Faculty Senate Meeting Minutes September 17, 2014

Faculty Senate Meeting Minutes September 17, 2014

Rap Session 3:30 PM

Vice President for Research Dr. Ramesh Kolluru spoke about identifying 5 key areas of research strength and growth at UL Lafayette.

Senate Meeting called to order at 4:02 PM

Ray Jindal moved and Kay Riedel seconded that the minutes of the April meeting be approved.  The motion passed.

Executive Officer report: 

Prof. McDonald stated that due to an increasing extent of shared governance, some committees have experienced significant increases in workloads and are getting overloaded.  He requested that committees having excessive workloads contact him to seek rearrangement of assignments.  Next he reported that due to proposed updates of the faculty handbook, some of which will necessitate changes in the faculty senate constitution, additional meetings of the faculty senate will be required this year.  The additional meetings are necessary so that changes requiring presentation at one meeting and voting at a subsequent meeting can be voted on in a timely manner.

Reports of Senate Committees:

Committee on Committees:   Written report submitted
Ways and Means:  Written report submitted.  Dr. Linton reported that the committee is working on “catching up” on 2011-2012 motions, checking what actions have been taken.
Academic Planning and Development:  no report
Governmental Concerns:  no report
Faculty Advisory Council Representative:  Dr. Yarborough reported that FAC has not met, and that information of interest is posted on the faculty senate listserve as it is received.

Ad Hoc Committee on Proposed Merit Raise Procedure:  Written report submitted.  Dr. Carriker reported on the committee’s meeting with the council of deans.  A motion to subtract 2 from every merit score for the purpose of calculating merit raises was presented to the senate by the committee.  The senate voted and the motion passed with a vote of 40 to 19.  A second motion by the committee, to calculate pay raises based on the average of an individual’s rubric scores for the past 3 years, was then discussed.  Questions were raised about why 3 years rather than some other number and about how raises would be handled for the current year since no raises have been given for the past 6 years and the rubric system has been used for only one year.  After much discussion the question was called.  The motion passed with a vote of 36 aye, 33 nay, and 5 abstentions.  The third committee motion, to base raises on a percent of current salary rather than a fixed dollar amount, was then discussed.  Arguments for both a percentage basis and a fixed dollar basis were presented.  The motion was voted on and passed with 36 aye and 33 nay.

Task Force on Faculty Handbook:  Due to time constraints the Faculty Handbook Task Force report was deferred with the exception of a motion to schedule 2 faculty senate meetings per month for the 2014-2015 academic year.  The motion passed.

Reports from the remaining ad-hoc committees and University committees were deferred due to lack of time.  Unfinished business was also deferred.

New Business: 

Dr. Magdi Bayoumi spoke on behalf of the CACS faculty regarding the relocation of the Dean of Sciences office and resultant relocation of the CACS offices that occurred over the summer.  He spoke about the significance of the CACS central office for the CACS researchers and graduate students and summarized the history of CACS facilities from their start in the conference center.  Dr. Bayoumi reported a timeline of events leading up to relocation of the Dean of Sciences office and stated that CACS personnel were told they had to move out with no provision for a place to go or a chance for input on the move.  Dr. Bayoumi made a motion that the faculty senate form a committee to conduct an investigation into this matter.  George Wooddell seconded the motion.  A suggestion was made that the senate executive officer appoint an ad-hoc committee to investigate how the issue of office relocation was handled.  Senator Damico moved to table the motion presented by Dr. Bayoumi.  The motion to table was seconded.  The vote to table was 17 aye and 15 nay.  The executive officer will appoint an ad-hoc committee as suggested.

At this point the time was past 5:30 pm so no additional new business was considered.

Meeting adjourned at 5:41 pm.

Kathleen Knierim
Secretary