You are here

Home » Meetings » Meeting Minutes » Meeting Minutes 2020

Faculty Senate Meeting Minutes October 21, 2020

University of Louisiana at Lafayette Faculty Senate
Minutes: Wednesday, October 21, 2020, Zoom Meeting 
Presiding: Donna Gauthier (DG)

1. Call to Order: 4:00
2. Quorum Call: 41
3. Welcome and Report of Executive Officer
  • (Due to power outages, not much time to write a report).
  • University Council meets every Monday morning now.
    • Minutes of those meetings may be posted on our Moodle page under University Council Meeting Notes.
  • ​Congratulations and thanks to Zack Stein (Dupré Library) for being Web Ambassador for the Faculty Senate site. Some things will be moved over from Moodle. https://facultysenate.louisiana.edu/.
4. Approval of Minutes from September 16, 2020: Accepted as Changed (R. Gary, M. Green)
5. C. Parker has been serving on the Innovation and Research Advisory Council but never gets an email for meeting. DG has urged Provost Hebert and VP McKinney to clear up the committee membership issue and make sure FS members are included.
6. Old Business

Motion to Amend FS Constitution

  • Change Article II, Section 2, subsection 4 regarding instructors, from “One instructor shall be elected from each faculty unit of the University. Such members shall be elected for one-year terms and shall take office at the first meeting following election.” to “Instructors shall be elected in the proportion of one member per four Instructors or fraction thereof in each faculty unit of the University. Such members shall be elected for two-year terms and shall take office at the first meeting following election.”
  • (C. Parker, K. Robinson) approved.

Motion to Revise the Faculty Senate Rules of Order

  • The current wording is that all motions shall be made on the motion form provided.
  • The new proposed revision is that all motions shall be submitted in writing with movers’ and seconds’ names.
  • After discussion, no vote was taken.
7. Committee Reports

Faculty Senate Committees

a. Committee on Committees – J. A. DeRouen

  • No report, except to comment that the IRB has added new members who have not been trained, making more work for those who have been.

b. Ways and Means – Needs a New Chair

  • Former chair C. Berry says he will work closely with whoever takes it on.

c. Academic Planning and Development Committee – No Members

d. Governmental Concerns Committee – R. Slater

  • Report should be available on Moodle.
  • Senate members are strongly urged to review the new code of conduct and ethical behavior policy and if they have any issues to bring it back to the Senate in future meetings.
  • GCC would like to invite a number of speakers in. If you have suggestions, contact the chair.
  • Members are reminded of the second extraordinary session of the state legislature. Report includes some bills that might be if interest.

e. Executive Committee – D. Gauthier

  • Disappointed in faculty turnout for library head interviews.
  • Maybe recordings can be made available by T. Daspit.

f. Faculty Advisory Council Committee – D. Gauthier

  • UL System and BOR meetings

g. Ad Hoc Committees

i. Ad Hoc Committee on Faculty Salary and Compensation – D. Gauthier

  • The ad hoc committee on faculty salary and compensation, has been meeting on Fridays.
  • Someone in Math has stepped up to help with some data analysis so that we can begin our data analysis I did let the University Council and the President know.
  • The committee had sent a pretty strong letter to the President last month asking about the budget for faculty salary raises and what if Plan A didn't work.
  • President called DG and assured her that he was going to be putting together a task force but she hasn’t heard a call for membership yet.

ii. Ad Hoc Committee on Status of Women – A. Leigh

  •  No meeting has occurred.

iii. Ad Hoc Committee on Status of Underrepresented Faculty – Albertaeve Abington-Pitre

  • No meeting has occurred.

University Committees

a. Committee on Academic Affairs and Standards – D. Wadsworth

  • Report should be available on Moodle

b. Faculty Grievance Committee – N. Sidorovskaia

  • Sent an email report (ask DG)

c. Student Evaluation of Instruction – N. Autin

  • DG states she presented FS statement on SEI (they should count no more than 35% of annual evaluation of teaching).
  • Members report that Deans are rustling about in response to this news.

d. Distance Learning Leadership Council – C. Arabie/F. Crocci

  • Pilot of updated Moodle is going well with 6 classes.
  • Pilot will expand in the spring to 30 courses.
  • Still aiming for full rollout by fall 2021.
  • There's going to be a survey, a usability study see if faculty are able to find the resources they need on our website.
  • We're working on a few more professional development courses that will be part of our certification pathway.
  • (In response to a question) We're going to aim to get a full Learning Leadership Council meeting this semester.
  • (In response to a question) DL website provides a list of faculty certified in DL, broken down by college and level of certification. It is currently more than 400 faculty.
8. New Business

a. Code of Conduct and Ethical Behavior Policy

  • R. Slater urges everyone to review the AUP Red Book that addresses these policies and look at the new policy in that light.
  • DG told the University Council the Senate will moving forward with the process of rescinding this policy and start all over again.
  • C. Parker moves that the current statement be done away with and a new statement be written by a committee that has more faculty, including Senate representatives. Motion approved.

b. Health Insurance Premium Increase: M. Reese

  • Administration announced a 5.5% increase in premium, with no input from employees, no mention of increased benefits or improved care, and no mention of any cost of living salary increases to compensate. Maybe FS can get involved with seeing how it might be handled better.
9. Announcements
  • C. Ratliff – Grad Council looking to add language to Grad Faculty Renewal regarding requiring applications for graduate faculty membership to demonstrate an ability to work constructively with all graduate students including students from underrepresented communities. Please email suggestions or responses to me.
  • J. DeRouen – Some department heads are apparently not following the policy regarding the stopping of the tenure clock under certain circumstances.
    • Discussion suggests that  close attention should be paid to making sure the pandemic stoppage policy is easily accessible and clear.
10. Adjournment 5:10 p.m. (Templet and Berkeley)

Submitted 11/17/2020 by C. Rice.