February 4, 2004

John Douglass called the meeting to order at 1:45 p.m.

Present: Professors Ahrens, Arneson, Burke, Douglass, Fagelson, Flug, Forst, Heintze, Jacoby, Jennings, Karch, King, Langbein, La Salle, Loesberg, Olmsted, Richardson, Riley, Schaeff, Rosenbloom, Streitmatter, Vogelsong. Provost Kerwin and Dean of Academic Affairs Broder.

Absent: Professors Cochran, Fantie

Report of the Provost
Neil Kerwin reviewed the schedule for the on-site visit of the Middle States team on February 8-11. He noted that the Faculty Senate would meet with the team on Monday, February 9, 1:45-2:45 p.m. He also reported that Dr. Roland Sidwell, from the DC Education Licensure Commission, would accompany the team as an observer. Dr. Sidwell, he noted, would not participate in any of the team’s deliberations about the re-accreditation recommendations.

Dr. Kerwin also reported that, with John Douglass’s approval, he had forwarded to Helen Goldstein’s husband the tribute that the Senate endorsed in January. He said his letter indicated that the resolution was fitting and appropriate for someone who has meant so much to the university.

Report of the Chair
John Douglass welcomed Cynthia King as a new member of the Senate. Professor King will serve out Wendy Swallow’s term for the balance of the semester, as the representative from the School of Communication.

Noting a modification to the agenda, Professor Douglass then reported that he had invited Vi Ettle, Assistant Provost, to brief the Senate on plans for the university to offer distance education courses during the Summer 2004 session. Following that presentation, the Senate would brainstorm about topics identified by two of the standing committees, the Committee on Faculty Development and the Committee on Information Services.

Briefing on the Distance Education Program
Vi Ettle began by tracing the chronology of activities that led to the development of the distance education courses. She noted the following:

• Eighteen months earlier, Provost Kerwin requested that Vi Ettle; David Brown, dean of the Washington Semester; and Meg Weekes, a professor in the Washington Semester, look at developing a pilot online course to provide a Washington-type experience for students who may not be able to come to Washington. In the course of doing research, market surveys, and so forth, they narrowed the scope of the pilot into a course that would be offered asynchronously.

• Meg Weekes developed the course “Justice in the Face of Terror,” which was offered in Summer 2003, with 28 students enrolled. She was assisted in her preparations by Don Bunis, who is now a training consultant in distance education. The evaluations for both the course and for Professor Weekes were outstanding.

• Based on the success of the pilot, the provost’s office decided to explore the possibility of developing between six and twelve new online courses for Summer 2004. Information went out to the deans about a course development grant of $2,500 each, whereby faculty who receive the grant would agree to develop a course, agree to teach the course, and also agree to go through an online training program about the delivery of distance education.

• The Provost’s office received ten positive responses to the grant offer. Out of the ten, nine faculty members agreed to receive the grant, develop a course, and go through the training. Nine distance education courses are therefore slated for the summer session. The courses and the faculty who will teach them are:

- Computer Techniques for Communication Studies – John Doolittle

- Media @ the Millennium – Amy Eisman

- Foundations of Special Education for Exceptional Children – Sarah Irvine Belson

- The Internet and Election 2004: Past Practices, New Frontiers – Paul Glenn

- Justice in the Face of Terror – Margaret Weekes

- The Road to Global Justice: American and International Human Rights – Carolyn Cox Cohan

- Introduction to International Relations Research – Karen Froslid Jones

- Computer Applications in International Relations Research – James Lee

- Human Rights and U.S. Foreign Policy – Julie Mertus

Ms. Ettle said the online courses will carry a tuition rate of $2,200 for three credit hours, slightly below the standard tuition for on-campus courses. For summer, the courses will be budgeted as an institute and will not be available for the tuition remission benefit or for alumni audit. If, in the future, the program is mainstreamed, the courses will be offered for the tuition remission benefit.

