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Faculty Senate

Nov 16, 2005 Minutes

Draft Faculty Senate Minutes 11/16/05

Members present:

Chair Stone, Senators Brennan, Conroy, Hazlewood, Hindson, Homeyer, James, McCall, McKinney, Shah, Sorensen, Warms, Winek

Guests:

AVPAA Bourgeois, Clayton Medford, Univ Star

Meeting called to order at 4:00.

 

Updates:

  1. Graduate Leveling Classes: The Provost has indicated that he will circulate a memorandum regarding the background information and guidelines regarding the creation of graduate leveling classes.
  2. Summer Enrollment: AVPEM Heintze is trying to increase summer enrollment through several strategies including radio and newspaper ads.
  3. Draft Changes to Withdrawal Policy:  Current changes only apply to withdrawals associated with military service.  Still no word on changes to final drop date.
  4. Scholarship Weekend:  Feedback with regard to the over night event was not positive.  This event will probably be restructured in the future.
  5. From the President�s Cabinet: A tuition increase from $76/hr to $88/hr for fall, 2006, and student service fee increase from$47 to $98 for fall, 2008, are being recommended to the Board of Regents.  Current plans call for a general 3% merit pool, $3.2 million for additional faculty lines and $750,000 for equity adjustments in the coming year.
  6. Round Rock Monetary Incentives:  The Provost has emphasized to all deans that the $1000 per course incentive for faculty teaching at the Round Rock campus be distributed equitably.

 

�Research Faculty� PPS: The draft PPS defining �Research Faculty� has come through the Council of Deans with essentially the same wording that the Senate objected to earlier except the draft recruitment process now refers to PPS 7.02 on the hiring process.  The primary objection by the Senate was the use of the titles, Research Professor, Research Associate Professor and Research Assistant Professor, for individuals who are brought on campus without going through the same scrutiny as a real faculty members (national search, tenure and promotion hoops).  The Senate is still suggesting the word �Professor� be replaced with the word �Associate.�   The discussion focused on strategy for resistance to the current draft PPS wording.  A comment was made that ��these people are not faculty and will never become faculty.  The title, Professor, is an instructional title��  The Chair was instructed to draft wording for a formal objection to the current wording.

 

University Curriculum Committee: The Senate consider a request that a Vice Chair be created to help preserve continuity to the functions of the University Curriculum Committee (UCC).  After some discussion of whether to have the UCC make the appointment or have the Senate do it, the Senate decided to make the appointment.

Don Hazlewood, Mathematics, was appointed as the current Vice Chair of the UCC.

 

Starting Date for Faculty Contracts:  The Council of Chairs is recommending that the contract dates for faculty appointments be moved from September 1 to May 31 of each year to August 15 to May 15 to reflect the actual starting date of a faculty appointments at Texas State.  According to AVPAA Bourgeois, the change is not a big issue from a fiscal perspective.  There is possibly some increased cost, but the current practice is particularly onerous for new faculty.  They start to work before insurance benefits are available and must wait six weeks before their first paycheck.  Pros and cons were discussed.  The sense of the Senate is that it is in agreement with the change.  The administration will explore the issue to see if it can reasonably be instituted.

 

Faculty Sick Leave in Summer:  A question was raised with regard to use of faculty sick leave during the summer.  According to AVPAA Bourgeois, a faculty member must have a summer appointment to be able to use sick leave during the summer.

 

Testing, Research-Support and Evaluation Center:  The Senate has been questioning what will happen to research support provided by the Testing, Research-Support and Evaluation Center when  Dr. Paul Raffeld retires.  The administration has indicated that Dr. Larry Price, Educ Admin & Psych Services will provide such support.

 

Break:

 

New Business:

  1. Research Enhancement Proposals:  An objection was raised that the current policy of allocation of research enhancement funds to colleges based on the percentage of total available funds requested from within a college seems to adversely impact small colleges.  For example, one college with only a few proposals was not allocated sufficient funds to fully support even one proposal.  Discussion followed.  The sense of the Senate seemed to be that the guidelines have been set and should be followed at the present time with the caveat that college review committees should be very sure that all proposals that are recommended from a college are worthy of funding and no proposal should be funded just because there are funds available.  Unfortunately, when there is only enough money to fund less that 35% of the amount requested, there are always more losers than winners.  The Senate will continue to monitor the granting process.
  2. University Budget:  It was announced that the university budget is available for perusal in the library.  This led to a discussion about making the budget available on line.  The chair will ask the provost to consider posting the university budget on the web.
  3. Faculty Senate Web Page:  The opinion survey comments of deans/chairs are now password protected on the Senate web page.  A question was raised about doing the same thing with the posted faculty salary data.  Pros and cons were discussed with no resolution.  Currently faculty salary data is available on the Senate web page without password protection.
  4. Honor Council:  A request for appointments to the University Honor Council has come to the Senate.  Dr. Joe Humphrey, Accounting, and Dr. Steve Dietz, Criminal Justice were recommended.
  5. University Curriculum Committee and College Curriculum Committees:  The description and charges of the University Curriculum Committee (UCC) and the respective College Curriculum Committees (CCC) have been posted on the Faculty Senate web page.
  6. University Club Renovations:  Dr. David Lemke, Biology, brought good news about the University Club.  After a visit by President Trauth, she has decided that $100,000 will be used to renovate the University Club with new furnishing and improvements to the dungeon like hallway approaches.  The renovated club with feature a limited new menu at only a modest increase in price.  The renovation should be completed over the winter break.
  7. Purchasing Art for New Round Rock Building:  A question was raised regarding art objects for the new Avery Building at the Round Rock campus.  Supposedly there was to be a new university committee created to deal with art associated with a new building, but that seems to gotten side tracked.  What happened to the �new policy� for acquiring art for buildings?  The chair will ask.

 

Minutes:

Minutes for 11/09/05 were approved.