|
MINUTES OF THE MEETING COLLEGE OF EDUCATION EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
The College of Education Executive Committee met on Thursday, April 27, 2006, at 8:30 a.m. in Room 255 in the Education Center with Dean Gunter presiding. Members present were: Drs. McGahee, Stanley, Zahner, Hilgert, Corbin, Lee, Griffin, Bauer, Martinez, Thompson (for Hull), Leech, Mr. Pearce, and Ms. Roberts. Guest: Dr. Judd. Dean Gunter reviewed items which had been discussed at the deans' council meeting yesterday, April 26: Dean Gunter distributed a handout about a Student Success Center. This center is funded as an initiative. The purpose of the center is to offer comprehensive help to students. One primary purpose of the center will be to improve student retention and student performance. The center will be located in Langdale Hall and will also provide tutoring services for students. Two models have been proposed for the center; Ms. Roberts will meet with Dean Calendrillo to discuss these two models and will report back to Executive Committee. Dean Gunter distributed a handout about the Delaware Study. The handout was a faculty activity checklist; the purpose of the checklist is to determine faculty activity in addition to teaching. The checklist will be disseminated to faculty by department heads and will be returned to department heads. Information gathered from this survey will become Table 9 in the departmental annual reports. Dean Gunter reminded department heads that departmental annual reports should reflect the calendar year (January through December). Dean Gunter distributed a handout about the "VSU Centennial History Student Essay Contest." The contest is open to all VSU students enrolled during Fall Semester, 2006. A number of prizes will be awarded. The contest is being sponsored by VSU's Centennial Steering Committee. Mary Gooding, Director of Alumni, Community, and Regional Relations, asked the deans to provide feedback to her about how to organize Homecoming on October 7--whether it should be done as one big event or whether each college wanted to have its own smaller event. Dean Gunter announced that the summer teaching rosters are due on May 8. He will review them with department heads individually. Dean Gunter announced that he had sent each department head his/her merit raise recommendation for next year. If anyone has a concern, he/she should see Dean Gunter. Dean Gunter announced that work is continuing on the Faculty Salary Model. In reviewing the equity of faculty salaries, a need exists to take into account a faculty member's merit raises through the years. Concerns do exist about professor-level faculty; VSU does not fair so well at this level in comparison with other institutions across the state. At the meeting, Dr. Levy expressed concerns about information getting out to faculty. Dean Gunter reviewed items which had been discussed at the College of Education deans' meeting held on Monday, April 24, in Augusta: Dr. Kettlewell expressed appreciation for the phenomenal presentation about GSTEP and the COE Observation Instrument made by Dr. Reffel at the EPAAC meeting held in Macon two weeks ago. Dean Gunter announced that he had shared the observation instrument with all of the other EPAAC deans. Dean Gunter distributed a handout about the three new required courses for education majors; these courses must be in place in programs by Fall, 2007. Dr. Fran Watkins (PSC) was in attendance at the meeting and she made several announcements: 1. Most state teacher education programs were adopting the GSTEP observation instrument. 2. New program standards are being developed for Educational Leadership. On September 21 and 22, all Educational Leadership faculty and COE deans will meet at Callaway Gardens to review these new standards. Dr. Toth wants these new Educational Leadership standards approved by PSC by July, 2007. Educational Leadership will still use the Praxis II for the time being as no GACE II has yet been developed for this field. 3. Certification in broad-field Social Science is being eliminated in all teacher education programs across the state. 4. In the future, under NCLB, data will have to be reported by individual classes in schools. Teachers will not be considered "highly qualified" unless the students in their classes make improvement in academic achievement. 5. PSC has adopted a seven-year program review cycle if an institution meets Standard II. If not, a re-visit will be scheduled in two years. 6. GACTE will meet in Callaway Gardens on September 27-29. A major theme of the meeting will be GSTEP and the observation instrument. Dr. Lee reported that thus far she had 63 returns (30 percent) from the 209 surveys she had sent to employers. The area of classroom management was most often raised by these employers as the area needing improvement by teachers. Dr. Lee also announced that the Field Experience Form had been sent to teacher education students this week. Dr. McGahee has also sent this form to the student teachers for completion. Ms. Roberts distributed a handout showing the activities of the COE Undergraduate Appeals Committee. The handout showed how many students had appealed to the committee and how many had been approved and how many had been denied. Ms. Roberts also passed around a sign-up sheet for people to sign up to help with the COE cookout scheduled for next Tuesday. Dean Gunter announced that a network hardware replacement would be done on Friday, May 12. Dean Gunter raised the issue of the MOU between the College of Education and Information Technology. All of the COE department heads had discussed the MOU with their faculty. After lengthy discussion, concerns still remained about some of the "specifics" of the MOU (e.g. would there still be technical assistance available in the Education Center, would this assistance be available at night, etc.). Dean Gunter will meet with Joe Newton again and try to arrive at answers to some of the questions and report back to the committee.
Announcements Graduation is May 6. Next meeting of the Executive Committee is May 11. The COE Institutional Report is due June 5. The Executive Committee retreat is scheduled for June 25-27. There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 10:19 a.m. Respectfully submitted,
Donnie J. McGahee |
|
|
