University Faculty Senate Minutes
February 10, 2015
The meeting of the University of Mississippi Faculty Senate was called together at 7:00 PM on February 10, 2015.
Senators in attendance: Rachna Prakash; Chuck Ross; Patrick Curtis; Brice Noonan; Randy Wadkins; Brad Cook; Tossi Ikuta; Feng Wang; Tom Garrett; Elliott Hutchcraft; Adetayo Alabi; Chris Offutt; Andre Liebenberg; Robert Holt; Yang-Chieh Fu; Oliver Dinius; Joshua Howard; Antonia Eliason; Dennis Bunch; Lorri Williamson; Susan Ivey; Jessica Leming; Jing Jing Wu; Dwight Frink; Milam Aiken; Christopher Newman; Sasha Kocic; Heather Allen; Valentina Iepuri; Laurel Lambert; Allison Bell; Ben Jones; Greg Love; Marilyn Mendolia; Desiree Stepteau-Watson; Marcos Mendaoza; Joe Sumrall; Rory Ledbetter
Senators excused: Adam Estes; Jos Milton.
Senators absent: Philip Jackson; Ben McClelland; Darren Grem; Vanessa Gregory; Tejas Pandya; Michael Gardiner; Erin Holmes; Mary Thurlkill; Breese Quinn; David Rutherford; Minjoo Oh; Allan Bellman; Mark Ortwein.
The following departments’ seats were unfilled as of this date: Biomolecular Sciences, Chemical Engineering, Civil Engineering, Law (2), and Pharmaceutics
Guests: Dr. Alice Clark
• Call Meeting to Order
o 7:00PM
• Approval of January 27, 2015 Minutes
o Approved
• Presentation by Dr. Alice Clark, Vice Chancellor for Research and Sponsored Programs, on Research at the University. Slides to accompany presentation.
I appreciate the invitation to be here. My presentation is aimed at discussion, and I’d like to offer my willingness to come back as often as you’d like.
When you asked me to talk, I heard there had been questions about the changing environment for research funding and the need for infrastructure and resources. I’m here to talk about how we are going to move forward and the role of ORSP.
First, I’ll touch on the state of research. I’ll give a big picture perspective of things that affect research and scholarship, both in general and things specifically, and then I’ll give a big picture of University of Mississippi research and scholarship.
We are like most research universities, in that most of our external funding is from federal sponsors, so our biggest affect is the federal R&D budget. [Slide showing graph of long-term federal R&D budget since 1977]. I’m showing this to highlight the area between 2004-2014. You can see that it goes up a little, and then levels off, and then drops. We’re in that drop. Those peaks were from the stimulus package. So, the federal R&D budget, which is driven by congressional actions, is one of our biggest challenges. They decide the budget for agencies, and so congressional actions on the budget and on things like earmarks and sequestrations affect us. Another thing in play over the last few years has been the increasing environment for regulatory and administrative requirements. The economic recession had a major impact on individuals and foundations and industry, as well. In our state, we have a lot of experience with disasters, such as Katrina, tornadoes, floods, and also the oil spill. These had a big impact on state revenue and industry. Institutions of Higher Learning have implemented concepts around a funding formula, which includes intellectual property tracking. A big impact for us is UM enrollment growth. We are one of the fastest growing according to the Chronicle of Higher Learning, which is great, but it also creates difficulties with UM infrastructure.
So what has been our total sponsored funding over the last 10 years? [Slide]. It really mirrors that 10-year federal R&D graph. This slide, by the way, is just for the Oxford campus. We have had a lowering of total project sponsored funding. Some of that is research and scholarship, but also educational, training, outreach, service.
One thing to point out is that despite the decrease or leveling off of total sponsor funding, productivity has continued to soar, and that is a testament to your commitment to research. Full time tenured faculty has also grown, but not at the pace of research scholarship. So congratulations on that.
Now, our vision for research and scholarship: This is guided by UM 2020, the university’s strategic plan. We use this plan all the time when trying to develop programs and make sure that what we do is aligned with UM 2020. Another thing that guides research is trends and opportunities, some of which we know now, and some that we will not know about until they emerge.
So, what are our three flagship goals? [Slide] 1. Establish a bold vision with great expectations. This has two parts, which are to become a top 50 public research university, and to advance to the Carnegie very high research university classification.
How do we contribute to these goals? Becoming a top 50 public research university is based on the HERD Survey. Every year, we complete that survey, but the key for this is research expenditures. This is what we expend in research and development, regardless of the source. You should be aware that there are strict guidelines about what you can count.
