April 7, 2004

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

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

Absent: Professors Heintze, Jennings, Rosenbloom, Streitmatter

The minutes of the March 3, 2004 meeting were approved.

John Douglass opened the meeting by thanking Jill Olmsted, School of Communication, for all she had done for the Faculty Senate during the last two academic years. Professor Olmsted served as past chair of the Senate during the current year. She also chaired the University Senate during 2001-2002, and played a significant leadership role during the transition from the old governance body to the new.

Report of the Provost
Neil Kerwin reported first that he did not have much definitive information regarding enrollments for the summer session. He did note, however, that while it was still early in the registration cycle for summer and fall, the registrar had reported that the first day of registrations for summer and fall was up enormously over previous years, with something on the order of 35 percent more registrations than on the comparable day the year before. Registrations for the online summer courses were robust.

The news on fall enrollments was more definitive, and Dr. Kerwin provided the following details:

• Applications for the freshman class were up 20 percent over last year at the same time. The admit rate was in the low 50s. Deposits were almost 15 percent ahead of last year at the same time.

• Transfer applications were 30 percent higher than last year.

• Despite program reductions, masters applications were up 7 percent. Quality indicators for master’s applicants also appeared to be improved, and the academic units were reporting 21 percent more admits than last year, with the largest single increase in the School of International Service.

• At the doctoral level, applications were down 20 percent university-wide. The admit rate was steady with last year, but deposits were up about 23 percent.

Noting that conversion still needed to be taken into consideration, Dr. Kerwin said the emerging profile for the freshman class looked strong. Admitted students had an average SAT score of 1264 and an average GPA of 3.46.

As a second item, Dr. Kerwin reported that all the commentary in response to the university college proposal was being posted on the Provost’s web site. He said he would ask the deans to have their faculty review the comments, with an eye toward opening further discussions in the units. He asked that the senators also review the site, in preparation for another major discussion at the May Senate meeting. Dr. Kerwin also planned to meet with the University College Project Team on April 9 to determine whether their thinking about the design of the college might change, in light of the responses to the proposal.

As a third item, Provost Kerwin provided an update on the graduate programs. He reported that programs in the Washington College of Law and in the School of Public Affairs had been ranked highly in U.S. News and World Report. He said that faculty in the units were working with the deans to specify program goals for the next five years. Moreover, he said that recent improvements in financial aid policies will enable the units to offer candidates more attractive packages. Dr. Kerwin will present a complete report on graduate program developments to the Board of Trustees in May.

Fourth, Dr. Kerwin noted that the university was preparing for its annual Faculty Recognition Dinner. The dinner, which was scheduled for April 25th, would honor faculty who are retiring, those who have been at AU for 25 years, and the scholar-teacher of the year and other university award recipients. The event would also be an occasion to recognize faculty productivity, including sponsored research and publications.

As a fifth item, Provost Kerwin indicated that he hoped to be able to make available, before the May Board meeting, the formal report of the Middle States site visit team. He said the entire suite of recommendations, including those outlined in the self-study, will go to the Senate in the fall for a discussion about a program of implementation.

Concluding, Dr. Kerwin expressed his appreciation to Jill Olmsted for her efforts in bringing about a dramatic and successful transition in the faculty governance structure.

Report of the Chair
John Douglass reported on the results of the at-large elections. Those results are appended to the record copy of the minutes. He then reiterated Provost Kerwin’s suggestion that the Senate review the commentary about the university college proposal, in preparation for the next meeting.

Information Technology Issues
Bryan Fantie, Department of Psychology, led the discussion for the Committee on Information Services. He said the main purpose of the presentation that afternoon was to introduce a number of issues and to ask for the Senate’s aid in moving the discussion about those issues out of the committee to the faculty and the faculty’s various constituencies. The committee, he said, touches on two major spheres of influence with regard to technology: policy and content. The computer issues also focus on two major concerns:

• What is the purpose of the Information Services Committee and where does the committee fit in the chain of policy making and decision making?

• How can more technological support be provided for scholarship and research?

He then introduced Pat Wand, University Librarian, and Chris Simpson, School of Communication, who provided background information and outlined the committee’s concerns.

