MINUTES OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
OF THE FACULTY SENATE
Monday, March 19, 2012
Mason Hall D1, 2:00 –
3:30 p.m.
Senators Present: Star Muir, Peter Pober, Earle
Reybold, Jim Sanford, Suzanne Scott, Suzanne Slayden, Peter Stearns, June
Tangney.
I. Approval of Minutes of February 20, 2012: The minutes were
approved as distributed.
President Merten will make his final address to the Faculty Senate at the March 28th meeting.
No deans are scheduled this month; Jack Censer will be the last one
April 25th. Sharon Pitt will also briefly discuss technology upgrade in university
technology classrooms and computer labs
to Windows 7.
Chair Pober clarified
a question about the proposed revisions to the Faculty Handbook approved by the
Faculty Senate at the February 15th special meeting. The revisions are included as part of the
executive session of the APDUC committee meeting (Monday, March 21st). Chair Pober and Senator Slayden, Chair of the
Faculty Handbook Revision Committee, will be invited to attend the
session. It is anticipated that a vote
on the proposed revisions will take place at the May BOV meeting.
Special Meeting April
11, 2012 at Founders Hall room 126, Arlington Campus with Senator Barbara
Favola and Delegate David Bulova.
Senator Chap Petersen unable to attend as he will be traveling. We received an email from a Senator concerned
about transportation issues, also suggesting some may wish to carpool. We will also send emails to the School of
Public Policy, the Law School, and School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution
to encourage their faculty to attend the Special Meeting. We will also ascertain whether it is possible
to teleconference the meeting from Arlington, and whether we may set up a
polycom phone link. Chair Pober also
encourages as many Senators from Fairfax to attend as possible. The room accommodates up to 70 people.
Chief of Police
Michael Lynch and Morrie Scherrens invited to March 28th Faculty
Senate Meeting to provide update to the Action Plan for Police and Community
Relations: response pending M. Lynch, M.
Scherrens will arrange for representative to attend as he is teaching a class
at that time. As of this time, we have not received responses from Chief Lynch
nor representatives on behalf of Morrie Scherrens.
Changes to Add/Drop
Period: The AP Committee met over spring break. We decided not to do anything further about
the add/drop period. We met with
students and read student testimonials.
Some situations could be handled individually. Faculty overwhelmingly like the shorter add
period. With respect to other Virginia
institutions, some are a lot shorter; only two have a longer drop period than
we do. We have written to individual
faculty members who said they wanted it lengthened, and will respond to the
students as a follow-up.
Draft Proposal –
Permission to Study Elsewhere was distributed for further comment and will
be included on the March 28th Senate meeting agenda. A new paragraph was added to address specific
arguments received from students. It is
costing the university a lot, we need to have a uniform policy fair to
everyone.
Question: Can an academic dean give permission for a
student to take a course (in another discipline)? Senator Scott responded that the Registrar’s
Office knows who the academic dean is; also includes caveat “if course not
available at Mason”. Included is a table
which illustrates by School for Summer 2011 the Total Credits Taken Elsewhere
in Each College, the Credits Elsewhere in the Disciplines of Each College, and
the Enrollment/FTE money going elsewhere.
The College of Science has the highest number/cost of $203,667.
B. Budget and
Resources – June Tangney
Independent Study
Survey: in
a second pass, we received a few more responses. We will summarize and do a qualitative
analysis. The Committee is thinking
about what it will do next.
Family Leave:
Senator Sanford distributed a draft Parental Leave Motion and
Rationale. It permits faculty who will
become new parents and have been here at least a year to take a semester off,
or one-half of two semesters off, depending on date of birth. The committee has worked with Rizma Ahmed
(Director, Benefits and Absence Management, Human Resources).
The Provost needs more
time to study this. He has no idea how
much money this will cost, and in some units, how it might affect accreditation
standing. Human Resources indicated they
don’t know how many faculty (would be eligible). He is not hostile, but does not know whether
it is feasible, or whether there is money available to support it. As written, this would apply to all contract
faculty. How does this work for those
with one-year contracts? Provost Stearns
asks for modification to be clear this applies to tenured, tenure-track and
multi-year term faculty.
Suggestions from the
committee included:
·
To look at
data for the past two years to find out how many faculty had new children to
identify maximum potential? Impact could
be minimal. How to address
birth/adoption by same-sex couples, or the adoption of an older child?
·
Some
faculty may be on tenure-clock stoppage – could the $2000 raise upon gaining
tenure be applied to adjunct faculty salary?
·
Is this a
Faculty Handbook issue? Senator Slayden
(Chair of the Faculty Handbook Committee) noted that while tenure is a Handbook
issue, HR policies fall under the Faculty Information Guide.
·
Question
raised about informal practices, could this be an equity issue re
parenthood? Faculty may work out
solutions with Human Resources to include medical leave for situations such as
bed rest. Problem identified where if
you ask for it, you get it; if you don’t ask for it, you don’t get it. Some non-tenured faculty did not feel they
could ask for it. Issue comparable to
Phased Retirement – if more people ask, could there be a rush on it?
Senator Sanford will
take this back to the Faculty Matters Committee for further input.*
Computer Privacy: We
will meet this Wednesday with Ron Secrest of TSD and Professor Zachary
Schrag. * Updated April 16, 2012 to note that the Family Leave proposal will
not be returned to the Faculty Matters Committee until further information
becomes available.
