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Faculty Senate Meeting Minutes September 20, 2017

Faculty Senate Meeting Minutes
September 20, 2017
Oliver Hall Room 112

Chad Parker (Parker) called the meeting to order at 4:00 pm.

Parker welcomed everyone and stated there are two sets of meeting minutes to approve; the first from the last regular meeting on April 16, 2017 in the Spring 17 semester, and the minutes from the special QEP meeting called on September 6, 2017.

Minutes from April were projected on the screen.

István Berkeley (IB) stated he would like to see the minutes provided in a better format so faculty can better know which people asked and stated information in the meetings.  Finally, IB asked about the money ($250 per meeting) for the Senate within the April minutes.

Parker stated we would work to improve the minutes.

Lewis Denton (LD) stated the Senate asked in Spring 17 to ask President Savoie for funds dedicated to Faculty Senate, and they agreed to $250 per meeting, but quickly adds he was never given any additional information, never given an account number, and never told who to communicate with.

Parker stated he would look into the situation, and in the mean time to send Parker any ideas on what to do with the money.

The minutes from April were motioned for approval by Mark Smith, and seconded by David Baker. No votes against and one vote to abstain.

Parker projected the minutes from the QEP meeting on September 6, 2017.
Mark Smith motioned to approve, David Baker seconded the motion, all voted yeah, with no votes against and no votes to abstain.

G.H. Massiha (GH) asked if messages from the Faculty Senate be sent to all 600 faculty at least 1 week in advance. Also, GH added the money granted by the university is meant for more than just refreshments, really for senate to use as they decide.

Parker then moved to give his Executive Report stating he just has a few points to make.
First, he is attending the University Council meetings but academics and faculty affairs are rarely discussed.

Secondly, Parker announced we all have received the raise Savoie mentioned at the beginning of the semester. Many in the audience replied, “WHAT?!?! When?” Sheri Lazare (SL) stated if you looked in Banner under the Employee Summary section, you’ll see the new amount.

Thirdly, there is currently a faculty grievance issue in that there isn’t any real shared governance with faculty and administration, as well as the issue affecting many adjuncts. The university is trying to change the way classes are provided to adjuncts in order to avoid having to pay healthcare for these adjuncts. The Provost is aware of this issue and is looking into it.

Finally, Parker stated the Strategic Plan Committee is starting on the last section of the plan that remains, and includes the QEP. Parker is on the committee and asks for people to contact him with any questions or comments you would like him to bring to the committees attention. The ideas from the QEP meeting on September 6th, and the ideas submitted through Moodle have been presented to the committee. McKinney will send a link to Parker for the senate to take a survey to determine the top 8-10 ideas, and then the top three of so ideas from those.  Some ideas have to be reworded and phrased in order to qualify for QEP and not disqualify any aspect of TOPS.

Lewis Denton (LD) asked if our QEP is for course credit.

Lisa Broussard (LB) asked if Jordon sent the links with the 60 QEP examples he stated he would at the last meeting? Also LB stated if you go to the SACS website and click the QEP tab, you can look at all the possibilities and variations on QEPs, you get a better perspective of how broad and inclusive QEP can be. QEP actions are not always linked to classes or course work or credit hours.

Parker stated the links from Jordon are on the Senate Moodle page, and said if the concern is if there will be hours taken from or added to classes is unlikely and just as unlikely for the UNIV 100 classes to change or disappear.

Mark Smith (MS) stated if staff loses the ability to teach UNIV 100 it will really hurt the program.

Parker agreed and stated as of now, after this semester, staff will not be able to teach UNIV 100 and the Deans and Department Heads already see this as a problem next semester.  Some teachers teaching UNIV 100 are getting pay vouchers in addition to the salary resulting in some potentially making twice as much as others teaching UNIV 100.

Nancy Autin (NA) in piggybacking the QEP compliance concern, how are we to determine what ideas are generated are QEP worthy. Sometimes the popular ideas don’t always convert to a QEP option.

Parker stated there were some ideas already removed because they did not qualify and currently discussing the wording of others. Parker also reminds the senate he is on the QEP committee and he is aware of it and will bring to their attention.

David Baker (DB) stated in the previous QEP process he recalled a survey being sent to the faculty and it worked out pretty well.

Parker agreed the last QEP process did survey the faculty, but this QEP round, it was brought to the faculty last minute and kind of scrambling. UNIV 100 was actually not part of the last QEP, and faculty never voted on it. Faculty actually voted for active learning, and the way UNIV 100 was created in corporates active learning.

GH stated he made many comments that the old UNIV 100 needed to go and make it worth 3 credits.

Parker stated UNIV 100 is now worth 3 credits.

GH also asked if there was any information or data on the last implementation of QEP until this new QEP?

Parker stated UL is hovering around 75% first-time freshmen retention rate.

IB stated around 1998-2000, retention was around 49%.

Parker stated they are now interested in data and retention of sophomores.

DB stated it would be good to do an analysis study of overall success of the last QEP.

LB stated that UNIV students have to pay an additional fee that covers the collection of all this data and it is provided by the Office of First Year, and it is really good information.

DB said it was good out of the box thinking for them to think about that and captured. We also need to see if UNIV and any changes would affect TOPS.

Parker agreed and stated the issue with TOPS comes down the phrasing of QEP and attention is being put on this.

IB stated he thinks one reason contributing to low graduation rates is the lack of a gap year for Juniors or Seniors. They just burn out.

Parker stated the biggest drop is between sophomore and junior year.

