Minutes of Physical Sciences Task Force

December 7, 2001

 

Meeting Place: NRG 2213

Meeting Time: 9:30 pm

Participants: Ivy Abraham, Jeff Bechtold, Dean Becker, Dale Biggs, Bob Blodgett, Chris Cavalli, John Cise, Dan Dewberry, Jim Heath, Ron Johns, Mostafa Pirnia, Roberto Rangel, C. D. Rao, Elliot Richmond, Jan Smith, George Staff, Laura Tacheny, and Allen Underwood

 

1.)     Approval of Agenda

2.)     Approval of Minutes for 11/02/01

3.)     Information items presented:

a.)     Hiring Committee Progress — The committee is in place and awaiting the submission of applications.  Members still need to take training, but that won’t be offered until January.

b.)     NISOD Awards — NISOD is seeking the names of faculty to award teaching excellence.

c.)      JRF grants — These are grants to help older, low-income women get a college education.  Applications are now being taken.

d.)     Adjunct Payment — Arrangements have been made to pay adjuncts who have served on committees or attended TF meetings.

e.)      Trickle-down upgrades — IT is supposed to ensure that everyone has a computer with at least 128 Mb RAM and a 20Gb hard drive.  Let Ron Johns know if your computer isn't up to speed.

f.)       Laptops for RVS — We would like to replace the computers in RVS 2213 with laptops that could be used for Physics, Astronomy, Geology, and the new Environmental Technology program.  These would be more secure and wouldn’t get covered with rock dust.  There are $1800 Panasonic laptops that meet our specs.  Since Dell doesn’t have a comparable laptop with the features we need, we can thus get out of the Dell Exclusivity contract.

g.)     Phone directories — the new phone directories have been ordered and are on their way to all FT faculty.

h.)     Env. Tech. program — There have been about 20 inquiries about the program so far.  The new lab courses will be offered at RGC and EVC in the fall, 2002 semester.

i.)       Sick Leave Pool — The sick leave pool is very low.  Please donate some of your excess sick leave if you can.

j.)       Budget Warning — Because of budgetary shortfalls, we need to spend our budget money now rather than later.  If we wait too long, some of the money will be swept away.

k.)     Tutors/Open Labs — The Association of Minority Recruitment has grant money to fund undergraduate tutors and research.  We plan to cooperate with Biology and Chemistry to recruit 6-7 student researchers.  We also plan on hiring tutors and supervisors to provide:

12 hrs at NRG (8 Physics, 4 geology)

16 hours at RGC (12 Physics, 4 Geology)

 16 hours at RGC (8 Physics, 8 Geology)

l.)       December Timesheets — Due to the upcoming holidays, all timesheets for classified and hourly people need to be in by Dec. 11 at 5:00 pm.

m.) Jim Heath has done a fabo job with the Physical Sciences TF website.  He plans to get links to the NRG monitoring well and to the Vomit Comet research as well.

 

4.)     Items presented for discussion:

a.)     Eligibility lists — Because the current staffing procedures make no distinction between newly hired people and those who have been here a while, the success of recent recruitment efforts threatens our ability to give sections to some of our excellent long-serving faculty.  Just this semester, for example, we have received applications for 2 Astronomy, 6 Engineering, 12 Env. Studies/Tech., 4 Geology, and 9 Physics faculty.  If we interview all of them and make them eligible, we risk sacrificing known quality instructors for unknown, potentially worse instructors.  After some discussion, the TF decided that this was a problem that needed to be presented to the administration.

b.)     Minutes — If you are actually reading these minutes, please email Ron Johns at rjohns@austin.cc.tx.us.  He is taking a survey.

c.)     Lab Safety — Potentially hazards in our labs were briefly discussed.  Lasers, field trips, and other items were mentioned.  These issues will be addressed later by the Safety Committee.

5.)     Items presented for action:

a.)     Office Hours — Faculty should update their spring office hours before leaving for the holidays.

 

6.)     New Business:

a.)     Reduced Tuition Fiasco — The exapnsion fothe reduced tuiition pilot project to cover all classes will be disastrous for the college's budget.  John Cise presented some damning data on the thousands of dollars that will be lost from Physics sections alone.  Ron Johns will draft a memo about our concerns and forward it to the Dean.

b.)     Teleconferencing — Roberto Rangel suggested that the TF should check into the possibility of hosting TF meetings by teleconference using a 1-800- number.  There seemed to be a general interest in the idea, since it would allow many more adjuncts to participate.

 

 

Minutes of ESTE/GEOL Subcommittee

December 7, 2001

 

Participants: Ivy Abraham, Bob Blodgett, Dan Dewberry, Ron Johns, Jan Smith, and George Staff

 

1.)     The status of the Program reviews for geology and environmental science and technology was discussed.  We will almost certainly need to ask for an extension.

 

2.)     A resolution was made to talk to the Biology TF about putting a rule in the catalog that prevents a student from getting credit for both PSC 1603 (Science and the Environment) and BIOL 2206 (Environmental Biology), since the two courses have such similar curricula.

 

3.)     Given the nature of our program, a decision was made to change the current Physical Scinces degree into an Environmental Studies degree. 

 

4.)     ACC will check into getting a booth at the Earth Day festivities in Waterloo Park in April.  Ecology Action apparently handles such things.

 

5.)     The monitoring well at NRG is progressing along under the guidance of Bob Blodgett.  The well house design was discussed, as well as the possibility of getting stone facing donated for the building.

 

 

Minutes of PHYS/AST/ENG Subcommittee

December 7, 2001

 

Participants: Jeff Bechtold, Dean Becker, Dale Biggs, Chris Cavalli, John Cise, Jim Heath, Mostafa Pirnia, Roberto Rangel, C. D. Rao, Elliot Richmond, Laura Tacheny, and Allen Underwood

 

1.) Jim Heath followed up our previous discussion of the General College Physics I curriculum by passing out a list of our current required topics list.  A full discussion followed of the pros and cons of various ways to frame this list, e.g., by mentioning specific sections in the current text vs. by more general topic listing.  It was finally decided to have everyone mark off sections of the current list that they felt could be omitted and not lose the main flow of the course. This was done and Jim Heath will report back on the consensus of this vote at a future meeting with the intention of making this consensus list the formal required topics list.

 

2.) The committee also expressed grave concern for the new administrative policy of half-price tuition for many physics classes. John Cise showed us a list of courses that qualified for the reduced rate and many of them were in prime timeslots that often turn students away.