Minutes of the Steering Committee Meeting
21 January, 2009
3:00 p.m. 208 Samford Hall
Submitted
Sue Barry

Attended by: Bob Locy, Kathryn Flynn, Dennis DeVries, Sue Barry, David Cicci, Sharon Gaber, Joe Molnar, Claire Crutchley, Ruth Crocker, Robin Feller, (non-voting)
Absent:  Bill Hames

--The meeting was called to order at 3:00 p.m. and the minutes of 7, January, 2009 were approved.

Action Items:
--Robin Feller presented the idea of using Survey Monkey Web Site for the Administrator Evaluations.  A discussion ensued concerning the security of Survey Monkey.  Joe Molnar suggested that they use the tech expertise available in Drew Clark’s office to set the survey up.  Since Joe has worked on this committee previously, he made a number of suggestions concerning the types of questions that would be more appropriate and the possibility of recycling some of the questions that they had used previously.  Sharon  Gaber suggested developing a survey that with minimal revisions could be made to collect long-term data.

--There was a lengthy discussion of how best to generate policy changes from the Graduation Rate Task Forces report.  Members agreed that someone from the Task Force will be presenting a summary of the report to the February Senate meeting.  Options for turning task force recommendations into policy ranged from sending the report to appropriate Senate committees for them to develop the policy, using the writing initiative task force as a model approach (where the whole report went to the Senate), seeking comments from the appropriate committees.   Committee members agreed that faculty input is required.  
--Conclusions from this discussion were that a representative of the Task Force will present a report to the February Senate meeting as an information item, letting Senators know that faculty can provide input.  Bob will charge two committees (Academic Standards, Retention) to look at the report and provide comment to the Task Force, and the Task Force will work with the Provost to develop policy from their recommendations. 

--We discussed the revised consulting policy and noted that it will come back to the February Senate meeting for a vote.  We also discussed how workloads are defined, particularly relative to teaching.  There may be a need for extra teaching workloads, should hiring be halted due to the financial situation.  If this occurs, committee members agreed that it would be better to have a plan in place rather than having to react later.  The committee discussed the possibility of a work load task force. 

Meeting was adjourned at 4:52.