Faculty Senate Agenda – April 8, 2014
Attendance:
• Senators in Attendance:
o Charles Ross, Philip Jackson, Patrick Curtis, Cliff Ochs, Michael Mossing, Brad Cook, Feng Wang, Tom Garrett, Mustafa Matalgah, Tom Franklin, Robert Van Ness, Robert Holt, Jasmine Townsend, Oliver Dinius, Noell Wilson, Darren Grem, Vanessa Gregory, William Berry, Donna Davis, Lorri Williamson, Jennifer Brosek, Brian Young, Milorad Novicevic, Mei Yang, Valentina Iepuri, Laurel Lambert, Seongbong Jo, Daneel Ferreira, Zia Shariat-Madar, Rahul Khanna, Allison Bell, Rich Raspet, Greg Love, Marilyn Mendolia, Minjoo Oh, Joe Sumrall, Debby Chessin, Michael Barnett
• Senators Absent with an Alternate:
o Mitch Wenger, Adam Smith, Carolyn Higdon, James Chambers,
• Senators Absent:
o Hunain Alkhateb, Chris Offut, Karen Raber, Milam Aiken, Doug Vorhies, Nathan Jones, Mitchell Avery, Micah Everett, Jos Milton, Christian Sellar, Michele Kelly, Mark Ortwein
Agenda with Notes:
• Call Meeting to Order
o Michael Barnett called the meeting to order at 7:03.
• Approval of March 4, 2014 Minutes
o Approved
• Senate Committee Reports
o Executive Committee
 Ratification of Faculty Excellence Task Force Document to Be Presented to the Strategic Planning Council
• Motion for approval – 7:04
• There was a question regarding 2011 concerns regarding benefits and why they never went anywhere. Michael Barnett responded: Chancellor represented our interests to the legislature and was met with resistance. This document calls for a renewed focus on these issues.
• Motion to vote by show of hands. 39 yes. 4 abstentions. 0 opposed. Motion passed.
o Academic Affairs
 Update on Difficulties with Alternate Testing for Students with Disabilities
• A presentation was made. The committee needed to discover whether the difficulties were widespread or localized. They surveyed departments with several questions to determine this [see presentation]. The committee doesn’t yet have a proposal or an answer of any kind, but this is definitely something that needs to be looked at further. It has been suggested that the facility for online students could be opened up to the rest of campus during regular semester weeks for alternate testing; however, this option would not be available during midterms and finals week, as the online students need them during those times. Office of Student Disabilities and the Dean’s office are looking to create a centralized testing area. Not sure if this is just lib arts or university wide.
• Michael: Do you have suggestions regarding how to approach the administration and take some of the burden off the faculty member? Response: The committee has not yet discussed this. Personal opinion is that a centralized testing area would help.
• Comment: Another question to poll departments about is whether their testing environment is adequate for use and meets the required needs. Just because a department has an alternative testing area does not mean that it is adequate. The percentage of these students [that need alternate testing] is growing – the areas are becoming less adequate. Response: Agreed that demand is increasing. The basic letters that students who require alternate testing provide to their professors at the beginning of the semester do not provide many details regarding the specific needs of each student. Ex: – “Additional time on the exam” – it is not necessarily clear what that means. More detail would help take some of the burden off as well.
o Academic Support
 Nothing to report at this time.
o Finance
 Nothing to report at this time.
o Governance
 Update on Recommendation to Update the Complaint and Grievance Procedure for Faculty Personnel Policy
• The committee is in the process of coming up with recommended changes to the document. The need for this hinges on whether there is or is not an office of the Ombuds created. If there is, this will likely all change. We will report further once we know about the Ombuds office created.
• Michael Barnett asked Provost whether there was a timeline – Provost responded that there is not definite timeline, but we know that they are making progress.
 Update on Review of Selection of New Faculty Members and Administrators in Academic Affairs Policy
• The committee decided against making any changes to the policy at this time.
o University Services
 Update on Amendment of Existing Smoke-Free Campus Policy to Include All Use of Tobacco Products
• The Amendment was moved into discussion.
• Question: Is this a restriction a certain amount of feet away from the building as well? Response: That is not directly addressed here – personally would be fine with adding that.
• Questions: Do we have statistics on how the no smoking is being enforced? Why are we doing things that are not being enforced? If the original policy is not being followed, what is the point of amending it? Response: Because this is indoors – it is much more monitored that the outdoor portion of the policy. If we would like to investigate a resolution to increase enforcement of it, that’d be okay, but this is dealing with an entirely different issue. Michael Barnett: This would embolden Faculty as able to enforce this, indoors, in classrooms. Faculty has the right to say that the university will prohibit this.
• Question: Essentially, we’re arguing to restrict someone’s rights. When someone has a smokeless product, how does it affect others other than as a distraction? (Ex., we can restrict smoking because
of non-smokers’ right to clean air.) Response: It is similar to food and drink restriction in classrooms – there is trash and debris as a result of most smokeless tobacco. Comment: There is also a general sanitation issue. Ex., chew bags spit out into water fountains.
• Question: If this is passed, should we add a sentence to our syllabi concerning this? Response: Personally, no, I would just say verbally that it was university policy. Professors have the right to enforce University policy whether it is in their syllabus or not.
• Comment: An Academic building includes offices – personally, lots of my graduate students chew tobacco, and I do as well. I agree on the proposal for restricting it for classrooms, but not academic buildings entirely – I don’t think it’s distracting to use these products in a personal office. Proposed to limit this to “classrooms and common indoor spaces”, instead of “indoors” and instead of “classrooms and office buildings”.
o The amendment was moved into discussion.
o Q: What is “common indoor space” – are offices not included in this as well? When students come by during a professor’s office hours, is it public then? Is it hybrid? Response: You lock your office. I would say it depends on the use of the space – e.g. labs. Common spaces are lobbies, study areas, turner center. If it is your personal office, you can dictate above and beyond the university policy.
o Michael Barnett commented that he would like to remind everyone that we are not writing the policy right now. We are making a recommendation.
o Comment: Perhaps we should say “shared” instead of “common” – when a student is in an office, it is shared. When they’re not, it is not. All agreed to change it to “shared” indoor spaces.
o Questions: Why not just leave it as it was [originally] and add “but offices are at the discretion of the faculty member”.
o Comment: This language is more confusing and requires further definition. “Indoors” is straightforward, no confusion.
o Motion to vote. 12 yes to amendment. 28 no to amendment. 2 abstentions. Amendment did not pass.
• Questions: Why are e-cigarettes necessarily bad? Response: The obvious answer is that they are an immense distraction to other students. E-cigarettes are also unregulated, there is absolutely no regulation or FDA approval within the market. It is sort of the “wild west” in the product market right now.
• Question: Is that [e-cigarettes] a public or private health? Response: Both – the stuff inside the filters is toxic if it is spilled or broken, which can happen when changing the filters.
• Vote by show of hands: 35 yes. 4 no. 3 abstentions. Resolution passed.
• Old Business
o None at this time.
• New Business
o The University Services Committee was asked to explore enforcement of the smoke free campus policy.
o The University Services Committee was asked to explore adding gum to the list of items not allowed within the classroom (e.g. food and drink).
• Adjournment
o The Meeting was adjourned at 7:57 PM.