful to have information from various sources combined in one place.  Kain added that this will help new faculty.

Crammer asked whether it might be better to have our next meeting at noon on Friday instead of 2:00 pm (his class at noon had been moved to TTh).  It was agreed that noon on Friday is better than 2:00 on Friday.  Gibson said that she would not be able to meet on February 23 because of a conference.  It was agreed that if none of the regular members objected to February 16 that we would meet next on Friday, February 16 at noon.  The committee will finish work on the 2008-2009 calendar and work further on the unofficial faculty calendar.

Meeting adjourned at 3:00 pm.