Meeting Place: RVS, Room 2265

Meeting Time: 9:30 am

Participants: James Friedrichsen, Lala Guerra, Sal Valastro, Ron Johns, Chris Cavalli, Paul Nacozy, Laura Tacheny, Saad Eway, Paul Williams, Bob Blodgett, Cindy Carr, Dale Biggs, Allen Underwood, Leslie Davis, Elliott Richmond, George Staff, Jan Smith

1.) Approval of Agenda

2.) Approval of Minutes from: September 2, 2005

3.) Information items presented:

a.) Professional Development – There will be a Professional Developmental Day workshop on October, 14, 2005 at NRG. The workshop is on the Classroom Response System and will be presented by Paul, Paul & Jeff.

b.) Possible Professional Development – James Heath announce to everyone that the minister at his church was willing to come and give a talk on creationism and intelligent design. James asked if anyone in the meeting was interested and the response was yes. He then told everyone that he was planning to set this up as a Professional Development Seminar to be held around the 2^nd week of November.

c.) Summer Staffing – Summer Staffing will start November 1, 2005.

d.) Travel Funds – All presenters of meetings and workshops were approved to be fully funded and faculty that submitted requests to attend meetings, workshops, etc. were to have the travel funds divided evenly among them. However, Math and Science has since received an increase of travel money in the amount of $15,000.00. James Friedrichsen suggested individuals that had already submitted a request for travel to resubmit the request again because there would be an opportunity to receive more money for their travel. He also recommended that any individuals that were interesting in travel money should submit a request. All requests need to be submitted before the next Math and Science meeting on Wednesday, October 12, 2005 when the decision on how the travel money will be divided will be made.

e.) Long Term Planning Committee Meeting – The Tech Committee has awarded us $17,000 to replacing capital equipment. The Long Term Committee will meet after the Professional Development on October 14, 2005 to discuss what the money is going to be spent on.

f.) Planetarium – Ron Johns announced that the Planetarium effort was going reasonably well and that serious fundraising efforts would start this summer. Ron informed everyone that he had been in communication with the Manor Education Foundation on this issue. They then brought Ron up to date about a donation of 100 acres of land given to them to build a Science Museum Complex. The Manor Education Foundation showed interest in the Planetarium becoming part of the Science Museum Complex. ACC has formed a committee to see what kind of participation ACC could provide to this project. A significant part is depending upon if Samsung decides to move to Austin or not because if they do move to Austin they plan to contribute about a million dollars to this project.

g.) The ACC Regional Collaborative – The ACC Regional Collaborative is a collaborative effort between ACC and the 3 largest school districts in this area being Austin, Round Rock and Pflugerville ISD. Our part is to offer professional development in the Sciences to teachers who are nominated by their administration. ACC was selected to be the organization that will offer the training to these teachers through a grant given to ACC by UT. Some of the faculty voiced their questions and concerns. Saad Eways, Director of the project told everyone at the meeting that he would let everyone know what kind of involvement ACC would have with this project. He did mention that there would be compensation for faculty involved in this project.

h.) Portfolios - Portfolios are due on November 1, 2005. James Friedrichsen told everyone at the meeting that the information on portfolios was in the Physical Sciences Manual. He also said he would send out an email to let faculty know who needs to turn in a portfolio.

4.) Discussion Items:

a.) GEOL 1301 “Natural Hazards and Disasters” – GEOL 1301 would be an earth science course combing geology, meteorology, oceanography, climatology, environmental science and aspects of solar system astronomy. This class would start as a 3 credit hour lecture course that would meet natural science requirements for education, business, communications, fine arts and social work majors at the University of Texas in Austin and will transfer to Texas State University as a general science elective. Our goal is to have this course approved, included in the Core Curriculum and College Catalog for the Fall Semester 2006. Currently 10 community colleges and six universities offer this course. Everyone agree to move forward with this course.

b.) Math Prerequisite – It was agreed that High School Algebra II should not be considered as equivalent to College Algebra for high school students going into PHYS 1401 General Physics I. Suggestions were made and everyone agreed to have a written statement by the next department meeting in November and vote on it.

c.) Class Testing of Texts – Everyone was advised to be careful of class testing of texts.

d.) Schedule Changes Policies – A statement was written up for Assistant Deans concerning schedule changes. Faculty went over the statement to review the suggestions and changes that were made.

e.) New NASA Mentor – George Staff was coerced into becoming the new mentor for the NASA scholars program.

f.) Field Trip $$ -James Friedrichsen announced that Physical Science received $500.00 less then last year. James told everyone to try to spend money wisely in case we fall short.

