GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
FALL MEETING OF THE GENERAL FACULTY
and
GENERAL FACULTY ASSEMBLY
Combined with
MEETING OF THE ACADEMIC SENATE
Tuesday, October 21, 2008, 2:00 pm
Ferst Center for the Arts
MINUTES
1. Dr. Ronald Bohlander, Secretary of the Faculty, opened the meeting at 2:00 PM and explained there had been some inadvertent announcements that the State of the Institute Message would be delivered at 3 p.m. Therefore the meeting would take the faculty business parts of the agenda first, followed by President Schuster’s address. He then introduced President Schuster to conduct the business of the day.
2. President Schuster asked for the minutes of the April 22, 2008 meeting to be approved. He indicated that the minutes were posted on the faculty governance web site and no additions or corrections had been received. (See Attachment #1 below for web site reference). The minutes were approved without dissent.
3. Dr. Schuster called on Mr. Time Strike, Chair of the Statutes Committee, to present proposed changes to the Faculty Handbook having to do with hiring and promotion of research titled faculty. Mr. Strike followed closely the briefing documented in Attachment #2. He explained that the proposal was being brought forth at this time in an effort to improve the cycle of promotion actions that were already underway for 2008-09. Only one reading and approval of these recommendations would be required since the Sec. 22 of the Faculty handbook was the only one affected and it was not part of the Statutes.
Slide 5 showed the first of the recommended changes. Mr. Strike explained that the language about counterpart ranks was proposed for deletion because it had caused confusion in recent years and no longer served a purpose. Research and professorial ranks were separately administered and no direct correspondence could be assumed in hiring and promotion.
Slide 6 showed a change in the baseline for measuring "years of experience," "years in rank," and "years at Georgia Tech" for compliance with hiring and promotion guidelines. Mr. Strike said the change was to clarify the intent of the guidelines so that applicants were not counted one day short when they were applying after the minimum times specified.
Mr. Strike indicated the changes shown in Slide 7 and 8 were intended to better recognize the value of technical experience earned while the candidate only had a bachelor’s degree as long as at least a master’s degree was earned by the date of hiring or promotion.
Mr. Strike moved on behalf of the Statutes Committee that these changes in the Handbook be approved and instituted this year. There was a second and the motion passed without dissent.
4. The President then called on representatives of each of the faculty’s Standing Committees to present their annual reports and any minutes requiring approval. Explicit approval of the faculty for specific action items was also sought where required. In most cases the representatives followed closely the reports in the committees’ files on the faculty governance website noted in Attachment #3 below and so this text will not be repeated here. The following is an outline of the material presented showing the representatives that appeared to make the presentation.
Standing Committees of the General Faculty
a. Faculty
Benefits (Dr. Bettina Cothran) – Annual
Report
Minutes:4/1/08, 4/22/08. No action items.
b. Faculty Honors (Dr. Bill Hunt) – report held over to the Nov. 18, 2008 meeting
c. Faculty Status & Grievance (Dr. Carol Colatrella) – Annual Report.
d. Statutes (Mr. Tim Strike) – Annual Report
e. Academic
Services (Dr. Margaret Loper) – Annual
Report
Minutes: 2/26/08, 3/25/08, 4/22/08, 8/26/08, 9/16/08. No action items.
f. Welfare & Security (Ms. Jilda Garton) – report held over to the Nov. 18, 2008 meeting
Standing Committees of the Academic Faculty
a. Undergraduate
Curriculum (Dr. Chuck Parsons) – Annual
Report
Minutes: 5/7/08, 5/12/08, 6/11/08, 7/16/08, 8/6/08, 8/18/08, 8/27/08, 9/10/08,
10/8/08.
