Minutes of Physical Sciences Task Force

Oct. 4, 2002

Meeting Place: RVS 2221

Meeting Time: 9:30 am

Participants: Jeff Bechtold, Dean Becker, Dale Biggs, Bob Blodgett, Chris Cavalli, Leslie Davis, Saad Eways, James Friedrichsen, Jim Heath, Ron Johns, Tim Jordan, Mostafa Pirnia, C. D. Rao, Elliot Richmond, Steve Riley, George Staff, Laura Tacheny, Sal Valastro

1.) Approval of Agenda

2.) Approval of Minutes for 9/06/02

Room number in minutes was revised to HBC 412.

3.) Information items presented:

a.) Faculty Development Website — There is a new link at http://workshops.austincc.edu . One can browse and find workshops and enter data. In Phase II, the professional development office will be entering all the data for professional development, rather than the administrative assistants.

b.) NSF Workshops — TEES workshop on NSF proposal opportunities is in Houston on Nov. 7. There are also Physics Workshops for the 21^st Century, that faculty are encouraged to apply for.

c.) Section Cuts — The college has set a limit of 8900 sections for he academic year. Although the Math/Sciences division was within its allotment for the spring, it was forced to cut 20 sections. There are rumors that more section cuts will be coming for the spring and summer. There ensued a discussion about the foolishness of the accounting methods currently used by the college in that they overestimate the costs of a section and underestimate its revenue, based on the calculations done as part of the program reviews in Physics and Astronomy. After some justified venting, the Task Force decided that it should send a letter to the administration asking what reasoning or information it uses to determine that cutting sections saves money.

d.) eTime — This was supposed to be implemented for FT faculty by 10/11, but it is still not working.

e.) Payroll — Payroll sent out a memo commenting on how well the last pay period went. At the same time, several faculty have had problems because the overload pay was messed up. It’s a good idea to double-check your paycheck.

f.) Adjunct Service on the Task Force — A letter was sent by the EVP to eligible adjuncts. Those wishing to be reimbursed for serving on committees and attending TF meetings need to send it back.

g.) Meeting with the President — Arrangements have been made to meet with President Fonté on Dec. 6 at 1:00 pm in NRG 2228.

4.) Items presented for discussion:

a.) Master Plan and Facilities — The college is in the initial planning stages of new facility development (assuming the tax initiative passes). This is an opportunity to get our ideas in on the ground floor. A brief discussion followed, and a general agreement was made that the most pressing concern is to develop separate lab spaces for physics and geology at NRG and RVS. The long-term planning committee will meet later to develop more specific plans.

5.) Items presented for action:

a.) Challenge Exams — The Physical Sciences Task Force does not offer challenge exams in any of its courses. There was an immediate and unanimous consensus that it never should.

Minutes of ESTE/GEOL Subcommittee

Oct. 4, 2002

Participants: Bob Blodgett, Leslie Davis, Ron Johns, Tim Jordan, George Staff, Sal Valastro

a.) Lab Techs — Cindy Carr is now a full-time lab tech. Hooray!

b.) Perkins Grant — The grant came through. Hooray again!

c.) Other Funding — The dean had offered the possibility of purchasing some much-needed materials for the ESTE program. After some discussion, a short list was drawn up.

d.) Geology Course Topics — For the sake of efficiency, Ron Johns will generalize the current list of course topics and bring a revised list to the next meeting for discussion. He will also try to find out how the government department lists multiple courses with the same rubric.

e.) Oceanography trip — Given the problems with scheduling activities with UT and A&M, a decision was made to cancel the oceanography trips for this semester.

f.) GEO 1653 — After this summer, the license for the current video series will expire. The most promising replacement is one that is closely tied to Garrison’s text that is used in the GEOL 1445 class. An agreement was reached to adopt Garrison’s text. The rubric should also be changed to GEOL 1345 (ITV). There would be no cross-credit with GEOL 1445. The revised course and video series is 13 weeks rather than 11. It is unclear how this would affect the credit.

g.) ESTE Curriculum — Revisions to the current names of the ESTE courses were discussed. They are:

PSC 1603 ® ENVR 1401 (Introduction to Environmental Science)

PSC 1633 ® same

PSC 1643 ® ENVR 1402 (Issues in Environmental Science), with a prereq of ENVR 1401

EPCT 1205 ® same

EPCT 1344 ® EPCT 1344 (Introduction to Environmental Field Methods)

EPCT 2403 ® EPCT 2403 (Field Methods of Natural Waters)

EPCT 2415 ® EPCT 2415 (Chemistry of Natural Waters)

EPCT 2488 ® same

Minutes of PHYS/AST/ENG Subcommittee

Oct. 4, 2002

Participants: Jeff Bechtold, Dean Becker, Dale Biggs, Chris Cavalli, Saad Eways, James Friedrichsen, Jim Heath, Ron Johns, Tim Jordan, Mostafa Pirnia, C. D. Rao, Elliot Richmond, Steve Riley, Laura Tacheny

John Cise presented his analysis of PHYS 1653 students. John tracked several students and analyzed the grades these students received in following classes and compared them to how they performed in PHYS 1653. Jeff Bechtold also presented OIE data on PHYS 1653 students which showed that this route was almost identical to all other routes to Engineering Physics I as judged by student grades. The task force decided to continue to use this assessment technique for the program.   Jim Heath discussed physics simulations in the classroom and decided to hold a seminar on this topic at the next task force meeting. The session closed off with a discussion of preliminary program cost analyses made by Jeff Bechtold as part of the Physics Program Review which showed how fantastically incorrect some of the data provided to him were.