WLL Department Meeting

Wed. October 4, 2023 | 3:30-5:00 PM | FMH 333 and via Zoom

Attendance:

Chair & Staff - Suwako Watanabe (Leading), M Goldman

General Faculty - A Alsufieva, D Capage, J Coleman, C Collenberg-González, W Comer, E Cortez, K Curtin, C De Oliveira, A Dolidon, J Eleweke, C Epplin, N Friedberg, G Greco, Y Han, Y Hanoosh, J Holt, I Jaén Portillo, T Nidever, L Notman, J Perlmutter, M Rachmuth, S Roulon, R Sanders, A Sedighi, C Sloan, S Thorne, S Wadley, I Warnock, A Zagarella

Announcements:

1. Cassio - Phi Sigma Iota

1. Scholarships - Early deadline this year (March 1, 2024).  1 candidate can be nominated/year,  so we should get that in early. If you know good candidate,  especially for study abroad,  reach out to Cassio. Students don't need to be Phi Sigma Iota members to be eligible. Up to $3500/ scholarship.

2. PAMLA conference at Hilton Portland Downtown Oct 25-29. Many WLL faculty will attend. WLL contributed $1500 per request of PAMLA exec director, and will be listed in the program.
3. Jennifer - Champs-Élysées film festival is hosted in PDX during the same weekend.
4. Carrie - Additional upcoming conferences:

1. COFLT - Oct 13th/14th.
2. Women in German conference (WiG) held at Native American Student and Community Center Nov 2-5.

1. Incl. special event with Priscilla Be (founding member of beat poetry movement)

5. Adjunct instructors’ achievements - Jihye Kim and Lindsay Compton won Academic Excellence Award for Adjunct Faculty. Julie Nelson will be attending ACTFL conference using PSUFA support.

Agenda:

1. Chair’s report

1. Student enrollment

1. not increasing, but not as dire as projected. CLAS: -4.3% (previous years -10%). WLL -1.9%.
2. West Virginia University case brought up at chairs meeting,  particularly in defense of humanities. But it wasn't effective at WVU, so we need to think of strategies to bring in more majors, rather than focusing on dialogs with administration.
3. Reminder of senate resolution (passed) to consider due process/procedure for class cuts.
4. Heritage language initiative at Hillsboro library is strong - shows importance of language programs in community.
5. Chair meeting - report of types of faculty teaching which types of class,  and connected enrollment counts. This data can be used to cut programs. There is also positive data - depends on who's looking at it and why. Need to keep in mind that this data may influence board of trustees decisions.

2. Initiation of Attendance.

1. Easy for faculty, but difficult for study abroad because Ed Abroad office (short-staffed) has to enter for each student during the first week of their classes at each institution.
2. Committee is aware of issue and working to resolve it. Important because students abroad will lose funding if process isn't followed.
3. No chance of moratorium/exception on policy for study abroad because it’s a federal government regulation.

3. Committee assignment: committee descriptions and lists passed around. Suwako will share links. The PR committee is inactive until WLL social media reactivated.  

1. WLL Tutoring - has resumed. Section heads are aware if their language section needs additional tutors.
2. Events calendar - Active on WLL website. Faculty can fill out event request form (WLL website → faculty resources tab → forms) to add event to calendar. Link also shared with language clubs, reach out to Malcolm if new language club formed.

3. Old business

1. Draft guidelines for Teaching Professor ranks - discussion.

1. Section D: defines teaching professor ranks/procedure. Will be added to NTTF section of P&T guidelines. University provided unchangeable text (in bold). Some sections can be modified by the department, but not many. Process: Suwako created draft, shared with P&T committee (including Stephanie as NTTF representative). Suwako then met with Robert to review and correct errors.
2. Two components to document: 1 - ranks/explanation’ 2 - expectations for promotions. Following discussion geared towards future hires, not current faculty. Important for future hires due to future university hiring expectations regarding TTF and NTTF.
3. Question: by setting up 3 tier position (assistant, associate, full professor), will NTTF also be required to apply for promotion when eligible? A: not mandatory. Only mandatory is continued appointment review for yr 6.
4. Concern: Should the position require Ph.D., or is Ed.D. acceptable? Proposal to restrict to Ph.D.

1. Proposal: precedent that ppl with non-phd terminal degrees (i.e. M.A.) should be eligible. What is involved in this work (teaching) should be recognized in the promotion process. Purpose of teaching professor track is to recognize achievement in teaching, curriculum design, pedagogy. Preference for external hire PhD, but for internal hire M.A. should be OK.
2. Response: promotional questions are different than new hires. Now that new hires are harder to come by, especially with budget, need the reliability of a phd candidate in a national search.
3. Consideration: it's already in the contract to have PhD as requirement unless shown otherwise through achievement. RE: upper-division classes, it's hard for smaller sections when not all can teach upper division due to this restriction.
4. Sometimes Ph.D.s are required in order to maintain an M.A. program (only Ph.D.s can mentor grad students)
5. Ph.D. recommendation will allow us to maximize resources for the students. Exceptions may be ok, but shouldn't be default.
6. Ed.D. more relevant for pedagogy courses rather than lang/literature courses. However, in less commonly taught languages, sometimes Ph.D. is not available so ppl earn Ed.D. instead.

2. Language in draft: inconsistent (degree “required” for professor guidelines, “expected” for instructor guidelines)

1. Proposal to change “criteria” to “expectations.” Should be consistent throughout document.
2. Solution: change criteria to expectations (p3), drop Ed.D. from first page, then by using “expectations” we have the option for Ed.D. as an exception but not the rule.

3. Proposals - Publications and lectures: Invitations to give lectures should be "external" invitations to give lectures. Publications should be peer-reviewed. Dossier should be included.
4. Request for guidelines for internal and external reviews of NTTF promotions.

Important Dates:

10/6                Last day to add with Instructor’s approval

10/11        3:15        Advisory Council

10/23                Winter schedule will go online

11/1        3:30-        Department meeting

WLL Committees AY 2023-2024

WLL Committee charges

Language Club

A student-led group consisting of student members, possibly faculty and community members. The club is not registered with the ASPSU in SMSU. The purpose is to offer extracurricular activities related to the target language and culture organized by students.

1. Students contact an instructor or the chair to express their interest in forming a language club.

2. They should send us the contact information of a leader who serves as a contact for student members and the dept (name, email, phone #).

3. Once we have the contact, we will list the info (only the name of the club and the name of the leading student with no email) on our web under the Student tab.

4. When a language club holds a meeting or an activity, they can reserve one of our WLL rooms and should send us a simple flier (when, where, what). We'll post paper flyers on the bulletin boards, announce it in the Monthly Updates (if they submit the information 1 week before each month). They can also fill out the events request form on the WLL website for inclusion on the WLL calendar.

/world-languages/sites/worldlanguages.web.wdt.pdx.edu/files/2023-11/2023-10%20Meeting%20Minutes.pdf