Minutes of the Evaluation and Assessment Committee
Xavier Retnam called the meeting to order on February 19, 2013 at 1 p.m. in Room 5210.
Members Present:
Peter Dorman, Joey Fronheiser, Carol Keeth Williams, James Lemons, Kris Ogden (non-voting member), Gary Randolph, Xavier Retnam (Chair), and Pam Reynolds (Recorder)
Members Absent:
Cathy Beale (non-voting member), Lynn Dillard, Cynthia Heying (non-voting member), Lysa Holbrook, Jeff Laub, Muriel Mickles, and Will Sandidge
Meeting Minutes from January 15, 2013 meeting:
Xavier handed out a copy of the previous meeting’s minutes. Due to Pam sending a copy via email to all members prior to the meeting, the minutes were not read aloud. Peter announced a correction needed to be made in the minutes. Changes needed to be made to the Update of Faculty Evaluation and Awards Section from FINAL DRAFT to DRAFT. Xavier approved the changes. Pam corrected the changes and uploaded the corrected minutes to Communication Central.
Old Business:
Agenda from the previous meeting on January 15 included an update from Peter on the subcommittee on faculty evaluations and awards and receiving and discussing Joey’s assessment list and timeline.
Update on Faculty Evaluations and Awards. Peter gave the update on the faculty evaluations. Peter, Gary, and Joey were on a conference call last week discussing evaluations. Peter will be meeting with the Employee Recognition Committee (ERC) next week. The committee will discuss the criteria for recognition for the faculty. Peter’s goal is to have a draft to be presented to faculty before Spring Break. Xavier inquired if the draft would be sent to this committee for comments and suggestions before the next meeting. Peter will send a working draft to the Evaluation and Assessment Committee for comments.
Jim discussed the 3-year vs. 5-year contracts and receiving guidelines from the Ad Hoc Committee with representation from different departments. Xavier asked if the policy would include annual meetings with the deans. Peter is hoping the policy would be incorporated by next fall.
Joey discussed additional evaluations and surveys which will start in April. Faculty will be selected and will receive a package to fill out. Gary would like to find out how other schools handle evaluations on their instructors.
Assessment List and Timeline. Joey gave the update on the assessment process. He is working on the website for the Educational Program Assessment. His goal is to have a hardcopy of the timeline for our next meeting. The monitor report is due in about three weeks and he believes it is almost perfect. Joey is very optimistic we will be off probation by the probation period. He will be meeting with our SACS liaison, Dr. Mark Smith, to discuss sticking to the same cycle we are on now or try to rush to finish by June. Hopefully Dr. Smith will be able to look at what we have completed and be able to give us suggestions. We will be making more improvements by the end of the academic year. Joey said some of the information may need tweaking. He also announced each program will start doing their assessments in April and will then be compared to the previous period.
Jim commented on the outstanding job Pam has done in the Business Lab on the assessments. She schedules all the assessments and summarizes the objectives for the Business and Allied Health Division. She proctors and grades all the exit exams which are taken in the Business Lab. He suggested if any of the other divisions needed help with their assessment exams to get in touch with Pam.
Gary has a problem with standardized assessment. Who makes the decision on what and how the faculty are to teach their classes. Jim used the example of a four-year university not accepting one of our Accounting classes. He stated that transferability will be a big decision for the assessments.
New Business: There was no new business to report.
The committee suggested an agenda for our next meeting which will include the following:
· Update from Joey on an improved timeline for the assessments
· Update from Peter on the draft sent to the Employee Recognition Committee
Our next meeting will be April 2, 2013 at 1 p.m. in Room 5210. Rick Tyler will be attending the meeting presenting his part of the Oral VCCS Core Competency which will be a three-minute speech.
Carol motioned the meeting be adjourned at 1:50 p.m. Peter seconded the motion.
Minutes submitted by Pam Reynolds