Minutes of Physical Sciences Task Force

October 12, 2001

Meeting Place: RVS 2213

Meeting Time: 1:30 pm

Participants: Ivy Abraham, Jeff Bechtold, Dean Becker, Bob Blodgett, John Cise, Leslie Davis, Dan Dewberry, Saad Eways, Jim Heath, Ron Johns, Dick McGehee, Mostafa Pirnia, Martin Prahovic, Jan Smith, George Staff, Tom Stege, Laura Tacheny, and Allen Underwood

1.) Approval of Agenda

2.) Information items presented:

a.) Web classes — Jim Heath will try to arrange an introductory Web workshop for interested faculty through the Faculty Development Office. About a dozen people indicated an interest in such a class.

b.) Earth Sciences Week Fair - Bob Blodgett described ACC's participation in the annual fair held at the Bureau of Economic Geology. Core and video from the monitoring well at NRG were shown, as well as a poster session describing the well and local geology. About a hundred middle school students came and were duly impressed and excited.

c.) Astronomy lab class — PHYS 1111, the long-awaited Laboratory in Introductory Astronomy, will be offered beginning spring, 2002, at RGC.

d.) Lab coordinator duties — An action committee representing Chemistry, Biology, and Physical Sciences has hammered out a job description for the Lab Coordinator position.

e.) Phi Theta Kappa/NSF grant — A brief description of this opportunity for grant money was presented.

f.) Field trip budget — The Dean's field trip budget has been cut, threatening required field trips in summer, 2002.

g.) Tuition reduction pilot program — ACC is trying a pilot program to increase enrollment in low-demand timeslots by offering reduced tuition for sections at those times. PSC 1643 at RGC this summer (section 38707) will be a participating course.

h.) "New" Physics positions — The full-time faculty positions in Physics to replace those vacated by Daryl Pedigo and Dean Becker will begin in the summer, 2002.

i.) Hiring committee progress - Saad Eways described the progress of the hiring committee in advertising these positions. A brief discussion about the hiring timeline and what needs to be done ensued.

j.) Summer schedule/standardized times — The college is trying to standardize class times for summer, 2002, so as to maximize room availability. Most of our classes are already in the standardized timeslots, so the impact on our programs is minimal.

k.) Physics in summer - The administration wants the Physics program to offer 10 additional sections in the summer, 2002, to accommodate the incredibly high student demand. PHYS 2426 alone turned away more than 700 students last summer. The TF has had remarkable success in recruiting new adjunct faculty, but staffing these additional sections may well prove problematic.

3.) Items presented for discussion:

a.) Open House for ABE/GED students — Very few students in these categories are interested in our programs, so our TF chose not to participate.

b.) Informal Transfers — Only a handful of students in our programs (about 2-3 per semester at most) request informal transfers, almost all are in the Physics.

c.) Blackboards vs. whiteboards — The TF is split on this burning issue. We agreed to seek set-ups combining blackboards and whiteboards for all lecture rooms.

d.) Collegial Teaching — Discussed administrative rules on collegial teaching teams. The TF Chair will draw up a list of teams and assign faculty accordingly.

e.) Faculty evaluations — Ron Johns reviewed the recent changes in the faculty evaluation process. The TF discussed current requirements for faculty evaluation, and decided to keep them. John Cise agreed to send out a portfolio folder with pre-labelled compartments to those faculty submitting portfolios this year. This will help to standardize the submissions. Faculty portfolios for this year will be due Friday, Dec. 14, 2001.

4.) Items presented for action:

a.) Faculty evaluations — The TF agreed that the TF Chair's instructional performance will be reviewed by the committee evaluating adjunct faculty for that discipline. In addition, the TF decided that should it decide it is necessary, the evaluation committee may require a faculty member to submit a portfolio, in whole or part, during a year outside of the regular, three-year cycle.

Minutes of ESTE/GEOL Subcommittee

October 12, 2001

Participants: Ivy Abraham, Bob Blodgett, Leslie Davis, Dan Dewberry, Ron Johns, Dick McGehee, Jan Smith, George Staff, and Tom Stege

1.) Ivy Abraham expressed outrage about the poor quality of the field excursions presented by Texas A&M on Oct. 5-6. They failed to provide a:

a.) tour of the sea turtle breeding facility on either day, nor did they make a slide presentation about the turtle breeding and ecology on either day as they advertised they would (they claimed they had no idea where the slides were).

b.) satisfactory excursion on the research vessel. There was no collection of plankton or demonstration of Nansen bottles on either day, and they also failed to perform a trawl of larger fauna on the second day. Furthermore, there were no microscopes or almost any other fixed scientific equipment aboard the boat at all!

c.) satisfactory marsh trip. The students were not allowed to participate in the collection of specimens, as Texas A&M advertised they would be. Indeed, the facilitator did not seem particularly knowledgeable about the marsh environment.

Ron Johns will write a memo to the Dean detailing these problems. The oceanography instructors (Abraham, Davis, Smith, and Staff) agreed to coordinate their classes next semester and conduct their own field excursions to the coast.

2.) It was noted that the videos for the ITV GEO 1653 course are horribly dated. There was some discussion about what to do. Unfortunately, a thorough review by Linda Clement last year failed to find an alternative.

Minutes of PHYS/AST/ENG Subcommittee

October 12, 2001

1.) Laura Tacheny gave the committee a proposed syllabus for the conceptual physics class. After discussing this proposal without final resolution, a sub-committee consisting of Laura Tacheny, John Cise, Jim Heath, and Dean Becker was formed in order to finalize the syllabus.

2.) Next, Jim Heath proposed modifying the General College Physics I required topics list by dropping several sections, notably the sections on calorimetry, and in its place adding the second law of thermodynamics. A general discussion of the time constraints on this class and the nature of the required topics list ensued. The committee did not approve Jim’s proposal specifically but simplification of the required topics list will be considered in the future.

3.) Jim Heath also presented some research showing that most community colleges in Texas have college algebra as the prerequisite math for General College Physics I, while ACC has only intermediate algebra as its prerequisite. John Cise commented that this would cut enrollment in this class significantly, while others commented that most students coming into the class have already taken college algebra, or, would need to take college algebra as part of their degree program. The committee decided to look at data on the students actually taking the class and at the degree requirements of the varying majors before making any change to the prerequisite.

3.) Next, Jeff Bechtold made a written proposal for recommended changes to the Exam Guidelines for physics classes, noting that the current guidelines were inadequate for the new Conceptual Physics class and also noting that most faculty found the current guidelines intrusive and a form of unnecessary micromanagement. It was resolved that the current 55% minimum combination of subjective credit (30% work-out-problem, 15% written explanations, 10% diagramming) be reduced to 50% minimum subjective credit without concern to the individual amount to the form of the subjective credit. The conceptual physics guidelines will be discussed at a future meeting. A final document for submission to all faculty will be prepared.

4.) Due to time constraints, other agenda items were not considered.