The second major goal of advancing to the Carnegie very high research university
classification is based on a number of things, including R&D spending in all areas, the number of post docs and non-faulty research staff with doctorates, doctoral degrees conferred, and a per capita calculation to judge importance of research within the institution.
Let’s look at the NSF-HERD Survey results from FY 2013, which are the most recent available. [Slide}. For us to make spot 50, which is held by LSU, they are reporting R&D expenditures that are double our expenditures. What is interesting is that we have more post docs for almost half the research expenditures of LSU, so we’re getting some advantage for the number of post docs we have, but to make that goal, we have to increase our R&D expenditures by more than two and half times, and everyone else has to stay the same.
So, to improve to top 50, we should include UMMC when possible; increase doctoral degrees conferred; increase post docs and research staff with doctorate;; improve tracking of R&D spending in all areas; increase sponsored funding for research and scholarship; better understand the methodology for the per capita calculation and assure standard methodology for reporting. This last one is of growing conversation nationally, because not everyone is doing this in the same way.
The third goal is research, scholarship, innovation and creativity. These objectives are included in our strategic plan, which I encourage you to read.
You are aware that the strategic planning council has asked about Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). We have proposed 3, which are total R&D expenditures; Strategic ORSP investments in research and scholarship; and Institution-wide research, scholarship, innovation, and creativity production per FTE.
What is the role of the ORSP? [Slide]. My first point is that the faculty, staff, and students make the research. We don’t- you do. Our responsibility is to support that research through services, resources, creating an environment conducive to research and scholarship, and to find opportunities for you to do so.
Overall revenue for UM FY2013 [Slide] Tuition and fees- 42%
State appropriations- 16%
Federal and state grants- 15%
Private gifts, grants, and contracts- 7%
Auxiliary enterprises- 17%
Other- 3%
Total Direct and F&A: We all have a negotiated F&A rate with the government. Remember that facility costs are real costs distributed across the university and can’t be linked to a specific project. The other thing is that we are paying for these things, and when we do a sponsored project, we can try to recover these costs at this reduced rate. Our negotiated rate for research is 44%. So then why does this graph
show we are only recovering 13%? 44% is the maximum. Direct costs are things you can’t recover, because, for example, the source may not cover some of those particular costs, some sources pay less than others, depending on the nature, so this is reflected in the different percentage rate. When all is said and done, we recover 13% F&A and 87% are direct costs. We redistribute these funds back into the university. Typical redistribution is that 55% stays in college/school, and 45% is central.
So, how do we use these funds? [Slide]. Office of the Vice Chancellor gets 18.5%. What are some of the results of the Office of the Vice Chancellor? The Interdisciplinary Research Task Force; the Research Day Task Force; the Institutionally Funded Research Task Force; the HERI survey of faculty; the MissiON Broadband Network; legislation related to federal financial aid and patent reform; and a review of president’s 2016 budget.
24% goes to Research Development. One thing we do is identify funding. Some notable examples include funding from the National Science Foundation and NIH. Faculty travel grants is a very popular program that comes out of this, as well. We are heavily involved in NSF Advance, NIH Build, NSF NRT, and the Howard Hughes Med Institute. Another thing from us is the Research Resources Directory. We also maintain institutional memberships for consortiums of interest to faculty, and do workshops for grant-writing and proposal preparation.
23.1% goes to Sponsored Programs Administration. We oversee submission of proposals and award negotiation and acceptance for projects. That’s projects, not gifts. Gifts go to the Foundation.
14.4% goes to Research Integrity and Compliance, who makes sure we have a culture of responsible conduct of research.
13.2% goes to the Division of Technology Management, which is fairly self-evident.
6.8% is for “Other”. Examples include Internet 2; support for library services; and the UM Field Station.
I also want to point out that each group has different amounts of staffing.
In conclusion, I want to highlight some of our upcoming events:
 The UM Research and Creative Achievement Award nominations deadline is March 2
 March 18-20 is a NEH Grant Workshop
 April 10 is Research Day
 September 20-22 is the SEC-U symposium in Atlanta
 The fall congressional staff reception
Comment: From the biology perspective, recruiting faculty is very hard, and since 2008 when I got here, this has improved, so thanks. We’re more competitive.
Answer: I want to thank you for that comment, on behalf of my office and the Provost.
Question: So that brings me to my question, which is that we’re growing fast, so how do you deal with that need to do this over and over? Answer: It’s a challenge. There are two issues, which are the obvious initial investment, and space, the physical infrastructure demand, which we have to think about on the student services side of things. When we can recruit people that already have success, we can leverage that. We’re always looking for ways to enhance our resources for recruiting faculty. All I can say is we try to leverage everything we can, and it’s a little scary because we’re often committing start up two or three years out and hoping we stay on track.
