The Citadel Faculty Council
Minutes of the Special Meeting of Jan. 18, 2001
Computer Lab, Daniel Library

1. Prof. Tom Thompson, Faculty Council chairperson, called the meeting to order at 11:02 a.m.

2. Members attending: Profs. Bishop, Brown, Chen, Dunlop, Jones, Kelley, Lally, Matthews, Moody, Nath, Pages, Silver, Skow-Obenaus, Templeton, Thompson, Woo and Zuraw.

3. Members absent: Profs. Briggs, Gordon, Lineberger, McDowell and G. Williams.

4. The meeting was entirely given over to further discussion of the Faculty Senate issue and the Schools reorganization issue, to formulate questions to ask Gen. Carter in the regular meeting on Jan. 25th. Regarding the Faculty Senate, Prof. Thompson pointed out again the rationale for the melding, the terrible inefficiency of bouncing issues to be resolved around the two bodies for months or years-- a concern of him and others-- and the prospect that having just the one body would improve communications. The Council established what the proportions would be in the latest Senate proposal (20 administrators counting department heads, 23 ordinary academic department members, and 7 non-voting members including the three ROTC representatives) and discussed whether the Administration representatives would vote as a bloc and the faculty representatives would be hard-pressed to outvote them at need. The questions were raised of how much a department head is an Administration person (quite a lot, some said) and whether the faculty would want to vote as a bloc. Prof. Zuraw expressed concern that administrators have it as their fulltime job to decide about the issues that come up in college legislative meetings and are thus prepared with their agendas at the start, while faculty's real job is something else and we are thus at a disadvantage in formulating responses if we meet all together. Points were raised as from last time, whether a combined Senate would turn the real (if sometimes powerless) deliberations we have now into just briefings about what the policy will be. Some, like Prof. Brown, expressed concern that faculty members with minority opinions, which now are reflected in the minutes and the voting in Faculty Council, would have these opinions silenced and lost in the larger Senate grouping. Prof. Lally reiterated the point that some would feel uncomfortable bringing up unpopular opinions and issues in the Faculty Senate as now proposed. The Council considered three options: (1) keeping the present Faculty Council and Academic Board but meeting and voting together every third meeting for speed; (2) going to the Faculty Senate as proposed and having it meet once a semester with Administration and faculty caucuses meeting separately monthly; and (3) going to the Faculty Senate and having it meet monthly as the only meetings. An informal vote was taken just to see how many were comfortable with each option, which resulted in 16 out of 17 liking Option 1, 5 liking Option 2 and 3 liking Option 3.

The Council then went on to discuss the Schools reorganization. Prof. Thompson indicated that the main reason for it was probably that the Corps of Cadets cannot be expanded but the graduate-school student body can if we can confer PhDs; and that the departments which are accredited, Education and Business, can do this if they have the status of separate schools. Engineering was also a separate and accredited program and could give graduate degrees as a School. The question is, therefore, whether the remaining, non-accredited departments should also be formed into a School of Math and Science and a School of Humanities, kept together and formed into a School of Arts and Sciences, or not made into a school at all. Prof. Thompson noted that if either of the latter two options were done, the three accredited departments would have a dean each and 11 other departments only one; Prof. Bishop opined that this would be good, as it is a sign of health in a college to have less administration. The question was raised again of how much the reorganization would cost; how would existing deans be reshuffled, where would Col. Metts end up (if we got five schools and he became a dean of one, what of the plan to make him Associate Vice President for Academic Administration, and why is he being made this?) and would there be, as some have feared, the tendency in the departments which become schools to then fragment into sub-departments within those "schools"? Also, would there be a tendency to siphon money from the non-accredited to the accredited departments? It was noted that Engineering and Business have endowed chairs, so their deanships would not drain money from others, but what of the rest? Prof. Templeton asked if department heads become deans and have additional work, to whom would they delegate academic duties: department members, which would overwork them, or new hires, which would strain the budget? The question arose of whether this whole thing was wise when we are faced with a big state budget cut, though one person noted that advanced degree programs do not in fact usually make money for colleges. Questions based on all this were written on the board, and Prof. Thompson undertook to put them into the form of a letter of inquiry to Gen. Carter after submitting it to the Council members by e-mail for emendation.

5. Prof. Thompson made two brief announcements: that he had invited Col. Metts to come and talk about the student evaluation sheets but had had no reply yet, and that Col. Tomasik had obtained funding for parking improvements tied to the rebuilding of Padgett-Thomas barracks and would proceed with them.

6. After a protest from Prof. Bishop when there was a flurry to break up the meeting without doing this, members quickly read the minutes of the last two meetings, and Prof. Brown moved and Prof. Moody seconded that those of Nov. 16 be approved. This was passed. Prof. Silver moved and Prof. Skow-Obenaus seconded that the minutes of Dec. 14 be approved with one emendation, to attribute the most inflammatory phrase in the Senate discussion to the person who had said it, Prof. Bishop, rather than let it be thought by unclear wording that it was Prof. Nath. This was passed.

7. The meeting was adjourned at 12:10 p.m.