Pat Wand’s comments centered upon on what she called the system of scholarly communication, which she said had evolved over the years as part of academic life. She described the stakeholders in the system—scholars/faculty, publishers, libraries, universities—and the role they each play in the creation, dissemination, and preservation of new knowledge. And she noted that economics had increasingly become a critical factor for each the stakeholder groups.

She also described factors that had led to the current serials crisis, the difficulties that libraries face in making information accessible, due to skyrocketing costs for electronic resources. Finally, she talked about the concept of open access as a means for faculty to print, publish, and disseminate information through alternative formats and through alternative publishing enterprises. She said some of the desirable characteristics of an open access system will be:

• The broadest possible distribution of research that’s coming from academe;
• Quality assurance, through peer review;
• Reasonable prices for scholarly information;
• Increased control by higher education, versus commercial publishers.

In the latter area, she said there is a lot of pressure for university presses and for society and professional disciplines to maintain control of the journals they already have under their responsibility. Noting that a number of universities had created institutional repositories, she said she was pleased to report that the Washington Research Library Consortium is sponsoring a pilot project for institutional repository type publications for American University and the other members of the consortium.

The handouts Ms. Wand distributed are appended to the record copy of the minutes.

Chris Simpson provided a summary of the information technology issues raised by the Committee on Information Services. He noted first the existence of four short-term problems: (1) Ambiguous IT support responsibilities; (2) Access to AU’s local area network; (3) Inadequate remote access to electronic mail and other e-mail issues; and (4) Indequate data server and web scripting facilities. These issues are fully described in the report that is appended to the record copy of the minutes.

In addition to the short-term problems, a major long-term issue revolves around decision-making and accountability. He said the committee had not been able to identify a clear system for communicating faculty concerns to either IT staff or to the university administration. To address the longer-term issue, he said the committee was calling on the senate to endorse two sense of the senate resolutions.

The first resolution reaffirms basic values relevant to information services and information technology policy, which were stated as follows:

• American University’s interests are best served when faculty have a clear voice in major information technology decisions;

• The Faculty Senate is an appropriate channel for faculty involvement in information technology issues and decisions;

• We as a campus, as a faculty, and also as citizens are today facing rapid technical and political change with major ramifications for scholarship, teaching, civil liberties and human rights;

• The Faculty Senate welcomes faculty information technology discussions, forums or similar opportunities to expand the understanding of information technology issues.

The second resolution recommends that the university review and take action on the issues and the recommendations addressed in the report presented by the Committee on Information Services.

During the discussion about the resolutions, John Richardson was asked to comment from his perspective as director of the Center for Teaching Excellence. He noted that there were two issues that get to the heart of the question. One, should there be a broader range of services for faculty? For example, should there be a faculty-specific help desk? And two, is a local area network-based system appropriate for the new millennium? He suggested that the principle of having one help desk for all where the equity principle governs the operation may be something that needs re-consideration. With respect to the network system, he advised that moving from the current infrastructure to a new infrastructure will be quite challenging. E-operations, he observed, has adopted an incremental approach to upgrade to the present system.

Continuing, Professor Richardson, said that from a faculty standpoint, additional resources specifically targeted to customer service should be a priority. The university, however, also needs to maintain the challenge of staying at the cutting edge of technology. So it is a matter of keeping a balance.

Action: The Senate voted to endorse the sense of the senate resolutions. There was one opposed and one abstention.

Summer Initiatives
Janice Flug, chair of the Committee on Instructional Budget and Benefits, and Bob Karch, chair of the Committee on Faculty Development, led a discussion about summer initiatives. They introduced the following questions as decision issues:

1. Leadership - Is there a need for a Committee on Summer Sessions or a Director of Summer Sessions?

2. Should the deans have more latitude to time shift courses and faculty teaching loads?

3. Should the university provide incentives for innovative programs to be offered in the summer? Financial bonuses? Course releases?
4. Should the university lower the credit-hour rate for summer tuition?

5. Does there need to be more flexibility for summer, such as the phasing in of RCM or the offering of more three-week courses?

