Minutes
Research and
Creative Activities Grants Committee
Thursday, August
27, 2009
Attending: Carmine Scavo, Political
Science; Jason Brinkley ,Allied Health Sciences; Gregory Lapicki, Physics;
Jennifer Arrigo, Geography; Tom McCaslin, Music; Jay Newhard, Philosophy; Guili
Zhang, English; Kathy Davis, Health and Human Perf.;
Gail Ratcliff, Mathematics;
Attending ex officio members:
Marianne Walker, Chair of the Faculty; Thomas Ross, Representative of the Vice
Chancellor of Health Sciences; Alan Schreier, Representative of the Vice
Chancellor for Research and Graduate Studies.
Others attending: Deidre Mageean, Vice Chancellor for
Research and Graduate Studies
The meeting began at 4:00 in Rawl 142.
Faculty Senate Chair Marianne Walker presided over the opening of the meeting.
A quorum was present.
After new and returning committee members introduced
themselves, the first order of business was the election of officers for the
2008-09 year. The previous chair, Paul Gares, has rotated out of the committee After brief discussion previous vice-chair Carmine Scavo was
nominated and elected, without opposition, the new chair. The committee then
elected Gail Ratcliff vice chair, and Jennifer Arrigo secretary. Scavo presided
over the remainder of the meeting.
Dr. Deirdre Mageean then gave the committee an update on the
budget for the R/CAG funds. She reported that although her division had taken a
significant cut, there was now money available in the fund for this fiscal
year, and asked the committee how they wished to proceed. Given the “award”
letters that Dr. Mageean had prepared for the proposals forwarded to her for
funding by last year’s committee, it was agreed that the next action would be
to use the past year’s ranking and for
the Chair to contact the PIs to work with them to determine what research is
still feasible, given the monies now available for this fiscal year. It was
also discussed that the money available for next fiscal year would be at a
similarly reduced level. The committee discussed questions of whether to table
the call for proposals, to alter the timetable for submission and/or other
measures related to find the most equitable and efficient way to distribute the
reduced funds. It was agreed to continue this discussion at the next meeting.
The committee agreed to schedule a subsequent meeting in
approximately two weeks to discuss the progress of the discussion with the PIs
from last year’s competition and also to further the discussion on procedures
for the call for the next fiscal year.
The meeting adjourned at approx. 5:15 pm.