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Nov 12, 2008 Minutes

Nov 12, 2008 Minutes

 

Minutes for 11/12/08
 
Members present: Senators Feakes, Bond, Brown, Caldwell, Conroy, Furney, C. Hazlewood, D. Hazlewood, Martin, Melzer, Minifie, Shah, Stone, Warms
 
Guests: Rebecca Swindal, Staff Council Representative; Jordan Gass-Poore, University Star
 
Meeting called to order at 4:00
 
Faculty Development Leaves: The Chair circulated a list indicating the Faculty Development Leave rankings. A motion was made, seconded and passed to accept the rankings of the applicants and that they be forwarded to the Provost’s Office and CAD. All applicants for leave were recommended. Since the Senate’s portion of the process for this year is finished, a subcommittee of the Senate was formed to consider the current process and to recommend changes for the future. Senators Feakes, Conroy, Caldwell, Warms and possibly Wilson will serve on the subcommittee. Specifically, the subcommittee is to consider:
  • On-line submissions of applications while making sure that e-submissions are consistent with the PPS.
  • The question of whether sitting Senators can apply for leave.
  • The question of whether the Senate should continue to hold applicant interviews.
  • The question of what is the best way to let applicants know of the Senate’s recommendation.
  • Possible revisions to the PPS on Faculty Development Leaves.
  • Feasibility of some sort of survey to faculty regarding any possible faculty issues with the process.
 
Modified Retirement: The basic recommendation for change in UPPS 04.04.51 – Phased Retirement Plan for Faculty is to change the Agreement section, 04.04, from a “one to three year” to a “one to five year” agreement. Other pen/ink changes will be considered next week.
 
Honor Council: After all the scrambling to gather representatives from each college to form the Honor Council, it turns out that there was already a functioning group. It was suggested that both groups be combined to form a single committee with Rebecca Bell-Metereau, English, as chair of the committee and David Wiley, HPER, as vice chair.
 
SACS Reaffirmation Process: For the SACS process,two draft documents are being circulated regarding academic freedom and faculty participation in university governance. Senators should read the documents and provide input at the next meeting.
 
 
Visitors Next Week: Dr. Elizabeth Skerpan-Wheeler, English, who chairs the University Research Enhancement Committee; and Dr. B.J. Friedman, Family Consumer Services, who chairs the Piper Selection Committee, will meet with the Senate next week with recommendations regarding their respective committees.
 
Break:
 
Consensual Relationships: The Senate continued discussion of UPPS 04.04.39 – Consensual Relationships. It was determined by consensus to recommend that Section 01.01 be changed to read “It is the policy of the University that employees with direct teaching, supervisory, advisory, or evaluative responsibility over other employees, students, or student employees recognize and respect the ethical and professional boundaries that must exist in such situations. While relationships between consenting adults are a personal matter, they can create potential conflicts in the workplace and in the educational setting. Such relationships also contain the potential for exploitation of the subordinate employee, student, or student employee and the possible professional or academic disadvantage of third parties.
Should such a relationship develop, the teacher, supervisor, or advisor has the obligation to disclose its existence to an immediate supervisor and cooperate in making alternative arrangements for the supervision, evaluation, teaching, grading, or advising of the employee, student, or student employee.”
 
Also, recommended was to change Section 02.02 to read “A conflict of interest is an appearance of impropriety that arises when individuals with the authority and the responsibility to evaluate the work or performance of an employee, student, or student employee initiate, acquiesce to, or engage in an intimate romantic or sexual relationship with that employee, student, or student employee.”
 
Public Lecture Series Committee: The Public Lecture Series Committee will need a temporary chair to replace Dr. Janet Paine, Finance and Economics, for the Spring semester. Several candidates were recommended. The Chair will work through the list, in order, to determine a temporary chair for the committee.
 
Final Exam Schedule: There is still discussion of changing the final exam schedule to have two-hour exams rather than the current two-and-a-half-hour exams. Consensus indicated that the Senate would prefer to keep the current two-and-a-half-hour exams, although a novel idea was raised. Why not use the regular class schedule for the final week when exams are normally scheduled and let faculty members give their exams during that week, using whatever portion of the weekly schedule they wanted to give their exams.
 
Minutes: Minutes for 10/29 /08 and 11/05/08 were approved as amended.