Meeting Minutes

Faculty Senate Honors and Awards Committee

Oct. 10, 2008

8:45 – 10:00 am

Room 130 Hullihen Hall

Committee members present:  Michael Gilbert, Ismat Shah, Jim Magee, Linda Gottfredson, Jordan Brown, Courtney Carson, Katharine Kerrane and Shelly Provost-Craig.

Katharine Kerrane volunteered to take the minutes.

New committee members were introduced.  The September 19th minutes were approved. Future meeting dates are:   

    * November 7

    * December 5

    * January 9

    * February 13

    * March 13 (NOTE: 8:30-10:00 a.m. )

    * March 20 (NOTE: 8:00-10:00 a.m. )

    * April 17 (NOTE: 8:30-10:00 a.m. )

    * May 15

Linda and Ismat asked Katharine to contact Zach Schafer to see if he wrote the May minutes.  Those minutes have not yet been posted to the web site.  Katharine said she would email Zach and get back to Ismat with the information.

  Linda Gottfredson reported on the meeting on the new data base that she and Ismat had with the CITA.  Last year a new CITA was hired to work with Faculty Senate Committees.  She has built a new data base for our committee.  Reports on nominees with past data will now be automatically generated rather than through a series of computer manipulations  by the committee chair.  The reports generated for committee members will now have new search features, so they can interrogate the data  more fully, if they choose.  Together with the CITA, Ismat and Linda will do a trial run of the new system before it goes live in the spring.

  There was a discussion about running an ad in Facebook again.  Courtney and Jordan recommended a heading on the email invitation to students to make it more personal.  They also suggested sending the email out multiple times urging students to submit nominations.  Linda mentioned that a downside to that is too many reminders might irritate the students.

  The committee discussed the fact that Stan Sandler, an Alison professor, would like the Alison Society to participate in  evaluating all the Alison nominees.  Stan Sandler contacted President Harker  with that request, which was transmitted to Ismat.  The committee mentioned that Stan has been told before that the Alison professors can work with the Deans to suggest candidates to nominate and can write letters on behalf of candidates (and in fact have done so in the past).  Alison faculty can also volunteer to be members of the committee.  The committee also discussed the propriety of its giving non-members (e.g., Alison Society members) access to the dossiers and giving selected members of the UD community special status in influencing the committee’s choice. Ismat will draft a response to Stan Sandler and will show it to the committee for their review before sending it.

The committee discussed the problem of getting excellence in teaching nominations from alumni.  Michael Gilbert reported that a new alumni web site has been launched allowing alums to register their contact information with UD.  Michael also mentioned that Alumni Affairs is planning to host a reception of scholarship recipients and their donors, an event the committee had recommended last year.  He also mentioned that the donor event might mean that the current Honors Day lunch at the Bob could perhaps become a smaller, more intimate affair.  Michael asked if the committee would like Cindy Campanella, the new Director of Alumni Affairs, to attend the next committee meeting to update us about alumni affairs and to discuss our ideas with her.  The committee agreed that we would like her invited to the next meeting.

Linda Gottfredson reported that Mark Rossettie, a member of the Student Government Association, had met with her to ask why part time instructors are not eligible for the excellence in teaching award.  Linda explained to him that the criteria established by the Faculty Senate is that candidates must be full-time faculty in order to be considered for the award, and she suggested to him that the Student Government Association could establish an award for part time faculty. She encouraged him to attend one of our meetings and welcomed his and other students’ suggestions on a variety of issues, including how to get more student nominations. This week, Mark submitted a formal complaint on behalf of the SGA on the non-eligibility of part-time instructors, which Linda forwarded to Ismat. Katharine mentioned that Alpha Lambda Delta gives an excellence in teaching award and that is not restricted to full time faculty.  Jim Magee suggested a possible solution would be to ask the Provost’s Office for money to establish a new award for part time faculty.  There was additional discussion about the committee’s role in administering such an award.  There was discussion about inviting Mark Rossettie to a future meeting to discuss his concerns with us. Ismat will draft a letter to Mark summarizing our conversation for committee comment

The meeting was adjourned at 10:00 .  The next meeting is November 7th.  Minutes recorded by Katharine Kerrane.