5.) Action Items:

a.) Committee Membership (Again) -Assignments for 2005 – 2006 - Evaluation Committee for Physics Astronomy are: James Friedrichsen (chair) John Cise, Chris Cavalli, James Heath, Paul Nacozy, Elliot Richmond and John Underwood. Evaluation Committee for Environmental Science and Geology are: Ron Johns (chair), Bob Blodgett, Sal Valastro, George Staff and Leslie Davis. Adjunct Hiring for Physics and Astronomy Committee are: Jeff Bechtold (chair), Laura Tacheny, Saad Eways, Dean Becker and Chris Cavalli. Adjunct Hiring for Environmental Science and Geology Committee are: Jan Smith (chair), Sal Valastro and George Staff. For the Combined Master Planning Committee are: John Underwood, Paul Williams, Ron Johns, Cindy Carr, Chris Cavalli, Larry Wigginton and James Friedrichsen.

b.) Program Reviews – Geology Program Review are: Ron Johns (chair), Bob Blodgett, Cindy Carr, James Friedrichsen, Jan Smith, George Staff and Paul Williams.

c.) GEOL 1405 Vote – Geol 1405 was approved.

d.) U-LEAD “student learning outcomes” – Our Program’s Purpose Statements and Assessment Plans need to be reviewed and put into the system by October 31, 2005.

6.) New Business:

Minutes of PHYS/AST/ENG Subcommittee

October 7, 2005

Participants James Friedrichsen, Lala Guerra, Chris Cavalli, Paul Nacozy, Laura Tacheny, Saad Eway, Paul Williams, Allen Underwood, Elliott Richmond

Conceptual Physics Text – It was decided that the 10^th edition of the Conceptual Physics Textbook would be used for PHYS 1405 and PHYS 1407 in the Spring Semester 2006. Laura said that she would work on a transcription of the Homework problem sets from the 9^th edition that could be found in the 10^th edition for her CP II course that she would be willing to share with other instructors and James said that he would try to contact the Publisher.

General Physics Text – It was decide that the Physics Department should consider another book to use for the Fall Semester 2006 since Cutnell & Johnson is going into a new edition.

C or Better Statement – Everyone looked over the C or Better Statement for General Physics I & II and Engineering Physics I & II and made suggestions and changes.

A.P Exam Credit – was tabled until the next meeting.

U-LEAD/Assessment – It was decided that we would try to reinstitute our old Physics assessment based upon PHY 1653 since there is a good chance that it will be able to be reinstated. The other assessments and purpose statements would remain as before.

Minutes of GEOL/ESTE Subcommittee

October 7, 2005

Participants Ron Johns, Bob Blodgett, Cindy Carr, Leslie Davis, George Staff, Jan Smith, Sal Valastro

U-Lead Assessment plans have to be entered by the end of the month. We will go ahead with the Geology pretest/post-test strategy approved previously. George will email Ron the outline of an assessment plan for Env. Science along the same lines.

As a result of monumental errors on their part, the new classified position for environmental science was reassigned to biology to correct their mess. However, we got some of their hourly money in return. Together with the hourly money for env. science, we will have enough funds to create a new full-time classified position. After some discussion, it was decided that the position would be in geology at RGC. Some proportion of the lab tech’s time, however, would be spent supporting env. tech. at the NRG campus. Ron will handle the job description and other details and will chair the committee. Cindy, Lala, James, Jan, George, and Ron will form the committee.

A preliminary draft of the curriculum input form for GEOL 1405 was reviewed and approved.