Minutes

Faculty Senate Student and Faculty Honors Committee

Friday, December 7, 2007

Room 130 Hullihen Hall

Present: Kirsten Andrews, Mohsen Badiey, Jan Bibik, Linda Gottfredson, Rhonda Hyde, Katharine Kerrane, Zachary Schafer, Ismat Shah, Jonathan Urick

Linda announced that the Provost has approved hiring a tech person (CITA) to assist the Faculty Senate. Their first task will be to help simplify the use and maintenance of this Committee’s nominations database and website. Candidates are currently being interviewed.

Michael, who was unable to attend, emailed Linda that he is planning a meeting in mid-January with Publications, Linda, and other staff involved in preparing the booklet.
Linda said she will meet with Michael beforehand to review the Committee’s efforts to trim the booklet and revise criteria for inclusion.
Katherine wondered whether we should delay trimming the booklet until the new administration has settled in. The committee agreed that any substantial revisions to the booklet should therefore be postponed, perhaps until next fall, though the process would begin as soon as possible.
It was suggested that donors or their representatives could present awards on honors day. The committee was intrigued by the idea but expressed some concern regarding feasibility.

Rhonda reviewed the two Alison documents she revised for the committee: (1) the checklist (cover sheet) to be submitted with the Alison dossiers and (2) the evaluation rubric that the committee will use when evaluating submissions. The Committee made additional changes, some to make sure that the criteria did not inadvertently favor certain kinds of scholarship over others (science vs. humanities, applied vs. basic).
Linda will revise the Committee’s Alison-related documents, notifications, and webpages to incorporate these changes and make them consistent.
She noted that letters inviting faculty and deans to submit nominations must be sent in January

Linda collected minor revisions to the Excellence-related notices and webpages. All must be completed in January.
Katherine will try again to speak with the alumni office, after staff have been hired, about how we can generate more nominations from alumni.
Linda will contact Carl Jacobson about how alumni can submit online nominations.
Jonathan and Zach plan on meeting with Michael as soon as possible to move on efforts to increase student nominations, in particular, planning a nomination season “kick-off” event.

Minutes submitted by Jonathan Urick