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Faculty Senate
University of Mississippi

Faculty Senate Meeting Minutes

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Meeting held in Bryant 209

 

 

Agenda

  • Senator Albritton opened the meeting at 7:00 p.m.
  • First order of business: Approve minutes of last meeting
    • Moved
      • Seconded
      • Approved unanimously
  • Second order of business: Committee Reports
    • Executive committee
      • No report
    • University services
      • No report
    • Finance
      • No report
  • Third order of business: Report of the Academic Affairs committee on academic dishonesty
    • Best course of action was to ask CETL to sponsor a faculty development luncheon on the subject
      • Arrived at after departmental and administrative consultation
      • Workshop will run in the fall
    • Question: have the academic discipline committees seen more cheating?
      • Anecdotally, no
      • Most are plagiarism complaints rather than cheating on standardized tests
  • Fourth order of business: Academic support report on building temperatures
    • Origin of new temperature policy
      • IHL energy management council mandate
      • Energy prices projected to go up
    • IHL Mandate
      • Reduce energy use per square foot by 30% from 2006 baseline by 2016
      • Do so without tuition increases
    • Response by Ole Miss
      • New equipment
      • More efficient monitors
      • New 78 degree building temperature
    • Why 78 degrees?
      • Picked by may other universities
      • Determined to have maximum impact
      • Decision was made by Larry Sparks, admittedly without faculty input
    • Comments by Larry Sparks
      • Temperature was temporarily dropped to 76, 72 for finals week
      • Temperatures will be reset based on feedback
      • 78 is upper limit, not lower
      • Goal is difficult re: 2006 because Ole Miss has already done many of the easy steps in energy efficiency
      • Difficulty in measuring results; few meters exist for individual buildings
      • Complaints have been heard; move to 78 degrees may have been too aggressive; move to 74 degrees may be interim step
      • Areas outside of temperature set points must be fixed
    • Questions
      • Question: what are some auxiliary units that pay for their own power?
        • A good example is student housing: they must pay for their utilities from rent
        • 15-16 such auxiliary units on campus
      • Question: Are there going to be policies for weekdays and weekends?
        • Nights, weekends, and holidays will be set back a bit
      • Question: How do we get on a list for a building that would be exempt from such fluxes over breaks?
        • Student housing, animal housing, are some that are exempt
      • Question: What is the administration policy on research over weekends?
        • Contact Larry Sparks to request exceptions to set back policies; the policy is to try and be efficient and not suck resources from other areas (like salaries)
    • Statement from Business Administration, with 16 points of concerns, was read
      • Salient points include perceptions of personal sacrifice at the expense of teaching and research, ADA concerns, student use, illicit installation of fans and air conditioners
      • Sparks: unit is a support unit; perceptions of lack of support for research and teaching are erroneous
        • 78 degrees was too far of a reach and communication was poor
        • Energy management committee with faculty representation could be coming
      • Question: how do setpoints work? Do they take a room’s actual ambient temperature into account (e.g. with computers heating it up?)
        • Buildings on the central chilled-water loop should do so, but there may be buildings and areas
      • Question: Are fluctuations within buildings reflected in set points? Rooms seem to fall inside and outside range, anecdotally, fairly often?
      • Question: What percent of the budget is spent on utilities?
        • There’s no percentage but about $12 million out of $270 million
      • Question: What about individualized plan? Rooms with higher use or mutant temperatures could be tweaked one by one?
      • Sparks: Individualized changes are possible, but no idea of how complex that is and what the costs might be
    • Motion: could we refer to committee?
      • Will be referred to committee for August/September
    • Going forward
      • Was 78 degrees the correct temperature?
      • Ole Miss is not meeting its goals
  • Fifth order of business: Report of the governance committee on Ombudsman et al.
    • Issue of “peer to peer bullying” among faulty
      • MSU has a grievance policy and a whistleblower policy
      • USC is discussing “faculty incivility”
      • LSU is chairing a meeting on the issue at the end of May; attendance of a UM rep may be possible
      • UArk has a workshop; considers “collegiality” when making appointments
      • Texas A&M is working on “grievance process”
    • The prospect of an ombudsman or representative for faculty members suffering the above
      • To governance committee for next year (fall 2012)
      • A designated person or policy might be a good idea, whether a single permanent position or a rotating voluntary one
      • Could even be extended for students
      • Should be a problem addressed at the highest level of management with standards set top-down
    • Statement of governance committee:
      • Question at hand was whether a faculty member forcing another to teach a course is a violation of academic freedom
      • More information is needed, but conflicts with anonymity of original respondent
  • Sixth order of business: Report of the governance committee on major search committees
    • Issue is with agreements between senate and administration approximately 10 years ago
      • Searches at dean level or above would result in faculty-wide announcement of a search committee and said committee’s members
      • Said agreement was not added to policy database; senate could perhaps take it up and see that said agreement becomes added to official policy
    • Item will be referred to governance committee
      • Further searches will be announced
    • Dean of graduate school progress
      • Candidate has been named and accepted
    • Dean of school of applied sciences progress
      • Candidate list has been approved and forwarded
    • Vice-chancellor search progress
      • 4 candidates have interviewed
      • Thoughts on candidates are welcome
  • Seventh order of business: Old business
  •             None
  • Eighth order of business: New business
    • Current senate term ends August 31
      • Elections to senate must be processed by that time
      • New members will elect officers and constitute committees and their chairs
    • Senator Albritton will be retiring from both the Senate and the university
      • Hopes that spirit of shared governance will persist
      • Is impressed by how often upper administration seems to listen to the senate
      • Senate consultations seem to provide admirable basis for continued faculty advocacy
    • Sen. Reithel: Issue of elective “W” grades
      • Univ. of Georgia limits “W” grades to 4
      • Refer to Academic Affairs for investigation
  • Senator Albritton closed the meeting at 9:00 p.m.