Faculty Senate Minutes
September 1, 2015
Meeting convened Tuesday, September 1, 2015 at 7:00pm by Michael Barnett, Chair of the Faculty Senate.
Senators in attendance: Rachna Prakash, Charles Ross, Kris Belden-Adams, Patrick Curtis, Brice Noonan, Robert Doerksen, Sasan Nouranian, Greg Tschumper, Brad Cook, Tossi Ikuta, Feng Wang, Tom Garrett, Richard Gordon, Adetayo Alabi, Dan Novak, Jay Watson, Andrew O-Reilly, Yang-Chieh Fu, Oliver Dinius, Noell Wilson, Jim Lumpp, Antonia Eliason, Stacey Lantagne, Dennis Bunch, Ashley Dees, Savannah Kelly, Kristin Rogers, Milam Aiken, Lifeng Yang, Sasha Kocic, Tejas Pandya, Heather Allen, Amy Fang-Yen Hsieh, Adam Estes, Michael Gardiner, Mary Roseman, Michael Repka, Meagan Rosenthal, Travis King, James Bos, Breese Quinn, Ben Jones, Danielle Maack, Jody Holland, Amy Fisher, Marcos Mendoza, Minjoo Oh, Allan Bellman, Mark Ortwein, Joe Sumrall, Michael Barnett
Senators excused: Ann Fisher-Worth
Senators absent: Ahmed Al-Ostaz, Darren Grem, Lorri Williamson
The Senate was welcomed by Michael Barnett as current chair of the Faculty Senate.
Approval of May 5, 2015 Minutes
Minutes of May 5, 2015 meeting were approved by the Faculty Senate as a whole without comment.
Presentation by Provost Noel Wilkin on Recent Changes That Have Occurred Within the Administration
Provost Noel Wilkin presented on recent changes that have occurred in the administration, noting several retirements and several vacant positions that are to remain vacant until the Chancellor search is completed. Tony Ammeter was appointed on an interim basis as Associate Provost, Director of Outreach and Dean of General Studies. The search to fill that position will commence once the Chancellor search is completed. There is also an interim executive director of alumni affairs, which is pending the completion of the Chancellor search.
Provost Wilkin also announced a number of changes in the deanships and directorships across the university, including the appointment of several interim deans. Dean Julie Rholes, Dean of Libraries, is retiring but has agreed to stay on. The search for a replacement will be commencing immediately and the hope is to avoid having to appoint an interim dean. There is an interim director for the Ford Center for the Performing Arts. The hope is that a new director will be appointed starting from January 1, 2016. The search for a new Director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning was unsuccessful, so the search will be restarted for this position, with the committee being reformed. The law school currently has an interim dean with no search planned at the moment. The plan is to stabilize enrollment at the law school before undertaking a search. There is an interim director for the Center for Manufacturing Excellence. The plan is to establish a search committee for this position. The Center for Intelligence and 1
Security Studies has an interim director. The Executive Director of the Croft Institute retired, but is continuing to work as director as a retiree. The Director of Institutional Research is being filled by an interim after a failed search. No search is planned at this time until the Chancellor search is completed.
Q: What happened about the search for Vice Chancellor of Diversity that was going on last year?
A: Thought right now is to wait until the Chancellor search is done to continue the search for this position. There are some discussions taking place but no decisions are being made.
Q: What about strategic planning?
A: Departmental and unit-level/school-level strategic planning is ongoing, with a view to tying it to the budget process.
After Provost Wilkin’s presentation, Chairman Barnett noted that there is Faculty Senate participation needed on the search committees. He took the opportunity to ask for volunteers for each of the committees.
Search committee for the Dean of Libraries. Faculty Senator volunteered.
Search committee for the Director of the Center for Manufacturing Excellence. Faculty Senator volunteered.
Search committee for the Director of the Ford Center for the Performing Arts. Faculty Senator volunteered.
Presentation by Associate Provost Maurice Eftink Regarding Attendance Verification and the Task Force to Review Faculty Titles, Rights and Responsibilities
Attendance Verification
Origins of the new attendance verification policy are in an audit conducted by the US Department of Education. After audit, they made a couple of recommendations which we need to comply with. First, the University didn’t have a way to verify attendance of students who book courses and receive financial aid to make sure that they are actually there. Second, the DOE also noted that we lacked a way to show whether students who receive an F in fact received it for failure to show up.
The University of Mississippi has implemented a social media campaign to encourage students to go to class. The requirement for faculty is that for each of their courses, including special topics courses, or dissertation courses, they must go to MyOleMiss and click a box indicating that they have verified attendance for everyone and then uncheck anyone they haven’t seen. You must report that the person exists – have you seen them? There are two weeks to report through this interface. In the third week, there will be follow up to make sure there is data for all registered students. On the first day of the fourth week, a list of all students who are not verified will be created, and they will be dropped from their courses.
