Wisconsin Center, November 1, 1996

Minutes

 Present: Dick Berke, David Blankinship, Linda Carpenter, William Cerbin, Tony Ciccone, DeWitt Clinton, Esther Fahm, Rex Fuller, Terry Gibson, Rene Gratz, Cathy Helgeland, Doug Johnson, Chuck Matter, Mike Nicolai, Judith Paul, Erika Sander, Hal Schlais, Tim Sewall, Alan Shucard, Jim Taylor, Kay Taube, Donald Weber, David Zierath

Absent: Joan Bischoff, Suzanne Griffith, Nan Jordahl, Lisa Kornetsky, Janet Malone, Ron Mickel, Beecham Robinson, Robert Skloot, Jerry Stark, David Staszak

Students: Amy Bechtum, Theresa Chinnery

Staff: Susan Kahn, Rebecca Karoff, Tammy Kempfert, David Junker, Donna Silver

Guests: Steve Kornguth, Kathy Sanders, Karen Young

I. Introduction and Overview of Agenda

The meeting convened at 10:00 am.  After a brief overview of the day's agenda by Chair Bill Cerbin, UTIC director Susan Kahn introduced members of the UW-Madison/AAHE Peer Review Project: Steve Kornguth, Kathy Sanders, Jim Taylor, and Karen Young.

II. UW-Madison/ AAHE Peer Review Project

Phase I

Jim Taylor, Department of Chemistry, UW-Madison, distributed two articles about the project and its objectives. He explained that the project has progressed in two phases: "Phase I" is a pilot effort that was carried out by three UW-Madison departments, including the Chemistry Department. Stressing that peer feedback is as important for teaching as it is for research, Jim explained that the project aims to develop a "community of scholars" around teaching and learning, and uses the concept of "learning" as the central variable in establishing an effective and politically neutral metric to define good "teaching." Other areas of emphasis included identifying areas of faculty resistance, developing several specific constructive activities for educators interested in the concept of peer review for the enhancement of learning/teaching, and looking at ways that improvements in peer review can be accomplished even for those teachers who lack time to devote to comprehensive peer review activities.

Phase II

Project director Katherine Sanders introduced Phase II, explaining that the intent of Phase II is to take what was learned from Phase I and develop a systematic menu of approaches for implementing in other departments. Project member Karen Young described the "faculty project team" as a cross-disciplinary group comprised of faculty from Biological Sciences, Humanities, Physical Sciences, and Social Studies involved in establishing a mission statement for the project.

Following the formal presentation, a panel discussion was led by the four project members.

II. Committee Meetings

Professional Development Committee

• Updates were given on the upcoming Faculty Roles and Rewards Conference, and Faculty College.

• A suggestion was made to encourage Vice Chancellors to nominate UTIC reps as Faculty College participants.

• The committee discussed the possibility of developing ideas for a grant proposal that would fund faculty development projects focusing on new faculty and graduate students; a working group was formed to address this topic.

• A new draft of "Roles for UTIC Reps" was reviewed, and a few modifications were suggested and approved by the committee.

• The idea of developing a handbook for new UTIC reps was discussed.

UTIC Grant Programs Committee

• It was suggested that grant abstracts be maintained on the UTIC web site, starting with the most recent years and working backward as staff time allows.

• Putting UTIG grant reports on the web was also suggested.

• The idea of dropping the collaboration requirement from the grant guidelines was discussed.

• It was also suggested that one agenda item for the spring grants committee meeting (w/electronic discussion prior) be the idea of multi-year grants.

Technology Committee

• The committee discussed a draft of a survey Kay Taube has been developing as a follow-up for campus teams to UTIC's April 1996 conference, "Virtually There."

• Committee members attending the Minnesota AAHE Teaching, Learning and Technology Roundtable in October reported on this event.

• Also reported was the recent meeting of UW System Instructional Technology Development Coordinators, a.k.a. ITDC’s.

• A second round of technology follow-up grants was announced.

Faculty Roles and Rewards Committee

• Discussion focused on two topics: Peer Review and the April conference on Faculty Roles and Rewards. A number of suggestions were made for the upcoming conference in April.

 IV. Business Meeting

UTIC Communications Coordinator Rebecca Karoff opened the business meeting by asking UTIC reps to fill out and return a form for reporting faculty development programs on their campuses. Those events that are open to participants from outside the campus will be posted on UTIC’s web site (http://www.uwsa.edu/outside/utic/home.htm).

Brief summaries of each committee meeting were given by representatives of their respective committees. During the summary of the grants committee, discussion was initiated by Linda Carpenter over the prospect of modifying UTIG guidelines to include non-collaborative projects, thus enhancing the overall quality of proposals. Susan stressed the importance of maintaining a distinction between UTIC grants and campus grants, but suggested that modifying UTIG guidelines to include language that would encourage more submissions from non-collaborative projects might be a fruitful compromise.

The meeting adjourned at 4:15.