Faculty Senate Meeting Minutes September 21, 2016

Faculty Senate Meeting Minutes September 21, 2016

The senate meeting was preceded by a rap session with John Hicks from Academic Search who reported on the search for Provost and asked for input from faculty regarding characteristics the new provost should have.

Following the question and answer period with John Hicks, Interim Provost Dr. David Danahar spoke to senators about his work for this year.  He stated that he is beginning the process of addressing issues of faculty salary, pay raises, and related matters.

Senate Meeting called to order at 4:30 PM

Approval of Minutes:  A motion was made and seconded to approve the minutes of the April 20, 2016 meeting of the faculty senate.  The motion passed. 

Executive Officer report: 

Lewis Deaton reported that he will be meeting with Dr. Danahar tomorrow. One thing he will be reporting on is the lack of communication between the administration and the faculty.  Problem area examples mentioned by Dr. Deaton included an instance of a class being moved to allow repair work to be done without notifying a faculty member ahead of time - a class was moved to a room too small to accommodate all the students on a day when an exam had been scheduled, issues with the current SEI procedures, and the problem of University committee chairs not reporting to the senate at senate meetings.  A question was raised regarding the number of faculty representatives on the Provost search committee.  Dr. Deaton will ask for additional faculty representation on the committee.

Reports of Senate Committees:

Committee on Committees:   no report
Ways and Means:  no report
Academic Planning and Development:  no report
Governmental Concerns:  Robert Slater reported that the committee will be meeting to discuss plans for the upcoming legislative session.
Faculty Advisory Council Representative:  no report

Ad Hoc Committee on Underrepresented Faculty Groups:  no report
Ad Hoc Committee on the Status of women:  no report

Reports from University committees:

Curriculum:  no report
Faculty Grievance:  no report
Faculty Benefits and Welfare:  no report
Library:  no report
Academic Affairs and Standards:  no report
Parking and Planning:  no report
Student Evaluation of Instruction:  Dr. Autin reported that the committee received feed back from the distance learning committee on the evaluation of distance learning courses.  As a result the committee rearranged the SEI questionnaire for all courses to group questions into a group of questions about the course and a group of questions about the instructor rather than having course and instructor questions mixed together.  The new format was used this past summer and the committee anticipates that the new format will be used for the fall semester also.  Dr. Autin noted that the overall response rate of students has been steady at ~46% over the past 5 years.  She also noted that a questionnaire link was included for faculty to respond to questions about the SEI, but faculty may not have been aware of the questionnaire or may not have been clear on what the link was for. 
Distance Learning Leadership Council:  no report
Strategic Program Review:  Dr. Gautier reiterated that the review process is a big responsibility for the committee.  She stated that there is a need for more communication among all involved within the review cycle and there is a need for oversight of the process from the provost.  Also, it is not clear what happens with the results of a review.

Old Business:

George Wooddell raised a question about the status of pay policy approvals.  Dr. Deaton will enquire about this.

G.H. Massiha reminded senators that the senate was to have a committee to look at results of implementation of the merit raise rubric process to see whether it is functioning as intended.

A question was also raised about the status of the new senate budget committee.  Interim members of the committee were elected last spring.

New Business:

Dr. Deaton submitted proposed dates for the remaining faculty senate meetings for the 2016-2017 academic year.  The dates are October 19, November 16, January 18, February 15, March 15, and April 26.  The senate voted to approve these dates.

Senate webmaster Scott Duke-Sylvester made a motion that the current faculty senate website be moved to the same system as the rest of the University.  An advantage of this move would be that updating the site would not require the use of Dreamweaver.  G.H. Massiha seconded the motion, it was voted on and the motion passed.

A question was raised about the functioning of the ad hoc committee on underrepresented groups.  Jean Kiesel reported that she is a member of the committee and that the committee did not meet last year.

Lastly, a senator commented on having received an email regarding a switch of retirement pay from a 12 month to a 10 month basis.

Meeting adjourned at 5:10 pm.

Kathleen Knierim
Secretary