1.    Combine the PRC  and FC as nearly every time they have business, it applies to both committees and they work to find a joint time for meeting (which is difficult to ensure 100% attendance for both groups). Both committees have low numbers of faculty participants and PRC members have expressed some frustration in understanding what they can and should be doing. Meetings for PRC have been minimum to none for most of last academic year (AY). Finances are Resources, so the overlap would always remain and we can eliminate redundancy, have a larger group, and ideally more robust dialogue and participation. Also, PRC has not elected officers, so a good time to go ahead and merge the groups prior to Aug.

2.    Change the meeting day/time for the combined PRC/FC to a time that will encourage more faculty participation. Thursday at 3pm and Friday at 4pm also likely explain low faculty participation/membership.

3.    Remover the R=retention from the RAR Committee to just be the RA = Recruitment and Admissions Committee. VPSS affirmed the RAR committee rarely, if ever, deals with retention issues. 

4.    Add a Student Success Committee, which would include the R= retention function from the RAR (potential RA) committee. Student Success is a strategic direction, something USDE expects us to be facilitating, and frankly our most important job! This committee will range from student life, counselling, tutoring, collaborations between IA/SS and other units to support student success which includes metrics such as retention, course completion rates, graduation rates, time to graduation, etc. And, I hope the nearly 30 members of RAR will split up with some going to this committee.

5.    CoC need only meet monthly. The CoC was devised prior to the existence of the EC. Adding EC put a rather large burden on the chair of CoC who must then prepare for her own bi-weekly meetings, then CoC bi-weekly, then EC bi-weekly. In reality, with the addition of EC, CoC can conduct business once monthly, and can always meet more if necessary. 

6.    Receive a recommendation from committees who do not presently have ex-officio admin that they would like to invite a relevant member of the admin to join their committee for tasks, guidance, support, and historical and policy knowledge. These would be non-voting members. Remember, admin should already be involved with your committees, but if not, we would like a formal invitation from your committee, supported by committee minutes, if you would allow the admin person to be ex-officio. If not, do understand, admin will still need to task your committee with work (by that I mean documents, processes, procedures, etc for input and recommendations to improve).

7.    CAC has noted they are not keen to have the A = assessment to the IA administration. However, the CAC is composed primarily of the IA supervisors (division chairs/ICs) who are given release time, run faculty divisions, run faculty functions for a campus, and are thus immediate supervisors. If the folks who are paid to oversee divisions/campuses and given release time are not the ones who should be most involved in academic program assessment and decisions around those assessment results…who should be? It is likely too late for this coming AY to make such a big change to the CAC, but please dialogue more about how this would then evolve and who is responsible for program assessment and program assessment feedback and resource allocation decisions. This system can certainly improve, but I am not sure it is fair to put these duties on faculty who are not paid additional funds or offered release time. But, perhaps there are faculty who love assessment and would love to head just such a group. But, prior to removing the A from CAC again, there needs to be a solid plan in place for this evolution. Assessment is so important, we need to take the decision thoughtfully with a great plan. And, do please continue to dialogue with DAP and VPIA to develop something workable. CAC will not deal with non-academic program assessment.


Other: Training: I need the committee officers to be available to attend a day’s training in August. The summit is Aug 6-7 and thus Ideal dates are August 11-15 prior to instruction. Please respond with the day of preference. CoC will just need to take this decision, but ideally also dialogue with your new/upcoming chairs if you are being replaced effective Aug. I need Chair, VC, and secretaries for all standing committees (unless they are off island leaders, in which case I will train them on my campus visits Aug-Sep). Also feel free to include specific topics upon which you feel you most need training. I will provide food. We should plan on 1000-1600 with a working lunch, refreshments, and drinks. That also leaves you some time with advisees in the morning (faculty).