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Feb 19, 1997 Minutes



Present: Bible, Bourgeois, Caverly, Deduck-Evans, Ford, Hays, Horne,
Hunter, McGee, Pascoe, Sawey, Simpson, Stimmel, Weller, and Winek.

Guests: Profs. Robert Habingreither, Andy Batey, David Hanzel, Warren
Mack, V. Sriraman, (Technology); William Griffin, Leigh Kilman, Sheila
Torres-Blank, Margaret Vaverek (Library); Mike Moore, Dylan Sides
(University Star), Shirley Pilus.

CONTENTS:

SUBCOMMITTEE ON LIBRARIANS' SALARY AND STATUS
TECHNOLOGY DEPT. CONCERN (Prof. Winek)
BONUS PAY
NEW BUSINESS
MINUTES OF 2/5/97 AND 2/12/97

The meeting was called to order at 4:05, Chair Bible presiding.

SUBCOMMITTEE ON LIBRARIANS' SALARY AND STATUS

Last week Prof. Ford distributed two requests from University
Librarian Joan Heath to the Senate: (1) To request that the Library be
included in the new staff salary equity study which PC is requesting due to
attrition in the University Police Dept. and other areas, and (2) To ask
the Senate to assist in distributing a Library Users' Survey to faculty.

The Senate voted unanimously to do the above. (1) Chair Bible
will immediately notify PC that we want the Library included in this staff
salary study, given career-ladder librarian attrition rate due in large
part to pay. (2) The Senate will distribute the Library Users' Survey and
our cover letter with the up-coming ballot.

TECHNOLOGY DEPT. CONCERN (Prof. Winek)

The Senate was told that two weeks ago the chairs of Technology
and Art & Design were informed of a new building which would house both
depts., require some shared labs (e.g. photography), put much of the Art
space in windowless below ground rooms (drawing and painting classes need
natural light), locate the kiln and sculpture area in a lower level open court
(allowing the smoke and noise to ascend upward to classrooms), and throw
together two depts. with very different philosophies and modus operandi (as
outlined in the memo of 2/14/97 from Technology to the Senate). The
building design was prepared by JPJ Architects with apparent support from
Ed Reznicek (Dir. Campus Construction) and Bill Nance (VPFSS) and other
administrators. The aim was to save money and put Technology closer to the
Science Bldg. because of the upcoming superconductor, it appears. The
consequences for two depts. with regard to facility needs and academic
missions were not addressed with those depts. The Senate was told that this
is on fast-track with the depts. asked this week to submit their facility
needs by this Friday--this after preliminary building plans have been drawn.

In the heated discussion various Senators described how their
depts. had been involved in long and tedious planning for every detail of
the dept.'s needs when their buildings were remodeled or built. Now two
seemingly unlike depts. may be thrown together into a building they had no
say in. The faculty and chairs of the two depts. oppose this. Dean Martin
opposes and Dean Cheatham wants to see more details and discussion, we were
told.

After several draft propositions the Senate approved the following
motion: The Senate unanimously opposes the hurried decision to consolidate
the Art & Design and Technology Building without procedural consultation of
both the faculties and proper consideration of their academic and other
needs.

VPSSA Nance was already on next week's agenda for something else
and we will ask him, and Mr. Reznicek, to discuss this surprising new issue
with us.

BONUS PAY

Carried over from last week (and last year) is the question of
allocation of the $360,000 which is supposed to go to faculty salaries.
The Senate survey of faculty on merit v. bonus last year indicated the
faculty are overwhelmingly for merit (which gets added to the base); the
Council of Chairs (19 to 1) and the Faculty Senate (unanimous) were for
rolling this money into merit rather than bonus. The Council of Academic
Deans favors bonus, in a split decision. A new vote from the Council of
Chairs received 2/18/97 indicates the following:

"The Council of Chairs recommends that bonus money go into the
merit pool." (19 yes, 1 no, 1 abstention) Chairs then voted 17 yeas, 3
no, 1 abstention in favor of the following motion: "If the notion of merit
is rejected, we endorse large bonuses of at least $5,000 based on
university-wide criteria for awards such as professorships."

After our zillionth discussion on this the Senate voted unanimously
on the following motion: "The Senate reiterates our previously stated
position in favor of putting the bonus money into the merit pool."

It was further agreed that if the bonus program were put into
effect (there is no consensus on how from faculty or adm.), we would like
to return next year to examine how this was done, effects, etc.

NEW BUSINESS

The Faculty Research Committee topic will RTA in two weeks, due to
the difficulty of getting everyone involved here at the same time.

MINUTES OF 2/5/97 AND 2/12/97

The minutes of 2/5/97 were approved as read. The minutes of
2/12/97 were approved with the inclusion that Prof. Sawey asked VPAA Gratz
what about the three-year terms for chairs that had been discussed earlier.
VPAA Gratz said this was not on the Adm. agenda--which was not what the
Senate had understood and our Administrative Evaluation Subcommittee is
working on that very question, among others.

The meeting adjourned at 5:40.

Ramona Ford

Secretary