Q: Is it OK to email a student to verify that they are going to be attending the course?
A: The concern of the government is that there are students registering, taking their financial aid, and leaving. The concern is the accountability issue. When you are determining attendance, you need to ask yourself could they be in Hawaii?
Q: Does this include attendance verification for dissertation hours?
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A: The policy is across the board – so it’s not just for students seeking financial aid. So even if the student is only in research hours, attendance verification still needs to take place. You don’t have to physically see the student – you may speak to them on the phone or email. There is work to make a better system for these cases. For now, if you know they are based elsewhere and just working on their dissertation, go ahead and mark them as here. We are also putting a system in place so that if you give an F you can indicate if this is an attendance or a performance F.
Distinguished Professor Title
A couple of years ago a task force was put together on faculty titles, rights and responsibilities. Last spring, a new policy was approved on faculty titles and ranks. One of the things it called for is that every faculty member, including non-tenure track faculty, have a promotion route. Another recommendation of the task force was creation of another promotion rank. This would be a distinguished full professor – other universities have ranks such as this. Basically, it would be a more selective promotion step.
There would hopefully be a review process with the Faculty Senate. Some of the issues discussed by the committee were how to make it selective, what is the eligibility. The proposal is that it would be a permanent title, and there would only be a certain number selected each year. The proposal was circulated to the Faculty Senate.
Associate Provost Eftink suggested this would be a good way to retain faculty, since it increases the options for someone once they reach full professorship. This would help research and academic life.
Q: The document proposes 5 appointments per years. Wouldn’t this be better as a percentage?
A: We started with percentages. We wanted to get the policy out and moving, and do welcome friendly amendments – we foresaw that there might be amendments as the process gets moving. This is not meant to replace named professorships. This would be a standard faculty promotion rank, eligible to all people who meet the criteria.
Q: Concerning the timing component, there is a discussion of formation of a committee to determine who receives the title?
A: The sense is this would follow very much along the same route as promotion to full professor in any school, but there is the possibility of the Provost forming any committee they want.
This is meant to be a selective promotion for really outstanding faculty.
Q: Can you comment on the Barnard professorship and why it was retired?
A: I don’t know why it was retired and whether the money that existed for this is not longer available. We didn’t want to get into the level that would cause this to be hung up – generally just wanted to suggest promotion that would be good for the faculty.
Q: What was the rationale? Is there attrition? Is there monetary benefit?
A: Sense is that a lot of people who come here and become full professor tend to stay here in part because of isolation of campus. On monetary amount we haven’t gone into the details.
Q: Is this geared towards teaching, or is it also for research?
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A: This is for a combination of research, teaching and service – so it can be being exemplary in all three, or two out of three. This is open to interpretation. This is an overarching proposal and not that specific.
Q: Would the salary increase require IHL Board approval?
A: Not sure. When we go outside of a certain pay level, it needs approval. But this might not require IHL Board approval.
Chairman Barnett noted that we will discuss this further at our September 15, 2015 meeting.
Elections
Chairman Barnett read out from the Constitution of the Faculty Senate concerning the role of the Faculty Senate and noting its importance and the strong relationship the Senate has had with the administration in the last few years. He encouraged Senators to be proactive and to share with colleagues in their departments what is discussed in the Faculty Senate meetings. He also encouraged Senators to bring ideas and thoughts of colleagues to the attention of the Faculty Senate.
Chair of the Senate
• Michael Barnett (Theatre Arts) nominated. Seconded. Senator Barnett accepts the nomination. No other nominations. Motion to be elected by acclamation. Moved and seconded.
Vice-Chair of the Senate
• Oliver Dinius (History) nominated. Seconded. Senator Dinius accepts the nomination. No other nominations. Motion to be elected by acclamation. Moved and seconded.
Secretary of the Senate
• Antonia Eliason (Law) nominated. Seconded. Senator Eliason accepts the nomination. No other nominations. Motion to be elected by acclamation. Moved and seconded.
Old Business
Last year the Faculty Senate voted to appoint a task force on high quality, affordable child care. Lee Tyner is chairing. Faculty Senate will be represented by Noell Wilson and Antonia Eliason, as well as Susan Grayzel from the Isom Center.
New Business
There was no new business.
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Election of Committee Chairs
The session broke out into committee meetings to elect new committee chairs. The following is a list of committee with their chairs:
General Academic Affairs: Breese Quinn (Physics)
Academic Support Affairs: Kristin Rogers (Library)
Finance: Travis King (Pharmacy Practice)
Governance: Robert Doerksen (BioMolecular Sciences)
University Services: Brice Noonan (Biology)
Adjournment
The meeting was adjourned.
Next meeting is Tuesday, September 15, 2015 at 7:00pm.
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