Attending: Dr. Tom Metzgar, Dr. Kerry Holzworth, Dr. Susan Newman, Dr. Jack Daniel, Dr. Susan Whitney

The Senate Educational Policies Committee was held on October 14, 1998 from 11:30 a.m. until
1:00 p.m.


1. The minutes from the previous meeting were approved as distributed.

2. No new members present at this meeting. The announcement had been sent to all members and, hopefully, we will have greater attendance at the next meeting.

3. There was a request for a new list of the membership of the committee to be distributed. The chair of the committee was charged to contact Fran Czak to have it sent out to the members.

4. The committee reviewed and discussed the job description of the committee. It was edited. The committee will follow through and suggest to Fran Czak that the following changes be made:

On line three under functions that "teaching" be inserted before climate.
On line fifteen the following section be deleted: "including providing the leadership for the work of the Founders Day Committee."
The committee would also like the update to read 1998 on the second page. It was last updated in 1995.

5. There was an update of the status of Peer Evaluation of Teaching. Dr. Daniel reported that he has gotten the information, but was having difficulty trying to determine how to collate them and pull the information together. It was suggested that he will send Dr. Whitney or the chair of the committee a draft of the report and then it will be sent out to other members of the committee. It has been difficult to collate since the reports were rather lengthy.

6. The update on Excellence in Teaching Award was provided by Dr. Whitney. It will be funded for the next academic year. It will probably work like the Small Grants Awards for Research. The Provost will chair the committee for the first year. There are twenty-one people who will be on the committee the first year and some of the proposals will be in the area of technology. The Provost is in the process of convening the committee.

7. Discussion on CIDDE: It was the suggestion of the committee that we invite either Dr. Robert Pack or Dr. Diane Davis to our next meeting to try to have a better understanding how CIDDE is functioning related to Distance Learning and Faculty Development. There was discussion about USEP and how it is involved with CIDDE and also the resources that were previously provided by the Office of Faculty Development. The committee had a great deal of discussion related to this issue. We decided that we needed to discuss "what are the needs of the University faculty in order to better direct the Provost's office about what may actually be missing." Some of the items that were specifically discussed by the committee include:

1. Teaching consultants for faculty.
2. Preparing teaching dossiers.
3. How to write examination questions.
4. How to teach faculty the different styles of teaching.
5. How faculty should write objectives.

The committee felt very strongly that there need to be specific consultants located within the University to help people with these specific problems. After talking to CIDDE, the list may need to be much longer after we better understand the resources within CIDDE. We feel that CIDDE has been doing an excellent job, but would like to make sure that all of the needs relating to teaching at the University are provided.

Some of the other items discussed were: needing to have an office that is well known and easily located. There needs to be some type of office that would be a separate entity so that it has visibility and there needs to be persons/places that are well know by faculty to enhance their teaching.

We know the Board of Trustees, the Chancellor, and the Provost have all stated that teaching is very important. We would like to make sure that we are providing the resources at the University that can effectively make good teaching happen.

8. There was discussion about the Sorcenelli Report. At this time, the committee will not push for the release of that report. We would like to further investigate through CIDDE and the Provost's office how to make teaching very visible within the University and also would like to research additional rewards for excellence in teaching.

9. New business - the committee did not have time to look specific goals for this year. We will attempt to do this at the next meeting and also will attempt to determine if we can get Dr. Diane Davis at that meeting. The next SEPC meeting is scheduled on November 9, 11:30 to 1 p.m. on the sixth floor physical therapy conference room, 6061.

Respectfully submitted,

Susan Whitney