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English Department Meeting: Oct. 19, 2022

English Department Meeting Information

  • Meeting Date: 10/19/22
    • Meeting Minutes Taker: Loughlin Pagnucci (English Website Assistant and all around English Problem Solver!)
    • I will be recording all the meetings this year so that Loughlin can review them later and write minutes for up for us
    • Zoom recordings will only be shared with English Department employees and are automatically deleted after 120 days
    • John Marsden will monitor the chat for any issues we need to discuss
  • Zoom Meeting Link: https://iupvideo.zoom.us/j/7243571701?from=addon
  • Next Meeting: Nov. 16 Wednesday from 11:15 a.m. – 12:15 p.m.
    • Topics for the Meeting:
      • ENGL 101 Seat Shortage
      • English Writing Plan Updates
      • A staffing plan for the MATESOL Program will be reviewed by the CAL Program and will be brought to the department for information once CAL has finished reviewing it

Upcoming Events

TODAY: IUP Reception for Women

  • Oct. 19 (Wednesday) from 4:00 p.m.-5:30 p.m in Elkin Hall’s Great Room
  • Event Coordinator: Lingyan Yang
  • Come celebrate women’s vital roles at IUP and more than 30 years of IUP’s Women’s and Gender Studies (WGS) Program
  • Refreshments provided
  • Please announce in your classes: Attendance vouchers will be available for student attendees
  • Co-Sponsored by WGS and the Department of English

TODAY: Foreign Language Teaching in Turkey–Past, Present, and Future

  • Oct. 19 (Wednesday) from 5:30 p.m.-6:30 p.m in IUP’s Library (Stabley) Room 210
  • Zoom link also available: https://iupvideo.zoom.us/j/9194357080
  • Speaker: Visiting English Scholar Dr. Osman Ozdemir (Turkish Language Department at Istanbul Sabahattin Zaim University in Istanbul, Turkey)
  • Event Coordinator: Dana Driscoll
  • Come learn about Turkish culture and education and English language teaching in Turkey from Dr. Osman
  • Please announce to your students
  • Dr. Osman is being Co-Hosted as a Visiting Scholar at IUP by the Jones White Writing Center and the Department of English

English Book and Movie Club Meeting

  • Oct. 26 (Wednesday) from 5:30 p.m.-7:30 p.m. in Leonard Hall Room 306
  • Students will be discussing The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
  • This book won the National Book Award. and was selected by the students
  • Free copies are available for borrowing from the IUP English Reading Center
  • Anyone interested can contact Loughlin (ydrw@iup.edu) for more information and/or to officially join the club!

English Halloween Party

  • Oct. 28! (Friday) from 11:15 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
  • In the IUP English Social Center (outside the main 5th Floor English Office)
  • Lots of candy and spooky poetry
  • Costumes are optional
  • Please announce the party to English majors, minors, and graduate students, and please plan to attend yourself
  • We have a lot of new majors, and it helps students feel part of a community if they see faculty at the department events

Important Dates & Information

DETC Deadlines

  • Fall Observations Due: Nov. 14 (Mon.)
  • Spring Observations Due: Feb. 27 (Mon.)
  • DETC Digital Documents Due: Mar. 6 (Mon.)–Send via email attachment to Lingyan Yang, Mike Williamson, and Gian
  • DETC Printed Documents Due to Lingyan Yang: Mar. 6–Place in a manilla folder with your name on it
  • DETC Evaluation DRAFTS Due: Mar. 20

Chair Election

  • Nominations will be accepted by December 1
  • The department needs to vote to approve/not approve each candidate
  • Approved nominations go the president and APSCUF by December 16
  • The president’s office will send approval of nominations by January 17
  • The candidates will provide a statement two weeks prior to the “Meet the Candidates” event, no later than February 15
  • Candidates debate “should occur no earlier than the first week of February and no later than the last week of February.” [There are guidelines for this event in the document.]
  • The Qualtrics vote will occur no later than March 15. [This is conducted by an APSCUF rep with specific procedures and info on run-off if needed.]

Required Cybersecurity Training

  • IUP employees are now required to complete cybersecurity training
  • You likely will have received an email from this address: KnowBe4 <do-not-reply@training.knowbe4.com>
  • The deadline for this mandated training is 10/31/22

Title IX Compliance Training

  • IUP is using a new vendor for Title IX training
  • You likely will have received an email from this address: IUP Compliance Training <compliance-training@getinclusive.iup.edu>
  • You have 60 days from the time you receive the email to complete the required training

Agenda Items

1. ENGL 101 Seats Gone

  • All the ENGL 101 seats are gone
  • We are getting dozens of requests from students to be given overrides
  • Please respond to requests with the following:
    • “Unfortunately, all ENGL 101 Spring 2023 courses are full at this time. We want to acknowledge that this is challenging for students, but we have reached capacity for spring. To help address the problem, we are adding extras ENGL 101 classes for the Winter 2022 and Summer 2023 semesters. Financial aid can be used for the winter and summer terms, so if you have questions about that, you should check with IUP’s Office of Financial Aid. We will also offer additional ENGL 101 seats in Fall 2023 to ensure that everyone can get this needed writing course.”
  • Please copy John Marsden on your emails to students so he can keep a list of the requests
  • We will discuss this problem at our November department meeting

