Faculty Development Committee Meeting Minutes

Oct. 2, 2012, 11 AM, 208 Grimsley Hall

Chair: Scott Yost

Confirmed attendance: Carl Betterton, Tomas Dion, Ashley Wellman, Sean Heuston, Paul Nolan, Shankar Banik, Darin Matthews, Elise Wallace, Scott Yost

In this meeting, we discussed the procedures for evaluating applications, including questions that came up during the recent round of applications. The question was raised of why attendance at professional meetings is discouraged, when these can be very useful in maintaining the freshness of both teaching and research, which are important to students’ experience. It was suggested that this would result in too many applications, and would be too expensive. No changes were recommended at this time.

The question of scheduling was also raised: the four times for evaluation per year can leave some activities ineligible because of their timing, unless someone goes and submits an application afterward, hoping to be reimbursed. One suggestion was to take applications all year, but this would likely create a burden for evaluating them, and would affect the provost as well as the committee.

We discussed the application form used by the committee, and possible ways of updating it. The possibility of using a PDF form was suggested, but there are some limitations for forms that will work with the free version of Adobe Reader. The possibility of using Adobe Acrobat was suggested, but it was later found that The Citadel does not have a site license for this, so the free version would be needed. Alternatively, a web form could be used in place of a paper form. S. Yost has been working on an upgraded PDF form and will contact ITS for more information on what may be supported.