Minutes for FECC Friday December 10, 2004 meeting

Members Present:  Shirley Lumpkin, Lawrence Shao, Michael Cornfeld, Don Van Horn, Michael Castellani, Uday Tate, Kay Wildman, Janet Dooley, Venkat Gudivada, Sandra Marra

Ex-officio members present:  Sarah Denman, James Sottile, Elaine Baker, Mike McGuffey, Corley Dennison, Larry Stickler

1.  Minutes were approved.

2.  Thank you’s for committee work were given.

3.  A Discussion of new student rating forms and the analysis of the two semester piloting of the new form ensued.  The main points of the discussion were:

            a.  Questions:  Do these forms measure what they are supposed to measure?

                                    Are the factors distinct enough?

                                    Is it internally consistent?

            b.  Current findings based on current database:

                                    It seems to measure teacher contribution.

                                    The items are very correlated.

4.  Other issues involving student rating forms to be considered:

            a.  Is the form perceived to be reliable?

            b.  How will the form be used?  How much weight will be given to the

                        student rating form number in teaching evaluation?

            c.  Should there be just one student rating form number for a faculty member or

                        a number per class or type of class?

5.  Action taken about student rating forms:

            a.  Use instrument as is this next semester.

            b.  Create focus groups of students and faculty (2 faculty focus groups and 4 student focus groups) to study instrument further for reliability.

            c.  Departments may still hand out their own sheets and use questions with narrative answers in addition to this instrument.

6.  The policy about student evaluations is currently SR-97-98-2.  We need to make a recommendation for amendments to this policy. This recommendation needs to be in the Senate office by Jan. 3, on the Executive Committee agenda by Jan. 11, and be considered by Faculty Senate on January 27, 2005.

7.  A draft of the amendment will be sent out by e-mail.

8.  The discussion of distribution of merit process revealed that 403 faculty got merit.

9.  We agreed to pilot questions to Deans and Chairs.

10.  Movement to adjourn

The next meeting was not set.

Respectfully Submitted,

Shirley Lumpkin, Secretary