2. Department Evaluation and Tenure Committee (DETC) Membership

  • DETC Overview
    • The DETC will review all tenured faculty members’ job performance every 5 years
    • All DETC members will vote on the evaluations of all tenured faculty up for 5-year evaluation
    • The Provost has requested that the CAH Dean and Chair be immediately notified should any evaluation case be problematic in any way; the entire DETC will also thoroughly review, discuss, and vote on such cases and provide a written evaluation draft to the faculty member by March 24 at the latest (this is long standing English DETC practice)
  • Responsibilities of Faculty Being Evaluated
    • We have 8 tenured faculty up for 5-year evaluation this year
    • Tenured faculty members must submit to the DETC: a CV, student evaluation summary sheets, peer observations, DETC Evaluation (due by April 1), Chair Evaluation (due by April 8)
    • Position descriptions for AWAs are also now being required; If you have an AWA for a leadership position, please write a short (1/2 page will do!) description of your position (Gian got nowhere asking for clarification on this so we might as well just write our own position descriptions)
    • It ALSO the responsibility of the faculty member being evaluated to PRINT the required DETC materials
    • These documents, as well as any additional supporting documents, including a 1-2 page personal narrative, MUST ALSO BE EMAILED to Mike Williamson, Lingyan Yang, and Gian by the above deadline
  • DETC Membership
    • DETC Co-Chairs: Lingyan Yang and Mike Williamson
    • The only other member of the DETC is Chris Orchard
    • The committee is asking that 5 new members join the committee to assist with all the evaluations
  • The English Leadership Council (ELC) discussed this issue along with how to cover other key service work, but adding new DETC members is the most pressing need
  • ELC is recommending the following 3 options:
    1. Option 1: Each faculty member up for evaluation would identify an evaluation writer who would serve a 1-year term on the DETC to write the person’s evaluation (if an individual faculty member prefers not to identify a writer, the DETC would identify a writer for them)
    2. Option 2: An alphabetical rotation system would be used. People who are up for evaluation or on sabbatical/leave would be exempted from the rotation until the following year. Faculty would serve 1-year terms as needed to cover the total number of evaluations required each year. The DETC Chair (or Co-Chairs) would provide continuity on the committee and maintain the rotation list (with roughly 8 evaluations per year, faculty would serve a 1-year term about every 3 years)
    3. Option 3: The Chair would appoint faculty to 1-year terms using the guiding principle of distributing departmental service work as evenly as possible

3. Proposed DETC TA/TF Policy

  • Gian proposes the following motion:
  • English Faculty TA mentors will handle all Teaching Associate (TA) and Temporary Faculty (TF) observations, evaluations, and student evaluations and are automatically designees/members of the DETC for the semester(s) they are mentoring. They do not perform any other duties for the DETC nor do they take part in other DETC meetings nor votes.
    • Rationale: This is our long standing past practice and Gian would like us to vote to make it official policy

4. Proposed Chair Appointments Policy

  • Gian proposes the following motion:
  • The English Chair shall be empowered to appoint faculty members to any open department committee, department task, or other needed position whenever needed before the department’s annual spring elections. The Chair may make appointments even for positions which normally would be voted upon by the faculty in the regular spring election. All such appointments will be for the current academic year or until the originally elected/appointed faculty member is able to return to the position.
    • Rationale: This will limit the number of elections that the Department Elections Committee must manage and provide the Chair flexibility to make sure that key departmental needs are covered on a short term basis whenever a vacancy occurs.

5. Departmental Service Work

  • Thanks to Tanya Heflin and Brian Carpenter for running our Spring department elections to get most of our committee spots filled
  • Thanks also to everyone who agreed to run for the open committee slots
  • We are down to 28 tenured faculty
    • We have no dedicated secretaries left
    • At the end of the next academic year, Jean Nienkamp will retire
    • We are able to cover most program service but we are having trouble covering vital department service
    • The ELC has reviewed this issue but feels the department needs to further discuss it
  • The 2019 English Department Service Policy states:
    • “Each tenured and tenure-track faculty member is expected to serve annually on one program committee, one program subcommittee, and one to two departmental committees, tasks, or special projects. If a faculty member does not serve on a program committee, that faculty member is expected to serve on three departmental committees, tasks, or special projects.”
    • 2019 English Department Service Policy.docx
  • Gian has created a document outlining our current departmental service needs working from the 2019 policy’s list of committees
    • Gian is recommending reducing the number of members on several department committees and department tasks
    • Even with a reduction in the number of members on each committee, we have more needed slots to fill than the 28 faculty we have to fill them
    • A number of faculty are serving on multiple committees which is creating uneven service workload distribution
    • 2022 Departmental Service Needs.docx

Announcements

  • If anyone has an important announcement, we’ll use the last few minutes of the meeting to cover this