The Citadel Faculty Council
Minutes of the Regular Meeting of Oct. 21, 1999
Riverview Room, Coward Hall

1. Professor Julie Lipovsky, Faculty Council chairperson, called the meeting to order at 11:11 a.m.

2. Members attending: Professors Bishop, Brown, Chen, Dunlop, H. Ezell, Hurren, Feurtado, Foster, Lipovsky, Maynard, Pages, Pilcher, Silver, Thompson, Toubiana, B. White, G. Williams, Woo, Zuraw, and Lally and Leon for Thompson and White although the latter two also came after them.

3. Members absent: Professors Emanuel, McDowell, Wallace and Wolf.

4. John Brown moved and Lisa Zuraw seconded to approve the minutes of the Sept. 23rd and special Sept. 30th meetings; passed unanimously.

5. Prof. Lipovsky reported on her conferences with Col. Tomasik about the question of inadequate faculty parking on campus. They had discussed such issues as department head spaces going empty while non-heads couldn't find space and the prospective loss of more spaces when Padgett-Thomas barracks is torn down, and such possible solutions as eliminating department head spaces (which Col. Tomasik was against because their work is important), paving Kovats Field or having students with less than a 2.0 average park off campus. Col. Tomasik said he was actively looking for solutions, and he was just now meeting with the Campus Affairs Committee about it. Other Council members brought up suggestions like an on-campus parking garage and gripes like the students getting the shady side of the Grimsley lot and the faculty the sunny side: Prof. Lipovsky will convey to Vice-President Carter our unhappiness with this major morale issue.

3. Hack Ezell gave an interim report on merit pay; the committee will put out its proposed criteria, but meanwhile it is concerned because the Vice-President of Finance proposed that the money we now have for it over and above a cost-of-living increase of 3% and a merit raise of 1% be used toward The Citadel's lawsuit settlements. Prof. Lipovsky noted that Vice-President Carter told the Academic Board that this would not happen.

4. Prof. Lipovsky reported on the progress of the post-tenure review document through Academic Board, which has been nil since the Sept. 30th special meeting of Faculty Council. The question still is whether Academic Board will approve the amended document and resolve the issue (Item 5 of the Sept. 30 minutes) of who chooses a post-tenure review committee, or whether Faculty Council has to do the latter. Prof. Ezell moved and Steve Silver seconded that Col. Metts should re-submit our document to Academic Board and get them to resolve Recommendation 3. This passed unanimously.

5. Prof. Lipovsky reported on the last Academic Board meeting.

(a) There were announcements of future events: a campus visit by NCATE in February and a retreat by the Education Department.

(b) The Graduate Council is considering whether to approve one distance education course, a professional development course to update calculus teachers; it is looking at whether this would strain the library's resources. They are making a general policy which we will see in future.

(c) Due to the desire to coordinate The Citadel with the rest of the state, the AACSB, the accrediting agency for the Business Department, is coming to examine the department for re-accreditation years before the next scrutiny was due, but this time it will last the proper ten years.

(d) On the schools issue, Vice-President Carter will talk to Faculty Council about it over lunch, which was now happening; the College of Charleston intends to open a graduate center in Mount Pleasant.

6. Under New Business, Herb Nath in a communication with Prof. Lipovsky raised concerns about how the proposed rebuilding of the football stadium will impinge on faculty. Prof. Lipovsky gave a status report: some sort of stadium reconstruction is needed, the Citadel Magazine is gung-ho about it and this is what excites alumni (at this point there was a small flurry of discussion of the proposition that what we need is not a stadium but a team), state money will still not be heavily used, and they can take the opportunity to put the Health and Physical Education department in under-stadium classrooms and so free space in Deas Hall for NCAA-mandated female athletics. The Council decided, on Gardel Feurtado's suggestion, to take no definite action now but give Prof. Lipovsky a mandate to keep a strict eye on all proposals springing from the stadium development.

7. Sheila Foster had previously raised her concern that after the barracks beating on Oct. 14th there was a lockdown; after discussing the stadium, the Council returned to the issue of what could be done to keep students safer from violence in the barracks. Jeff Pilcher moved and Prof. Feurtado seconded that Faculty Council make a statement expressing its concern about barracks violence and urging more active solutions. This was quickly passed unanimously, and suggestions were then made. They included allowing male freshmen to be allowed to lock their doors at night as women now can, continuing the policy of criminal arrest and openly naming the attacker(s) as in the previous assault of Oct. 7th, having more open discussion of such events with faculty and staff on campus e-mail, allowing freshmen to fight back (with the issue of whether this would intensify the violence and muddy the issue of innocence and guilt), get fifth- and sixth-year students out of the barracks (by putting back the Veterans Day Program so that there would be day students living off campus), use psychological testing to spot and treat potential attackers, initiate a real night shift for TAC officers so that there is awake adult supervision and real scrutiny in the barracks at night, and putting all freshmen in a barracks in contiguous rooms so they could not be cut out of the herd. After the Council deplored the sneaky nature of the latest attack, the students' feeling of powerlessness as seen in the Brigadier and alumni support for the arrested and expelled attacker of Oct. 7, Prof. Lipovsky promised to discuss all this with the Commandant of Cadets and Vice-President Carter.

8. The purpose of the Riverview Room meeting was fulfilled by the Council members being treated to a nice lunch by Vice-President Carter.

9. As the members ate, Vice-President Carter reported on the latest developments in the question of a schools structure. He took the resolution of the Sept. 23 Faculty Council meeting (Item 6) seriously, and has in fact now severed the issue of the department head search in Education and Physical Education from the issue of whether the whole Citadel should be divided into schools. The latter will receive a long, thoughtful examination, Physical Education has been authorized to do its head search, and-- so that Education will not be stuck with a superfluous official if its special reasons (NCATE scrutiny, graduate expansion and such) impel it to become a School of Education sooner than others-- he has suggested and Academic Board has passed the policy that Education will search not for a regular Head but for a 12-month position called Dean, which can be that department's designated dean if they don't become a School. He realizes that there is debate on this issue; he wants all departments treated fairly but that doesn't necessarily mean the same. All this will be discussed.

10. The meeting was hastily adjourned as members had to leave for classes at 12:45. Some stayed and had a lively discussion with Gen. Carter.