Community Council Formation - Lance Schachterle discussed a proposed mission statement and membership list for the Community Council, which the Cabinet had voted to reconstitute several months ago. Admissions Updates and Demographics - Kevin Kelly distributed several lists of data on students matriculating in fall 2000, indicating a significant increase in merit scholarship acceptances. New Faculty Hires - Provost Carney distributed brief bios of 14 new tenure track faculty joining WPI this fall. There are four females and nine males in the group involving nine departments. He also reviewed their backgrounds and research interests.
All current projects are more or less on target.
Director of Diversity and Women's Programs - Bernie Brown reported that this new position, scheduled in the Strategic Plan for 2002, will be moved up given the reconfiguring of some current job descriptions where the positions are vacant because of resignations. He also distributed a proposed policy for review later to tie charges for telephone use into room fees since new technologies are significantly reducing student dependence on traditional telephoning. D. Jack Carney indicated that Joe Gale in ME is retiring and a replacement will be sought. E. Lance Schachterle reported that in the results recently obtained through the EBI survey, that WPI graduating engineering students rated their academic programs at WPI as being better, and often significantly better, than engineering students at more than 50 other institutions. Ann Garvin has drafted a review of the survey data that will be circulated widely when finished.