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Name: Kogan, Jacob, Submission Date/Time: 20160309-100158
My updated version of minutes is: 
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February 29, 2016 12:06-12:49 pm Faculty Meeting in SOND 409

Present:

Adragni, Kofi Placid
Armstrong, Thomas
Biswas, Animikh
Draganescu, Andrei
Gowda, Muddappa
Guler, Osman
Huang, Yi
Kang, Weining
Kogan, Jacob
Malinovsky, Yaakov
Mathew, Thomas
Neerchal, Nagaraj
Park, Junyong
Potra, Florian
Rathinam, Muruhan
Rostamian, Rouben
Shen, Jinglai
Sinha, Bimal

At the start the meeting was chaired by the Department Chair Dr. Rostamian.

Gowda: lecturers should participate in Chair selections in the Chair
election process.
Rathinam: you are suggesting to postpone the nomination meeting
Rostamian: lecturers have been invited to participate in this meeting,
but no one showed up.

Kogan and Mathew come forward and volunteer to serve as an Election Officer.
The Election Officer is selected by a secret vote. With 28 ballots the results
are as fallows:

Kogan       5
Mathew      22
Suri        1

Dr. Mathew is elected as an Election Officer, he takes over the meeting
chairmanship, and calls for nominations.

Sinha nominates Rostamian, and Rostamian agrees to run for the department Chair.
A short q&a session follows.

q: how long is the term you are seeking?
a: no answer

q: how you envision future faculty hiring and research concentration areas in
   the department? how do you plan to improve teaching in the department?
a: we have few areas of concentration, and for a small department it is good.
   one of the concerns in low level classes are high dwf rates. for
   example we run math 106 with 500 students every year (about 150 in the spring,
   and 350 in the fall) half of the enrollment photography, dance, or history majors,
   they are not rocket scientists. we are planning a new class, math 105,
   a watered down version of math 106 with no exponent, no log functions.

q: when the bathroom will be fixed, or a place when "i can wash my apple" will be
   available?
a: i do not have answer to this question

q: can you describe the graduate students recruitment
a: we expect to hire this year 5 grad students on top of the "turn over"
   i plan to work with the executive committee in this regard and benefit from the committee's input.

q: i would like the chair to listen to faculty, would you be supportive of the spirit
   of bylaws and shared governance?
a: yes, i would. i don't want to take all the blame myself

q: would you be able to provide budget information at the next retreat
a: yes. this year we expect merit raise, and no COLA raise.

kofi: may we have additional meeting for QA session?
mathew: i will send an email asking for additional questions. I will wait until Tuesday
evening, and I will notify faculty by email.

The meeting was adjourned at 12:49.