Minutes of the University Committee
for July 29, 2002

The Committee met at 1:35 in D135 MOLN. Members present were Walter Feldt, Susan Haller, Peggy James, James Kinchen, and Don Kummings. Also present were Larry Duetsch, Jerry Greenfield, and Rebecca Martin.

Provost Martin thanked the Committee for agreeing to meet to discuss her proposal for conducting appraisals of the academic programs. She said she would like to enable the Committee on Academic Planning (CAP) to participate more fully in the strategic allocation of positions by routinely providing them with the information that is needed to formulate recommendations. To accomplish this, she would like to have faculty agreement on the criteria for program evaluation that bear most heavily on the allocation of positions. Data on indicators that pertain to each criterion can then be assembled (and updated continuously) for all programs so that position requests are always evaluated in the context of competing needs.

With this in mind, the Provost distributed a draft of a program appraisal framework, suggesting five primary evaluation criteria:

1) quality of teaching program;
2) quality of faculty and instructional academic staff in
research/creative activity and professional service;
3) contribution to the university's strategic initiatives;
4) contribution to the university community; and
5) program and course enrollment.