Meeting Place: RVS - 326

Meeting Time: 9:30am

Participants: James Friedrichsen, Ron Johns, Chris Cavalli, Paul Nacozy, Hadi Parhikhteh, Dean Becker, Bob Blodgett, C.D. Rao, Dale Biggs, Saad Eways, David Wolf, John Underwood, James Heath, Elliot Richmond, George Staff, Jan Smith, Cindy Carr

1.) Approval of Agenda

2.) Approval of Minutes from:

3.) Information items presented:

a.) Linda Kluck – FERPA – Linda Kluck, Director of Admissions and Records at ACC briefed everyone about FERPA at the meeting. FERPA is the Federal Education Rights Privacy Act that gives the students the right to inspect their records, request for corrections on their records and the right for privacy of their records in any educational institution. FERPA applies to all students once they become college students. Thus, FERPA protects records of secondary education students such as Early College Start students. FERPA does permit institutions to give out directory information such as name, address, telephone number, date and birth place, major field of study, participation in activities, dates of attendance, degrees, the name of most previously attended educational institutions, student classification and enrolment status of students to third parties without students’ permission. The following can never be considered directory information: gender, ethnicity, social security number, grades, GPA, country of citizenship and religion. After the briefing there was an informative question and answer session with Linda.

b.) Robin Lake - Service Learning - Robin Lake, instructor of Social Work and Psychology at ACC, was invited to brief everyone in the meeting about Service Learning. Ms. Lake explained to everyone that Service Learning is a teaching method, which combines community service with academic instruction as it focuses on critical, reflective thinking and civic responsibility. Service Learning programs involve students in organized community service that address local needs, while developing their academic skills, sense of civic responsibility and commitment to the community. She also mentioned to everyone in the meeting that a Service Learning Advisory committee is being put together for ACC and would like someone from each task force to serve on the committee to find out how to better serve each discipline. There were questions and suggestions after the briefing.

c.) Faculty Advising Training – Training for faculty advising has gone well. Only one person from our department needs to make up the training.

d.) Tech Plan Items – Ron Johns announced to everyone that he requested ~$50,000 for replacement of physics equipment and new ESTE equipment upgrades. According to the budget calculations we should have enough money for everything. The Tech Committee is trying to establish a replacement plan for faculty lap tops. There should be some money left for more video projectors.

e.) Spring 2007 schedule – NRG & CYP. The NRG Spring 2007 schedule was completely redone. There will be 2 sections of astronomy, 1 section of Engineering, 4 sections Environmental Science, 6 sections of Geology and 9 sections of Physics added to the schedule. A new full-time Physics position and a full-time Lab Tech position were requested. There were questions after the discussion.

f.) Phase II Reorganization – James Friedrichsen announced to everyone that there were some changes in the Department Chair position. The changes would mean no additional release time and no 12 month contract but would get some extra pay and extra duties during the summer. No other major changes were noticed.

g.) ESTE – C&P meeting results – The requested degree plan changes were approved. We will be doing away with EPCT 2403. It was replaced by EPCT 2303. It will be the same amount of time but instead of instead of 4 credit hours it will be 3 credit hours.

h.) Engineering Budget – An Engineering Budget was approved. A one-time amount of $1000.00 was placed into the account to spend on equipment and supplies.

i.) Field Trip Budget – James announced that there was only $1400.00 left in the field trip budget. We had projected $2100.00 for the rest of the summer. Because of the shortfall in the field trip budget, a couple of our required field trips may have to go together and all optional field trips that require funding are canceled.

j.) Nanotechnology Internship Applications – James Friedrichsen passed out a few copies of the Nanotechnology Internship Applications to faculty to give to students that would be interested in the program. He told everyone in the meeting if more copies were needed, to email Hector Aguilar and request more.

k.) Faculty Evaluation Results – James Friedrichsen furnished a copy of the faculty evaluation ratings that he had received from John Pietro Caporusso at the Office of Professional Development. The results show that very few faculty receive evaluation ratings that are below very good during the faculty evaluation process. Faculty shared their concerns and made suggestions.

4.) Discussion Items:

a.) Institutional Memberships – It has come to James Friedrichsen’s attention that departments can purchase institutional memberships and ACC will pay for them. James asked everyone in the meeting if they were interested in purchasing memberships. The Faculty showed interest and James informed them that they would have to come up and agree with one membership for each discipline.

b.) Astronomy – James Friedrichsen asked James Heath if any changes were going to be made to PHYS 1311 and PHYS 1411. James Heath said there would be no changes in PHYS 1411 but that prerequisites would be added to PHYS 1311 and PHYS 1312. He was also asked if we want to offer an Astronomy degree again. James Heath stated that he did not think that we should offer an Astronomy degree.

5.) Action Items:

6.) New Business:

Minutes of PHYS/AST/ENG Subcommittee

May 5, 2006

Participants James Friedrichsen, Chris Cavalli, Paul Nacozy, Hadi Parhikhteh, Dean Becker, C.D. Rao, David Wolf, Saad Eways, John Underwood, Dale Biggs, James Heath, Elliot Richmond

General Physics Topics Lists were redone primarily due to the adoption of the new textbook. The required topics lists have now gone back to the previous style in which all topics on the list are required and additional topics may be added as desired by the instructor. Some minor changes and revisions were made to the proposed list.

Lab Organization – this topic was deferred until a later meeting.

Saad Eways announced to everyone in the meeting that the ACC Collaborative would roll over to next year and would get the same grant as this year. Usually these grants are for two years but ACC was awarded one year this year because it started late. Saad mention that the program would essentially be run the same as it was in the previous year, but if there were suggestions for improvement to let him know. Saad also told everyone in the meeting that he, Laura Tacheny, John Underwood and Paul Williams had come up with a couple of ideas for the program. The first idea is to develop a buddy system or mentoring program between ACC faculty and the elementary school teachers. The second idea is to use some ACC equipment to do demonstrations at some of these schools. There were discussions and suggestions on both ideas.

The last Collaborative seminar which is on Life Sciences will be Saturday May 6^th 2006.