Department Faculty Meeting - October 15th, 2007

Included Files (PDF): Agenda | Courtesy Affiliate Faculty Policy 2007 | Equipment Fee Development Guidelines | Grad Student Flyer | Revised Topics for Winter Retreat

Call to order – John Hayes, Chair called to order the regular meeting of the Wildlife Ecology and Conservation Department at 2:00 PM on October 15, 2007, in room 376 Newins-Ziegler Hall.

Roll Call - Elaine Culpepper registered those attending as: Claire Williams, Bill Giuliano, Madan Oli, Mel Sunquist, George Tanner, Matt Shirley, Katie Sieving, Emilio Bruna, Rob Fletcher, Susan Jacobson, Peter Frederick, Wiley Kitchens, Lyn Branch, Franklin Percival, Jim Austin, Mike Moulton. Guests Karl Havens (phone) and Allison Roark.

ACTION ITEMS:

Mike Moulton/Claire Williams- Conservation Genetics WIS 3553 be a prerequisite course
RETREAT - They felt this is something that could be discussed at the Retreat – establishing a culture for the undergrads.

Welcome and Review of Agenda:

Research Quality Task Force: Karl Havens with Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences participated by telephone, due to being out on leave due to surgery. IFAS is trying to get a handle on measuring research productivity, measuring research impact, and so on. This is important individually because this will play out having influence on Tenure and promotion events. Influence annual faculty evaluations. Collectively, Dean McLellan is taking a look at the way research funds are allocated to different units. This is the beginning of a broader look as to how funds will be distributed. Dean McLellan wants some sort of unit level of productivity as well to be part of the allocation formula. It is an important thing for us to be involved in what is being talked about and proposed. In December Mark McLellan pulled this task force together, asking that they come up with an approach that IFAS might use to evaluate the quality of research publications. The other was to evaluate the impact of our research program.

Karl Havens provided general overview of the meeting and what was outlined. General Discussions ensued.

GATOR Science Mentoring Program - Allison Roark: She is a Post Doc in Zoology helping Thea Edwards run a program that is funded through the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Their program helps train graduate students to be effective mentors. They are looking for new students to be in the program and will be selecting a new cohort (six grad students). They currently have six grad student mentors, plus herself and Thea, and have 18 graduate mentees. They are looking to recruit six new graduate students from around campus. The main requirement as far as research orientation is that the graduate students need to have some sort of biological or biochemical or ecological focus to their research.

The way the program works is the graduate student mentor earn a half time summer stipend and also a tuition waiver, so it would start next may and run through August. During that time each mentor would have two paid undergraduate assistants that work 20 to 40 hours per week in the lab or field (local field sites). Undergraduates have no pay during the school year, but they continue to work with the grad students during the fall and spring semesters for about 10 to 12 hours per weeks and they get credit for doing that. In addition to the financial aspect of the stipend there is also an opportunities for both grad and under grads to apply for $500 of supplemental funding for research supplies as well as $500 for travel to present their results of their research at a national conference. They run a series of eight work shops for the Graduate students and run weekly meetings with both students. A spring course in Communicating Complexity in Science is three credits, focus is teaching scientist to communicate what they do to lay public. General discussions ensued about the programs. John asked if there was a syllabus, she’ll ask the coordinator to post it on the web from last year.

Conservation Biology prerequisites: Mike advised that the Undergraduate committee talked to Lynn about making Conservation Genetics WIS 3553 a required course for Conservation Biology. Lynn explained that right now Undergrads can take either two undergraduate genetic general courses; one taught in ag-genetics or zoology or they can take Jim’s Conservation Genetics. Jim Austin’s course would help give better guidelines and more consistent.

Following a general discussion, a vote was taken (15 faculty) to make Conservation Genetics WIS 3553 be a prerequisite course. All voted for make it a prerequisite, by unanimous acclamation.

Bits and pieces:

Reminder on open enrollment - if you take no action your status will remain as it was last year, if not you need to go on the internet and make the changes early.
Faculty supplemental salary plan - Handouts were provided with information. Page two, 3-B gives breakdown where the supplemental salary will go. This year if you generate some salary on grants, next year you will get a portion of that to get a supplement the following year by percentages described. IFAS claims that if successful, they will use their 45% to go towards new faculty positions.
New course equipment fee - Short deadline to present information on this, until October 19th. This is a way to be reimbursed for expenses. There are two types of expenses that can be accrued in courses, expendable supplies (i.e. gas and etc.- materials fees); but this is for things that are equipment that wear over time. The idea would be to access a fee to students so that over time you will be able to replace the equipment that is wearable by these funds. The funds come straight to us, where we get to replace the equipment over time. Claire will assist with anyone wanting to do this. This needs to be tied to particular classes.
Building linkages with FWC - John, Bill Giuliano and Perran Ross are in discussions with FWC, talking about ways to strengthen our linkages with the agency. We are discussing each other interests and overlapping needs, and building a stronger institutional connection.
Matt Shirley - Grad Students are thinking of building a course to get people registered for research help; trying to take the pressure off undergraduate and graduate students for those seeking research experience and looking for research assistants. They were thinking the Grad student could put their projects in a pool and undergrads could apply to a project without hounding faculty and grad students. General discussion held on different ways and points to approach this.

-The faculty agreed that the general issue was something to consider and felt there were several mechanisms to get the information out to the students. If a culture is built with the undergrads, then this could happen.
-They felt this is something that could be discussed at the Retreat – establishing a culture for the undergrads.

Preparing for the winter retreat - December 6th at the Ordway-Swisher Biological Station. Last year was successful and this year we will be focusing on the graduate program. A handout was provided that had some of the major issues to be discussed. General discussions held for ideas to be discussed at the retreat.

Faculty Status Policy - A handout was provided on the Department Policy on Courtesy and Adjunct appointments. General discussions ensued as to what level our current courtesy faculty were involved in activities. Of the 25 courtesy faculty (not including Coop) 21 are serving on some sort of committee (not necessarily WEC). These 25 faculty have served on a total of 392 graduate committees in the UF and 166 of these were in WEC. He was impressed with the activities they were actually involved in.

John wanted to vote on this policy that was passed out. Changes were reviewed. General discussions ensued. John will send out letters to all 25 people asking what are you doing and what they plan to do in the future. If they have no credible benefits or plan for WEC involvement, then we can thank them and take them off the list. Renewal would be bi-annual. The changes of striking last sentence page 6 item #2; add stipulation of odd numbered years; and clarification of bi-annual review.

VOTE TAKEN: (12 faculty present + John) All voted yes in favor of the policy, as modified with minor changes during the meeting.

Adjourned 3:45PM.