She also reported that the Provost’s office had also convened a Distance Education Working Group, which is composed of faculty and staff from all units that have involvement in the development, support, and delivery of online instruction. She then introduced three faculty members who will teach in the distance education program. Their comments follow:

Margaret Weekes – Professor Weekes described her experience with the pilot course “Justice in the Face of Terror.” She said teaching a distance education course the first time through is very intensive. During the first four weeks of the semester, she said she had practically lived in front of her monitor, responding to every single student posting. After that, the students started talking more to each other. Although she favors the face-to-face classroom setting, she said she came away a total convert for distance education. It is possible, she observed, to communicate with students in the distance format and tweak their logic. It is possible to ask questions to get them to push beyond the limitations of their earlier thinking.

Jim Lee, Associate Director, Technical Support and Training - Professor Lee reported that his class “Computer Applications in International Relations Research,”will have a more technical aspect. He said he planned to make short introductory videos, so that students can see his face and hear his voice. He also plans to use screen capture software to allow students to follow what he is doing with the computer program, because he will be teaching Dreamweaver. He added that while he did have some streaming videos, the use of streaming videos for off-campus courses is still very difficult.

Sarah Irvine Belson, School of Education – Professor Irvine Belson said her course, “Foundations of Special Education for Exceptional Children,” is a traditional course, bordering on being philosophical. The students will be 36 of the School of Education’s third-year Teach for America cohort. She said she planned to make voice-overs of Power Point presentations. The course will be available for 12 weeks, but students may work through it more quickly if they wish.

Concluding her briefing, Vi Ettle said the next step will be to look at how to expand the distance education offerings. If the program is a success, the university may want to consider whether distance education should also become available for the regular fall and spring semesters, or for the intersession, in a compressed format.

Brainstorming Discussion
Robert Karch, chair of the Committee on Faculty Development, provided a list of topic/issues that had been considered by his committee. He commented briefly on each of the items listed.

Faculty teaching/course loads – Teaching loads is a classic, ongoing discussion. There seems to be a disconnect, however, if the university is trying to reduce the number of adjuncts, and trying to involve more faculty in the classroom in a host of ways, and at the same time, attempting to reduce teaching loads.

Creative/alternative teaching – use of summer months – How can AU maximize the use of its physical plant during the summer months? Could there be a scenario where a faculty member teaches in the summer but not the fall or spring? A scenario where one would teach two of the three cycles.

Support for continued faculty development – post tenure – Perhaps more could be done to mentor and grow faculty who will assume major roles in the university. Should the Committee on Faculty Development play some part in this process?

Encouragement, support, and rewards for external funding efforts and success and consideration (negotiability) for new approaches to research, grants and contracts – How can the university do a better job of encouraging faculty to seek external funding? Also, is this a high priority?

Enhancement of faculty culture (intellectual and social) – How can we develop a collective sense of what American University is and what it means to work here, to teach here, to study here—to be a part of the community? What can or should the committee do to try to stimulate that?

Fairness in tenure, promotion and compensation issues/actions – Is there a way to improve that process?

The role of the Faculty Development Committee in reviewing and recommending Faculty Research Grants – Should the committee have a role in the review of faculty research proposals, as a tangible means of supporting and facilitating faculty development?

Harassment – sexual, political, and other – Should the committee play a larger role in trying to create awareness or training about harassment, or even a role in the process of dealing with such issues, through counseling or developing faculty?

Professor Karch said the committee welcomed feedback from the Senate in assessing the merits of each of the issues as worthy of further consideration.

Discussion
David Fagelson, School of Public Affairs, opened the discussion by presenting a proposal that he said could resolve the dualing goals of the 15-point plan. Those goals, as outlined by Provost Kerwin, can be stated as follows:

• The commitment to dramatically reduce the number of adjunct faculty

• The commitment to reduce average teaching loads

• The commitment to maintain faculty-student ratios and average class sizes at current levels

Professor Fagelson proposed that if American were to go on a course system, rather than a credit system, with eight courses a year, there would be a 20 percent reduction in demand for courses. Specifically, he said he was suggesting a system where lower-level courses, 100-300, would get 4 credits, and upper-class seminars would get 3 credits. The students would take 120 credits to graduate, as they do now. With a combination of 24 lower-level courses and 8 upper-class seminars, students would end up completing the same number of credits as is now required.

Professor Fagelson said further that the 20 percent reduction in demand would give the university something to bank, which could be used to reduce the number of adjuncts, while keeping class size constant, and also to move the university to a 2-2 load. He also proposed that American go to two 13-week semesters, as opposed to 14-week semesters. The extra two weeks would open up January, which could be used for the experiential classes that are the goal of the university college concept.

