Minutes of Physical Sciences Task Force

Dec. 6, 2002

Meeting Place: NRG 2228

Meeting Time: 9:30 am

Participants: Dean Becker, Jeff Bechtold, Bob Blodgett, Chris Cavalli, John Cise, Dan Dewberry, Saad Eways, Jim Heath, Ron Johns, Mostafa Pirnia, C. D. Rao, Elliot Richmond, Jan Smith, Laura Tacheny, Allen Underwood, Sal Valastro, Larry Wigginton

1.) Approval of Agenda

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

3.) Information items presented:

a.) Meeting with the President — Arrangements have been made to meet with President Fonté on Feb, 7 at 2:30 pm at RVS.

b.) Online Grading — Beginning this semester, all faculty in academic programs will have to enter grades on-line. Faculty will have to get a password and set up an account before they can enter the grades.

c.) NASA Projects — Allen Underwood discussed the ongoing relationship between ACC and NASA. The microgravity project did not make the cut this year, but Allen is working with NASA on education programs for ACC students.

d.) Hiring Committee — Saad Eways brought us up to date on the status of the Physics Hiring Committee. The ad for the full-time position was placed in the December issue of Physics Today, and the committee is nearly formed.

e.) Section Cuts/Budget — The administration is reassessing the cost of sections. It plans on keeping 8900 sections for next year. Does this mean no more section cuts?

f.) eTime Deadlines — There ar shortened deadlines for submission and approval of timesheets because of the winter break.

g.) Master Syllabus Revisions — Beginning in the spring, the TF Chairs and Deans get to review everyone’s syllabi, so they need to be turned in to the administrative assistants at one’s campus.

h.) Office Hours — Please get these done ASAP for the spring semester.

i.) UT Collaboration — According to Donetta Goodall, this is still alive, but there has been a change of personnel at UT, so it has been delayed.

j.) Capital Items Replacement — After the problems created by having the microbiology sections at RVS almost getting cancelled for lack of working microscopes, the administration is planning to develop a plan for the ongoing replacement of capital equipment.

k.) Committee Memberships — After polling the faculty, the following individuals noted that they were on college-wide committees: Dan Dewberry (Academic & Campus Affairs Committee), John Cise (Budget Committee), Ron Johns (Environmental Health and Safety Committee, Professional Development Committee, & Technology Committee).

l.) Lab Coordinator Meeting — Just a reminder that there is a lab coordinator meeting at noon at HBC 223.

4.) Items presented for discussion:

a.) Reorganization — The imminent reorganization developed by the Release Time and Stipend Committee will resurrect the position of Assistant Dean. The memo sent out by the EVP was discussed and faculty were encouraged to apply for the assistant dean positions.

b.) Master Plan and Facilities — The numerous strategic initiatives for our TF were gone over briefly. For the most part, they are the same ones we submitted last year. Some of those were approved, pending passage of the referendum in May. The initial ideas for facility improvements have been somewhat refined and were presented. These include developing separate lab spaces for physics and geology at NRG and RVS and CYP, creating a combined lab space at the South Austin Center rather than PIN, establishing a new environmental science and technology lab at NRG, creating a small engineering workshop at RGC, and building some storage facilities for Astronomy. After some discussion, these ideas were approved.

c.) Pickaprof — This website is dedicated to providing grade distributions and comments about instructors to prospective students at ACC and elsewhere. According to the dean, our grade distributions are a matter of public record. The comments are anonymous and are of a caliber that one would expect under such circumstances. Some even have verbs. A suggestion was made that we should all log on as students and make wonderful comments about ourselves. However, it was also pointed out that we probably don’t want any students who are likely to believe the comments that they read from anonymous sources on the Web.

5.) Items presented for action:

a.) Lab Hazard Assessment — Bob Blodgett went over the propsed lab hazard assessment by the Risk Management office and the Safety Committee. Everyone who conducts a lab with potentially hazardous circumstances should submit a copy of the lab procedures to Bob to evaluate.

b.) Workload Forms — Everyone had received their workload forms and had already contacted Susan Dudley about any problems.

Minutes of ESTE/GEOL Subcommittee

Dec. 6, 2002

Participants: Bob Blodgett, Ron Johns, Jan Smith, George Staff, Sal Valastro

Several members had to go by 11;30, so not all items were covered. The degree plan for Physical Science was revised, and the course inventory input forms were gone over. The TF Cchair will write up the changes and send them out for approval.

The course topics for GEOL 1403 were discussed, and a list was compiled of what should be required topics and which topics should be discretionary.

Minutes of PHYS/AST/ENG Subcommittee

Dec. 6, 2002

The regular subcommittee meeting was postponed so that Jim Heath could present a workshop for the faculty.