Minutes of Faculty Meeting -- Tuesday, January 21, 2003

Attendees: Drs. Buss, Capinera, Crow, Cuda, Foltz, D. Hall, G. Hall, Hoy, Koehler, Leppla, Liburd, Maruniak, McAuslane, Nation, Oi, Webb, Yu, and Debbie Hall, Cindy Tucker, and Myrna Litchfield.

Meeting convened at 3:00 pm

Capinera introduced Sabine Grunwald from the Soil and Water Science Department. She presented information about the distance MS effort in that department. Dr. Grunwald mentioned that they try to maintain a quality program off campus as well as on. They use a chat-room and white boards to communicate with students. Students should visit the campus at the beginning of the first semester to get acquainted with the faculty and the program coordinator and also the last semester to present a seminar for thesis option. Students who are from out-of-state are hooked up with a faculty member at a nearby university or a research center faculty. They try to solicit volunteers from the community for Distance Education.

Eileen Buss, Glenn Hall, Phil Koehler, Heather McAuslane, and Faith Oi volunteered to form a committee on Distance Education. The committee is to convene during the next month with Phil acting as chair and report at the next faculty meeting.

A combined Bachelor/Master's program was discussed. The graduate committee plus Don Hall will meet and propose a program of study for the combined degree.

Capinera requested that the Graduate Committee meet and recommend a Graduate Coordinator for the Department. This would be a two-year appointment with the possibility of being re-appointed.

Don Hall reported that the job search for the Insect Taxonomist position was underway and the position had been posited in the ESA Newsletter and sent to all the land grant Universities for posting. At that time he had received only 2 replies. The closing date for applications is March 15, 2003.

Discussed Faculty Senate meeting where the announcement of Tenure and Promotion time line was discussed. The senate recommended that tenure not be granted until the 6th year of employment instead of the 5th. There seemed to be a lot of concern expressed about this but it would give faculty an extra year to prepare before presenting their tenure packet. Tenure could be requested during the 4th year or earlier, but it was not recommended.

A discussion followed concerning having faculty review the Assistant Professor tenure and promotion packets periodically. IFAS does not recommend this due to the wide variety of assignments. It was suggested that an Ad Hoc Committed be formed for this. Capinera stated he would be glad to have faculty review anyone's packet who wished to have theirs reviewed.

Capinera reported on the progress he has made over the past year: (1) The Hetrich & Mitchell endowment funds were received; (2) Completed the menu system for EDIS; (3) Photo CD protocol in development; (4) Going to complete Encyclopedia during 2003.

A question was raised about the use of photos on the web or in publications. It was stated that you must get permission to publish these photos. Also, the question was raised as to how much should be charged for CD ROMs . A discussion of this matter followed with no conclusion.

Meeting adjourned at 4:30