[Pols-l] Minutes from last Friday

[Pickerel, Linda M.]

Here are the minutes I took from last Friday's faculty meeting.    Have a nice weekend!

Political Science Faculty Meeting minutes
Friday, March 28, 2025  11 a.m.
In attendance:  Michael Wuthrich, Interim Chair, Kevin Mullinix, Undergraduate Director,
Nazli Avdan, Graduate Director, Gary Reich, Don Haider-Markel, Tom Ringenberg,
Jack Zhang, Nazli Avdan, Anton Shirikov, Hannah Britton, Robert Rohrschneider,
Clay Webb, Sofia Vera, and Linda Pickerel, Admin. Associate

Absent: John Kennedy, Mark Joslyn, Brittnee Carter

Dr. Wuthrich started the meeting with an update on Professor Kennedy, who was on medical leave this semester.  He said John is  well and is in recovery but still is some uncertainty at this point as to the exact time of his return.  Will keep updated on this.
In response to the Chancellor’s message about financial uncertainty, Dr. Wuthrich said it is still unknown how the current political situation will impact everything.  He did attend the Dean’s State of the College address and the Dean was not able to give absolute answers to this,  if such as P&T process would be affected any,  but assume to move forward on these.

Minutes: Previous faculty meeting minutes were called for, seconded, and approved.
Graduate program: Dr. Avdan gave an update on the Graduate Program.  She gave some updates on "Good Standing" and having better advising of students and mentoring, providing some clarity about expectations to the students on  what grades, at the graduate level, really mean.  She mentioned the use of the SP, LP, NP grades for some things to indicate where students are at in their progress, incomplete work etc.

Dr. Avdan also reminded about the Thompson call.  Thompson is an opportunity for students and faculty to work closely together on projects.

Online MA update:  there is a need to have enough online classes, Dr. Wuthrich encouraged faculty working on getting the online version of their classes ready to move ahead on this

Undergraduate program:  Mike and Kevin discussed aspects, Core 34, main courses and "essential" courses with GTA support to consider, discussions for,  likely examples, 301,320,315,317,354, 371,413..
There will be an award recognition of many of our top undergrad students on Friday April 18 3pm in the Summerfield Room of the Jayhawk Welcome Center/Alumni Center.  Many faculty made the recommendations and should try and attend.

Graduation:  The departmental graduation ceremony will be held on May 16 at 6:30pm in Woodruff Auditorium, Kansas Union, faculty, and graduating students should arrive beforehand, at 6pm for photo, lining up, in the room across the hall to enter the ceremony together.  Faculty sit on the stage.  Those needing regalia rental order need to get that form right in and the department can cover.   Suggested graduation speaker is Clay Britton who teaches Constitutional Law for our department, is a POLS grad and KU Law, was Chief Counsel for Gov Kelley and is Senior VP & General Counsel for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas.  Dr. Wuthrich will reach out to see if he is available for this.

Committee Assignments for the next academic year were decides as follows:

P&T Full: Chair suspport,  Don Haider-Markel, Hannah Britton, Robert Rohrschneider
P&T Tenure: Chair support, Nazli Avdan, Clay Webb, Brittnee Carter
Grad Committee: Nazli Avdan, Sofia Vera, Gary Reich, Jack Zhang
Assement Committee: Tom Ringenberg, Kevin Mullinix, Mark Joslyn, Mike Wuthrich
Advisory Committee: Chair, Robert Rohrschneider, Anton Shirikov, Clay Webb

Committee assignments were approved, meeting was adjourned.



Linda Pickerel
Administrative Associate
Political Science
The University of Kansas
1541 Lilac Lane, 504D Blake Hall
Lawrence, KS 66045
lpicke at ku.edu
kupols at ku.edu
kups.ku.edu


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