The College of Education Executive Committee met on Thursday, March 6, 1997, at 8:30 a.m. in the Conference Room in the Education Center with Dean Toth presiding. Members present were: Drs. McGahee, Ducharme, Dorminey, Ramsey, Gunter, Morgan, T. Reed, Price, M. Reed, Monroe, Swank, Bauer, Ms. Roberts, and Ms. Fontaine.

Dean Toth announced that he and Ms. Fontaine had been working on room assignments for summer and fall quarters. Room assignments for summer quarter are completed; room assignments for fall quarter are nearing completion.

Dean Toth announced that there is a new version of BANNER; this version is 2.1.

Dean Toth announced that a decision had been made to allow only faculty members who have members of their immediate families graduating to award a degree at graduations. Graduation for winter quarter is scheduled for Saturday, March 22, at 10:00 a.m.

Dean Toth referred a memo he had received from the U.S. Department of Education to Dr. Monroe; he asked Dr. Monroe to respond to this memo. The memo concerned the "America Reads Challenge." One item from the memo dealt with allowing work-study students to get paid for going out into the schools and reading to children.

The Professional Standards Commission has re-affirmed its policy of not allowing student teachers to be paid as substitute teachers while they are student teaching.

Dr. M. Reed reported on the policy of Georgia Southern relating to how faculty serving on doctoral committees is handled in relation to faculty load; she talked with Dr. Michael Richardson. Basically, Georgia Southern handles this situation very informally; nothing is in writing. Service on doctoral committees is counted as simply service. Dean Toth announced that he will appoint three people to serve on a committee to formulate a policy for the COE. Drs. Ducharme and Bauer asked that service on M.Ed. and Ed.S. theses committees also be considered in formulating this policy.

Dean Toth announced that he had met yesterday with Dean Clark concerning the doctoral program. Dean Toth will schedule a meeting with the department heads (McGahee, Morgan, and Price) in the near future. There have been some real problems with this first group of students. It is Dean Toth's intention for control of each of the three options in the doctoral program to revert back to the respective department heads of the departments in which each of the three options is housed.

Dean Toth announced that construction is scheduled to begin shortly on three classroom buildings for the Department of Psychology, Counseling and Guidance. These three classrooms, approximately 2400 square feet each, will be built at the corner of East Force and North Slater Streets. The first of the three buildings has an anticipated completion date of September, 1997.

Dean Toth discussed other capital projects currently under consideration by the university. We have requested $2.533 million for FY99 for converting the old Woolworth Building in University Center to a Child Care Center. As the plans for the Child Care Center include studios, Dean Toth and Blake Ellis, the architect for the project, are going to visit the studios in the Georgia Public TV Building in Atlanta; it is also their intention to visit other Child Care Centers. Other capital projects under consideration include: an addition to the Odum Library; a student recreation center; a physical plant facility; a center for health professions, human resources and research; and a music and performing arts center. The music and performing arts center would be built on Norman Drive, and the Music Department would move out there.

Dean Toth distributed copies of a document, "Graduate Teaching Assistants and Graduate Laboratory Assistants Policies," developed by the Graduate School.

Dean Toth distributed a memo from Dr. Benjamin concerning salary equity adjustments. This memo explained the procedures for department heads to use in requesting salary equity adjustments for faculty. Dr. Mike Crowe is completing a regression analysis of faculty salaries; this information will be given to department heads in a few days. Department heads should wait until they receive this information before requesting a salary equity adjustment. Equity adjustments are due March 19; merit salary recommendations for all faculty are due March 20.

Ms. Fontaine distributed departmental monthly budget reports.

All COE semester conversion materials will be considered by Academic Committee at its May 5 meeting. In order to meet this deadline, it was decided that the following dates would be used for departments to have their programs considered by the COE Executive Committee:

March 18 - Secondary Education

March 20 - Middle Grades Education

April 1 - Health, Physical Education and Athletics

April 8 - Educational Leadership

April 9 - Vocational Education

April 14 - Special Education and Communication Disorders

April 15 - Psychology, Counseling and Guidance

April 17 - Early Childhood and Reading Education

Packets of semester conversion materials will need to be submitted to all Executive Committee members one week prior to the day they will be presented.

Dean Toth encouraged department heads to increase the number of seats in lecture-oriented classes which were already full, particularly EDG 200, PSY 250, and HED 200.

Dean Toth discussed the "Strategic Planning to Attain Institutional Goals" and "Introduction to Planning Procedures and Assessment of Institutional Effectiveness" documents. Both of these documents will be put on the Web. As written, the strategic planning documents require that each unit (department) respond to 13 required goals each year, with other goals as optional. These documents will be discussed at next week's deans' meeting. Copies of both documents were distributed to department heads.

Dean Toth has still received no word from Dr. Benjamin about interviewing for several positions, including positions in Psychology, Educational Leadership, Vocational Education, and Special Education.

Dean Toth announced that, according to Dean Clark, graduate enrollment is down from last year.

Announcements

--Ms. Roberts announced that the Advising Center had advised about 80 percent of its advisees for spring quarter.

--Dr. Swank announced that on the field test of the Praxis I test which was administered in the COE, about 65 percent of the students passed the reading portion and 51 percent passed the mathematics portion. The reading portion has not yet been graded.

--Dr. Swank announced that the Opening School Experience will be available to students again this fall.

--Dr. Morgan will attend the AERA Convention.

There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 10:25 a.m.

Respectfully submitted,