The meeting started at 10:29 am.

Attendance:

Jane Weiss

Elroy Esdaille

Monica Filmon

Lesley Broder

Rob Cowan

Sara Rutkowski

Karen Niles

Enid Stubin

Marylynn Navarro

Frank Percacio

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Invited Guests to Administer The elections for the New Area Director: Patty and Cheryl.

Approval of Minutes from last meeting- 10/9/2024

— The minutes from the last Literature Department meeting on 10-9-2024 were unanimously approved.

Words of Appreciation for the outgoing Area Director, Jane Weiss

–The committee members who were present namely, Elroy Esdaille, Monica Filmon, Lesley Broder, Rob Cowan, Sara Rutkowski, Karen Niles, Enid Stubin, Marylynn Navarro, and Frank Percacio all registered their appreciation for Jane and the work she had done over the many years as Area Director.

— Some Comments: she has always been patient and kind, and helpless to everyone. She has willingly passed her wisdom and knowledge, and we are all grateful for that.

– She has been a champion in the area of Pathways, and we are all the better for it. Some of us have learned more about pathways and literature assessment and Curriculum because of her insight and expertise.

– Thank you for your hard work and humor with all things CUNY!

-Thank you for all the advice about course proposals and pathways?

– Thank you for your advice over the years!

– She has contributed so much over the years!

-She wished endless goodwill and prosperity in her future endeavors.

***Jane thanked everyone for their kind words.

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Election for New Area Director— Facilitated by Cheryl and Patty

— The facilitators of the elections asked who would like to run for the position, and only Rob Cowen indicated that he would. This meant that he ran unopposed.

–However, to officially register, the members were provided with a link to a form in the chat that allowed them to register their votes. The link was as follows: https://forms.office.com/r/CVuHqgmmJp – Two person had trouble opening the link and the information was emailed to them, and they were able to register their votes that way.

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Announcement of the new Area Director- Cheryl and Patti

–Election Results: Rob Cowan 9 Lesley Broder 1

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Congratulations, well wishes, etc.

–The members of the committee congratulated Rob Cowen through words and text on becoming the New Area Director.

— Some of the congratulations included the ideas that we would do a great job, and Jane promised to help in any way she can.

A few words by the new Area Director

–Rob Cowen thanked everyone for voting for him and expressed his appreciation.

— He told the Committee member that he has some ideas in mind with regards to Curriculum, and assessments.

–Now that we have concentration, he would like us to get together with faculty and students with regards to concentration either in the Spring or next Fall. He would like to do this for a number of other reasons including what he has been working on with Annie, Jane, and Marylynn.

— He will be in touch over the Winter Semester to decide the approach we might take for Next Fall.

Any Other business

Equitable Courses and Instructors

–Rob was asked to give his take on equitable courses and instructors.

The question was as follows: There has been a tradition of people owning certain courses, and they only relinquish them when they go on sabbatical. This system needs to be reexamined:

The response from Rob was that we need to find out what these courses are, who has been teaching these classes, and who wants to teach them, and it might be possible to come up with a rotation system. It would make sense to have an open conversation on how to best address the matter.

Another question to Rob: Looking at the New Faculty Promotion/Ranking- or Reclassification, there is still the concern about who own classes, so we will need to come up with a system that works, for there are not many available literature classes, and we need to try to raise the level of literature at KBCC, which would mean that certain classes should not remain in the hands of only a few.

The response to this by Rob is as follows: We are interested in finding out how to best do this, so we need to work together to come up with a workable solution.

Suggestion: It was suggested that this should be an item that will go on the agenda for the Next Literature Department meeting in the Spring 2025.

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Next Meeting: It was decided that a Doodle will be sent out early in the Spring 2025 semester to establish the time for the Literature Committee Meeting.

Meeting call to a close

The meeting was called to close at 10:57 pm.