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April 18, 2001 Minutes

 

Senators Present: Hays, Brennan,Blanda, Blevens, Gillis, McKinney, Peeler, Skerpan-Wheeler, Reese, Renick, Sawey , Stimmel, and Stone

Guests: Bill Covington and Mike Moore

Meeting was called to order by Senate Chair Hays at 4:00 p.m.

I.  Bill Covington, Assoc. VP for Research and Sponsored Programs, discussed  a new policy being developed dealing with indirect costs, as well as the status of the rewrite of the Research Enhancement Grants policy.
Information Shared Regarding Indirect Cost Policy
     ï The SWT research enterprise has doubled in the five-year period (1996 to  2001) growing from $16,700,000 to
       $35,640,000 with 240 accounts.
     ï $870,000 in indirect costs were realized in fiscal year 2000
     ï Approximately $200,000 from indirect costs was returned to deans, on a pro- rata basis, to support research.
     ï Indirect Costs (IC) will in the future be referred to as Facilities and  Administration (F& A).  The law allows an
        institution to  recover 46% if total  modified costs for a campus project and 28% for an off-campus project. Some state
        and federal agencies allow 0% to 8% indirect cost recovery.  SWT currently  averages about 20% recovery for indirect
        costs.  Thus, SWT must make up for  the differences that funding agencies do not.
     ï Dr. Covington recognized the need to improve both the pace and efficiency of  recovering IC/F&A funds.  The new
        SWT policy addresses among other things  ways of recovering funds, the percentages of indirect costs to be returned
        to  deans, chairs, principal investigators (PS), Centers, and Institutes. The policy is  close to being finalized with a
        hoped for implementation date of October 2001.
     ï The SWT policy must be in compliance with Federal Guidelines whether the  granting entity is federal, state, or
        private. This includes some rather stringent  guidelines regarding using human and animal subjects.

Questions: Due to lack of space on campus, is it better to do research-off campus?
Answer: It depends. Some grants allow you to add the cost of leasing space and thus the grant pays for it. It also depends on the nature of the research and the hardship it causes faculty and students to travel to the off-campus site.  Money is not the major issue.  The true issue is the affect on the quality of the research.

Concern: The difficulty of getting grants through the approval system and then administering them was noted.
Answer: The issue of barriers in grant writing are being addressed by those responsible for grant approval and they are aware of these concerns.  One suggestion would be to move the offices in closer proximity of each other.  They are also working on having a joint web page with all the pre-approval and post-award activities more easily assessable.

Question: Account procedures for grants administration are problematic (e.g., money removed from account without PI being informed).
Answer: People are ware of this concern, and we are developing new account procedures Öwhich may take several years.

Information Shared Regarding Research Enhancement Grants Policy
     ï  The committee is streamlining the process--need one to two more meetings to  complete the task.  The proposal should
        be submitted to the Faculty Senate at  the May 9th meeting.  The new  plan encourages people to do research and
        should  be ready for fall implementation.

II.  Developmental Leave Ranking Process
The Faculty Senate discussed whether to submit rankings, composite scores and/or "met criteria" "did not meet criteria" statements to the VPAA and/or applicants.  President Hays noted that the Faculty Handbook (Article IX, p.68) stated t the Faculty Senate would submit both rankings and composite scores.  The Senate decided to send the applicant a statement that criteria were met and the proposal was going forward for funding..

5 p.m. Break

5:10 p.m. Announcements from Chair Hays
         1. The Senate elections are completed:  Senators Brennan, Renick, and Reese   were re-elected.  Ted Hindson will
             replace Senator Skerpan-Wheeler who is  stepping down.
         2. Next week the Curriculum committee will be presenting 8 proposals.
         3. In the CAD meeting it was announced that reimbursement checks will now be  directly deposited into your bank
             account.
 
III. Academic Honesty Policy
An ad hoc committee began in December and finished their work in April.  The charge of the committee was to modify the honor code with implementation to occur over an extended period of time.  The committee heard witnesses, made conference calls, conducted research, etc,. to complete the task.  The committee is recommending a two year process for implementing a Modified Honor Code which is primarily written and enforced by students. The committee found that "awareness is the biggest deterrent" to violations of the Honor Code.  The Senate commended the committee for its documentation and rationale provided in the document.  The report in now an action item on the PAAG agenda and was given to the President.

IV. Chair Hays asked if the minutes for the April 11th meeting should have the abstracts for developmental leaves added and the Senate agreed to do so.  With that addition, the minutes for the April 11th meeting were approved.

5:45 p.m. Adjourned