The Citadel Faculty Council
Minutes of the Regular Meeting of Nov. 20, 2003
Board of Visitors Room, Jenkins Hall

1. Prof. Lisa Zuraw, chairperson of Faculty Council, called the meeting to order at 11:05 a.m. and announced that Provost Carter had extended the deadline to accept his invitation to dinner and the basketball game on Dec. 1.

2. Members attending: Profs. Allen, Bloss, Bishop, Briggs, B. Carter, Chen, Darden, Davakos, Davis, Hewett, Lally, Knapp, Matthews, McKinney, Moody, Murray, Niksch, Woolsey, Zuraw and Richardson for Snively. Profs. Heisser and Steed were present to answer questions about the new charters of the committees they chaired.

3. Members absent: Profs. Andrade, Lipscomb and Miller.

4. The minutes for the meeting of Sept. 25 were approved unanimously with the change of General Grinalds to Provost Carter in Item 7 about who will sponsor a lunch meeting on student evaluations. The minutes for the meeting of Oct. 23 were approved unanimously with three word changes to quote people more accurately.

5. Prof. Zuraw made some announcements. Chaplain Golden has asked that faculty not schedule academic events during Monday evening religious time. Dean Metts has mentioned that a process is in motion to put the faculty ethics code into the Faculty Manual; this contradicts what Provost Carter implied to Prof. Zuraw, saying it would be posted on the Citadel website only, but if and when Academic Board approves it it could happen. There was talk at this about why Faculty Council had been unwilling to see the ethics code in the Faculty Manual, the danger that it would be construed as a new obligation despite the code’s language saying it was not; Prof. Zuraw noted that the Council could resolve something or could just let the inclusion happen. She went on to report, in response to faculty complaints that they could not access the midterm grades of their advisees in the new Web grading system Pancho, that ITS would make this possible and, for now, print out advisee midterm grades on request.

6. The Council resumed its task of approving the new committee charters. Prof. Woolsey moved and Prof. Darden seconded that the Sabbaticals Committee charter be accepted; its one change, in membership criteria, was noted and this was passed unanimously.

The charter of the Faculty Development Committee was approved unanimously, with no formal motion, after two changes: to substitute "online" for a reference to the VAX and remove "research" from a notice of what funding information would be on file.

The charter for the Scholarship Committee was amended, at the unseconded motion of Prof. Briggs, to say that the Committee on Committees would appoint 12 of its members instead of nine and the student members would be non-voting. It was then approved unanimously.

There was a long discussion about the charter for the Athletics Advisory Committee. This was once one of the committees which reported to Faculty Council but was now outside the Council’s jurisdiction, and needed to be brought back since NCAA rules say it should be under an organ of faculty governance. This committee should be active to oppose things like (hypothetical) too-easy classes as dumping grounds for student athletes, or the recent case where a good football player transferred in as a fifth-year student and never attended a class. It was decided, because of that case, to eliminate the word "cadet" in the mission statement and have the committee scrutinize all student-athletes. The discussion then turned to the item which stated that the NCAA Faculty Athletic Representative (FAR) would be the automatic chair of the committee. There was felt to be a danger that the representative would never call a meeting, though the present FAR is reliable; some FARs, appointed as they are by the President, have been perceived as company men unsympathetic to any criticism of the athletic department. It was pointed out that the charter says one-third of the members can call a meeting too. Prof. Briggs proposed that the charter be changed to mandate a normally elected committee chair from the regular members and have the FAR be an ex officio member who also has the power to call meetings. There was debate about the advisability of dividing leadership on a committee; Prof. Carter pointed out that the Library Services Committee has just such a membership for the library director and a regular chair. Prof. Allen noted that the FAR was a proper expert leader and the other members, perhaps with less interest in athletics, rotated on and off, and that this exposed the weakness of the committee system. (He also noted that this committee would not really have any power and we should not be spending half an hour discussing it.) Prof. Zuraw opined that this ought to change: athletics is a greater proportion of the Citadel budget than usual at colleges, and decision concerning it had an impact (for instance, is the new stadium a wise use of our resources?). Prof. Woolsey moved and Prof. Davakos seconded that the item about the FAR being chair be removed and replaced with the standard template for committee procedure; this was passed unanimously. Prof. Woolsey moved and Prof. Murray seconded, after debate to refine the motion, that the Membership section be amended to read "in addition the NCAA FAR is a non-voting, ex officio member." This was passed by a vote of 12 to 6 with one abstention. One more change was approved by acclamation, that the non-athlete student member be appointed by the Provost instead of the Regimental Academic Officer; the charter was then approved.

7. The approval of two other charters and the issue of the Committee on Committees wanting to dissolve some of the existing committees were postponed till the December meeting.

8. Prof. Zuraw reported on her progress in taking faculty concerns about parking to the Administration. Informal talk with vice-presidents revealed that they had a completely different view of the parking issue than Faculty Council: they thought students were the primary customers who had to be pleased with parking accommodations, saw no flaws in the system of reserved slots and were surprised that the Council voted 21 to 0 to explore the issue further. Council members opined that the reserved slots have made the parking problem worse and noted that when 100 more students are added to the student body numbers next year they will take more spots away from faculty and staff. Prof. Zuraw and others stated that the big issue for faculty and staff is that not having access to campus parking detracts from our ability to do our job: for instance, because of the difficulty of finding spaces, faculty don’t come in when they don’t have classes or don’t come back after lunch, leading to less contact with students. Prof. Woolsey moved and Prof. Niksch seconded that Prof. Zuraw be empowered to ask for the results of the survey on faculty and staff attitudes to parking that was taken a couple of years ago, which she was unable to find in the auditor’s office where it was supposed to be: also, that she be tasked with finding out how many people are filling in the Comments section on the current employee survey with parking questions. This was passed unanimously; Prof. Zuraw expressed the consensus of the Council by saying "The students are not the customers for parking, they are the customers for our educational mission which we need parking to fulfil."

9. Prof. Lally brought the Council up to date on the work of the subcommittee on student evaluation of faculty; it was assessing the faculty survey on the issue and would continue to do so at a December meeting.

10. Prof. Zuraw solicited nominations to replace Prof. Foster on the Committee on Committees when she goes on sabbatical; this substitute will be chosen at the December meeting.

11. The meeting was adjourned at 12:12 p.m.