Faculty Senate Minutes – April 10, 2018

Attendance:

Present:

Staley Lantagne, Stephen Monroe, Aileen Ajootian, Zachary Kagan Guthrie, Mary Roseman, Younghee Lim, Gary Theilman, Sara Wellman, Ana Velitchkova, Brad Jones, Thomas Peattie, Rory Ledbetter, Mantrel Langle, Joan Wylie Hall, Lei Cao, Dennis Bunch, Jeffrey Pickerd, Byung Jang, Deborah Mower, Marcos Mendoza, Antonia Eliason, Chalet Tan, Jessica Essary, Patrick Alexander, Robert Hunt, Sumali Conlon, Enrique Cotelo, Tossi Ikuta, Adam Gussow, Tejas Pandya, April Holm, Cecelia Parks, Andrew Lynch, KoFan Lee, Jennifer Gifford, Tim Nordstrom, Kyle Fritz, Marilyn Mendolia, Mark Ortwein, Amy Gibson, Randy Watkins, Breese Quinn, Nancy L. Wicker, Kimberly Kaiser, Chris Mullen, Meagen Rosenthal, Brice Noonan, Stacey Lantagne

Excused:

Brenda Prager, Vivian Ibrahim

Absent:

Roy Thurston, Cesar Rego, Zia Shariat-Madar, Byung Jang, Ethel Scurlock, Alysia Steele, John Berns, Martial Longla, Stephen Fafulas, Robert Cummings

Call Meeting to Order
- Called to order 6:00
Head count
- A quorum is present
Approval of March 6 2018 Minutes
- Motion for approval: Michael Barnett
- Second: Amy Gibson
- Passed by acclimation
Committee Reports
- Academic Instructional Affairs
  - Nothing to report
- Academic Conduct
  - Nothing to report
- Finance & Benefits
  - Nothing to report
- Development & Planning
  - Nothing to report
- Governance
  - Nothing to report
- Research & Creative Achievement
  - Nothing to report
- University Services
  - Nothing to report
- Executive Committee
  - Faculty Senate structure developed to assist with reporting within various University sitting committees
    - Communication from executive committee members to senators siting on various committees periodically (1–2 times/year unless reports are otherwise made)
- Old Business
  - None
- New Business
  - Senate Election update
    - 6/36 seats filled; 4 pending scheduled meetings
  - Senate representatives to Chancellor’s Standing Committees
    - 3/19 seats filled
  - Internal search for Associate Dean for Diversity and Inclusion in the College of Liberal Arts (CLA)
    - Please spread the word with in the CLA for qualified applicants
  - Syllabus bank resolution passed by ASB
    - Encourage everyone to let faculty in your department know this is going on. Please let Brice know if you have any feedback (bnoonan@olemiss.edu)
    - Q: Do we know whether the syllabus bank would be closed or open?
      - A: I don’t think this has been decided yet. The ASB has requested a university wide syllabus bank. How that will be implemented has not yet been decided. If there is an interest to keep it internal to the university the provost would be willing to hear more about it.
    - Comment: I would advocate for it being closed. I think someone outside of the university may misinterpret the content of the course based on titles.
    - Comment: There are also personal issues, like being away for conferences that we would not want to be made public.
      - R: It is possible that the syllabi will not be current to the specific semester.
    - Comment: Many of our courses are already closed to anyone who is not a major. Maybe they are less applicable.
    - Comment: In our area we have accreditation syllabi that are available that would work.
    - Comment: I was just trying to line this up with current state law, wherein we already have to provide this material
      - R: That may be only current materials, not everything ever offered is there.
  - Revision of Bylaws
    - Motion (Brice Noonan): I move that the Faculty Senate approve the proposed revisions to the Faculty Senate bylaws distributed to the senate on 4/4/2018 with adoption of said changes pending approval of a revision of the constitution with consistent language in a meeting of the faculty.
    - Second: Antonia Eliason
    - Discussion:
      - Initial comment: The intention is to work through the proposed changes to the bylaws. Note that there are a number of things that popped up as we started to look more closely at the document. We have tried to address all of these inconsistencies as part of this process.
      - Q: Why do the bylaws specify the “Oxford” campus (Article II)?
        
        A: Traditionally faculty senate has not represented the regional campuses nor the Jackson campus.
        
        Tony Ammeter : I don’t know about the Jackson campus, but I do support the representation of the regional campus faculty on the faculty senate. They are technically part of the department from which they come on the main campus.
      - Q: What is the justification for not representing regional campus faculty?
        
        A: We don’t actually know, our history of these decisions does not go back that far.
      - Q: Could the first edit to the University of Mississippi cause a problem with the UMMC?
        
        Motion to strike the amended language (Michael Barnett)
        
        Seconded: Unknown
        
        Discussion:
        
        Comment: I think we leave it as it is now. So I proposed we leave the deletion of the Oxford campus.
        
        To clarify–We are discussing the first edit for now
        
        Question: I think the first deletion is about where we meet, while the second is about who has standing to be represented on the senate.
        
        Comment: The way that I am reading this right now it is a sentence fragment.
        
        Vote:
        
        Undelete edit 1:
        
        6 in favor
        
        23 opposed–deletion remains
        
        Breese Quinn Motion: I propose that we delete from the comma after “MS” through to the end of the current sentence. And including the verb “is” after the word organization (Article II).
        
        Second: Chris Mullen
        
        Q: Why would we like to take that out?
        
        A: Because that phrase only applies to the faculty senate
        
        R: I though it references us back to the name of the constitution
        
        F/U: If that is the case I withdraw the motion but leaving the second.
        
