Feb 28, 2007 Minutes

Chair Stone, Senators Brennan, Conroy, Davidson, Feakes, Hazlewood, Hindson, Homeyer, McGee, McKinney, Montondon, Sorenson,Warms, Winek,Wiley

Guests: The Provost, Assoc. Provost, a host of Assoc. VP’s, all of the College Deans, several Assoc. & Asst. Deans, Dr. Mark Fronstad, Geography, and Scott Thomas, University Star, et al

Meeting called to order at 3:00 by Provost Moore.

Joint Meeting with the Council of Academic Deans: In response to the Senate’s inquiry about College level faculty governance structures and the role of associate and assistant deans, each dean described the structures and roles for their particular college.  In some colleges, governance is highly structured with budget, policy and procedure, curriculum, assessment, professional development, advisory, and merit and equity committees along with numerous councils, others have no more than a college curriculum committee and the college council.  All colleges but one, Applied Arts, have associate and/or assistant deans charged with duties including college academic affairs, assessment, research, professional development, scholarships, etc.  Associate and assistant deans were selected for their positions from the faculty ranks by various search methods and departments are generally subsidized by the Provost’s office to compensate for faculty replacements.  A noted comment from the Provost was that no matter how many associate and assistant deans there were in a college, he would consult only one individual with regard the affairs of a particular college, the college dean.  Current deans, associate deans and assistant deans follow:

With respect to the Senate’s query about the valuation of service in faculty performance evaluation, all deans indicated that faculty service was essential for the University to function.  Also, all said that tenure-track faculty service should be held to a minimum.  One dean mentioned that if there was not service from our faculty, the University should just shut its doors.  It was observed that most college committees function without tenure-track faculty, but some service (by tenure-track faculty) was essential at the department level.  The Provost reiterated that the 40-40-20 was the rule with respect to teaching (40%), scholarly/creative activity (40%) and service (20%) and stated that no tenure-track faculty member should be required to do more than 1/n th of the service required by a department if the department had n members.  In response to a remark that Professors and Associate Professors would not do service for a department since it didn’t count toward remuneration, the Provost said the blame there resides directly with the department chair. Professors and Associate Professor should perform the bulk of University service and a chair should be able to come up with creative ways to make that happen.  The Provost also indicated that he was rethinking the draft revision of PPS 8.01, Development/Evaluation of Tenure-Track Faculty, which seemed to suggest that service had little if any role in faculty performance to gain tenure or promotion to Associate Professor.  All aspects of the faculty position are important, but he again emphasized the 40-40-20 rule and that tenure-track faculty should make sure they do not emphasize any one area of performance at the expense of another.

Break:

University Curriculum Committee Recommendations: The Senate approved last week’s recommendations of the UCC.

PAAG: The general sense of the Senate was that there are no issues sufficiently developed to put on next week’s PAAG agenda so it was decided to give President Trauth the opportunity to suggest an agenda or to cancel the PAAG next week.

New Business:

·         Electronic Pay stubs:  There was some discussion about the new method of reporting faculty pay where one must use web access to see a pay stub.  The item may be returned to the agenda at a later date.

·         Voting Lists:  Senators were asked to check faculty-voting rosters to make sure that they are correct for the upcoming Senate election cycle.

·         120-Hour Policy and the Core Curriculum:  The Senate charged the University Curriculum Committee to, at its next meeting (3/2/07), consider making an independent recommendation to the Senate with respect to the 120-Hour Policy and the University’s Core Curriculum.  The UCC will also act on a program proposal for an MA in Applied Philosophy.

Minutes:  Minutes for 02/14/07 and 02/21/07 were approved as amended.