NA states she hopes for more information on the planning and the process of mentoring and reporting for the QEP so we can see in detail what we have coming in the future.

Parker stated he would check into it and send out what he finds.

Sandy Himel (SH) asked:  Are UNIV 100 assessments considering the population and demographic change in the incoming freshmen- we had more valedictorians and honor students than ever before and they are already more likely to stay and not drop out.

Parker said he would see what information he could get.

MS stated he saw a PowerPoint slide somewhere that stated an increase in first year retention numbers, not drastic change, but the real problem is sophomore or junior year not so much freshmen.

Kiwana McClung (KM) stated she teaches UNIV 100 and gets a great deal of feedback from the Office of First Year on what worked and what didn’t work, suggestions, and more. They do great research, and many courses are considered active learning because they follow experience learning.

Parker stated (in reference to the general QEP idea) it does not matter if the last QEP was a success or not, and should not effect this QEP design.

DB stated that we need to be careful and not create something that will create or generate more overhead and have little return.

Parker agreed.

IB stated the Faculty Senate Moodle page had University Council meeting minutes posted at one time but no longer see any and asked why the minutes weren’t posted.

Parker stated that there aren’t any minutes to post. At all the meetings he has attended so far, no one even took notes. Parker offered to post his own meeting notes he took if anyone was interested. But, to Parker’s knowledge, there aren’t any minutes.

A collective and shocked gasp from literally everyone.

DB – “They have to have minutes!”

NA – “SACS wants minutes!”

Parker stated that the University Council meeting was less about making decisions, from what he’s seen, and more about various divisions reporting to the president.

(SH) asked if there is someone with UNIV and someone from QEP that could come and talk to us (senate) about the assessment from the QEP side.

Parker stated he would ask and look into a data or a PowerPoint.

Parker then announced that Friday, September 22nd, is an AAUP meeting at 1:00 in HLG 109-B- the Dean’s Conference room. Please go.

MS clarified the meaning of AAUP to be American Association of University Professors.

IB also encouraged members to attend as the small membership fee is worth all they do for professors. 

Parker asked if anyone knew who the Senate webmaster was.

LD replied it is Scott Sylvester.

GH said he has seen Scott this semester so he is around.

Sheri Lazare (SL), Senate Secretary, stated the senate membership will be finalized next week, well before the next meeting. Because of the difficult start to the semester, she was delayed in receiving information from some colleges and trying to complete ASAP.

GH asked if we were onto new business yet.

Parker stated not yet. He proceeded to ask if there was any outstanding old business, with a collective no response.

Parker asked for any new business.

GH stated he was contacted to serve on a possible Summer Pay Raise committee and there is a very good chance that pay for summer classes will increase. It was announced we would meet, but office date/time/location has not been given.  He also stated that the raises we received, it is actually impossible to know the specific % increase for anyone, including yourself, because of the calculations used.

Parker said he brought up some of these issues with up in a meeting with Fabrice Leroy,  Danahar, and McKinney.

DB confirmed it is impossible to calculate and we should have some way to determine and evaluate our own – not someone else’s.

Laurel Ryan (LR) asked if it was possible to know the amount of the raise that is attributed to merit and how much is attributed to equalization.

Parker replied that this raise was 100% merit based.

Jonathan Goodwin (JG) said you are allowed to ask the Dean for every score and then calculate it yourself.

DB said some places will publish freely, but our Academic Affairs will not post anything.

GH tried to offer some explanation, but honestly, it just turned into a verbal ACT word problem that we all gave up on. 

DB stated Robert McKinney has a number he plugs in to calculate but he refuses to tell anyone what it is.

MS said this whole salary process would be better if there was actual motivational system- but UL keeps everyone confused by design – a complicated system that needs to be much simpler.

Parker stated maybe we need a committee to look at this.

GH said there was a committee, he was on it, and it was all his fault.
(Parker confirmed this was captured in the minutes) 

Kathleen said the senate needs this committee.

DB called for volunteers to be on the committee.

Parker stated he will set up an ad hoc committee to review implementation and if you want to be on it let him know.

DB- the problems are not static, and there are critical system flaws that need to be fixed.

David Beard (Beard) in the College of Education stated the summer course size limit is ridiculous and needs to be based on the summer average and not the department average because all of the summer courses end up being dropped for low enrollment.   

GH stated if the course is really needed, can ask the Dean to still provide. Ellen Cook was liberal with what she created but do remember College of Ed often had problems with classes. Ending with asking again, who sets the class number.

Parker asked if it was Henderson, then opened to everyone and asked if anyone knew.

Parker asked who the College of Ed representative is on the committee.

Beard stated he did not know- but will try to find out.

DB asked what the number is currently at.

GH confirmed it is 19.  GH went on to say the raises we just got were from those who worked last summer- administration took $2 million and gave it to regular fulltime faculty. UL is continuing to try and save $2 million every summer to set aside.

Parker told GH he is the Senate’s representative on the committee and he needs to bring this point to the Summer Committees attention.
LD reported he attended the Faculty Senate Associations meeting and on November 2nd there will be a town hall meeting with locals to discuss topics. LD is responsible for organizing the meeting here and wanted to make everyone aware of it.

MS asked if Clay Higgins will be present at the event.

LD replied he was invited so maybe. The LA Commissioner and legislators will be there and a great chance to pin down our concerns. There will be a forum to exchange ideas and hope a lot of us show up.

Parker asked if anything else.

Meeting officially adjourned at 5:02 pm.