Minutes

Faculty Meeting and Workshop

Spanish-American Institute

October 20, 2001

Convened: The Faculty Meeting convened at 10:00 am.

Attendance: 29 faculty and 3 staff attended, the President, Academic Dean, and Librarian.

President’s Report: Mr. Ferraro thanked everyone for his or her presence. He encouraged faculty--

· to take advantage of the school's direct deposit payroll option,

· to use discretion about politically sensitive discussions in the classroom,

· to mark their calendars for November 20 flu shots, and

· to think about conferences they may wish to attend.

He also indicated that faculty lateness will not be recorded when due to subway interruptions. However, he encouraged faculty to notify him as soon as possible if they will be late or absent for personal reasons.

Librarian's Report: Mr. Stepak announced that library development is advancing quickly. He pointed to the recent installation of Mandarin 3 library cataloguing software and contact with book vendors. He will begin cataloguing existing books and support material next week. The next stage will involve developing the collection with faculty input.

Chair Reports:

Computer Technology--Khalid El Harmassi announced that the tracking of student academic progress on a weekly basis has helped faculty to target students who need additional assistance and encouragement. He has piloted a final exam component for Excel that requires students to think and apply creatively what they have learned in the entire course. Students have reacted enthusiastically to this exercise. Based on these results, he is working with other computer faculty to develop similar exercises for other computer applications courses.

Accounting--Liliam Hernandez stated that accounting faculty are working on developing accounting approaches based on the college textbook to be introduced into the course. Clock-hour accounting students will supplement their study of manual accounting with exercises that include writing about, thinking about, and reporting about accounting problems.

ESL--Radha Krisnamoorthy reported that she has been working on developing a draft pilot syllabus and approaches to using the Longman's TOEFL book.

Dean's Report: Dr. Prager announced that—

• all recently acquired pronunciation tapes and materials are now available in the bookstore for faculty and classroom use;
• students expressed strong appreciation for faculty in the recent Current Student Survey, and;
• students, many who already have college experience and degrees from their home countries, have expressed a high degree of interest in attending American colleges.

Dr. Prager asked faculty to review the proposed dates for forthcoming faculty meetings. Faculty approved the dates for the next meetings on January 26 and May 19, 2002.

Library Breakout Session: Nishan Stepak, the Librarian, led faculty through a series of hands-on exercises on—

• using an electronic catalog to access a library's collection (Mandarin 3),
• using an electronic database to identify and access periodicals (EBSCO),
• and using Web portals to access other libraries.

TOEFL Breakout Session: Radha Krishnamoorthy and Dean Prager met with TOEFL faculty to share responses to the Longman's TOEFL book and identify faculty development activities that would support its use in the classroom.

Adjournment: The meeting adjourned at 1:00 p.m. President Ferraro invited faculty to lunch at Lundy's Restaurant.