Advisory Council on Instructional Excellence

Approval of the Minutes (A. Blair):

A motion for the approval of the May 12, 2006, minutes was made, seconded and accepted unanimously by the members present. The minutes will be posted to the ACIE website.

As the June is the last scheduled meeting of Council for the academic year, Dr. Blair informed Council that about one-third of the members’ terms of service will end at the end of the month and acknowledged each of these members for their excellent contributions as follows: Bopaya Bidanda (Engineering), John Burkoff (Law), Seymour Drescher (Arts and Sciences), Joe Grabowski (Arts and Sciences), Katheryn Linduff (Arts and Sciences), Nina Schor (Medicine), and Gary Stoehr (Pharmacy).

Copies of last year’s RFP (2006) were distributed for discussion, along with comments from the proposal review sessions in March.

Based on those discussions, Dr. Blair suggested that Council may want to consider altering the RFP slightly. In general, there was agreement that proposals fall into two categories: (1) developmental (where assessment or evaluation frameworks may not be readily available; e.g., those which produce specific “deliverables”); and (2) those for which more conventional methods of evaluation can be employed. To date, most of the funded projects have been in the latter category. It was determined, however, that there is a need to recognize that some projects are not amenable to conventional evaluation—which is currently a review criterion.

Discussion among Council members followed, and comments included the following: One member agreed with accepting two kinds of proposals, but would be concerned about making two discrete categories. Another comment was made about the RFP’s objective of the project’s being “replicable in other areas in the University”; it was noted that while this is the “ideal,” it may not be possible. After a brief discussion, Council agreed to change “replicable” to “may be applicable in other instructional settings.”

Several Council members also suggested that the RFP refer to examples of successful proposals that might be placed on a website to demonstrate the range of proposals that have been awarded funding, as well as to adding link(s) to information/references on assessment/outcomes and objectives, a topic that may now be confusing to proposal writers.

Dr. Blair thanked members for these and other suggestions; the RFP will be revised and sent to members for feedback and will be brought back to Council early in the Fall prior to campus-wide distribution of the document.

Prior to closing the meeting, Council members recommended that the record reflect their appreciation for the work of the Chair. With no further business to conduct, the meeting was adjourned at 1:00 pm.