Faculty Evaluation
of Administrators Survey will
be distributed this week.
Technology Policy Committee
nominee – will ask Stanley Zoltek.
Faculty Senators Spring 2012: New
CHSS Senators: Susan Tomasovic elected to replace Janette
Muir for remainder of her term (Spring 2012-AY 12-13). Bob
Smith elected to replace John Farina for the remainder of his term (Spring
2012-AY13-14) not spring 2012 per CHSS Parliamentarian ruling.
VideoConferencing Faculty Senate Meetings, Preliminary
Report
O&O Committee, 3/8/12
A member of the Faculty Senate from the Arlington campus has requested that we consider videoconferencing the Faculty Senate proceedings to avoid disruption of the work day from traveling back and forth to the Fairfax campus. Based on information from Jeff Pugh, Lead Technician for Fairfax Classroom Support, and a conversation with Cherie Galantis, the Manager of Collaborative Video Technologies in DoIT, these are the options available.
*Rooms available at Arlington and Prince William campuses. Both Arlington and Prince William have videoconferenced conference rooms, and the possibility of using videoconferenced classrooms subject to course usage. Both campuses also have “telepresence” rooms which would suffice as well.
*Currently rooms are not readily available on the Fairfax campus based on size and schedule. With 50 Senators and a visitor’s gallery, any room used would have to hold 60 at a minimum. There are only two rooms available with that size. Research 163, controlled by Events Management, is no longer supported as a videoconference room as the equipment is aging and there is no sustaining budget for replacements. Innovation 132, scheduled by the Registrar’s Office, holds 73 people, but is booked solid from 9 am to 10 pm through the week for classes.
*Mobile options are severely limited. Events Production has a portable videoconferencing cart, but there is a minimum $300 charge per use, and it takes two hours to set up the equipment and bridge the needed connections. Since Robinson B113, the current meeting space of the Faculty Senate, is also a classroom, gaining 2 hours of access is not feasible on a continuing basis.
Summary
While there may be additional facilities coming online in the future, the current videoconferencing facilities and options are prohibitive of broadcasting Faculty Senate proceedings across the distributed University. Resources at the Arlington and Prince William campuses are sufficient to participate in this venture, but the limited facilities at the Fairfax campus make this a non-viable option in our current configuration.
Discussion: Senator Muir added that at least for this
semester, there is no way to do this. As
noted above, the support for Research 163 was withdrawn two weeks ago, it
failed during a Provost meeting, and there is no budget for technology. He spoke with Senator Nan at the March 7th
meeting , who was disappointed. She
asked whether it would be possible to do this using Skype. Committee members shared recollections of
Skype disasters but also suggested the use of audio conferencing by phone as we
have done in the past when a Senator was recuperating from surgery and unable
to attend. Questions were raised about
how voting would occur, and how to protect confidentiality of vote? By use of email?
Resolution of Appreciation to Rector Volgenau: We will continue working on this, for April
25th agenda.
Invitation to Tom
Moncure: Contractual and Non-Contractual Parts of
Faculty Handbook and Outcome of recommendations by University Space and
Expression Committee on free speech policy – unavailable March 28th,
will attend April 25th meeting.
Need for changes in
Promotion and Tenure Appeals Process – Provost Stearns
Two appeal cases
regarding promotion and tenure (P&T) decisions from last year were handled
by the BOV. Provost Stearns noted that
he was not involved in the process. The
process made clear that the BOV’s APDUC Committee incapable of handling process
in a timely way. There is a desperate
need for changes in P&T Appeals process – to change policy from BOV serving
as court of appeal. Provost Stearns feels it is general interest
of faculty to come up with a different system.
He will talk with the APDUC committee this week; he has clarified that
no change in policy can apply to cases underway now.
The only change in
P&T we’re discussing is in line with many other Virginia institutions:
·
P&T
Cases favorably enacted to continue as we now do: from Provost, to President, to notify the
BOV.
·
If P&T
Case decision unfavorable, to Provost.
(1) Faculty member can ask last (highest) negative unit to reconsider. (2) To establish a new a priori Standing
Appeal Board to either (a) vote to reverse, (b) divide, or (c) vote
negatively. New Appeal Board to be
composed of three faculty members appointed by the Provost (w. one alternate)
and three faculty members elected by the Faculty Senate (w. one
alternate). Use of alternate to avoid
using someone in same unit. The Board
would give a recommendation to the President.
·
If process
stops with Provost, President has the right to change the Provost’s
decision. If Provost says yes, President
can say no, or vice versa.
Provost Stearns
distributed a draft for EXC to begin talking about, meant to frame and
stimulate discussion, not the final word.
He also asks the Faculty Handbook Revision Committee to pick this up
also and to expedite process for fall term.
Faculty Senate Evaluation of the President and Provost: electronic copies of the survey results will be distributed to Executive Committee members for review, and the Secretary will complete the report.
Meet and Greet with President Cabrera – March 7th: several committee members shared their impressions in a general discussion.
Provost Search
Process: No official announcements have been
made. Faculty need to have a strong
voice on the committee. The BOV made the
decision on the Presidential Search; the President makes the decision on the
Provost search.
The Virginia AAUP
State Meeting will take place here at Mason on April 21st.
Respectfully
submitted,
Meg Caniano
Faculty Senate clerk