Minutes of Chairs Meeting 3/12/2009
1. Pat Schoknecht passed out a copy of the confidentiality agreement, which deals with students' private information. She will redraft the proposal after comments by Mark Wagner and others. Mark Wagner will then meet with PBC to discuss.
2. Senior Council members Jennifer Toth and Laura Martocci discussed guidelines for syllabi. Devorah Lieberman states that all faculty members are not handing out syllabi to students. Jeff Kraus will send out expectations of guidelines that should be included in every syllabus (eg course description, objectives, office hours, grading policy).
3. Jeff Kraus reported that the Tues/Thursday 9:40 -11:10 and 11:20-12:50 time slots for course offering are overbooked. There are not enough classrooms to accommodate all the professors who want to teach at that time. This problem will delay registration for a week. He will meet with Department Chairs individually to discuss this. At present, he can move classes to the Monday/Wednesday 9:40-11:10 slot.
4. Jeff Kraus will send out a digital copy of a new proposed course schedule, that could go into effect as early as Spring, 2010. He requests that each Chair discuss with their department members. Where there are issues/problems with the needs of each department, these should be addressed with Jeffrey.
5. The Registrar's Office provided the number of graduating seniors in each major/discipline. Chairs will share with their departments to identify departmental trends in numbers of graduating seniors in their areas.
6. Devorah Lieberman reiterated our current budget situation. Two years ago, we registered students. This year we registered 1875. This is a combination of incoming freshman and transfer students as well as returning (or nonreturning) students. In addition, we anticipate financial aid support rising this year from about 31% to 35% in order to retain or meet the incoming student needs. The combination of potentially fewer students and rising aid will impact our budget further. She requests that Department Chairs talk with departments and suggest additional ways to conserve costs and increase revenue. These may have to do with innovative course delivery modes and/or other ways of thinking about delivering programs.