UCAP Meeting of 08/31/2000 2000-2001 agenda status: approved Agenda:
Meeting of Thursday, August 31, 2000 10:15 a.m., Board Room, Administration Building 1. Approval of Agenda 2. Approval of Minutes of the April 27, 2000 meeting (Attachment) 3. Comments from the Chairperson 4. Comments from the Assistant Provost 5. UCAP’s Charge and Responsibilities 6. Agenda Development and Preview (Committee members are invited to consult with faculty colleagues as to issues that should be brought to the committee and to recommend agenda items for consideration.) 7. Clarification: SPES (Student Public Evaluation System) (Attachment) 8. Roundtable Please phone or E-Mail Robin Pline (353-5380; pline@msu.edu) if you cannot be present. Attachments: April 27, 2000 Draft Minutes SPES Policy Memo to Provost Simon Aug31UCAPagenda.doc minutes status: approved approved at meeting of 09/14/2000 UCAP Minutes for meeting held on 08/31/2000 Approved 9/14/00
Present: J. Roy Black, Howard Bossen, Joe Chartkoff, Paul Coe, David Imig, Kurt Lausman, Charles McHugh, Shaun Philips, Latonya Riddle, Barbara Steidle, Jon Sticklen, Jeanne Wald, Winston Wilkinson
She noted that the issue of publicly available teacher evaluations was largely completed in the 1999-2000 UCAP meetings, but that at today’s meeting, some clarification of language would be undertaken. She also noted that the issue of additional means of evaluating teaching for merit salary increases, for tenure and promotion, and for other evaluative purposes would be discussed in the 2000-2001 UCAP meetings. She further noted that Professor Jacobs would be a good candidate to continue as Chair of the Teaching Evaluation Subcommittee. Chairperson Wald went on to discuss other broad issues which will be part of the UCAP discussions in the current year. These included: · the grade marker issue, and · the group work issue, especially the assessment of students in a group work setting. 6. Assistant Provost Steidle then made her comments to UCAP. Dr. Steidle reported that the beginning of the Fall Semester was smooth and without incident. She also indicated that 2000-2001 was a banner-recruiting year for MSU. The target of 6650 freshmen was exceeded by about 150 students. The yield (matriculation to admit ratio) is fully 2.5 percentage points higher than the previous year. In addition, Steidle noted that to date, 1759 transfer students had joined MSU, and 1476 new graduate students had likewise joined the MSU family. Associate Provost Steidle also noted that the numbers of students entering with a GPA of 3.5 or above was significantly higher than in previous years, and that 2,000 of our entering students have a GPA of 3.9 or higher. Likewise, the ACT test results of matriculating students were up from around 23 to an average of 24 this fall. Steidle then went on to indicate that 4,000 of our incoming freshman were recipients of the State of Michigan, new Michigan Merit Scholarship. In toto, Steidle indicated that this year’s freshman class by all hard metrics should be academically good. She then outlined the charge of the MSU By-Laws for Academic Governance to UCAP, and in particular its areas of responsibility. UCAP is directly delegated authority over grading policy. In all other areas of its defined responsibilities, UCAP acts in an advisory or consultative role to Provost Simon. Steidle then reminded the UCAP membership of the one remaining large issue which UCAP in the previous year left for the consideration of the 2000-2001 UCAP members: the need for UCAP to track the implementation of the student computer proposal. Provost Simon has supported the committee’s position that a joint subcommittee of UCAP and the Computer and Communications Systems Advisory Committee (CCSAC) be formed to facilitate the developments affecting this implementation. Four members will be chosen from each committee to constitute the joint subcommittee. The issues to be the purview of the joint subcommittee would include the issue of training of faculty to use and leverage the technology in their teaching roles. Chairperson Wald indicated she would be sending out a note to UCAP members before the next meeting to ask for volunteers for all subcommittees, including the joint UCAP/CCSAC subcommittee. Steidle requested that all such email correspondence to UCAP members be carboned to her office, and Wald indicated that she was in accord with this request. Steidle concluded her remarks by noting that on September 8, there would be a Lilly Seminar (led by Steidle and Ann Bolger, Director of Residence Life) which would address issues of academic integrity. The seminar is to be held in the Kellogg Center, at 8:30 am. She invited Mr. McHugh and Mr. Lausman to join faculty and staff for the discussion, and suggested that faculty members of UCAP attend if possible. Professor Sticklen noted that activities such as the Lilly Seminars would gain a larger audience and have more impact in the campus community if (a) the seminars could be web-cast, and (b) if the digital web-cast record of the meetings could be made available as streaming video archived on the MSU web for all faculty and students to view at leisure. Steidle noted that she found the suggestion to have merit and would look into its feasibility. The issue was to clarify the language in the proposal developed by UCAP in 2000-2001 to make publicly available the results of a simple instructional evaluation tool which students would use to evaluate each of their instructors. The core concern was to leave enough flexibility at the departmental level to allow expression of different ways of best presenting comparisons appropriate within the reporting department. After discussion, a motion was placed on the floor to modify the next to the last sentence in the third paragraph” of the cover memo on SPES from Wald and Sticklen to the Provost. The proposed modified sentence is as follows. It is the intent of the committee that academic units will have some flexibility in defining the bases for comparisons used in, and other elements they consider relevant for, the presentation of unit data. Committee members found this consistent with their original intent. The motion proposing this change was seconded, and on a unanimous vote, the motion was approved. Professor Wilkinson led a discussion of the views of UCAP members on the issue of membership in the Military Education Advisory Committee (MEAC). Wilkinson pointed out that one recurring issue in MEAC is that designated military personnel temporarily assigned to teach military courses at MSU do not consistently have masters’ degrees. He wanted to make UCAP aware of this issue in order to get feedback from UCAP members on the advisability of long term tolerance of this situation; i.e., Prof. Wilkinson solicited UCAP member views on whether, as UCAP representative to MEAC, he should be aggressive in dealing with the issue. Steidle noted that it is not in the purview of UCAP to set policy on personnel affecting Military Science and Aerospace Studies. Wald pointed out that Wilkinson was requesting UCAP views on the MEAC membership issue, not proposing that UCAP set policy on the issue. Wilkinson pointed out that although the military representative on MEAC does not have an advanced degree, this individual typically has a good deal of experience. It was the sense of Wilkinson that either (a) the membership rules of MEAC should be modified to that the year-by-year “exception” need not be made, or (b) that the current rules be more rigorously enforced. As background, Steidle pointed out that MEAC serves as the curriculum committee for the Military Science program. All faculty associated with this program are temporary faculty. Discussion on this issue ended at this point without a clear direction being given to Wilkinson on how to represent UCAP, but rather a sense that the issue should be tracked, and further developments reported back to UCAP. At this point, the roundtable proceeded, with each member of UCAP present saying a few words about which College/Unit the member represented, and any other short statements by way of introduction to new UCAP members. Having no other items on the agenda, Chairperson Wald asked for and received a motion to adjourn, which after second was passed unanimously. The UCAP meeting was adjourned at 11:04 am. The next UCAP meeting will be at 10:15 am, in the Board of Trustees Conference Room, Administration Building, on Thursday, September 14, 2000. Respectfully submitted, Jon Sticklen, Engineering College
UCAP8.31.00.doc
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