CLAS Assembly Minutes
February 27, 2006
4:10 p.m. in the Keene Faculty Center
- Dean Neil S. Sullivan, College of Liberal Arts & Sciences and
Professor of Physics, called the Assembly to order shortly after 4pm.
He introduced Janie M. Fouke, the new Provost and Senior Vice President
for Academic Affairs at the University of Florida.
- Provost Janie Fouke introduced herself, and gave a brief summary of
the main issues she has focused on in the past six months since she
has been in the office. They include (but are not limited to): increasing
standards of undergraduate education, increasing freshmen enrollments
and addressing the problems related to low course load taken by undergraduates;
reducing the cost of and optimizing the technological infrastructure;
search for the Dean of Graduate School with the goal of improving CLAS
Graduate Programs. As far as improving the Graduate education, the Provost
proposes to address the following among its key ingredients: competitive
stipends for graduate students, development of the alumni fellows program,
improvements in the domain of health insurance and admission fees, and
honorary Ph.D’s.
- Faculty Question: Given that the resources for the growth
of graduate students are lacking, how can we address the growth
and improvement of graduate education?
Provost Fouke’s answer: Early admissions and change in
the admission infrastructure will be a part of the solution.
- Faculty Question: Why should we strive for having a robust
graduate school?
Provost Fouke’s answer: Having strong graduate school, comparable
to that of Georgia Tech, Duke, Michigan, among others, is instrumental
for attracting and retaining top faculty.
- Faculty Question: Recruiting of top graduate students is jeopardized
by the fact that the budget is determined late and hence the admission
letters are also sent out quite late.
Provost Fouke’s answer: The admission of graduate students
must take place earlier.
- Faculty Question: Given the retirements and new recruitments,
how do we insure that we have sufficient start-up funds to offer
to new faculty in short-term to compete with other schools?
Provost Fouke’s answer: We must be able to better predict
the availability of funds, given the current late allocation decisions
by the Dean’s Office.
- Faculty Question: The strategic work plan draft for the future
of UF emphasizes hard sciences, and barely mentions humanities.
Why is this the case?
Provost Fouke’s answer: This is just a draft, and this point
is subject to changes.
- Faculty Question: There is a certain disparity between the
desire to improve the graduate education and the fact that the new
draft for the future of UF explicitly mentions programs like Dance,
Film among others, that is, programs and departments generating
a small number of PhD’s, as opposed to CLAS, which does generate
a number of PhD’s but is not given sufficient attention. Why
is this the case?
Faculty Question: In connection with the previous question, we need
a more inclusive strategic work plan for UF.
- Faculty Question: There is a problem with the desire to increase
the course load taken by the undergraduate students, given the unfavorable
student-faculty ratio.
Provost Fouke’s answer (to the last three questions/contribution):
The plan needs to be reworked to take all these points into consideration.
The new undergraduate Provost will specifically deal with the issues
related to undergraduate education.
- Faculty Question: Can the budget for the library be increased?
Right now, we cannot order all the best books in a a given field.
Provost Fouke’s answer: UF only has state money, which
also depends on the enrollment growth. Hence, our budget is restricted.
- Dean Sullivan concluded the meeting with a few remarks. They included
a reassurance that CLAS is not disadvantaged, and the current strategic
work plan draft contains a certain ‘overcorrection’ in emphasizing
‘hard sciences’, and downplaying humanities. There will
be a humanities task force established which will formulate suggestions
for modifying strategic work plan.
Archive
of Minutes
- March 25, 2010
- January 22, 2010
- April 26, 2007
- January 9, 2007
- October 4, 2006
- May 1, 2006
- February 27, 2006
- November 16, 2005
- September 29, 2005
- March 28, 2005
- November 15, 2004
- September 14, 2004
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