Professor Karch noted that from a faculty development standpoint, summer provides faculty a chance to catch up on research, to focus on publication, and to prepare for the coming academic year. However, it may also be possible, he said, to stand back to ask how the university might, in a creative way, provide opportunities for faculty during the summer. For instance, can the university look at a three-semester scenario, where one’s course load would be spread over three semesters, and where one would have an opportunity to teach in the summer versus the fall or spring. A critical question, he added, was how to encourage and reward faculty and support a movement toward maximizing the summer opportunity.

During the discussion, the senators raised a number of points:

• Janice Flug suggested that since AU has a cap on the size of its student body, it may be possible by a creative use of the facilities over the summer to actually increase the size of the student body, while remaining within the restrictions of the cap.

• John Richardson, School of International Service, asked whether the problem was primarily a capacity utilization issue. If the physical plant is significantly underutilized, then the challenge is just how to fill the gap, he suggested.

• Laura Langbein, School of Public Affairs, mentioned that there is one other issue besides capacity utilization. She said in some of the special master’s programs that are run in SPA, there is a substantial demand for more summer courses, because students want to move faster toward the completion of their degrees.

• Ivy Broder, Dean of Academic Affairs, advised that there were also faculty manual issues that needed to be considered, because the manual specifies that faculty work is from September through graduation. The current contractual arrangement would not allow, she said, for anything more than an occasional shifting of overload to summer under unusual circumstances.

Wrapping up the discussion, Provost Kerwin suggested that another round of data collection was in order before the Senate takes any formal action. He said the Senate would benefit from a review of data on the enrollment patterns for summer sessions, in order to discover what the targets of opportunity might be. He said he would share that data with the Senate and would also share information regarding the budget shortfalls for the last three summer sessions.

In response to other comments, Dr. Kerwin also advised that the majority of students enrolled in summer sessions are the university’s regular degree students. The university does not attract large numbers of non-AU students during the summer because of the expensive tuition rate. In addition, he said that the dormitories in the summer are heavily populated by visiting interns, who often get academic credit from their home schools. While an effort has been made, through an aggressive marketing campaign, to induce the student interns to take courses in AU’s summer sessions, that effort has met with very little success.

There was a consensus that the Senate should return to this issue after it reviews the data on the summer enrollment patterns.

Grade Inflation/Teaching Evaluations
Laura Langbein reviewed with the Senate the preliminary findings from her research on the relationship between grade inflation and student evaluations of teaching. She noted that there were two hypotheses:

• Faculty are likely to award students high grades in order to get better student evaluations of teaching.

• The student evaluation of teaching is a measure of learning, so a high student evaluation of teaching means you’re going to get a higher grade, because you learned more—which is reflection of better learning.

She then described in some detail her research methodology. The document that she distributed to the Senate is appended to the record copy of the minutes. Specifically, she noted that “the results are consistent with the theory that higher grades result in higher SETs; they are not consistent with the theory that higher grades (more learning) result in higher SETs.”

Emphasizing that the results were preliminary, Professor Langbein indicated that more statistical tests and additional analyses of the data are necessary and forthcoming. She said the instrument for the student evaluation of teaching was also in the process of being revised and would be available for review in the fall.

John Douglass proposed that the Senate revisit the issue in the fall, when further results are available.

Recommendation from the Committee on Curriculum and Academic Programs
As a point of information, Cathy Schaeff, co-chair of the Curriculum Committee, noted that the following recommendation regarding student evaluations had been forwarded to Provost
Kerwin in February.

"Student evaluations are used in a variety of ways including assessment of faculty performance for merit review and for promotion and tenure decisions. After reviewing information on grade inflation and its impact on student evaluations, the committee recommends that you consider the merits of formally recommending to the faculty that the assessment of student evaluations be done in conjunction with a consideration of course grade distributions. While there is not a simple relationship between the two, information about the grades assigned for a course should provide additional useful information for interpreting student evaluations. Further, scrutiny of grade distributions by rank and tenure committees may help to raise awareness of grade inflation.”

Professor Langbein stated that the committee’s recommendation was in keeping with the results of her research.

The meeting was adjourned at 4:10 p.m.