Author: Natalie Aviles

MINUTES, JANUARY 30, 2014

I.  Membership
	Present
	M Odai, K. Jones, Karen Paul, D. Pyron,  Luda Dolinsky; Lynne Farber, Angelique Ortega Fridman; Jose Raul Lopez; 
	Absent
	Lynne Miller;  Donald Rosellini  Lori Driver; Frank Dillon

II. Agenda: Honorary Degrees
	The committee reviewed the formal material about honorary degrees, also DP’s summary of the award.  These are attached.
	There followed a discussion of the matter including the following motions which were approved unanimously
		A. The committee tables the nomination of Dr. McDemmond until we formalize the process of reviewing honorary degree nominations.
		More informally, we dealt with queries about the Luminar foundation.  
		B. The committee agrees to formulate a process/plan for overseeing Honorary Degrees.
		As a part of this process, we also agreed to the following:
			1. K Paul and A O-F agreed to investigate systems/criteria other universities and colleagues use in awarding HDegrees and report back.
			2. All members should discuss this matter with their respective deans these issues by the end of February, 2014
			3. DP will check with the Faculty Senate about peculiar issues/mandates, etc., from that quarter.
			4. DP will have a further conversation with the Provost to guarantee a consistent policy.
		More informally, we discussed the following:
			That nominators might appear to give a direct appeal for the nominated.  
			That we check the history of our past nominations, such as Maurice Ferre and King Juan Carlos, and that confirm what is happening to past nominees we have approved, including the “two-year” window for bestowing degrees.

III. Agenda:Convocation Awards
	A. Criteria
		We reviewed the criteria with special consideration for the following:
		1. Concern that the Mentoring Award leaves ambiguity for undergraduate instruction.  
		2. Continuing concern about the Engagement Award - chiefly the looseness of the category itself, as it would still overlap with “Service.” A.  Ortega reviewed her conversation with the Engagement Dean last year, that the idea of engagement itself remained unclear.  K Paul suggested it originated with the Medical School’s community based projects, but that a key seemed to be the idea of “community-based research” or similar connections with instruction.  

	B. Subcommittees
		1. The evaluation subgroups 
		GROUP 1  RESEARCH, 1ST
		K Jones, K. Paul, J. Lopez, D Pyron, L. Miller, Frank Dillon

		GROUP 2	TEACHING, 1ST 
		L. Dolinsky, Lori Driver, A Ortega-Fridman, M Odai, L Farber, Don Rosellini
		2. The other categories
		We agreed to assign the others evaluations dependent upon the numbers in each category: Advising/Mentorship (which is usually numerous); Engagement; Librarianship (Group 2 as per Lori D), Service

	C. Process Motion
	We also agreed to the following motion:
	"Given the usefulness of our discussion last year, each subcommittee should offer the whole committee a list that would include the top candidates in excess of the actual number of awardees, depending on the numbers of nominees. This would allow the whole committee to participate in the final selection process." (By this rule, with a pool of say 18 candidates for the Teaching Award, the subcommittee could submit 8 or 9 names. The whole committee would review these 8 or 9, and make a final decision on the allotted 6.)

IV. OTHER BUSINESS
	A. Criteria for Convocation Awards
		Without voting, we discussed the issue of eligibility of chairpersons - who are excluded from the union but allowed to sit as faculty in the Senate.  Deans and Associate Deans are excluded from both, but the Provost has suggested some lee-way here.  This should be a next year decision
	B. Dual/Repeat Nominations
	We noted the matter of candidates’ nomination for awards in different categories each year.  We also noted that winners also apply in subsequent years for other awards.  Should we formalize some rule in these regards?  [Informally, we have discussed the repeat nominations and it might play an role in our judgments]
	C. Bumped Nominees
		Kinzy raised the issue of our teaching awardee from Engineering who was bumped from the list because he failed to make tenure.  With special regrets from the chair, we discussed this matter with even the possibility of rejecting people on a terminal contract.  We did not try to reach consensus  or vote.
	C. Super professor award
		Kinzy and Darden discuss this from a variety of perspectives as needing committee response.  Among their concerns:
			1. By its constitution, the Faculty Senate requires the HDA to oversee this search.  This has been ignored for the past four years or so as the Administration has asked the Ueberprof Alumni to make recommendations.  As the Ueberprof Alum have now constituted themselves a separate committee, under the name of FIU ThinkTank, it might be expedient to reassert the University HDA committee to resume its old function.  As DP chairs both committees (lucky him) we might make some headway.
			2. Jones and DP also expressed some concern/anxiety about the nature of the selection process - with the idea that it might improve (or not) with our oversight.
			3. Finally, a virtue of our committee’s reassumption of the responsibility of overseeing nominations would be that we who are very familiar with excellence in the various fields would be primed to offer the best judgments on overall excellence.