Question: From the opposite side, I’m not tenured yet because I’m a fairly new hire, and I’m facing problems with startup funds dwindling. The funds offered here are about a third less than those that others institutions are providing, and those funds are leaving. It looks like my funds are going to be drying up right when I come up for tenure. This is immensely stressful, and it is highly competitive. What can you say about this?
Answer: I have had the benefit of being in this position for a while, and I have been able to see when congressional actions start to change and impact agencies’ decision-making and budgets. The outlook right now is that the president’s budget was released was released last week, and it calls for increases to a lot of agencies. Plus, I see the removal of the fear around sequestrations. I’m optimistic that the pay lines will increase. I want you to know that this issue is a national conversation. I don’t have a quick answer for you, but there is a national conversation about this right now, and it’s about recognizing that we aren’t doing a good enough job catching faculty early on before leaving the field.
Question: Is there an institutional thing you can do? Answer: Yes, one thing we want to do is get you in front of your program officer and to get you out to conferences with the travel grant, so you can meet people.
Comment: I like the internal grant program because I’m in a field that is really hard to get external grants.
Answer: Yeah, that is the idea—to help those with that problem. We don’t have a lot of money at first, but these are designed to 1) bring people together to come up with ideas to go outside for money; and 2) get those one or two pieces of preliminary
data that can propel your competitiveness. Let me reiterate that there will probably not a lot of money, but we’ll help however we can.
Also remember that we offer services to oversee proposals.
Question: In humanities, we don’t need equipment. To get our research done, we need time and travel funds, so internal grants are exciting. Do you consider anything like that for those who don’t need equipment? Answer: So, most of our travel grants go to those in the humanities. And again, the internal grants program won’t have a lot of money, but apply and see. We have also tried to help with subscriptions to help.
Question: What’s the rational for splitting up funds?
Answer: One thing we’ve tried to do in the last 18 months is to see how we’re serving faculty, and we see there is a need for crosscutting in interdisciplinary ways.
Comment: I’m in the mathematics department and funding is difficult. We could really use postdoctoral fellows.
Answer: We could help you look for training grants for postdocs and grad students. We just don’t have a pool of money to support students and postdocs, though I wish we did.
Question: One slide suggested that we increase R&D by two and half. How do you propose to do that? Answer: It comes back to the point of recruiting and retaining high-quality faculty. But that requires more people working on it.
Question: What is the biggest challenge in recruiting high-quality faculty? Answer: Space and money. An increase in funding that is stable for faculty hires, and that’s back to state revenues and investments. It’s not an easy thing to do, but I can assure you that we’re working on that all the time. And of course the infrastructure. We are working on infrastructure, such as the science building, which will be a great addition.
• Senate Committee Reports
o Executive Committee
 Update on Key Performance Indicators
 The Faculty Senate has been asked to make recommendations of Key Performance Indicators, metrics that the university will use to measure its own success in the future.
Annie Davis Weber is here as a resource to answer questions.
Michael Barnett reporting: Due to tight deadlines, we will be submitting a partially completed nominations forms, which will allow us to meet the deadline (tomorrow). The four KPIs that we will be submitting follow:
Track faculty research productivity, possibly using field- and department-specific tenure and promotion guidelines as a benchmark before aggregating the numbers for the whole university.
Track student success after graduation, according to criteria that make sense for each field (or department) and then aggregate those numbers for the whole university.
Track UM faculty salaries compared to the SEC and/or SUG averages. Goal: To close the salary gap between UM and peer institutions.
Track ratio of tenure-track to non-tenure track faculty. Goal: To maintain or increase the share of tenure-track faculty.
The Strategic Planning Council will assist in completing/editing these forms (and help identify external audiences, data collection strategies, and internal responsibility). Additionally, they will discuss the path forward at the next SPC meeting on February 13 and Faculty Senate representatives will keep us apprised of the progress.
Questions? None.
o Academic Affairs
 Update on Best Practices related to Academic Discipline
 This list would suggest the appropriate disciplinary measure to take for a set of common infractions.
Breese [Quinn] is out of the country, and there is nothing to report by anyone else on the committee. We will hold until March, when Breese returns.
o Academic Support
 Update on Campus-Wide Testing Center
 Exploring the need for a campus-wide testing center open to every
Student Disability Services registered student in all academic disciplines.
Jessica Leming reporting: Stacey Reycraft (Director of Disability Services) and Dr. Brandi Hephner-Labanc (Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs) were
supposed to be here tonight, but both had conflicts and have assured us that they will be at the March meeting.
o Finance
No formal report.
o Governance
No formal report.
o University Services
 Update on University-Sponsored Childcare
 This was an item presented to the Strategic Planning Council as part of the Senate’s Faculty Excellence Task Force report in spring of 2014.
