March 28, 2007 Minutes

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

Guests: Chair Vince Luizzi, Philosophy, Dr. Jeffrey Gordon, Philosophy, Dir of Curr Micky Autrey, Dr. Mark Fronstad, Geography, and Scott Thomas, University Star

Meeting called to order at 4:00.

UCC Recommendation on Core Curriculum: After discussion, the Senate approved the recommendation of the University Curriculum Committee no cuts be made to the University’s General Education Core by a vote of 6 for, 5 against with 1 abstention.

For the Record:  Senator Conroy was unavoidably detained and missed the Senate vote on the UCC recommendation on the Core Curriculum.  For the record, she surveyed the senate liaisons from the College of Fine Arts & Communication and also asked (at the 3/23 department meeting) the Art and Design faculty how they wanted her to vote, and, based on the results of these two inquiries, would have voted against accepting the UCC’s recommendation.

UCC Appointment: The Senate appointed Dr. Michelle Toews, Family & Consumer Science to fill an Applied Arts vacancy due to the resignation of Dr. Tina Cade, Agriculture.

Senate Seat Allocation: The Chair presented formula calculations for the next Faculty Senate. It was noted that the Senate interprets the number of faculty as the number of faculty voters for representation purposes.

Seats up for election this spring are:  1 seat in Business, 1 seat in Education, 1 seat in Fine Arts & Comm, 1 seat in Health Prof and 2 seats in Liberal Arts.

Senate’s Annual Report to the Faculty: Senator McKinney presented a bulleted list of Senate accomplishments during the past year.  Several Senators agreed to flesh out items to be incorporated into a Senate Newsletter to the faculty.  New items should be sent to Senator McKinney at amckinney@txstate.edu.

PAAG Agenda Items: After some discussion, the Senate came to agreement on the following items for next week’s PAAG agenda:

·         The faculty Senate would like to open a dialog about preparations to celebrate the centennial of Lyndon Johnson’s birthday in August of 2008.

·         The Senate would like an update on the status of the current promotion and tenure cycle. Specifically the Senate has an interest in perceived irregularities in the application of P&T standards and timelines.

·         The Senate would again appreciate an update on how things are going with the Legislature in Austin.

·         The Senate has some ideas on ways to improve the workload reporting process that we would like to offer for administrative consideration.

• Fall 2007 will represent the 50^th anniversary of the Faculty Senate at the University. The Senate is interested in some type of celebration of the event. For example we might consider some recognition of all the Faculty Senators that have served the university since the founding of the Senate.

New Business:  

·         Master Plan: VPFSS Nusbaum will be invited to the Senate 4/11/07 or 4/18/07 to review the Campus Master Plan, specifically Phase 1 of the Performing Arts Center.

·         Faculty Survey for President, Provost and Deans:  The Senate’s survey of perceptions of the University’s upper administration is out.  The Senate will try to make the data available to University faculty before the end of the spring semester.

·         50^th Anniversary of the Faculty Senate:  Possible ways to celebrate the Faculty Senate’s 50^th anniversary were discussed.  A subcommittee of Senators Hazlewood, Hindson and Wiley will work up some ideas.

·         Peer Institution Workloads:  There was some discussion about trying to get data for other peer institutions regarding the reporting of faculty workloads. It may become a future Senate agenda item.

Minutes:  Minutes for 03/21/07 were approved.