Faculty Senate Minutes – September 2, 2014
Senators in Attendance or Excused: Rachna Prakash, Charles Ross, Philip Jackson, Patrick Curtis, Brice Noonan, Randy Wadkins, Tossi Ikuta, Feng Wang, Tom Garrett, Elliott Hutchcraft, Adetayo Alabi, Ben McClelland, Chris Offut, Robert Hold, Yang-Chieh Fu, Oliver Dinius, Joshua Howard, Vanessa Gregory, Dennis Bunch, Lorri Williamson, Susan Ivey, Jessica Leming, Dwight Frink, Miliam Aiken, Christopher Newman, Sasha Kocic, Heather Allen, Valentina Iepuri, Adam Estes, Michael Gardiner, Jos Milton, Erin Holmes, Allison Bell, Mary Thurlkill, Breese Quinn, Greg Love, Marilyn Mendolia, David Rutherford, Desiree Stepteau-Watson, Marcos Mendoza, Allan Bellman, Joe Sumrall, Brad Cook, Andre Liebenberg, Michael Barnett
Senators Absent: Darren Grem, Jing Jing Wu, Ben Jones, Minjoo Oh, Mark Ortwein
• Call Meeting to Order
o 7:00 PM
• Approval of May 6, 2014 Minutes
o Minutes not yet received from past Secretary.
• Presentation by Provost Stocks Regarding New Vice Chancellor Position
o 7:01
o Provost read an excerpt from strategic plan for 2020 regarding task force for assessing and furthering diversity. He believes that at some point it was decided that no vice chancellor position may be created without the consent of the Faculty Senate. Cannot find documentation of this, but wanted to consult the Senate and give them the opportunity to contribute. Policy that we can find is outdated, as it requires consultation with the University Planning Council, which no longer exists. The most logical replacement would be the Strategic Planning Council—since they are the ones creating a document that calls for this position, we can assume they approve.
o Q: How will it impact Don Cole’s position? (Multicultural Affairs) Will there be overlap? A: Well, there is a possibility Don will apply for this new position. The Chancellor would allow the new vice chancellor to define/redefine Don Cole’s role.
o Q: What is the exact name of the position? A: Vice Chancellor-Level Position for Diversity and Inclusion. We are hesitant to define further until we know the skill set.
o Q: What’s the current number of vice chancellors? A: Four – less than when I (Provost) started.
o Comment: Initial response is that it seems redundant. We just created the Center for Inclusion and Cross Cultural Engagement. I’m unclear of what they will be doing that is not covered by positions already in place. Also, this position seems that it will thrive only if there are continued incidents happening – is there really a positive job description for this? Response: This position would hopefully have budget authority to help recruit a diverse faculty and perhaps diverse doctoral students. Responsibility for leadership in unpleasant situations, yes. But based on his/her skill set may have other responsibilities.
o Q: So it’s safe to say that there is still direction to be determined by who fills the position? A: I would agree with that, yes. The first and primary responsibility being diversity and inclusion. Response: And that’s enough to create a new vice chancellor? A: Can I just say yes? We can see connections – multicultural affairs, global engagement, Center for Inclusion, diversity office— that might be reasonable to group into a larger unit that this person oversees. I do not think that we will be unique in this.
o Q: To what extent are we bound to the 2020 plan? A: We are fairly committed. The council so far has primarily discussed how to address these. Each year they report on the strategic plan to help track progress, prioritize, and reevaluate.
o Comment: It seems strange to hire without a specific job description. What is seems like, basically, is that we’re not sure what we want, but this consultant says we should have it, so let’s hope we find someone who has a skill set we could use. Response: The Chancellor’s report regarding this says that the Provost will create a specific portfolio for the new position. I do not know what’s in that portfolio yet. No one person devotes most of his time to these issues right now. This is also an effort to raise these efforts to a slightly higher profile. It would be nice to have someone fully engaged in addressing this.
o Comment: Each Vice Chancellor oversees some significant fraction of activity at university. Is there enough personnel or effort to justify creating a new Vice Chancellor position and, frankly, paying someone at this level? When amount of activity has grown to large…yes. Is that the case?