        F/U: Friendly amendment to keep formally deleted language, but keep the “is”
        
        Q: Will there be an opportunity to correct grammatical error?
        
        R: Yes
        
        Vote:
        
        In favor: 38
        
        Opposed: 0
    - Article III

Here we have amended the eligible faculty. We have referenced

the Faculty Titles and Ranks Policy

2015 to assist with the legacy

tracking

of the document.

Q: The term “budget listed” is not comfortable.

Why not just use

the term FTE?

A: These are referring to people who represent a line item

within the overall institutional budget.

F/U: If we got rid

of that I am afraid that it has

consequences that I may not understand.

Comment: With this inclusion of non

–

tenure FTE in the

senate, the body of people that are part

–

time are smaller.

F/U: They will be represented as

part

of the faculty

senate, but can n

ot serve.

F/U: They are also not counted as part of the

department

F/U: Was there any discussion about whether or not

people on

temporary funding

would be able to

serve?

R: If they are full time, they would be able

to serve if they met the other time

req

uirements.

F/U: I am not talking about soft money, but

positions for which we have to request

funding each year.

Q: I wondered why visiting faculty member can not be counted for

eligible faculty? I understand the serving capacity, but they are not

counted

as part of the census.

This has to do

with the

situation of the person not the

actual line

within the budget.

Secretary’s note: Multiple commenters asking

questions about the definitions of faculty within the

Titles and Ranks Document

F/U: I

feel

the visiting faculty implies that there

is an end date and they are coming here from

another institution. This is not there home.

F/U: There is nothing in the language of the

policy that prevents them from holding a

tenure track position. But I don’

think

that’s

what we are trying to do here.

Motion

Rory Ledbetter

: to strike visiting

faculty from this list

Second:

Michael Barnett

Comment: T

hey may not be well

–

defined within the titles document,

but I do not like counting them in the

census for the facult

y senate. The

way it is currently defined in way

that suggests that they have

not

invested themselves within the

institution. If the definition is not

clear, that should be adjusted, or a

new title be created.

Comment: I think striking the term

goes along

with what we are tying to

do with making this document more

inclusive.

Comment: T

here ha

ve been

individuals within the T

heatre

Arts

epartment who

have been very

invested in the D

epartment

regardless of title. Saying that we

should not have visiting facu

lty

listed

goes against that idea.

F/U: T

o clarify I was not

talking about individual

people, but rather the spirit of

the

visiting

faculty position.

Comment: Maybe we should

move away from the

ind

ividual discussion.

Separate our

mental states,

but rathe

r focus on the

intention of the program.

Comment: If we want t

focus on the definitions in the

itles document there is no

time limit listed. Nor is there

a time for Writers or Artists

in R

esidence.

Comment: If departments

want to decide that visiting

aculty member should

represent them on senate,

they should be allowed to do

that.

Striking visiting faculty

In favor: 15

Opposed: 20

Visiting faculty stays

Motion

Rory Ledbetter: T

strike

Writers and Artists in Residence

Second: Marcos Mendoza

Comment: If

we leave this comment

in and there is a tenure

track faculty

member who is an Artist in

esidence we will create a conflict

within out document.

Comment: can we just remove items

–

5 and

just let the department

decide?

Q: Can we get some clarity on the

irit of these job titles?

onna

trum

: They are considered

faculty, but the intention was that

they move on at some point.

Q: T

he senator represents all eligible

faculty within their department?

A: They represent all faculty

F/U: I have a clarifying

quest

ion, if we represent all

faculty, even though they

can’t serve, why don’t they

all count in the census?

F/U

: The intention comes

from the responses from

departments that was

circulated earlier. There was

no support for counting them

as part of the census.

Comment: For clarification

someone cannot serve unless

they have been employed for

one year. So

I am unsure

how this could fit for people

who are visiting here for two

years.

To be clear we are talking

now about who can serve.

Vote:

In f

avor: 13

Oppos

ed: 21

Motion Ana Velitchkova: T

o strike faculty that are not

full

–

time

faculty

Second

Marcos Mendoza

Comment: I think this goes back to departmental freedom to

choose who they want to represent them

Comment: Since this is the metric that defines the cen

sus, I think it

would be fairer and more just to include part

–

time faculty

Comment: Whe

n the Taskforce for Non

–

tenure Track F

aculty met

with us in Jan I made the comment we are not impeding their

ability to participate

in shared governance

. If we vote on

anything

that doesn’t match with their initial proposal we will be preempting

their participation in the shared

governance

process. I think we

should give their initial motion a vote and then potential

move

forward with an alternative.

Q: Is there a mec

hanism for getting sense of the feelings of the

wider faculty?

A: W

e have tried to do that with polling of faculty and

reporting to this body.

F/U: W

hether or not we follow what w

as proposed

by the task

–

force, i

f this body sees a need for

something to be

addressed, I don’t feel like it is

appropriate for this body to do nothing.

Comment:

So,

when you examined the

responses

that departments fed back to you there was not

support for inclusion of non

–

full

–

time

faculty.

Comment: I don’t mean to pick apart you

language, but I do not think it is “welcoming” all

members of the faculty to start to stating who does

not count for representation.

Secretary’s note: multiple conversations unable to distinguish

Comment: In the numbers you sent out it

was 15 that respon

ded. How many

departments are there?

F/U: I believe there are somewhere

in the neighborhood of 35.

Non

–

senator member: I

n this hypothetical

discussion, why not leave it to the wisdom

of units to make the decision. I

reality how

often would it be that a pa

–

time person be

elected to the senate.

I don’t see why in a

representative democracy why the unit can’t

make those decisions for themselves.

F/U: I think that a lot of units rely on

this body to guide decisions. I wish