Responding, Provost Kerwin noted that American had been on a four-course-per-semester at 4 credit hours per course 25 years ago. He said the university had abandoned that experiment because it was determined that the amount of activity to enhance the educational experience was inconsistent. In effect, the university had 4-credit courses taught for what amounted to 3-credit hours worth of work.

The senators then commented on Professor Fagelson’s proposal.

Suggesting that one has to be concerned about unintended consequences, Brian Forst, School of Public Affairs, wondered to what extent the current numbers, under the existing structure, are modeled in spreadsheets, so that faculty can assess what effect a change to a courses system would have.

Provost Kerwin responded that if the discussion got serious about such an option, we could model a first-year curriculum, which could then cascade into the second, third, and fourth year. The key variable at the front end, he emphasized, is the size of the freshman class and the retention rate of that class through the next years. Provost Kerwin also observed, however, that a redefinition of a curriculum the size of AU’s, which is massive, would be a monumental shift.

Jonathan Loesberg, Department of Literature, said he liked the proposal, but he thought it was going at the issue backwards. He said if American decides, for various reasons, that it needs to have a four-course load, then we should start finding ways of dealing with this with budget. He also said that having gone through a lot of recruitment problems as a chair, it is imperative to have a four-course load.

At that point the chair, John Douglass, suggested that the senators go back to the teaching units and present Professor Fagelson’s proposal to their colleagues. He said the provost’s point that the curriculum starts in the unit was well taken. The Senate could bring the proposal back for further discussion in April. In the intervening meeting, there will be discussion about the university college, which may also inform some of the thinking about the first two years of the curriculum.

John Richardson, School of International Service, added that the faculty is wrestling with two things simultaneously. On one hand, the university college proposal is pressing for a spectrum of faculty engagement that is considerably broader than what AU is doing now. On the other hand, the university is getting a faculty that by and large has stronger research commitments than faculty had ten years ago. So one part of the puzzle may be a serious look at how the university counts what faculty do.

The remainder of the discussion centered upon broad issues related to the teaching load and the reduction of adjunct faculty. Tony Ahrens, Department of Psychology, proposed that the Senate begin keeping track of the shifts in adjunct faculty and also the shifts in the number of full-time faculty, as those numbers affect average class size and also the number of courses available to undergraduates. There was agreement that Karen Froslid Jones, Director, Institutional Research and Assessment, would meet with the Curriculum Committee and the Student Learning Committee to update the data on a semester by semester basis.

Jill Olmsted, School of Communication, proposed that the senators also take Bob Karch’s list back to their units for review by other faculty. She then asked for clarification about the review of faculty research proposals, and Dean Broder explained that the review had been decentralized to the units when the Senate was restructured. Dean Broder said the Committee on Faculty Development would review curriculum development grant proposals during the spring semester.

Technology Issues
Diana Vogelsong, chair of the Committee on Information Services, reported that the committee was seeking a sense of the Senate resolution recognizing the importance of four information and technology-related issues:

• strengthening accountability and transparency for technology policy and operational issues across the university;

• putting privacy issues for faculty, students, and staff clearly on the university agenda, particularly in light of the USA Patriot Act and accelerating technological change;

• ensuring open, meaning faculty participation in university policy-making concerning intellectual property and appropriate-use of computers issues; and

• educating faculty in developments concerning the significant changes in academic journal pricing, open access alternatives for scholarly communication and in vendors “leasing” access to data that was formerly sold for permanent inclusion in university library collections.

She said the committee was seeking authorization to hold two open forums, one in the spring and one in the fall, to address the second and fourth issues. The first and third issues, she noted, involved activities that are occurring on a daily basis. The committee therefore hopes to weigh in on those issues more expeditiously.

Jill Olmsted suggested that it would be helpful for the Senate to have more information about the issues, in order see how much interest is generated among faculty in the schools and colleges. Diana Vogelsong said the committee would bring the issues to the Senate, if that was useful. John Douglass suggested that the further discussion about technology issues therefore be resumed at the April meeting.

The meeting was adjourned at 3:55 p.m.