COMMITTEE:           Committee on Committees

 MEETING DATE:    Tuesday January 12, 2010 3:00pm

 PERSON PRESIDING:      Catherine Rigsby

REGULAR MEMBERS IN ATTENDANCE:       Catherine Rigsby, Margaret Bauer, Tom Caron, Marieke Van Willigen, Puri Martinez, Wendy Sharer

EX-OFFICIO MEMBERS IN ATTENDANCE:    Marianna Walker

 OTHERS IN ATTENDANCE:        Lori Lee

ACTIONS OF MEETING

 Agenda Item 1: Approval of Minutes of the meeting of Sept. 1, 2009.

Action Taken: Minutes were approved.

Agenda Item 2: Sue Steinweg, Awards Committee Chair discussed the impending addition of a Scholarship of Engagement Award and the fact that the possibility of these types of awards might necessitate a change to the Academic Awards Committee charge in order to make it clear that these are academic awards which fall under the committee’s purview. Sue pointed out that the idea for such an award came up during the Carnegie application process.

Discussion: The committee was in agreement that awards for the Scholarship of Engagement are academic awards and therefore should fall under the purview of the Faculty Senate’s Academic Awards committee.

Action Taken: The committee edited item 4b of the Academic Awards Committee’s charge as follows:
Old 4b: The committee recommends candidates for receipt of awards in the various categories to include, but not be limited to, the Alumni Distinguished Professor for Teaching Awards and Research Awards.

New 4b: The committee recommends candidates for receipt of awards in the various categories including, but not be limited to, the Alumni Distinguished Professor for Teaching Awards, Research Awards, and Scholarship of Engagement Awards.

Assigned additional duties to: This change will be brought to the next Faculty Senate meeting for approval.

Agenda Item 3: Tim Kelly, chair of the Environment Committee, spoke on behalf of the committee about whether an Aramark staff employee should be added to the Environment Committee roster. This idea had been suggested by the previous chair, Jill Twark, as a means of recognizing the important role which Aramark pays in the ECU Environment.

Discussion: The committee expressed several concerns about the addition of such a staff member to the Environment Committee. First was a concern about the potential for “inside tracking” which could affect the bidding process. Another concern is upsetting the balance between faculty and administrators on the committee. Finally there was a concern that this would set a precedent for including other contractors on committees. It was pointed out that the committee has the option to invite guests to its meetings and indeed Aramark currently has a standing invitation to send a representative to these meetings.

Action Taken: The Committee voted and unanimously decided not to add an Aramark staff member to the Environment Committee.

Agenda Item 4: Nomination for replacement on Due Process Appellate Committee.

Discussion: Rose Allen from Allied Health was nominated.

Action Taken: Rose Allen will be contacted to determine if she will accept the nomination. If so her name will be put forward.

Assigned additional duties to: Pending their acceptance, these nominees will be presented at the next Faculty Senate committee meeting for approval.

Agenda Item 5: Nomination for replacement on Hearing Committee

Discussion: Angela Thmpson and Karin Zipf, both from History, were nominated.

Action Taken: Angela Thompson and Karin Zipf will be contacted to determine if they will accept the nomination. If so their names will be put forward.

Assigned additional duties to: Pending their acceptance, these nominees will be presented at the next Faculty Senate committee meeting for approval.

Agenda Item 6: Nomination for one delegate and two alternates to the 2010-2011 UNC Faculty Assembly.

Discussion: There was discussion as to whether administrators, specifically chairs, should be nominated for positions on the UNC Faculty Assembly. The committee concluded that, since administrators do no appoint representatives to the UNC Faculty Assembly there is no reason that the Committee on Committees could not nominate a chair for a position. This is different than on-campus committees on which chairs are often appointed by the administration.

Catherine Rigsby from Geology was nominated for delegate. Christine Zoller from Art and Greg Givens from Allied Health were nominated as alternates.

Action Taken: The committee voted unanimously to approve the slate of nominees.

Assigned additional duties to: These nominees will be presented at the next Faculty Senate committee meeting for approval.

Agenda Item 7: Other Business: Puri Martinez brought up the recent barrage of emails from the Provost on the coding of online versus face-to-face classes and questioned what the underlining issue is.

Discussion: Marieke Van Willigen related these emails to a survey which the Provost’s Office did in the Fall on how decisions were made as to whether courses were taught online, who decided whether they could be taught online, who decides whether a course can have online content, etc. Her understanding at that time was that the questions had been prompted by a flurry of complaints by the parents of freshman whose children had been moved from face-to-face classes to online classes to deal with the unannounced change in seat limits in a number of buildings on campus. She pointed out that some of these questions seemed to infringe on issues of academic freedom (eg. who decided whether a course can have online content) and tended to imply that faculty were shirking their responsibilities rather than trying to keep students up-to-date with current resources and opportunities online.

Action Taken: None

Agenda Item 8: Other Business
Margaret Bauer inquired as to whether there is anything the Committee on Committees can do to make sure that fixed-term faculty are not serving as chairs of Faculty Senate Committees.

Discussion: It was pointed out that the Faculty Senate does not appoint fixed term faculty to committees, while an administrator might. Since chairs are selected by the committee membership there is little the CoC can do to prevent this from happening. However it should be a rare occurrence.

Action Taken: None

Respectfully submitted: Marieke Van Willigen, March 16, 2010