The meeting was held in 6061 Forbes Tower, the Physical Therapy Conference Room


Attending: Sue Whitney; Chairperson; Jean Blachère; David M. Crossman; Jack Daniel; Barbara Fredette; Kerry Holzworth; Tom Metzger; Doug Metzler; Susan Neuman; and Tony Silvestre.

1. The Sorcinelli Report

Dr. Whitney reported on extensive conversations that she has had with the Provost. The Provost reported that he was not aware that the Committee had been told that it would receive a copy of the report. He stated that his office does not normally release reports that contain references or information about personnel. He also stated that his office is moving forward on a number of fronts in the area of faculty development and that these reflect the recommendations made in the report. Dr. Whitney asked for information on faculty development programs at other Universities that Dr. Sorcinelli suggested would be in the report. The Provost said that he would try to have that information sent.

2. Future Actions

Committee members discussed their views and ideas about faculty development. There was general agreement that faculty development has not successfully functioned in the past. CIDDE was created, in part, to take advantage of new technologies by assisting faculty develop skills to use them. Dr. Crossman suggested that the Office of Faculty Development was improperly located in CIDDE and has not received sufficient financial or administrative support. He also noted that ideas for the development of that office might be available from the Provost of the University of Massachusetts which has an excellent program and from POD, an association of faculty and organizational development professionals. Dr. Daniel suggested that information be sought from Michigan, as well. Dr. Crossman agreed to contact Mass. and Dr. Newman agreed to search the Internet.

The Committee also reviewed related ideas and issues from the last meeting. They included:

a. moving faculty development out of CIDDE;
b. dealing with negative faculty perceptions about faculty development;

c. identifying, if any, the future plans, goals, and objectives of the program;

d. moving faculty development from a passive stance of reacting to requests to a more active stance;

e. increasing resources for CIDDE so that it can carry out its mission around technology;

f. creating a new "Office of Teaching";

g. doing carefully designed and evaluated outreach to generate interest in the program especially in the area of individualized assistance;

h. increasing financial and administrative support for faculty development;

i. creating a new mission statement, stated goals, feedback mechanisms and evaluations for faculty development;

The Committee also discussed how to gather input from faculty, students and staff on the issue. There was general agreement that our web page could be used to gather input and that questions would be developed based on information reported at our next meeting. Data would then be summarized and presented to the Faculty Assembly.


3. Peer Evaluation

The Committee asked Dr. Daniel to summarize and synthesize the schools' and programs' responses to questions 4 and 5 from the recent questionnaire sent to them from the Provost's Office.

4. Confidentiality

Dr. Metzler discussed a number of mechanisms that could be used and some of which are being used by Senate Committees dealing with confidential issues. He suggested that the issue be discussed with the Provost.

The meeting adjourned at 1 p.m..
Respectfully submitted by Dr. Silvestre