Faculty Council
Tuesday, April 13, 2004, 11:45 a.m.
Cohen House, Esther M. Cohen Dining Room
Present: Ed Akin (Speaker), Stephen Baker, Marjorie Corcoran, Steven
Crowell, Rebekah Drezek, Michael Emerson Tom Haskell, Julia Morgan, Caroline
Quenemoen, Patricia Reiff and Mark Wiesner. Absent: Deborah Harter, Lynne Huffer (Deputy Speaker), Hannah
Landecker, Bob Patten, and Herb Ward
(1) Minutes (3/23/04): The minutes were
approved with some noted revisions.
Remove titles from minutes.
(2) Athletic Poll: A status update was
given on the Faculty Council Poll on the Future of the Rice Athletic
Program. At that point in time,
there were 170 returned polls out of 547, which is approximately 31 percent of
eligible voters. Deadline to
return the poll is April 14, 2004.
Faculty Council agreed to send out reminder e-mail to the faculty, which
will be drafted by Haskell. No
updates available for the release of the McKinsey Report.
(3) Faculty Council Elections: Status of the election
was discussed with a special mention of election 4-Assistant Professor Division
B-which had no candidates.
Discussion continued on how to fill this open position with a few
suggestions of possible candidates.
Akin to contact the Deans in this division to get recommendations in
addition to contacting candidates identified by Faculty Council members. Once candidates are selected, Faculty
Council members will vote via e-mail.
(4) Faculty Governance: Determined to discuss in
detail on optional meeting scheduled for April 22, 2004. Documents prepared by the Faculty
Governance Committee were distributed for review. Quenemoen gave summary of work complete by Governance
Committee and summary of the Faculty Forum on Governance, which featured the
speaker John Savage from Brown University. Discussed Brown Universityıs approach to changes in Faculty
Governance. Faculty Council
stressed the importance of having the new Leebron administration on board with
any proposed changes to Faculty Governance. The Governance Committee suggested
setting up a faculty task force to address the topic of Faculty
Governance. In addition, it was
suggested to set-up a web site linked to the Faculty Council web page to
communicate Governance issues with the faculty. Faculty Council agreed that proper communication is crucial
to the success of this initiative.
The business meeting scheduled for April 22 is dedicated to discuss this
subject in further detail.
(5) Adjournment: The meeting was
adjourned at 1:00 p.m., with the next Faculty Council business meeting
scheduled for Thursday, April 22 2004, 11:45 a.m., Esther M. Cohen Dining Room,
Cohen House.
Sarah Holloman
Executive Assistant