pres_report_200510

COLUMBIA COLLEGE, FACULTY ORGANIZATION (CCFO)
Report to the College Council
October 5th, 2005

Report to the College Council
October 7th, 2005

On August 17th the Faculty Liaison to the Board of Trustees Committee had a meeting with the Chair of the Board of Trustees. The All-College Faculty Retreat, held August 23rd - 25th, was well organized and regarded highly by those in attendance. CCFO officers had two productive meetings [on August 17th and September 13th] with the Provost. The CCFO President and the Chair of the Chairs Council had a good initial meeting on August 18th and another meeting is tentatively set for October 21st. The first CCFO/Provost's Office Lunch was held this last Monday and gave faculty an opportunity to meet and talk and also ask the Provost a variety of questions. The Faculty Liaison to the Board of Trustees Committee will make a presentation to the Academic Affairs Committee of the Board of Trustees on Tuesday, October 25th. CCFO officers will meet with the President and Provost also on October 25th.

CCFO would like the college community to know that the issues of greatest urgency to full-time faculty are: teaching load reduction; space needs in the departments; a fair merit raise system and additional full-time faculty. Though there is much to do to meet faculty concerns on these [and other] issues, we are encouraged with developments on several issues to this point.

In addition, we are quite concerned with: having additional staff support in the departments; evaluation of the administration; pension and health care benefits; the status of artists-in-residence and lecturers at the college and in the evaluation of teaching.

CCFO has also developed a "unified" listing of committees for the benefit of the college community. This list, notes from the Provost Forum of September 16th and other breaking news items of interest, can be found at our website which is at http://www.colum.edu/faculty/CCFO

Submitted by
Keith Kostecka
CCFO President