Note: At times, issues of confidentiality may require that some items discussed in these meetings be excluded from these minutes.

Members: Bill Barnes, Dave Caudill, Tom Currin, Alan Gabrielli, Steve Hamrick, Ruston Hunt, Joyce Mills, Jeff Orr, Nikki Palamiotis, Jeffrey Ray, Han Reichgelt, Zvi Szafran

Members Absent:

Guests: Dr. Lisa Rossbacher, David Stone

Item 1. Updates

Dr. Rossbacher visited the Council today to talk about the Board of Regents’ decision to allow the University of Georgia and Georgia Southern to add engineering to their programs. Dr. Rossbacher spoke about how SPSU came to get evening engineering in collaboration with Georgia Tech and emphasized three major strategic points as our focus for the immediate future:

Maintain integrity in our evening engineering programs; continue to serve our group of students.
Focus our recruiting efforts on the geographic area that best meets our needs. Dr. Rossbacher suggested we establish an ad hoc committee to work with Jim Cooper. Combine smaller advertising efforts into a larger University-wide advertising campaign; focus on STEM, engineering, and engineering technology. Focus advertising within the state of Georgia.
Increase media/press releases, news articles, professional publication submissions, etc. with a concentrated campaign for accomplishing this. Emphasize our programs but also talk about other things we’re doing on our campus – capitalize on everything happening on our campus.

Dr. Rossbacher also talked about the critical need to bring our graduation rate up. The Board of Regents’ focus on graduation rates is a continuing topic of discussion and was a deciding factor in SPSU not having been viewed as a viable way to meet the unmet engineering demand. Dr. Rossbacher will present any new data we have on our graduation rate at the Board meeting next spring. Dr. Rossbacher suggested that our focus needs to be on retention and graduation rates by working on advising, maintaining integrity within our programs, and increasing visibility in STEM, engineering and engineering technology.

It was suggested that efforts need to be increased at open houses and that departments need better materials and more organization at the open houses. Dr. Rossbacher suggested that the Deans should be orchestrating this and working with the departments on this.

Dr. Szafran suggested that our lack of history of capturing events on campus and publicizing these events on the website is a real problem.

It was also suggested that departments should be allowed to have uniqueness on their web pages and business cards, etc. Dr. Rossbacher reminded the Council that we must follow University standards and use the branding that has been established.

Dr. Szafran updated the Council on the following:

Szafran will be in China for eight days.
Reminded the Council to get faculty search materials in as soon as possible.
E and ET will be moving to the new building starting tomorrow.
DegreeWorks is being implemented. Almost all information has been entered and the testing phase will begin soon. Hamrick hopes to have usable product by spring. Concentrations declared by students will now show up on their transcripts.
There seems to be an issue at the System Office with minors “double-dipping” core courses –Linda Noble is looking into this. The Undergraduate Curriculum Committee will discuss minors, concentrations, certificates, etc. to come to a better understanding of each.
Enrollment for spring is about where we were last year but down from fall.
Dr. Szafran will send out something to the faculty about the Board decision to allow engineering at University of Georgia and Georgia Southern.

Item 2. Building Diversity into Faculty Searches

Szafran made the following announcements:

Get search paperwork in!
It is unlikely that we will fill all positions.
We are committed to EEO by building diversity into faculty searches.

Szafran stated that search committees should make a list of required attributes such as Ph.D., etc. before reviewing applications and sort by attributes and make sure final candidates meet those attributes. He further stated that they should increase diversity in the applicant pool by using faculty and personal contacts, advertising in specialty publications, etc. He asked the deans and chairs to extend their best efforts to widen their pools to include diverse candidates and that those doing so will be given preference for discretionary hires. Mary Ellen McGee or Joyce Mills will identify minority institutions and share this list with the Council. Steve Hamrick will identify historically black universities with Ph.D. programs in STEM and will share that information also. He reiterated that the search committees set the bar where appropriate and hire the best candidate.

Item 3. Search for the Dean of Arts and Sciences

It was suggested that David Caudill (absent) chair the search committee for the Dean of Arts and Sciences and that the make-up of the committee include 1 staff, 4 faculty from Arts and Sciences, 4 representatives from the other schools/division, and 1 member of the Student Government Association. The representatives from Arts and Sciences should include two or fewer department chairs. The ATTIC and Library should be included in the interview process.

Item 4. New Business

David Stone announced that CourseEval is set up for online courses this semester and he is able to set permissions for viewing the results. David will check with Pam Frinzi to see where her ad hoc committee (reviewing on-line evaluation use for all courses) is in their process and make decisions based on input and report back to the Council.
Mechatronics received a donation for equipment and scholarships.
Kuka Robotics will be on campus November 22^nd and is looking to locate equipment on our campus for our use and when not in use as a showcase opportunity for their clients. This would be a great media opportunity. The High Museum will be here tomorrow. We need to take photos at these meetings.

Meeting adjourned at 4:00 P.M.