MINUTES
COUNCIL FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING
DECEMBER 2, 1998
I. PRELIMINARIES
  A. Attending: Mullin, Nitse, Das, Bain, Pehrsson, Bosworth, Thackray, Enos, DeJesus, Belzer. GUEST: R. Hatzenbuehler.

Excused: Fisher, Sirotnak.

B. Minutes. MSC to approve CTL Minutes (previously distributed) for 11/06/98.

  III. BUSINESS
  A.     Congratulations and thanks to Sharolyn Belzer for accepting the position of Vice-Chair. Mullin announced that Monika Johannsen had been appointed as a student representative to the Council.

B.     Update on Goal 9 Assessment: Hatzenbuehler reported that everyone whom CTL had nominated to be on the assessment task force had been contacted except for Swanson. The task force will meet during the first week of spring semester.

 C.     Faculty Senate Ad Hoc Task Force: Mullin reported that the Faculty Senate ad hoc task force to clarify the responsibilities of and improve the communication between CTL and Faculty Senate had met on November 13 with Stephanie Salzman, Ron Hatzenbuehler and John Jones. Salzman's discussion of the history of the development of CTL confirmed what Hjelm had said in the CTL meeting of November 6, that its primary purpose was to recognize and improve teaching and that assessment had been added as a component with the hiring of Barbara Lawrence. Mullin reported that the ad hoc committee will next meet with Dr. Jonathan Lawson to hear his vision for how the activities of the Council, Center and Office of Institutional Research should interface. She also said that whether CTL should be an advisory or policy committee remained a point of discussion. Belzer recommended that CTL form a committee to draft CTL's own vision for the group's activities. Belzer, Nitse and Das agreed to serve on the committee, recommendations to be due at the January meeting.

D.     Discussion Group on learning and student evaluations of teaching suggested by Dave Sorenson, Chair of Speech Pathology/Audiology, will be coordinated by Barb Bain as new faculty intern, beginning in spring semester.

   E.     Other Teaching/Learning Issues for Discussion Groups: Pehrsson suggested that CTL sponsor a discussion group devoted to the issue of academic freedom v. "curriculum dictation." Many times, it is necessary for courses to have a common content or course standards that students should meet upon completion of the course, but individual instructors must also have some control over the course. For example, instructors in a course may or may not use a common textbook, and students may or may not be learning the necessary material for fulfilling prerequisite requirements that students successfully completing the course should have accomplished. Bain said that she would circulate a flyer early in spring semester to gather participants for this discussion group. F.     Applegrams: Discussion ensued relative to a suggestion from Professor Larry Farrell that he saw in The Teaching Professor where students could send an "Applegram" to a professor who had made a difference in their learning. It was pointed out that student support for such a program would be essential and that it should be implemented in such a way that there would be a minimum of staff involvement in the program. A suggestion arose to use the kiosks as a place to publicize the existence of such a program, and Bosworth volunteered to work on the feasibility of creating a webpage that could be accessed from kiosks for this purpose. He promised to report on this possibility at the next meeting. G.     Other Business: Belzer asked about the procedures for CTL grants, and Hatzenbuehler passed out the relevant information. III.     NEXT MEETING: Sometime in early January. OIR will send out a sheet asking members to block out times they can't meet.   IV.     ADJOURNMENT: 2:00 p.m.

Approved: 1/28/99
 

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