MINUTES OF THE FACULTY SENATE
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEETING
April 15, 2013
Research I, room 161, 2:30 -4:00 p.m.
Present: Jim Bennett, Star Muir, Peter Pober, Jim Sanford, Suzanne Scott, Peter
Stearns, June Tangney, Susan Trencher.
I. Approval of Minutes of previous meeting March 25th
deferred, as they were not available for review in advance of this meeting.
·
Rector
Clemente will address the Faculty Senate at the April 24th meeting.
·
Provost
Stearns reported the visit from the Korean ministry last week went quite
well. We expect approval and appropriate
follow-up within a month.
(with thanks to Suzanne Scott
for editing this segment)
Summer Schedule Proposal: We have been very busy dealing with this issue. The add date has been altered for Summer 2014 to accommodate issues raised.
Transfer Evaluation Advisory Group: Janette Muir asked for Executive Committee input.
The committee is discussing need for some sort of purely advisory clearinghouse to review proposals from individuals before they proceed to the Academic Policies and Organization and Operations Committees. There may be some advantages in being a purely advisory clearinghouse informational, not a policy body. Questions arose concerning that group's impact on O&O and whether the issues even fall under the purview of the Faculty Senate. The explanation was that Janette Muir was simply asking to see if such a group would be useful to the Senate by providing more information, as needed, concerning evaluation of academic credit to the Senate O&O. Such information would ultimately be helpful to the Academic Policies committee. The AP Committee will continue to discuss this in the next academic year.
B. Budget
and Resources Susan Trencher, Chair
(with
thanks to Susan Trencher for reviewing this segment)
Salary Data Update: will talk
with JJ Davis to see what is the best way to get this data
ready for posting; a high priority.
University Budget
Update: Tuition increase likely to be in 2-3% range, administration
recommends 4.2% increase.
Summer Teaching
Survey: We received 230 responses to the summer
faculty survey; a whole range of responses.
There are some units where you ask and you cannot teach. Some faculty say
they dont want to teach during the summer (e.g. engineering). Some new SOM faculty get funding for first
year to do research and not to teach. The
Provost gives funding to colleges.
Colleges allocate funding to various units. If not enough funding, units do what they can
with what they have. When the university ran summer school, they still did not
fund up to number of faculty who wanted to teach. Faculty could keep classes if enrollment paid
enough for salary, so units could protect other faculty, by sharing funding
between courses. (e.g. 9 students, 38 students).
Discussion: Faculty may submit requests to
teach summer classes after the deadline.
Summer enrollment has decreased.
Faculty may not get to pick which course they teach. We should identify
faculty who requested but did not receive a course, (course) subjects denied. Was there some other buyout available? For example faculty may request a course at 10%,
salary, but do not get it. Suggest
rephrasing of second survey question to reflect this. Sometimes a class is
cancelled, with students enrolled into another larger class, decreasing
opportunities for faculty to teach.
BOV Faculty Representative Election Results just distributed at 12:49 p.m. this afternoon. The terms for new faculty representatives begin July 1st.
Hugh Sockett (CHSS) is nominated to serve on the Search Committee for Director of State Government Relations
Videoconferencing FS Meetings at the Mason Inn: No news, will cost money.
Review of University Committee Reports: Star distributed a report identifying several committees in need of additional review. Next year we will interview committee members to see what they have been doing and ask for suggestions to revise committee charges. Could they be condensed?
Suggestions from the Executive Committee included a discussion on the need for a university-level grievance committee. The structure of the Provost Office has changed over the past decade, now deals with issues in a better fashion. Will the appointment of Renell Wynn as Vice President for Communications and Marketing impact the External Academic Relations Committee? In some years the committee has been very active. Concern also expressed about faculty wasting a lot of time on committee work, does it need to be done? Related issue where information comes to the Faculty Senate, is posted on the website, and does not go anywhere. Suggested newsletter be distributed to Senators.
The charge of the Admissions Committee is very narrow, not involved in policy, just ask Admissions Office for reports. Ironic given financial issues today. Admissions issues overlap with enrollment, perhaps to ask Wayne Sigler (Vice President for Enrollment Management) to talk with the Faculty Senate about enrollment strategies. Linda Schwartzstein (formerly Vice Provost) now serves on the Admissions Committee, also to ask for her input. Observing the NIAL committee has not been active recently, suggestion made to change committee charge to reflect issues such as certification and proliferation of distance learning courses. There is a Distance Learning Council a standing university committee not part of the Faculty Senate, to whom we elect a representative.
Should the Academic Appeals and Grievance Committees be combined? Some have served on the Grievance Committee,
which addresses issues of general concern.
The Grievance Committee meets as needed.
Who is responsible to see whether periodic committee responsibilities to be carried out? It is the job of the committee chair. There is no orientation of committee chairs. Suggestion made to thank them beyond acknowledgement of election of new chairs, ask them to check committee charge and contact us.
BOV Faculty Representatives will provide brief updates at April 24th FS Meeting:
E. Douthett (Audit), B. Smith (Research) and D. Anderson/G. Hanweck (Finance and Land Use)
·
Rector Clemente
·
Approval of FS Minutes March 27th and
April 3rd
·
Brief Updates from Faculty Representatives to
the BOV Committees: Ed Douthett (Audit)
and Finance and Land Use (D. Anderson/G. Hanweck),
and Research (Bob Smith) (B. Other Committees/Faculty Representatives)
·
Annual Reports from the Senate Standing
Committees, University Standing Committees and Ad Hoc Committees (C.
Other Committees Annual Reports)
·
Upgrades to Blackboard Sharon Pitt, Executive
Director, DOIT (Other New Business)
·
Election of Senate Chair 2013-14 (Other New Business)
Amendment to Charter/By-Laws regarding voting from remote locations to AY 13-14.
Special Request for May 1st Faculty Senate Meeting: Dave Kuebrich, Chair of the Task Force on Private Donors Task Force and co-chair of the External Academic Relations Committee, suggested utilizing the May 1st meeting date (reserved if needed) to present the Task Force Report, and to encourage Faculty Senators to meet with local legislatures over the summer (a proposal from the External Academic Relations Committee), and issues related to a growing national movement to have college endowment managers divest from dirty fuel companies.
Discussion: Are the issues time sensitive? A search for a new Vice President for Development is underway. Concerns expressed about sparse attendance, especially for discussion of one issue. After some discussion, the Executive Committee decided not to utilize the May 1st meeting. June will ask Dave to send us the report and we will distribute it to Faculty Senators and will also invite Faculty Senators to visit state legislators over the summer.
June will ask the Academic Initiatives Committee to request the Business Plan for the Songdo campus.
The Executive Committee expressed its deep appreciation to Chair June Tangney for her incredible leadership.
Respectfully submitted,
Meg Caniano
Faculty Senate clerk