Minutes from Social Sciences Task Force Meeting of April 7, 2006

The Social Science Task Force met Friday April 7, 2006 from 1:00 P.M. to 3:00 P.M. at Rio Grande Campus in Room 125. The following faculty members were in attendance: Geoff Andron, Karen Bell, Mary Beth Booth, Jake Bloom, Jack Bucco, John Carroll, Clint Davis, Michael Forney, Carol Hayman, Don Jonsson, Livingstone Kumassah, Tony Lee, Gary Livingston, Mike Pool, Liz Pintar, Marianna Sidoryanskaya, Al Slivinske, James Sondgeroth, and Donald Tompkins.

1. The meeting was called to order at 1:00 p.m.

2. The agenda for the meeting was approved. Items 5 b and 8 were removed from the agenda.

Agenda:

1. Approve agenda.

2. Approve minutes from last meeting which can be found at http://www.austincc.edu/SOCSCI/Minutes/meet_02_03_06.htm.

3. Discuss Government Department's evaluation standards.

4. Discuss the progress being made on establishing the AS Archaeology program. Discuss and take action on adding a minimum grade requirement to the AS Archaeology degree plan.

5. Approve additions to the approved textbook list. (Let me know before the meeting if you have a text you would like to add to the approved list)

a. Lizzie Pintar would like to add a new book to the list for ANTH 2302 to be used in her PCM classes.

b. Sheka Kamara would like to add an atlas plus textbook bundle option for GEOG 1303.   

c. Jake Bloom would like to discuss and add a text in which instructors can add their own material for both ECON 2301 and ECON 2302.

 

6. SACS questions discussion and improvement plan.

    a. Anthropology--Lizzie Pintar

    b. Economics--Michael Forney

    c. Geography--Don Jonsson

7. Discuss the questions included in the Archaeology list of SACS questions. Take action to change these questions if approved.

8. Look at an internet solution to submitting the results of our SACS questions.

9. Adjourn.

3. James Sondgeroth, the department chair, discussed the status of our colleague Bill Leonard's health and a get well card was distributed for autographs. He also discussed the status of hiring on the full time Economics position. We received 18 new applicants however due to time constraints we may just go with the 9 already qualified to interview by the interview committee.

4. James Sondgeroth discussed the online fulltime faculty advising training that must be completed by all fulltime faculty by April 21st. Please go to the following link to sign up for training so that you can meet this deadline(https://workshops.austincc.edu/gotoevents.asp). Select the workshop entitled "Faculty Training for Advising: An Overview of Web Resources" and there are 5 pages of workshops available at different campuses. This training will include assistance on assessing rosters online and advising for students regarding degree plans..

5. Mary Beth Booth, Assistant Task Force Chair, announced that James Sondgeroth had been elected to the position of Department Chair of the Social Science Task Force.

6. James Sondgeroth mentioned that everyone should check the attendance at each meeting as listed on the minutes to make sure that their name was added and to please forward any corrections to Rachel Barrett (rbarrett@austincc.edu )

9. The minutes from the previous meeting were approved.

10. James Sondgeroth discussed the merits of adopting the current Government department evaluation standards. Jim mentioned that the new Dean,Gaye Lynn Scott, is very interested in our task force implementing the Government department's standards because they are a good example of what constitutes a good versus excellent rating. Jim explained that the dean advised him to elaborate more on his reviews of faculty and explained that to do this he would need more input from the faculty on the forms regarding student evaluations. Mary Beth Booth explained that 99% of the adjunct faculty are not filling in the comment section and are simply filling in the course information and their names which does not allow for much room to evaluate. Mary Beth Booth pointed out that if we implement the new procedures of evaluation then 99% of the reviews for adjuncts would be unacceptable if left as they were completed this year. Jim discussed that this standards would help provide clarification to avoid any confusion on what is expected from all Full time faculty and adjunct in order to receive excellent ratings. Al Slivinske pointed out that since we have had no problems with our evaluations in the past we should have no need to implement these standards for our departments. James Sondgeroth pointed out that even if you are happy with your student evaluations you should still respond with a comment that you are pleased with the results and that the results reflect my teaching abilities. Mary Beth Booth mentioned that there were many adjunct faculty that either didn't submit a portfolio or the portfolios were incomplete. Al Slivinske mentioned that if the adjunct faculty member continued to fail to submit a complete portfolio they can actually be taken off the eligibility list until they are able to complete the requirements. Jim mentioned that he was just looking for feedback on how to get faculty to meet the requirements. Al Slivinske stated that he was against adopting the standards of the government department. Don Thompkins suggested that Jim send a cover letter with directions and reminders of how important completing all of the material is to each faculty's review with each form. Geoff Andron suggested that James write down all of the policies that have been working for our departments so far on one piece of paper and distribute to everyone. He suggested that perhaps Jim could include some examples of what comments have been included in the past. Jim made a comment that many instructors are not implementing the master syllabi and the instructors are confused by the syllabi requirements. Jack Bucco mentioned that he did not approve of the question that were being asked of the students in the student evaluations. Jim mentioned that a professor can also run their own survey of their students and attach it to the evaluations. Motion was denied to accept the Government Departments standards of evaluation. A motion was approved to have James Sondgeroth write up a short synopsis of what our current expectations are regarding evaluations and some examples of what is acceptable and what is not. The motion passed.