Greg Love presenting: I am here to show the proposed resolution about the university-sponsored childcare issue, based on the survey results that I showed at the last meeting. After this, I’ll show a proposed resolution about the FMLA, which came out of this discussion.
Motion to pass this resolution? Yes.
Seconded.
Discussion:
Comment: I find it hard to get to the major points in this. I wonder if we can structure this differently to highlight major issues? Better highlighting lack of childcare, for example.
Comment: The last sentence in the second paragraph “As a result…” Is that talking about diversity? Someone from my department asked how you can devote resources to gender? I think the term “diversity” would work there better.
Love: That’s language from UM 2020.
Comment: I was uncomfortable with that paragraph too, because it led us away from what this is into a broad paragraph about diversity. I’d like to strike that paragraph all together.
Motion? Yes.
Seconded.
Discussion:
Comment: Why don’t you take the other suggestion to flip it and put that paragraph last? It would follow more logically to put it elsewhere. So I oppose striking, and propose an amendment to move it instead.
Love: I will say that it wasn’t my personal addition, but my committee member put it in as a way to use language from the university.
Comment: I agree with the premise to tie it into the university initiatives, but I don’t think it adds anything here.
Comment: I support the argument that quoting university language to administration may help back it. I agree that moving it to the end may help.
Comment: I agree that that paragraph has nothing to do with childcare, and it seems like it was grabbed to make a link and the link isn’t necessarily there. I don’t think university language will make it or break it.
Comment: I disagree. Diversity is related to childcare. So, moving it to the end is what we should do.
Comment: Then I say stick something about childcare in that paragraph.
Comment: This goes back to my point that this is written in a way that is distracting to the point of the document.
Love: Childcare may not be in that paragraph, but below it, it childcare is included. So isolated, yes, but as a document, it does.
Vote on striking paragraph:
In favor: 19
Opposed: 18
Comment: I think we could add to the next sentence something about diversity? Now that everything else has been removed. Add, “The University has made diversity and gender diversity a priority” to the following sentence.
Motion to do so: Yes.
Seconded.
Discussion:
Comment: It’s not the absence of childcare that is responsible for the disparity in gender, so I don’t think this makes sense.
Comment: Yes, it does limit the focus some. Can we split that into two whereas statements.
Person who motioned accepts. Person who seconded accepts.
Discussion: None.
Vote: In favor 34
Opposed: 0
Abstaining: 2
Additional discussion?
None.
Vote: Unanimously approved.
Love: Next, I’m going to discuss the FMLA, which came from the discussion on university childcare. Our leave policy is 2 pages long, and Mississippi State University’s leave policy is 20 pages. This resolution is to ask for a more fair policy, and specifically for more transparency. Associated Provost Noel Wilkin is here to talk about this.
Wilkin: I first want to make it clear that I’m not arguing in favor or against the proposed resolution. It is important to know two things that dictate what we can give as leave. One is that the Federal Regulation requires that you offer 12 weeks unpaid, and we offer that here. The other is that our state law allows for 6 of that to be paid by applying the medical leave benefit. This is for birth, adoption, or guardianship of a foster child. If there was an issue with the woman that had a child and the physician deems it necessary for a spouse stay home with her, then the spouse can use more medical leave. Those who have personal leave can be paid by using that, though the typical faculty member does not accrue personal leave here.
Discussion: I have a problem with the whereas statement that says, “…with no consideration for parent-child bonding or mental health of the parents.” That seems a bit inflammatory. I propose that we amend this.
Motion to do so? Yes.
Seconded.
Discussion:
Comment: I’d like to clarify what I’m hearing—the FMLA doesn’t require leave without pay, it just requires leave. Pay is the employer’s choice. So the state has stepped in and said a person can use medical leave to get paid. The FMLA says when you have two married parents for childbirth, the 12 weeks
must be split, but both cannot take 12 weeks each. Part of the language for the federal government includes that it is for “bonding.” To further extend, an option women have is that they can have the physician say they have medical reason and then can tack on 6 weeks for bonding..
Love: That is not what I was told. She only gets 6 weeks for recovery.
Comment: What I’m saying is that she gets 6 for recovery, and 6 unpaid for bonding.
Love: Oh, right, only 6 is paid.
Motion to amend? Yes.
Seconded.
Comment: Now that I understand, I think it could be worded “…to the potential detriment of parent-child bonding…” I don’t know if that’s better than striking it or not.
