Minutes: Faculty Development Meeting (#3F, October 8, 2002) submitted by Andrew Das In Attendance: Pat Ackles, Marie Baehr, Larry Carroll, Andrew Das, Heather Hall, William Hirstein, Scott LaMorte, Maureen Mascha, Helga Noice, Earl Swallow (Chairperson), Susan Swords Steffen Meeting commenced at 2:35 pm. 1. Committee approved Minutes of the prior meeting. 2. Earl Swallow requested members check whether their spring schedules will permit meeting at the same time again. 3. Lilly Conference on College Teaching: Seven faculty will be attending. Two will be leaving on Wednesday and five on Thursday. Some of the faculty are also presenting. Marie has been able to resolve problems that arose with the registrations. 4. Midwest Faculty Seminar Institutes: Earl provided a list of interested faculty for each of the seminars. The Charles Darwin seminar is undersubscribed. All four who are interested in that seminar should be able to attend and possibly also Ron Goetz as a fifth. 5. Travel Grants: A few have already been received, although the deadline is October 21st. 6. International Education Grants: The notice is in the mail. The Bradley/Prague Seminar is taking place this year again (their website, however, is running late on the event). 7. Faculty Presentations: Maureen Mascha reported on her work organizing faculty presentations of research funded by the FDC. Donna Goetz will be presenting in the library caf‚ on Thursday, November 7th. The suggestion was made to contact Judy Grimes to speak on November 7th as well. Presentations could be approximately 20 minutes. Sheila Mehigan has requested to present in late spring. Maureen has also contacted Jane Jegerski and Kal‚ Haywood. 8. Grant Writing Workshop(s): Larry Carroll reported his progress on the planning of a workshop(s). He suggested that it might be a half-day event or a couple of hours. Faculty should be identified who wish to "rekindle" research and who are in the early stages. Also, Larry suggested looking at such workshops at COD and Loyola. Perhaps it might be best to start with a small group of Elmhurst faculty in the short term and see who is interested. A mentoring system might be helpful. Scott LaMorte has spoken with Ken Bartels about such a workshop. Ken is supportive of having someone come in to present; the missing step, however, is to check faculty interest levels. Scott proposed a generic grant writing workshop. As for a time frame, Marie Baehr suggested 90 minutes on a Friday afternoon perhaps including three or four faculty members speaking of their own grant writing activity for five or ten minutes each. Scott thought that this would help identify the interested faculty prior to bringing someone to the college. He reported that Ken Bartels would like some time to research a person to present at the workshop. 9. Student Involvement in Faculty Research: Pat Ackles had suggested this possibility in a prior FDC meeting. Larry Carroll followed up on the suggestion. He raised the STEP program. Larry raised the possibility that college community supervisors interview students for their positions, review their work, and create an environment that mirrors the workplace. The next step would be to see which faculty are interested and have them express to Larry by e-mail their interest and thoughts on such a work-study program with faculty. Committee members raised a concern that the work-study program is federally funded with certain restrictions. Pat Ackles would like to be able to procure funds for people who may not qualify for the work-study option if they are well suited for the position. 10. George Thoma E-mail: George Thoma had e-mailed the FDC with a concern that committee resources were supporting primarily scholarly research rather than improvements in pedagogy. Maureen Mascha explained that George is concerned that the FDC may be losing its focus on teaching in favor or scholarship. Marie Baehr responded that the CBE may offer a teaching institute(s), but the format is still being debated. Maureen reported that the CBE is looking at potential presentations on conflict management and teaching by means of case studies, but the speakers are very expensive. CBE's Plan B would be to go to Harvard for a case study seminar. Helga suggested campus expertise should be exhausted first prior to Harvard. Marie responded to George's concern by presenting statistics on how the FDC budget has been spent. She noted that 55% of the budget has been spent on teaching, a good portion of which has been used for the Lilly Conferences. The Lilly Conference represents a shift from the prior emphasis on the Excellence in Teaching Day. Susan Swords Steffen pointed out that the shift away from the Excellence in Teaching Day fuels a perception that pedagogy may not be valued as much as in the past. Maureen and Bill Hirstein responded that faculty research and teaching are not mutually exclusive activities since research, even when not targeting a teaching method or pedagogy per se, enhances teaching. Helga raised the possibility of teaching circles to share what worked in the classroom. 11. FDC Meeting with the College Council on Tuesday, October 15, 2002 in the Blume Board Room at 3:00 pm: Earl reminded committee members of this meeting and its agenda: "in what ways is our agenda influenced by the action plan." He also would like committee members to consider what will attract people to events such as teaching circles. Marie and Larry would like more people to see what happens with respect to teaching in the Lilly programs and in the Bradley seminar. 12. Book Event: Faculty are publishing books this year. Susan Swords Steffen suggested a recognition event in the spring. Helga Noice did not think it best to schedule the event after a faculty meeting. Pat Ackles agreed that it is good to showcase new faculty publications but that there should be a way to display all past faculty publications. Helga and Andrew Das agreed that a permanent display would be very nice. Susan said that such a display in the library is a possibility but not in the short term. 13. Pacific Crest Teaching Institute: Marie Baehr reported a three day conference with group work examining teaching scheduled for January 23-25. Materials on the conference have been sent out. Elmhurst may send up to forty participants. A second conference may be possible, either a repeat of the first or a conference with more advanced work. The meeting adjourned at 3:41 pm.