Faculty Council Meeting - Thursday, September 12, 2019 - Deadline for Agenda Items - Thursday, September 5/2019

FACULTY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES COUNCIL

MINUTES

 May 2, 2019
 
A meeting of the Faculty Council was held on Thursday, May 2, 2019 at 10:00 am in ATAC Board Room 3004 / Orillia 2005 – Teleconference/PolyCom.  

Presentation:
Universal Design for Learning:
Dr. Rhonda Dubec, Coordinator of Instructional Development, gave a presentation on Universal Design for Learning.  

1.
Approval of Agenda
 
It was moved by A. Guttman and seconded by S. Jobbitt that the agenda be approved.

        Carried.

2.
Approval of Minutes

Approval of Minutes from Thursday, May 2, 2019.

The minutes were reviewed and amended.  
They were accepted as amended.

3.
Business Arising from the Minutes

i)    Course Tagging

B. Birmingham reported that H. Murchison will be contacting Chairs/Director over the coming weeks to share the Ontario government’s new criteria on experiential learning.  She will also be sharing all the data that has been captured for each department so far to ensure that it is correct.  Any further updates with regard to government criteria will be communicated as well.

ii)    Budget
A. Guttman asked if there were any updates on the budget.  B. Birmingham responded to say that budgets had been uploaded Wednesday for each department/school.    She also mentioned that there would be more information forthcoming in the Dean’s Report.

4.
Election of 2019/2020 Chair and Vice-Chair of Faculty Council.

T. Rollo gave the results of the search for Chair and Vice-Chair of Faculty Council.  M. Stevenson, Department of Interdisciplinary Studies/History was acclaimed as Chair of Faculty Council.  S. Jobbitt was acclaimed as Vice-Chair of Faculty Council.  Everyone welcomed them to their new positions.  D. Ivison thanked T. Rollo and the Nominations Committee for their work.

5.
Dean’s Report

Dean’s Report:  May 2, 2019

Minnesota
Spring comes as a drunken father-----
late……bringing gifts. As Winter's stern
children, we demand, Where've you been?
He stumbles in, with his boozy grin,
spills the gifts here and there: daffodils,
crocuses, the red-wing blackbirds, their
ambassadorial sashes aflutter;
and then, in a tipsy twirl he unfurls
flocks of Canada geese, scattering 
them in all directions at once, and then
sloshes longed for flashes of green.
All these gifts, turn our hearts
once again; win us over, enabling him.
Charles Wm. Preble
Dean’s Report – May 2/2019

Thank you:

1.    Thank you to you all for the wonderful year, faculty, staff and students.
2.    Outgoing chairs and coordinators: A huge thank you to Alice den Otter, Anna Guttman, Roly Martin, Steve Jobbitt, Kristin Burnett, Beatrice Vernier, and Sandra Jeppesen who are ending their terms as chairs, acting chairs or coordinators.  Patrick and Aris are completing and re-upping, and next year our line-up will look like this:

♣    Criminology: Alana
♣    English: Doug I.
♣    History: Michel
♣    IL: Kristin
♣    IS: Jennifer
♣    Languages: Isabelle
♣    Media Studies (TBD)
♣    Music: Aris (will elect acting soon)
♣    ORPT: Rhonda
♣    Philosophy: Richard
♣    Political Science: Patrick
♣    SJS: TBD
♣    Sociology: Tony
♣    Visual Arts: Kristy
♣    Women’s Studies: Lori

A sincere thank you to all who served, and to all of those willing to take up this leadership role.

3.    We have two newly elected, but not fully appointed assistant deans, Larry Fiddick and Jenny Roth.
4.    Related: Chairs meeting organized by provost’s office on the morning of May 23rd—please all departments/school have someone save the date to attend chairs meeting AND to block off afternoon of 23rd/morning (until 2) of 24th. I will get an agenda for our faculty workshop to you all ASAP.
5.    Grad recruiting: Thank you to the grad coordinators. As of April 5th, we were up 20% over last year. We did great. Thank our grad coordinators when you see them!

I’m interested in having advisory committees for our faculty on a few issues:
1.    Graduate committee, where the grad coordinators meet to share info and develop programs and strategies
2.    Undergrad committee (recruitment, retention, advising, teaching, etc.) led by assistant deans
3.    Budget committee that also adjudicates requests for funding AND develops calls for funding opportunities, advises on budget.
4.    Awards and social committee—supporting our faculty members on award nominations, helping with a fall picnic, and a spring awards/thank you event.
5.    Others?

Quick:
1)    Budgets loaded yesterday afternoon.  I don’t quite know where we are yet.  Will try to update at retreat and through individual meetings with chairs.
2)    Working on CRC, great team, proposing a CRC in Disability Studies, could be housed most anywhere, goal is to serve and help develop SJS
3)    Student Affairs Professional Development day in August and they are looking for any faculty members who have expertise in the following topics:
♣    Generation Z
♣    Growth Mindset
Anyone with expertise in these topics who is willing to participate should contact Andrea Tarsitano directly.

5.
Calendar Changes
None.

6.
Departmental/School Reports

I)  English
A. Guttman reported that the Confederation College pathways program was moving along well, and that there are already students from the College that have expressed interest in it.

6.
Other Business

 i)  Allocation of Time for Presentations to Council

A concern was raised at the end of last Faculty Council about amount of time devoted to presentations at the beginning of some meetings, with the result that the formal business portion of the meeting is sometimes substantially delayed in starting. Discussion ensued.

D. Ivison stated that if there is more than one presentation at Council, they can take up quite a bit of meeting time.  R. Koster mentioned that perhaps we could allocate two hours for Faculty Council to accommodate this as presentations are valuable.  It was suggested by many that there should be a time limit on them; however, R. Koster stated that it is hard as there is no way to predict the length of the discussion.  It was decided that Faculty Council meetings could be extended to two hours beginning in September 2019, with the approval of the Chair and Vice-Chair of Faculty Council and the Dean, and that there only be one presentation per meeting.

7.
Next Faculty Council Meeting:  Tentatively booked for Friday, September 13, 2019; ATAC 5036/OA 2005 from 10:00 am to noon.

8.
Adjournment

The meeting was adjourned at 11:00 pm.  

ATTENDANCE

Thunder Bay Campus

A. Guttman
B. Vernier
T. Puddephatt
B. Birmingham
T. Rollo
T. Potter
R. Maundrell
R. Martin
R. Koster
S. Jobbitt
B. Parker
D. Ivison
A. Carastathis
R. Robson

Orillia Campus
A. den Otter
M. Stevenson

REGRETS
S. Jacoba
G. Colton
A. Saulnier
L. Forbes