Brief Announcements and Reminders

  • Engineering Advisory Council meeting on 10/16/2015
  • Engineering Scholarships events on 10/22/2015 and 10/23/2015
  • New Sexual Misconduct Policy (new training, then refreshers every 3 years)

ABET Preparations

The recent visit of the CS program resulted in several deficiencies and weaknesses, mostly related to the need for annual assessment and continuous improvement. With other college programs to be visited in two years, now is the time to make sure these processes are in place. Terry Mayes will be organizing a coordinator meeting soon, and each program should be represented.

Space Issues

  • Preparing for ECES wing renovation: It will be done in two phases, with the first phase encompassing most of the wing and the second phase including the far west side of the wing. The first phase will start in early spring 2016 with the occupants vacating the space (many are moving to SEEC), followed by asbestos abatement and demolition. The renovations will start in Summer 2016, and the second phase will start when the first phase is done. The whole project should be completed in Summer 2017. Occupants not moving to SEEC will be provided temporary lab space in vacated labs in DLC, ECCE and ECSL. Departments may need to help with temporary office space, especially for students and postdocs not moving to SEEC. An RFP for use of the renovated space will be issued later this semester or early next semester.
  • Request for a meditation room: A collection of Muslim students submitted a request for a meditation room in the Engineering Center. Rob has asked the campus leadership for a campus policy or decision on an appropriate response. The news media have picked up the story.
  • Review of non-centralized classrooms: JoAnn is on a campus subcommittee looking at space use, including non-centralized classrooms, which tend to be scheduled less frequently than classrooms on the central schedule.

Annual Evaluations

The participation of the dean’s office in annual evaluations of faculty has been questioned, since Regents policies refer to these evaluations as being done by the units. Since our annual faculty evaluations start with the units and then are reviewed and discussed by the dean’s office in collaboration with the units, it appears likely that are current processes are compliant, except that a clarification may be needed that the unit has the final say in a (rare) case of disagreement.

Summer Session

Doug Smith reminded the chairs that it is already time to start planning for Summer Session 2016. The biggest issue is that there is demand for several core courses, for which instructors will be needed. We have more flexibility in pay rates and providing student assistance than in the past. The college has received profit sharing each of the past several summers and have shared it with the departments via the annual budget algorithm (with summer SCHs included in the formula) – we may be able to do additional profit sharing in the future. Doug noted that instructional grants are available for courses that are new to summer session, offered on line, or have a visiting scholar as the instructor. It was also asked if the ITL plaza might be available for use during one or more of the summer sessions.

Open Discussion

Penny asked about training for faculty on how to handle active-shooter situations. Balaji asked about faster turnarounds on staff job postings (JoAnn recommended use of standard descriptions of common roles, since getting the job description in shape is often the slow step). Dan recommended job search help for spouses of faculty candidates (Rob noted that he and Sarah have made this request of campus – Jim suggested Berkeley and Virginia Tech as models; use of a head hunter was also suggested).

In Attendance

Rob Davis, JoAnn Zelasko, Doug Smith, Mary Steiner, Scott Palo, Keith Molenaar, Penny Axelrad, Dan Schwartz, Balaji Rajagopalan, Jim Martin, Bob McLeod, Mike Hannigan, Mark Gross