Barnett [to the person who originally seconded]: Is this OK with you? Yes.
Seconded?
Discussion:
Wilkin: I want to be clear that the state covers 6 weeks because it is deemed medically necessary. That’s how you are paid for it.
Favor of amendment: 33
Opposed: 0
Abstentions- 3
Question: The “whereas the leave policy fails to consider…” What’s this trying to accomplish?
Love: Yeah, this is if you leave mid-semester. We need to figure out a transparent way to deal with leave like that for instructional faculty.
Question: Can you talk about your third whereas statement? I think it’s untrue.
Love: Married parents don’t get 12 weeks, but unmarried do.
Motion for amendment: “Whereas the current university policy discriminates against married parents by prohibiting both from taking [12 weeks of] leave to care for a newborn.”
Yes.
Seconded.
Barnett: One consideration is that if the university is doing what the state mandates, us passing something to change that is problematic. I’m unclear at this point what we want this resolution to do.
Love: HR never indicated to me that this is maximum allowable under state law.
Wilkin: It is mandated by state law that an employee may use up to 6 weeks. That is the law for all of the IHL institutions.
Question: Didn’t you say that other institutions have better policy? Love: They have more transparency in how leave of all types are given. Mississippi State has a 22 page document outlining the procedures for leave. We have a few pages on FMLA and that is about it.
Comment: I think the issue is of transparency, so we should clarify this. I had a C-section and came back to work after 4 weeks because I didn’t have a choice.
Question: When you say that you didn’t have a choice, is that because you had to come back to work or you felt you had to go back for students?
Comment: Because I had to teach, and no one else could do it.
Comment: I think we need to be clear that you were legally allowed the time off, but you may have felt pressure within the department, which you shouldn’t have felt. That may be what we need to focus on with this.
Comment: Medical leave is capped unless a doctor says you need additional.
Wilkin: From a legal standpoint, according to federal law, they have set the cap at 6 weeks.
Question: So, this is a cap?
Wilkin: Yes
Comment: So I don’t see anything in here saying we want you to pay more. That’s not in here.
Barnett: Yes, I don’t know how the university is supposed to respond to this. I’m still unclear on what we want this to do.
Question: Can we ask to pass something about the married versus unmarried portion? Is that something we have control over?
Barnett: I think that the whereas statement that talks about how it varies dean to dean is a big deal. [Speaking to female commenter who stated she had to come back to work after 4 weeks]: You should not have felt compelled to come back because you had the right to take the leave. We could also ask them to go to the legislator to make a change about the other portions, if that’s what we wish.
Wilkin: Also, with the two individuals, who is caring for whom? Non-married, each can take 12 weeks for care of one child. Married means the government acknowledges you as a unit, so both taking 6 equals 12.
Love: No, it’s only if they’re both working at the university. If they don’t both work here, they both get 12.
Wilkin: I think it’s the state law that dictates the married part.
Comment: FMLA does state that if two married people work for the same company, they must split the leave. The reason for that is encourage companies to hire married people. It was a political decision.
Comment: It seems to me that the issue here is we need a policy that dictates the policy internally within the legal constraints. I’m not sure this is getting at that, talking about something constant between schools and departments, expecting a parent would know what to expect, and also that deans and chairs know what their obligations are. It seems to me that we’re missing the point—we need a resolution that focuses on policies operating within legal constraints. Language like ‘nondiscriminatory” doesn’t communicate what we really need.
Love: My committee is interested in pushing the leadership to request the state to address these issues. They pushed against retirement before. So maybe this is best as two resolutions.
Question: Can I move that we table this until we figure out how we wish to proceed in a manner that is within the legal constraints?
All in favor.
o Update on Individual Parking Spaces on Campus
 Exploration of the ongoing viability of individual parking spaces on campus
Greg Love presenting: I have been told that they have no plans to reduce or remove the 120 reserved spaces, unless there is a demand reduction. With regard to the garage, 350 are for faculty and staff, and if they don’t need all of those, they will go on to students on an annual basis.
Barnett: Are we going to ask that these be stricken from campus? Greg: The committee did not seem encourage by that endeavor.
• Old Business
None
• New Business
 Exploration of the GradeBuddy Online Note Distribution System (See Attached)
o GradeBuddy.com, according to their website, “provides a platform for students to access the best study materials to help accelerate learning and increase academic success.” It is a system that allows student to sell their in-class notes via an online portal to other students. The question has been raised whether this should be considered academic misconduct and whether this represents an inappropriate use of the intellectual property of the professor.
Barnett: We are asking the Academic Affairs Committee to explore this issue.
• Adjournment
o 8:57 PM. Next meeting is March 17, 2015.