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Meeting Minutes: Committee on Chemistry

March 4 & 5, 1999

The annual meeting of the Chemistry Academic Advisory Committee of the USG Board of Regents took place on March 4th and 5th at Georgia Perimeter College on the Lawrenceville Campus. Daniel Jackson (outgoing chair) conducted the meeting, which began at 2 PM on March 4 and adjourned at 12 PM on March 5th.

  1. Dr. David Morgan, Board of Regents gave a detailed presentation addressing issues at the Board of Regents level. Highlights of his presentation included:
    1. General Assembly is currently in session and the BOR is working on establishing its relationship with the new administration.
    2. A 4% salary raise pool is expected to be approved for the upcoming academic year.
    3. Sick leave will count toward retirement. Half of this was funded last year by holding back raises for 2 months. This time the assembly hopes to finance the whole year so that the raises aren't delayed this year.
    4. The factors were changed in the funding formula for the BOR so now it looks like full formula funding.
    5. There is a push from the General Assembly to put all state agencies under one health insurance program.
    6. Education reform is still a hot issue. QBE will be reviewed and DTAE and BOR are asked to work closer together.
    7. The FY'2001 budget is expected to be reduced by $85 million due to the decrease in student credit hours this fall, related to semester conversion.
    8. Some strategies the BOR is working on to recover some of this includes new initiatives to attract new funding, approval of a new formula to regain the $60 million lost a number of years ago, or to generate a new formula to recover the 10% loss in QCH in going from 5 quarter hours to 3 semester hours (loss of 0.33 CH/course)
    9. Information Technology(IT) is an additional focus for the BOR and it plans to address the shortage of IT people. An IT invitational conference to understand the scope of the problem will be held next year.
    10. BOR members are asking all sorts of questions to include: What can be done about the price of textbooks? Are there too many out of state students in professional programs? The MBA program at UGA has 52% in state, MCG MD program 98% in state. Why are there such large salary inequities among professors.
    11. It is up to the individual institutions to determine which fiscal year's funding will be used to support the summer of 1999 school term.
    12. Performance Assessment for College and Technical School (PACTS) and Level 14 Standards for Exit and Transfer (Level 14 SET) are a result of the BOR receiving funding from FIPSE and other sources to study what HS students need to know and be able to do to enter college and answer the question "what should be the outcomes of the core curriculum (P-16)".
    13. There will be no more BOR OITT training money given to the institutions to train faculty.
    14. Year of technology for the BOR. Developing electronic delivery of courses is important but problems need to be addressed to include: Who can register? Transfer credit? Should it be limited who offers what?
  2. David Dever (Macon State College) a member of the ACS General Chemistry exam committee described the new ACS official study guide for the exam. This book contains a series of practice problems to help students prepare for the exam. The book can be made available for purchase in the Bookstore (Phone # 864-656-1249).
  3. Teaching and Learning Grants for Academic Advisory Committees are due at the BOR by March 19. The committee decided to submit a grant to sponsor a faculty development seminar on Lesson's Learned about Web Based Course Delivery. Leon Combs, Kennesaw, will discuss what he has done in his CHEM 1211 Web based course (http://stern.kennesaw.edu/~lcombs/GenChemI/). Tom Moran, Georgia Tech, will show the Principles of Chemistry pre-labs Tech delivers via the web and Harvey Moody, Floyd, will discuss his web-based course. This program is planned to be held in the fall at Kennesaw in their new $250,000 classroom planned to be operation in the fall. Jesse Spencer and the Faculty Development sub-committee will put together the proposal. (NOTE: The sub-committee was not able to complete this proposal by the March 19 deadline, thus it was not submitted to the BOR for a grant. The project will continued to be looked at for implementation by the new chair of the CAAC committee.)
  4. At 7 PM the group meet at the Olive Garden Restaurant for informal discussions and dinner.
  5. The committee reconvened March 6th at 8:30 am.
  6. The sub-committee structure and membership was reviewed and updated as follows:
    1. Executive Committee - Chair, Chair elect and Past Chair. They are responsible for planning the annual CAAC meeting and coordinating the activities of the committee.
    2. Faculty Development Committee - Chair: Jesse Spencer. This committee is responsible for the preparation of faculty development issues as well as the Faculty Development Teaching and Learning Grant
    3. Assessment- Chair: Tom Richardson. This committee is responsible for student, course and program assessment, review and placement.
    4. Semester Conversion - Chair: Bill Ponder. This committee will be replaced with a list serve, which can be used to discuss semester conversion issues. David Dever has volunteered to develop the list serve.
    5. Safety - Chair: Leon Combs. This committee is responsible for issues associated with safety in chemistry to include Right to Know, Fire Marshal, EPD, etc.
    6. Placement - Co-Chairs: Andrea Wallace and David Dever. This committee was deleted and combined with assessment.
  7. Members in attendance signed up for each sub-committee and as a result the sub- committee assignments for 1999-2000 are listed below:
    1. Faculty Development Committee- Chair: Jesse Spencer; members: Vicki Guarisco, Bill Fisher, Garry McGlaun, and James Mack.
    2. Assessment Committee - Chair: Tom Richarson; members: Vickie Geisler, Al Baumstark, Dan Jackson, David Dever, Andrea Wallace, Tom Moran, Tom Crute, Paulos Yohannes.
    3. Safety Committee - Chair: Leon Combs; members: Ron Williams and William Donaldson.
  8. It was agreed to have a one-day meeting next year and to coordinate with the other Academic Advisory committees on the meeting date.
  9. The Area F for Chemistry majors was reviewed. There was consensus that the Area F as written needs no changes.
  10. Extensive discussions were held on the BOR Performance Assessment for College and Technical Schools (PACTS) and Level 14 Standards for Exit and Transfer (Level 14 SETS). A separate report summarizing our recommendations on these two items was prepared and submitted to the BOR on March 11, 1999.
  11. David Dever from Macon State College was unanimously selected to be the chair of the CAAC committee for the 2000 - 2001 term.
  12. Dan Jackson completed the meeting by introducing Vickie Geisler, the incoming chair for 1999 - 2000, from the State University of West Georgia. After a short introduction and an expression of gratitude for Dan Jackson for his leadership this past year, the meeting was adjourned.

AS A RESULT OF THE MEETING THE FOLLOWING RECOMMENDATIONS ARE MADE:

  1. In accordance with the guidelines established by the American Chemical Society, the Chemistry Academic Advisory Committee recommends that chemistry faculty course load be measured in contact hours rather than in credit hours with an equivalency of credit hours and contact hours for the purpose of workload assignment.
  2. Next years CAAC meeting be coordinated with the other Advisory committee on the meeting date to cut down on the cost.
  3. Establish a list serve for this group to discuss chemistry issues.

Submitted by: Vickie Geisler and Dan Jackson