A: Or if the cultural climate demands. I am hesitant to suggest what the portfolio might be right now. For example, I haven’t spoken to Director of the Center for Inclusion, etc. about having a new boss! But I predict that there may be as many as six depts./units related to diversity and inclusion. What might those units be? Center for Inclusion…Office of Global Engagement…William Winter Institute…our hope is to find a person totally committed, and then someone says oh by the way I have this other skill set that is very useful!
o Comment: I just googled the position, and we’re not the only ones. I do support the idea.
o Michael Barnett: An example of a time when a person in this position would have been pertinent is the incident last year at a performance of The Laramie Project. The Bias Incident Response Team was working multiple hours a day for 6 weeks dealing with how to handle it. We absolutely could have used that person in this situation—and this is not an isolated incident on this campus. I think the fact the position exists will help those that are underrepresented. I think there are a lot of positives potentially inherent in having a position like this on campus.
o Comment: I’vebBeen here since ’95 and have been pushing something like this since then. We continually have racial incidents. Point is well taken. What are we doing about this as an institution? Do we tolerate it? Are we trying to be proactive, to create something that at least has some teeth that could create policy – hire staff – actually address some of these issues. I think we should have done this 10-15 years ago. We’ve got to be very serious, we have to show we have moved forward. Don Cole is a person, not an office. He has very limited resources. We make all these excuses…we have to do something beyond. Comment: I thought we had done that Center for Diversity and Inclusion… There is an entire position that’s been created there…I thought that was her sole responsibility. Comment: No, that office is to create programs for students. Provost: This will help on a larger scale. You know, we spend money on PR all the time for the sake of positivity. This is a good investment.
o Comment: We have a history we live and cope with, some is nature and some is our cultural history. Someone unfamiliar with who we are as an institution…there is a little bit of a concern with the concept of alignment. Boil it down, it’s easy for any institution to lose sight and start folding in initiatives.
o Comment: This position seems to run across domains of other Vice Chancellors. Each VC has a very specific sect of the university that they oversee, but this position seems to overlap. Response: Not all of the Vice Chancellors report directly to the Chancellor. Some
of them report to me (provost). I could see how it could cross lines between Academics, Services, etc., but all will be housed within the provost office.
• Elections
o 7:36
o Chair of the Senate
 Nominate Michael Barnett, second. Michael accepts the nomination. No other nominations. Motion to be elected by acclamation. Moved and Seconded.
o Vice-Chair of the Senate
 Nominate Oliver Dinius, second. Oliver accepts the nomination. No other nominations. Motion to be elected by acclamation. Moved and Seconded.
o Secretary of the Senate
 Nominate Susan Ivey, second. Susan accepts the nomination. No other nominations. Motion to be elected by acclamation. Moved and Seconded.
• Old Business
o None
• New Business
o 7:41
o Faculty Senate Representative to the Strategic Planning Council (we need one additional representative)
 The University’s Strategic Planning Council is the University’s advisory body on institutional planning. The Council brings together representatives of various constituencies to promote a broader consideration of campus-wide strategic initiatives of major scope and importance that often include more than one division.
• Dwight Frink volunteered.
o Faculty Senate Representative to the Faculty and Staff Appeals Committee
 The Faculty and Staff Appeals Committee shall hear and make final decisions on appeals from faculty and staff members on matters unrelated to tenure, promotion, other academic matters or pay/salary adjustments. This committee will hear appeals from faculty and staff concerning matters such as traffic violations, housing, bursar bills, and smoking violations.
• Erin Holmes volunteered.
• Election of Committee Chairs
o 7:52
o Committees Breakout for Elections
 Academic Affairs
• Breese Quinn
 Academic Support
• Jessica Leming
 Finance
• Tom Garrett
 University Services
• Greg Love
 Faculty Governance
• Randy Wadkins
• Adjournment
o Next meeting is Tuesday, September 16th at 7:00 PM.
o 8:00