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Faculty Senate Meeting Minutes November 5, 2014

Faculty Senate Meeting Minutes November 5, 2014

Senate Meeting called to order at 4:00 PM

Nancy Autin moved that the minutes of the October 15 meeting be approved.  The motion was seconded and then passed.

Executive Officer report: 

Prof. McDonald reported that some senate business has been slowed down due to the lack of a chair for the Ways and Means Committee.  He will call a meeting of the committee so that a chair can be elected.

He then reported that at the next meeting senators will hear from the University Strategic Planning Committee that is in the process of formulating a new 5 year plan.  Resources from the committee will be posted on the senate website.  Dr. McDonald requested that senators review the information prior to the next senate meeting.  An opportunity for individual faculty to submit comments/suggestions regarding the plan will be made available.  At the January meeting the faculty senate will come up with a list of priorities endorsed by the senate as a whole for submission to the Strategic Planning committee.

Dr. McDonald reported that he inquired about parking for senate meetings and was told that no special pass is needed because a regular parking permit (sticker or hang tag) entitles faculty members to park in the pay lot without additional charge.  Finally he reported that the University Council is in the process of interviewing candidates for graduate school dean and for a diversity official.

Reports of Senate Committees:  no reports from regular senate committees were presented at the Nov. 5 meeting.  Reports from committee chairs will be presented at the Nov. 19 meeting.


Unfinished Business:

Provost’s proposal regarding protocol for request of data from senate committees:  The Provost spoke about the reasons for his proposal.  He stated that an outside consultant concluded that although the university collects a large amount of data it is severely lacking in capability to analyze the data collected.  Problems with data retrieval and analysis are exacerbated because there is currently a vacancy in the Institutional Research office, so they are understaffed.  The office receives an overwhelming number of requests for data, largely data that is necessary to fulfill reporting requirements from outside the university.  Due to the overwhelming work load and limited personnel, requests for data need to be well thought out.  Dr. Henderson stated that the availability of data should improve when ISIS is replaced by Banner.  Provost Henderson emphasized that he is definitely not interested in keeping data from faculty senate committees.  He commended senators for taking the time to be involved in issues of governance.  The senate expressed appreciation to Dr. Henderson for taking the time to meet with the senate.

In the discussion that followed the Provost’s presentation a suggestion was made to modify the proposed procedure to provide that if the executive committee decides that it is not appropriate to pass on a particular data request they would then negotiate with the chair of the committee making the request and if no agreement is reached the request would be brought to the full senate.  An additional suggestion was made that a time limit be set for the executive committee to respond to a committee chair’s data request.  Also, insertion of a provision to reconsider the data request procedure annually was suggested.  Dr. McDonald will submit wording for amendments to the proposed faculty handbook revision so that an amended proposal can be presented at the next faculty senate meeting.

Faculty Handbook change on allowing tenure and promotion decisions to be considered simultaneously:  Prof. McDonald reminded senators that this change was approved provisionally by the Executive Committee in the summer.  The proposed change in tenure and promotion policy has been posted on Moodle.  The senate options are to vote on the change, propose modifications of the provisionally approved change, or take no action - which would constitute tacit approval of the change.  Several senators made comments about the change, but discussion was limited since it was time for adjournment.  A discussion forum for this topic will be set up on Moodle.

Since the time was past 5:30 pm no additional agenda items were considered.
 

Meeting adjourned at 5:36 pm.

Kathleen Knierim
Secretary