Apr 28, 2010 Minutes

Members present: Senators Feakes, Brown, Bond, Caldwell, Martin, Hazlewood, Furney, Stone, Wilson, Warms, Morey, Conroy, Shah, Payne.

Guests: Sigler.

Meeting called to order at 4:00.

Announcements:
The Transportation and Parking Committee met on April 23, and is asking for a Senator to assist the Committee in identifying parking spaces across campus that can be designated 24-hour reserved for faculty and staff. The chair has agreed to assist with this process.

University Research Enhancement Committee Recommendations:
The Senate approved the UREC recommendations on the following issues from those outlined below: recommendations 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9 and 10.
1. Bonus points: There should be no bonus points awarded.
2. Applicants and colleges: Applicants (PIs) must apply to their own college.
3. Proxies: In the event that a CREC member needs a proxy, the proxy should attend the entire CREC meeting; the proxy should consult with the CREC member s/he is replacing to confer about evaluation of applicants; the person who submits scores for applicants must be the person who attended the meeting
4. Representation at CREC meetings: Each department must be represented at CREC, regardless of whether there are applicants from the department.
5. Chairs on CRECs: Ordinarily, department chairs should not be members of a CREC, but the CREC should have the option of including chairs, especially those of small departments.
6. Other funding for summer grants: Applicants should disclose in their budget justifications any known summer salary that will be taken from other grants during the period covered by the REP grant.
7. Results from prior REP grants: PIs (and PIs only) should indicate results of prior funding, covering the past 5 years. This could be done on an additional page of the CV.
8. Number of grants applicant may receive: Applicants should not receive funding in consecutive years.
9. Multiple PIs: In the section on qualifications of PI there should be an explanation of why the Co-PI is necessary and how he or she will contribute to the project (e.g. why co-PI instead of consultant?).
10. Leverage for external funds: There should be no expectations that previous applicants demonstrate obtaining external funds. However, applicants may summarize expected outcomes of their project, including future publications, presentations, and/or grant proposals.
11. Funding for travel to conferences: It should be allowed. There should be a limit of $1500.
12. Adjusting budgets: Full funding should be allocated as long as funding is available. In case of a tie, the budgets of the tying proposals may be adjusted.

Discussion on the remaining issues led to the following decisions:
Regarding recommendation 1, the Senate voted to award five bonus points only to first-time applicants at the rank of assistant professor and on the tenure track.

Regarding recommendation 5, the Senate voted to allow Chairs to serve with the approval of the UREC and only when there are no eligible faculty members able to serve on the CREC. Should the UREC find a Chair unacceptable for service on a CREC, the UREC will appoint a faculty member to represent the department lacking representation.

Regarding recommendations 6 and 11, and 12, the Senate voted to reject these recommendations.

BREAK

PPS and UPPS Comments:
1. UPPS 07.10.01, Honor Code: The Senate suggested that correspondence courses be mentioned with online courses as types of courses for which electronic meetings and notification of students can be used.

2. UPPS 04.04.06, Other State Employment and Outside Employment: The Senate will discuss revisions to this document at an upcoming meeting.

3. PPS 8.02, Faculty Development Leaves: The Senate finalized its response to the subcommittee’s recommendations for revising the procedures to apply for and report on activities completed during Development Leave.

University and Endowed Chairs and Professorships: Returning to the examination of the roles University and Endowed Chairs and Professors fill as members of Personnel Committees, the Chair distributed a list of all faculty currently holding such positions at Texas State. But for the University Chair in Creative Writing, all such positions are to be self-funding. As the Provost noted at a recent CAD meeting, he and the President believe these faculty should be voting members of Personnel Committees.

Update on Perception Surveys: Surveys of the President, Provost and Deans have been available for a week now for faculty to complete, but the current response rate is very low. The Chair encouraged all faculty to complete these important surveys, which will close on May 5.

Introduction of New Senators: Recently elected Senators Payne and Huling were installed, and the Senate offered its thanks to departing Senators Bond and Shah.

Faculty Senate Elections: The following Senators were elected to office for the 2010-11 academic year:
Chair: Debra Feakes
Vice-Chair: William Stone
Secretary: Steve Wilson

Faculty Summer Schedule: The Senate will meet from 3-5 PM on May 12, June 16 and July 7.

New Business:
1. Free Speech issues: There is a UPPS stating that noisier free speech activities can be moved to an area near the Student Center rather than in the Quad so that classes will not be disrupted but people’s right to free speech can be respected.

2. PPS 8.01: A faculty member is concerned about several issues relating to PPS 8.01:
a. U.S. veterans should be included in the list of individuals protected against discrimination.

b. The provision that Chairs should share performance expectations with tenure-track faculty is not being followed consistently across the University. Moreover, the faculty member argues, expectations for performance should be provided in writing to tenure-track faculty.

c. There is some confusion between the guidelines for annual review and tenure and promotion review in PPS 8.01 and 8.10.

3. Workload Credit Evaluation: The Chair noted that there are wide discrepancies between colleges in assigning workload credits. The Senate discussed ways to insure that such credits are awarded to faculty more fairly and consistently, including asking the administration to review these discrepancies at the college level, and suggesting that the administration hold a summer workshop for chairs on the process for awarding workload credits.

Minutes of 4/21/10 were approved.

Adjournment.