Action items. From 5/7: Math – 1 new course, 2 cross-listings with CS; ME –
change in degree requirements related to economics and technical
electives. From 7/16: Modern Languages – 2 new courses; Architecture – 3
new courses; CoC and LCC – change in grade requirements for BS in Computational
Media, its International Plan Option, and its Research Option; Psych. – 1 new
course and an additional elective option for Social Science. From 8/18:
Procedure for handling petitions for additional credits in the final
term. From 9/10: BME – revision to minor in BME; EAS – 2 new courses and
a modification to the degree program concerning expanding a requirement for C
or better in certain courses; HST – changes in the minors in History and in
Sociology. From 10/8: Public Policy – minors in Political Science, Public
Policy, Philosophy of Science and Technology, and Law, Science, and Technology
will require 15 instead of 18 hours; Provost’s Office – new special topics course
re the “In/Venture Prize@Georgia Tech”. A question was asked about the
rationale for changing required minor hours from 18 to 15. Dr. Parsons
explained that such a move was to make it more attractive for students to
pursue a minor while still satisfying Board of Regents minimum requirements of
15 hours for a minor. He noted that such changes would not be applied
automatically to existing minors. Each department of instruction would
need to apply to the curriculum committee if they wanted to institute this kind
of change.
b. Graduate
Curriculum (Dr. R. Gary Parker) – Annual
Report
Minutes: 5/12/08, 6/12/08, 9/4/08
Action Items. From 5/12: new Guidelines for Petitions, Admission to Graduate
Status without an Undergraduate Degree. Also, Psych. - new PhD
specializations in Cognitive Aging and in Cognition and Brain Science, plus 14
new courses; Building Construction Program - change MS in Building Construction
and Integrated Facility Management from a 12-month program to a 9-month
program. From 6/12: Mgt – 3 new courses; ME – cross-listing 3 courses
with CS, AE, ECE.
c. Student
Regulations (Dr. Paul Benkeser for Dr. Jeff Streator, Chair) – Annual
Report
Minutes: 4/15/08, 8/25/08, 9/22/08.
Action items. From 8/25: Policy change on student academic grievance
procedures providing additional bases for possible grievance and further
avenues for students to file grievances.
From 9/22: Policy on course credit for completion of International
Baccalaureate courses in high school, providing guidance for the amount of
credit. A question was asked if International Baccalaureate credits
granted tended to be the same or higher than those granted for Advanced
Placement work. Dr. Benkeser responded that this is judged on a case by
case basis but that it had been difficult to establish a pattern until this
proposed policy guideline was put in place.
d. Student
Academic & Financial Affairs (Dr. Susan Burns for the chair Dr. Augustine
Esogbue) – Annual
Report
Minutes: 1/31/08, 3/27/08, 4/24/08. No action items.
e. Student
Activities (Ms. Mary-Frances Panettiere for the chair Dr. Brent Carter) – Annual
Report
Minutes: 9/28/07, 11/2/07, 11/30/07, 2/22/08, 3/7/08, 4/25/08
Action items: Approval of all student activity charters and constitution revisions
recommended by the committee as documented in their minutes and the annual
report.
f. Student Grievance & Appeal (Dr. Facundo Fernandez) – report held over to the Nov. 18, 2008 meeting.
g. Student Honor (Dr. Carol Senf) – Annual Report
h. Student
Computer Ownership (Dr. Jonathan Giffin) – Annual
Report
Minutes: 9/17/07, 2/14/08. Action items: Approval of recommended changes
to laptop requirements and software recommendations as documented in the annual
report
i. Academic Integrity (Dr. Robert Kirkman) – report held over to the Nov. 18, 2008 meeting
In each of the above committee presentations, the presenter moved for the adoption of the listed minutes and action items (if any). All were approved without dissent.
4. The President called for any other business. Hearing none, Dr. Schuster adjourned the meeting at about 3 PM.
5. After a brief intermission, President Gary Schuster delivered his State of the Institute Address which has been documented in Attachments #4a and b below. Following the talk, there were no questions and the assembly was dismissed.
Respectfully submitted,
Ronald
A. Bohlander
Secretary of the Faculty
November 11, 2008
Attachments to be included with archival copy of the minutes: