The Citadel Faculty Council
Minutes of the Regular Meeting of Jan. 25, 2001
Computer Lab, Daniel Library

1. Prof. Tom Thompson, Faculty Council chairperson, called the meeting to order at 11:04 a.m.

2. Members attending: Profs. Bishop, Briggs, Britz, Brown, Chen, Dunlop, Jones, Lineberger, Matthews, Moody, Nath, Pages, Silver, Skow-Obenaus, Thompson, Woo, Zuraw, B. White for Lally, H. Ezell for Templeton and Eliason for G. Williams.

3. Members absent: Profs. Gordon, Kelley and McDowell.

4. The sole business of this meeting was to talk to Vice-President Carter about the proposed Faculty Senate and Schools reorganization of college governance. Gen. Carter addressed the concerns Prof. Thompson had summarized for him on a sheet as a result of the Jan. 18th meeting, starting with the Faculty Senate idea. He said faculty and Administration representatives would be equally prepared for the meetings because agenda items would be put out in advance and faculty could prepare; it would naturally improve communications as all legislators would be together in one body; and it would differ from just a briefing by administrators because it would have real working meetings with an agenda, committees reporting to it for action and decisions made. He hoped that faculty representatives would not feel uneasy and would feel free to speak up; vulnerable first-year people would not be elected to it. Prof. Bishop noted that there was a difference in atmosphere between an all-faculty meeting and a mixed one which made the concern that the latter would be just a briefing apposite; Gen. Carter said that was only if the Administration members had bad faith and would try to ram things through, but that in fact it would be collegial. He said the proposal that we keep the two groups separate and meet together every third month would be too slow because of time-sensitive issues. Prof. Briggs raised the question of whether some issues, like funding for specific things, would be lost in a Faculty Senate where administrators of those things would be defensive; Prof. Brown noted that Administration members might be defensive if we wanted to discuss the very issue of whether there are too many administrators. Gen. Carter said the Senate members would be general administrators, not the specific ones whose ways were threatened by inquiry, and questioned whether department heads really thought of themselves as administators. Others reiterated that there were issues that concerned only faculty, like company files; Gen. Carter said there could be a Committee on Faculty Concerns in the Senate (though Prof. Ezell noted that there had been such a thing a few years ago appointed by the President). Prof. Silver asked whether keeping our separate bodies and meeting together occasionally was still an option; Gen. Carter said yes, the status quo was still an option and change required overcoming great inertia.

On the subject of schools reorganization, Gen. Carter pointed out that there were two separate issues, reorganization of deanships and school structure. As to what has already been decided and it's too late to oppose, that would be replacing department heads with Deans, with a redefined 12-month position, in the Education and Business Departments. Everything else is still open. Asked what besides the 12-month contract was different between a department head and a dean in these two places, he said the deans would do more fundraising and forming bonds with the outside world. Prof. White pointed out that this would make the position more than a fulltime job, and Prof. Carter agreed that the new deans would need assistance but that faculty could be given release time to help and assistant deans would not be hired. If adjuncts had to be hired, this is a marginal expense that would pay off. Prof. Thompson asked if we knew how much all this would cost, and Gen. Carter said no, it will cost something but also bring in something. As to the schools reorganization: if we make no changes besides the two new deans, there will be five deans for twelve academic departments, of whom the Dean of Planning and Assessment is a math person and could oversee the sciences and the Dean of Undergraduate Studies is an English person and could oversee the humanities. Asked what is driving the proposed change to schools, he noted that The Citadel went to a designated dean system for convenience and frugality but there is confusion about what the deans are designated for, which this would clarify. Prof. Ezell noted that deans do not now have independent power but just stand between department heads and the Vice-President for Academic Affairs; Gen. Carter said he was not averse to sharing power and deans could have real power under the schools system. Prof. Briggs noted the asymmetry in the present in-between system: all other departments must have concerns move up through department heads to the dean while Business and Education now have a department head who is the dean. Prof. Bishop objected that to remedy this every department head would have to be a dean, which was (she hoped) not possible, and Gen. Carter agreed: inequality between departments is built into a college, if only in things like numbers of faculty and majors, but fairness is achieved by having all concerns discussed in the deans' meeting. Prof. Britz observed that our hands seemed to be being forced to go to the schools system for fairness, and Gen. Carter reiterated that all remaining issues were open; Prof. Ezell said better balance could be achieved if department heads besides the business and education deans could report directly to the VPAA as well as to their deans. Prof. Thompson asked when these things should be decided; Gen. Carter said he would like to get the decision to the Board of Visitors by May so as to start with it next fall, but the new budget cuts will have an impact and we may have to table some of it while just restructuring existing ways to be fairer. The most important thing is to deliver learning to the students, and restructuring can't be allowed to supersede that. In response to miscellaneous questions, he said if a Dean of Engineering were decided on that person could not be hired with state money but would need an endowed chair, and he hoped that by the time all deans are given fulltime oversight of departments the need for a Dean of Women (though not the issues of coeducation, which we will still be thoughtful about) will have gone away. Prof. Bishop brought up a faculty member's observation that for such a small college to divide itself into schools was unnecessary and risibly pompous, and that it would invite division among the faculty in the separate schools; Gen. Carter said you could say departments created division among faculty, and Prof. Bishop protested that that was a legitimate distinction in training while schools were an artificial division irrelevant to the classroom. Gen. Carter said different schools could have a legitimately different philosophy and mission. Prof. Pages asked about the issue of separate, autonomous schools deciding to opt out of elements of the core curriculum; Gen. Carter said any proposal by a school to do so would have to go through the Faculty Senate as now proposed, and he would be against a school doing it.

5. Prof. Thompson had to leave at noon in the last stages of this discussion, and Prof. Silver took over the meeting. As Gen. Carter left, Prof. Brown moved and Prof. Britz seconded that the minutes of the Jan. 18 meeting be approved; this was passed.

6. The meeting was adjourned at 12:09 p.m.