Physics Department Meeting Minutes - September 30, 2005
Jarvis Hall Science Wing 103J

Members present: Mark Larchez (chair), Jo Hopp, Jim Pejsa, Laura McCullough, John Rompala, Alan Scott, Bob Foley (Recording secretary)
Mark called the meeting to order at 9:05 a.m.

I. Announcements
1. Open laboratories are now staffed and available for student use.
2. Jo Hopp will be attending a nanotechnology seminar in Minneapolis Monday, October 3^rd.  Arrangements have been made to cover her classes.
3. A substantial amount of equipment has been declared surplus and removed.  Additional items for surplus are being identified.
4. The copy machine is having some problems.  Mark suggested that we look at a new model. (It was agreed by the department members that a networking feature was not needed in the new model.).
5. Requests for Access to Learning funds for next year are due early this year, October 21, 2005.  There was some discussion at this point including submitting a request for an LTE to do equipment maintenance, repair and set-up; the possibility of buying the Physic Handbook on CD for University Physics Classes.  Laura McCullough has already ordered subscriptions to Science News for her students.

II. Department Minutes
Minutes of the Department Meeting of August 29, 2005 were reviewed.  Laura McCullough moved approval of the minutes of August 29, 2005 and Bob Foley seconded the motion.  Motion was passed with the correction that Levi Stodola’s first and last name (not just first) should be used in the minutes.

 III. Faculty Senate Report
The department’s faculty senator, Alan Scott, reported on the most recent Faculty Senate meeting.  Alan reported: There are various committee positions available if anyone is interested in serving. There is interest in assessing the efficiency of Senate and University committees. This is the largest freshman class that UW-Stout has ever accepted.  There was a report on College Assessment results.  Generally UW-Stout students’ responses were similar to the average college students’ responses.  The UW-System has to change its policy of offering highly paid backup positions to administrators who leave their current positions but continue with their college/university.  The annual teaching load report seemed to show that UW-Stout staff/faculty has a lower than average credit load per FTE. (Comment was made that in the past, UW-Stout has been rated very high in this area.  There was concern that it’s a matter of whose numbers are used and how they are used.)  It was reported that a survey result showed that morale has fallen by 10% to 15% among staff/faculty members.  Doug Wahl reported that UW-Stout is trying to decide if they should use E-scholar or Desire to Learn (D2L) on its Website.  It appears that we can not support both.

 IV. Promotion Committee
Jo Hopp was elected to the CAS promotion committee.  Laura McCullough agreed to serve as alternate.

 V.  Spring Semester Offerings and Staffing
There was extended discussion on both department course offerings for the spring semester and also staffing, as Laura McCullough will be ½ time in the School of Education for the semester, and another faculty member will be unable to teach classes for a portion of the semester.  No decisions were made at this time.  There was addition discussion of faculty workloads being measured in terms faculty contact hours or faculty credit hours.  No action was taken.

 VI. Supplies and Services Budget
Bob Foley will be purchasing some lead testing kits as part of an XRF project.  Jo Hopp will be purchasing some classroom teaching materials.

Meeting was adjourned at 10:00 a.m.
Submitted by Robert Foley