SCD MINUTES of 28 November 2001

Convened in MAC Hall B-315 at 12 noon, Adjourned at 12:45

 Present: Lynn Walter (Chair), Craig Lockard, Andy Austin, Mark Everingham, Kim Nielsen, and Harvey Kaye (Secretary for the day).

 Excused: Tony Galt, Larry Smith

 1. Celebrations:

1. Harvey has been awarded a National Endowment Humanities Fellowship for 2002-2003.

2.  Danielle Luer, a recent SCD graduate, has received her Peace Corps posting.  She will work with urban youth in Paraguay.

3.  Lynn brought along Samantha Rodriguez’s Portfolio to show how fine a job our students are capable of doing in the Portfolio course

 2.  Goals for 2002-2003:

1. We agreed to pursue 4 major goals in the next academic year –

2. Make the year exciting, in spite of the projected “leaves” by members of the department.

3. Integrate a new Economist into the department (assuming we get to recruit one this year as part of the Learning experience Initiative). Enhance our Student Internship program.

4. Develop an SCD “Undergraduate Scholars Program” in teaching and research – possibly creating a new Teaching/Research Internship course for selected students.

 3.  Assessment Question:

On reviewing our current model and procedures (and suffering a leaky MAC Hall roof), Lynn declared she found our assessment system “indefensible.”  So, she suggested we implement something we might call “Faculty Assessment of Student Performance (FASP),” in which those who teach the SCD Core Courses – 333, 360, 361, 470 – write up an assessment of the cohort in each class based on the course’s stated goals and objectives.  By consensus, we approved the new system.

 Next Meeting: To be determined – but we agreed to address our replacement needs for 2002-2003 at that time.