11. Agenda item #4 was presented by Clint Davis regarding a minimum grade point average for the Archaeology degree( to view degree plan CLICK HERE). He felt that a higher gpa requirement would strengthen the degree plan and mentioned that similar degree plans had the same requirements(to view Geology requirements for example CLICK HERE!). The exact figures were not available to Clint at the time due to a miscommunication and therefore he offered to get the information sent out to the Task force for a vote by email with results being relayed to Rachel Barrett(rbarrett@austincc.edu) and a final tally being announced via email. A motion was approved to conduct this discussion and vote by email and to set a deadline to vote by April 28th. Clint mentioned that the Archaeology degree was getting good support via some letters of support from various companies, other schools and that the results of the surveys sent out through the instructors of the Social Science Task Force would provide wonderful feedback regarding the program. It was mentioned that the results for the Archaeological survey would need to be available by the Friday April 14th for the meeting with Donetta Goodall and Gaye Lynn Scott.

12. Discussion of the addition of new texts to the approved textbook list.

Archaeology- A request was made by Liz Pintar to add a new textbook to the Archaeology approved texts to account for the changes in the course from ITV to PCM. She asked that "Archaeology Down to Earth" by Thomas and Kelly be added. The addition of the text was approved.

Economics- A request was made by Jake Bloom to approve several new textbooks to be added to the text list for Economics. Jake Bloom distributed copies of material to show examples of how he had rearranged the chapters to customize the text for his needs. He explained that several different publishers were offering a deal whereby a professor could coauthor a text and be at liberty to adjust the textbook. The royalties are 15.00 per text of which Mr. Bloom would only keep half. Mr.Bloom has collected a lot of original material to add if he were allowed to coauthor a text and feels that these texts and study guides would be much cheaper to the student than the other alternatives available. Jake explained that if these texts were approved he would be happy to donate half of the royalties to a foundation set up for students at ACC for example. Mr. Bloom mentioned that he would like the pride of having his name on the text and that he would appreciate a speedy decision because his deadline is October 1st in order to get the text ordered for Spring 2007.

Al Slivinske mentioned that the professor or author really has no input on the final price of a text because the bookstore will put a markup on the text therefore the price quoted to Mr. Bloom won't be the price the students will be paying. Clint Davis mentioned that we do not have enough information on royalties and the legality of accepting royalties and he recommended that Mr. Bloom visit with the Vice President of Academic Affairs regarding this matter before discussing it further in the Task Force.

Correction: Mike Pool mentioned that he did not have problems with someone using a textbook that they have written but that he thought there were ethical problems in this case because it could be interpreted as paying the faculty member to use the textbook. Many other members echoed this sentiment.

Jim Sondgeroth mentioned that a previous dean did co author a text and he did receive royalties. Jim mentioned that if the text was developed on ACC time or with ACC resources than ACC will keep the royalties. Jim mentioned that he felt this looked like a very clever marketing strategy to get professors to approve already existing books with very little material altered and paying royalties seemed to be kickbacks. It was mentioned that we should just vote on adopting the texts as is or not and then the royalties were a separate issue. Geoff Andron mentioned that this would be educational for Jake to coauthor and he felt that if Jake was willing to give away a portion of the royalties he would see no problem with approving such a motion. He also said that he reviewed the texts by Dolan and feels that they are good texts to be added to our Economics text inventory. Jack Bucco mentioned that he coauthored a study guide but had to go through very rigorous and time consuming steps to get through the whole process.

