Attending: Frank J. Garrahan, Chair, Lynn Lehle, Joseph Engle, Jonathan Buckstead, Glen Hunt, Marilyn Mote-Yale, Ed Mullen, Ron Fletcher, Hugh Moore, Cecile Durish, Shana Judge, Paz Pena, Mike Harris, Judy Nwachie, Amber Archuleta-Lucero, Gaye Lynn Scott

Glen Hunt led our Brown Bag seminar and presented information and handouts concerning an effective syllabus. Those attending included Lynn Lehle, Joseph Engle, Jonathan Buckstead, Ron Fletcher, Hugh Moore, Susana Aleman, Paz Pena, Marilyn Mote-Yale, Cecile Durish and Gaye Lynn Scott. Thanks, Glen, for leading our discussion and giving us some new ideas for making a syllabus more effective and user-friendly.

1. Faculty Committee Report.

The Faculty Committee has been meeting to evaluate portfolios submitted by Government adjunct faculty. Committee members have examined all portfolios that were submitted; each portfolio had at least two readers. Those participating in this process include Marilyn Mote-Yale, Paz Pena, Glen Hunt, Joseph Engle, and Gaye Lynn Scott. The Faculty Committee chair is currently working on the memos and evaluation summaries that will be sent to each adjunct faculty member regarding their portfolios. Those memos should be out soon.

Reminder: If you are an adjunct faculty member and you have not yet submitted your portfolio, this is your last chance! They must be received by Monday, April 10.

Reminder to Full-time faculty: Portfolios are due by Monday, April 10. They are to be submitted to Frank J. Garrahan at Northridge.

2. Budget Committee Report.

The Budget Committee is submitting several requests for next year's budget: more classrooms, more maps, permanent computer carts in designated Government classrooms.

3. Academic Development Committee Report.

The focus of this report and the discussion that followed continues to be student assessment &endash; how we do it, whether we should refine our methods, change our standards for success, etc. An informal survey of other schools (conducted by Joe Engle and Jim Fowler) shows that few are currently assessing student outcomes. (UT, for instance, is evidently only testing majors preparing to graduate.) In fact, other schools seemed interested in borrowing ideas from us. Who knew we were leading the parade?

Should we revise the assessment test? Should we revise the list of core concepts? Should we revise the learning objectives? An ad hoc committee was created to examine these questions. Those volunteering to serve: Joseph Engle (PIN), Cecile Durish (CYP), Amber Archuleta-Lucero (NRG), Jim Fowler (RGC), Stefan Haag (RVS). If you would like to have input, direct your suggestions, comments, ideas, and observations to one of them. This committee will make recommendations at the April Task Force meeting.

4. Chair's Report.

A computer room will be available this Fall at Northridge for a Government faculty member who wants to teach a course with a heavy Web emphasis.

The Task Force Chair and Assistant Chair were interviewed March 29 by a consultant hired by ACC to examine adjunct hiring issues. She was told that recruitment and staffing are both challenges that need to be addressed. The Task Force Chair would like to look into developing some sort of adjunct faculty internship specifically for Central Texas graduate students as a means of both expanding our faculty pool and providing useful teaching experience for area graduate students (e.g., students at UT, SWT, etc.) More discussion will follow on this idea.

The Hiring Committee for the new full-time Government positions will be meeting soon to decide whom to interview. In addition, interviews are ongoing of those who have applied in recent weeks to become part of the adjunct faculty pool.

The summer schedule is on the Web, and the Fall schedule is in its second draft. Al Slivinske, Assistant Dean, NRG, continues to try to staff all our summer sections, and will soon begin staffing adjunct faculty for Fall. If you have students who are interested in ACC's government internship course (summer or fall), direct them to Ed Mullen at Pinnacle (223-8136; ejmullen@austin.cc.tx.us).

5. Textbooks.

The Task Force updated our textbook list for the 2000-2001 academic year. Several new editions will be on the list for the Fall:

Lowi & Ginsberg, American Government, 6th edition.

Edwards, Wattenberg, Lineberry, Government in America, 5th edition.

Sidlow & Henschen, America at Odds, 2nd edition.

Haag, Keith, Peebles, Texas Politics and Government, 2nd edition. Also, a new edition of the accompanying study guide will be available.

In Open Campus, the publisher's study guide for Fiorina & Petersen, The New American Democracy, was taken off the list. Frank J. Garrahan and Gaye Lynn Scott plan to write their own study guide this summer for their Open Campus students to use beginning Fall 2000.

6. Model UN Report.

Judy Nwachie updated us on the 2000 National Model United Nations conference, which is April 18-22, with ACC students representing Bhutan. The Task Force congratulates Dr. Nwachie on seeing all her hard work finally come to fruition.

Next Meeting: Friday, April 28, 1:00 pm, HBC (room TBA).

Preliminary agenda:

Assessment discussion and decisions for next year.

Election of Task Force Chair for next year.

Updates: on Fall schedule, on new hires, etc.