Senate Educational Policies Committee

October 18, 2005

Meeting Minutes


In attendance:  Patricia Beeson, Judith Erlen, Kathleen Kelly, Neepa
Majumdar, Susan Sereika, Anthony Silvestre, Charlene Trovato

Absent:  Eileen Ansell, Catherine Bender, David Crossman, Joan Cutone, Jack
Daniel, Irene Frieze, Nancy Grove, Justin Hsieh, Ivanka Nikolova, Chris
Jones, Kathleen Knapp, Jackie Merranko, Walt Alan Stoy, Evelyn Talbott


1.      Announcements:

			a.      The SEPC member roster has been finalized and will be posted
			on the SEPC website.

          b.      D. Crossman has agreed to maintain the website for the
          current time.  C.Trovato will provide backup.

          c.      S. Sereika submitted the SEPC email distribution list to
          Majordomo.  The alias for the SEPC is sepc@list.pitt.edu. This
          will provide a means of secure electronic communication among SEPC
          members to disseminate comments or other business. S. Sereika will
          organize and maintain this list.

          d.      Drs. Diane Davis and Joanne Nicholl from the Center for
          Instructional Development and Distance Education (CIDDE),will be
          attending the November SEPC meeting to discuss teach evaluation
          processes and alternatives to OMET.  They will also report on
          services available at CIDDE to support teaching.

          e.      Given the discussions taking place between the University
          	and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania about the Horowitz Bill of
			Academic Rights, SEPC's's discussion of the issue will be put on
          	hold until a later date.

2.      Approval of the Minutes: After discussion of the meeting minutes, K.
Kelly moved that the minutes from September 20, 2005 be approved as amended;
Judy Erlen seconded the motion.  Minutes were approved as amended.  S.
Sereika will forward the revised minutes to D. Crossman to post on the SEPC
website.

3.      Part-time Faculty:  The annual survey conducted by Tenure and
Academic Freedom Committee (ATFC) was reviewed and discussed with respect to
the information reported on part-time faculty.  This report essentially
summarizes the trends in the number and percentage of tenured, tenure-track,
and non-tenure track faculty in the University and across it units including
the Regional Campuses.  The report also includes statistics on the
utilization of part-time faculty among the academic units.  Increasing
trends were noted  in the Arts and Sciences particularly in AY 2003 and a
slight continued increase in AY 2004.  Increases were also observed at the
Regional campuses.  Decreases were noted for the other academic units in
Oakland, especially in the School of Medicine.  TAFC stated that "an
assessment of the significance of these trends will require a careful and
detailed study of the roles, duties and full time equivalent hours for
part-time faculty."  Additionally, the findings of the SEPC part-time survey
conducted in late 2001 (results were analyzed in 2002) were discussed.
These results were discussed in light of the SEPC recommendations made to
the Provost and the response from the Provost's  Office. SEPC members decided
that before doing another University-wide survey, we may want to see if the
recommendations were indeed implemented within the various units. There was
also the issue of further defining what is meant by "part-time."

ACTION: SEPC members are to poll their respective schools, departments, etc.
to see how "part-time" is defined.

4.      Teaching Evaluation: It was noted that the process of teaching
evaluations at the academic unit level may be annually reported through the
Office of the Provost.  P. Beeson will check for the existence of annual
reports on teaching evaluation procedures from the Office of the Provost.
SEPC has visited this issue before, but discussion today was on the
variations in how teaching is evaluated across academic units.  For example,
the School of Nursing expects full-time faculty to prepare a teaching
portfolio which includes information on teaching philosophy statement,
sample course materials, student evaluations and peer evaluations, while the
Graduate School of Public Health tends to focus on the student evaluations
collected through the Office of Measurement and Evaluation of Teaching
(OMET).  Based on the discussion, there seemed to be considerable variance
as to how faculty are evaluated in term of teaching across the units.  .

ACTION: SEPC members are to poll their respective schools, departments, etc.
to see how teaching is evaluated.

 5.     Liaison Reports:

a.      Faculty Assembly: As SEPC Co-Chair, S. Sereika will attend the
Faculty Assembly (FA) meeting and as needed Senate Council meeting.  At the
September FA no matters arose related to SEPC.  Senate Council meeting was
cancelled for October 2005.

b.      Advisory Council on Instructional Excellence (ACIE): As SEPC
Co-chair, J. Erlen has been newly appointed to ACIE as a liaison from SEPC.
J. Erlen reported that ACIE has not met since the last SEPC meeting so that
there is no report.  The next meeting is scheduled for October 24, 2005.

c.      University Planning and Budget Committee: As SEPC Co-Chair, S.
Sereika has been newly appointed to UPBC as a liaison from SEPC.  S. Sereika
reported that this Committee has not met since the last SEPC meeting. The
next meeting is scheduled for November 17, 2005 and she plans to attend.

6.      Adjournment:  The SEPC meeting adjourned at 12:45 PM.  The next SEPC
meeting is scheduled for November 15th, from 11:45 to 12:45 PM.

Respectfully submitted,

M. Kathleen Kelly, Ph.D, PT