Mary Beth Booth mentioned that we should vote on adopting or not and then approving the co authorship after receiving more information. The texts by Dolan were then approved by the task force and Jake Bloom was asked to find out more regarding the royalties and co authorship before a decision would be made regarding that matter. Clint Davis mentioned that he would not discuss the matter further unless he heard that it would be acceptable from the Vice President of Academic Affairs.

13. Agenda item # 6 will discuss the SACS questions for each department and discuss improvement plans.

Anthropology was presented by Liz Pintar. The Anthropology department turned in 14 out of 20 sections which is exactly the 70% participation vote that was a goal of the task force, however only 6 out of 9 instructors (66%) which is a bit below the target of 70%. Only have forms for Cultural Anthropology and Physical Anthropology. In Cultural Anthropology there were 134 students with 122 or 70% with correct answers so we had 91%. In Physical we received 90 out of 111 and got 70% which corresponds to 81%. We met the standards yet we propose to have the questions developed for the Archaeology department. Liz Pintar suggested that possibly there was some way to incorporate the SACS questions into the PCM courses. Clint Davis mentioned that he would like to see the question given in an earlier semester so that they could be utilized in the Field Methods course which is taught only in the summer. Mike Pool mentioned that he would like to see a breakdown analysis of the questions to get an idea of where weaknesses are. It was suggested that a committee meet to discuss the improvement plan and create questions for Field Methods and Archaeology. The committee will consist of Liz Pintar, Karen Bell, and Mike Pool and any anthropologist that is available to meet. Liz Pintar will be the head of this committee. The committee will report back to the task force in September. The improvement plan for Anthropology would be to get more instructors to take part and to create a SACS questions for every course and to gather information on number and percent correct for each question.The questions will also be distributed early to ensure that the Field Methods class can participate. This motion was approved.

Economics- Michael Forney presented this item. For details on these results please CLICK HERE to view the Memorandum! and CLICK HERE to view the section breakdown!

Geoff Andron suggested that since online students are performing significantly lower on the SACS questions, a meeting should be called to explore how these students needs could be addressed more specifically. He suggested improving the distance learning statistics by 1%. An improvement plan was approved that would increase the response rate of the faculty and to address ideas to increase the distance learning percentages. This motion was approved.

Geography- This item was presented by Don Jonsson. For details on these results please CLICK HERE!

Mary Beth mentioned that she welcomed the 85% rating from her students in the GIS I sections, however she did not survey her GISII section due to the fact that their are no GIS II questions. She suggested that part of the improvement plan for Geography should be to create and implement questions for GIS II. 75% of students in Physical Geography made a 70% or better on their SACS questions. 96% of students in Cultural Geography made a 70% or better on their SACS questions. Unfortunately, only 64% of students in World and Regional Geography made a 70% or better on their SACS questions. Clint Davis suggested that we need to look at the weaknesses now rather than wait for the data a year from now. Mary Beth Booth suggested that the next round we grade question by question. She further suggested the possibly that it was not that the students didn't know the answers to the questions but that we did not phrase the questions correctly or clearly enough.

Al Slivinske suggested that for all departments it might be beneficial to pass out the question at the beginning of the semester so that professors would be better prepared for when the questions would be asked and what information would be included. Clint Davis felt that would help to make sure that if there were any problems there would be time to correct them. Clint Davis also suggested that each instructor think about how they are addressing attendance in each class because the students that miss numerous classes during the middle of the semester tend to start showing back up at the end when the SACS questions are distributed and these students have missed valuable class time and therefore do not do as well on the questions.

correction: Don Jonsson proposed: 1. Improve SACS Assessment tool (the survey questions) by evaluating the questions for GEOG 1303: World and Regional Geography.2. Attendance incentives so students will score higher on the SACS Assessment - particularly GEOG 1303: World and Regional Geography.

A motion was passed for an improvement plan for the Geography SACS evaluations to add Advance GIS questions and to begin an assessment of questions and wording for the World and Regional Geography questions.

14. Agenda item # 8 has been removed.

15. The motion was made to adjourn. The meeting adjourned at 3:00 p.m.