Eastern Mennonite University
Academic Cabinet
September 26, 2007
#2

Present: Beryl Brubaker, Marie Morris, Ervin Stutzman, Ken L. Nafziger (recorder)

1. Prayer by Marie.
   Marie offered a prayer for concerns that were raised.
2. Plan for evaluating persons on annual or automatically renewing contracts. Beryl brought proposals for the review process of the Faculty/Staff Handbook. (See “Review Process”). Changes were also made in the “Faculty Professional Improvement Opportunities” and the Adjunct and Short-term (on annual contract) Faculty” sections. Edits were noted on the handout. We agreed that meetings between chair and faculty to discuss the annual professional development report could be done in early fall instead of May since contracts end on May 15, allowing no time for processing after faculty write the report. Also, we decided to create a form for chairs to submit to the dean to provide accountability that professional development meetings and meetings with adjunct and short-term faculty have been conducted. We agreed to take the policies to the faculty senate for processing.
3. Reflections on current policies such as student/faculty ratios and sabbaticals; reporting on current processes in the academic units.
   1. We looked at options for defining ratios and benchmarking.
4. Cross-divisional teaching in the seminary. Ervin shared some ideas of EMU professors who might do cross-unit teaching in the seminary. Cabinet supported his proposal to meet with a group of persons interested in this.
5. Future agenda:
   reconsidering remuneration for faculty senate leaders
   revising the faculty development policy
   implementing ideas re: the integration paper
   revising the faculty promotion criteria

6. Academic Cabinet Executive discussion

Ken L. Nafziger
Recorder