Faculty Council moves Reading Day

A committee was also formed to review general education requirements.

By Angela Case

Published April 30, 2009

A general faculty meeting on Thursday covered a variety of topics and included presentations from Chancellor Brady Deaton and Faculty Council Chairman Tom Phillips.

Most notably, Faculty Council has made the decision to move the end-of-semester Reading Day from Friday to Thursday beginning in Fall 2009. Earlier this month, 61 percent of students voted against a referendum regarding the Reading Day change.

Phillips emphasized that though some students are under the impression that the change was made to give professors an extra 24 hours to grade exams, this is not the case. The council did not even think of this factor until the end of the process, right before they voted on the change, Phillips said.

The change was made for a variety of reasons, the most important being the threat of inclement weather in December, Phillips said.

"Three times in the last five years, we've gone home at night worrying that a predicted snow or ice storm would force us to cancel an exam," he said. "There really was no backup plan for how we would make up that day."

Cost cutting measures

Deaton summarized a number of cost-reducing measures that the university has implemented and said a call for suggestions for further cost-cutting resulted in over 500 ideas that are being reviewed by various committees.

Deaton said costs are being cut in a variety of ways, including reducing faculty and staff travel, minimizing landscaping costs and downsizing banquets and receptions.

"These are cost savings that we have made in response to the economic uncertainty that we are facing throughout the campus," he said.

Phillips outlined the major decisions the Faculty Council has made throughout the year and the projects it plans to focus on in the near future.

Course evaluations

The council is forming a number of committees, including a task force to revise course evaluations.

He said the evaluation forms, which have not been changed for 22 years, are due for a revision.

"They're just out-of-date forms," Phillips said.

The current forms are particularly ineffective in evaluating team-taught courses that have three or more instructors, such as capstone courses, Phillips said.

"We take the evaluations seriously in terms of how we change the courses and how we promote faculty, so we should have the best documents possible," he said.

Council member Bill Wiebold agreed the course evaluations should be reassessed.

"I think it makes some sense to determine if we are asking the right questions, and if the information we get back is useful," he said. "I think they're a good instrument, but it surely is time to take a look and see if we can improve them."

General education requirements

Faculty Council is forming a committee to consider making revisions to the general educations requirements. Phillips said the committee will address a variety of questions, including whether general education requirements should include diversity and information literacy courses. The committee will also consider eliminating classes that require two or more prerequisites from general educational requirements, as well as redefining the types of classes that meet the current laboratory science requirement.

Wiebold said the general education requirements are due for a review, because they affect all students.

"It's almost redundant to say, but gen eds are really the core of our curriculum," he said. "We just want to make sure that we're doing the best job in educating students for this century."