Ken Elder, Diane Dixon, Brett Elliott, Chris Moretti, Dan Benco, Paula Allen, Brandon Burnette, Dan Althoff, Margaret Avard, Jane Elder, William Fridley, Stan Alluisi, Wayne Dixon, Vicki Hudson, Charles Matthews, Michael Miles, Saundra DiPento, Lucretia Scoufos, Gerrie Johnson
Buddy Pierce, Wayne Jones, Andy Tiger, David Christy James Britton,
The meeting was called to order at 3:04 by Chair Ken Elder.
Approval of the Minutes: Dan Benco made a motion to accept the minutes as amended and Michael Miles seconded the motion. The minutes for February 8, 2006 were approved unanimously.
Brett Elliott who is chair of the Faculty Advisory Council was going to a meeting about raising tuition. He wanted faculty views regarding it. Some in the Senate thought that we needed to increase tuition and some thought that we had raised it enough.
Did not meet.
Diane Dixon reported that the committee met and discussed the School of Business request for more representation on committees and Faculty Senate. The committee recommended to increase the Business members on Faculty Senate and to change the membership of Curriculum Committee, Academic Appeals, and Human Subject Research Review Committee from one to two. After some discussion, Vicki Hudson voted to table the issue in order for the Senate to think about it. Ken said the Executive Committee will meet to discuss the issue. Vicki Hudson made a motion to accept Kitty Campbell to replace Dan Benco on the Library Committee and Dan Benco seconded the motion. The motion was passed unanimously.
Dan Althoff reported that the committee has not met since November. He reported that notification of nominations have gone out and the supporting documentation is coming in. After spring break the Senate will vote. The banquet is April 25th.
Chris Moretti reported that he asked to meet with Jesse Snowden regarding the approval process for criteria for promotion and tenure. He has not heard back yet. Chris sent an email to Cathy Conway regarding sick leave donations. Cathy responded that there is a informal practice in which if a person is out of sick leave, they first ask the department members to donate days. If they don’t have adequate donations then they ask outside of the department.
Michael Miles reported that the committee did not meet. The Facilities Goal team, that is going to deal with the parking issue, has met. They reviewed the history, and will figure out what the funds will be used for. They will look at peer institutions. SOSU is the only university that doesn’t have designated parking. The ratio of parking spaces to people is 0.5. There probably will not be a survey. The team will look at the facts and make a policy. They want to have parking pay for itself. Michael explored the dishonesty issue with Dean Liz McCraw. FERPA restricts having information available to faculty regarding the students past cheating. She keeps track of cases of cheating – but you need to report it. She encourages the departments to report any cheating to Student Affairs. It is unsure if she will share information if there are past offenses by the student. Michael wanted some more information regarding that.
Gerrie Johnson reported that the committee met Feb. 27. She reported that there are two students working on the Faculty Senate website and each student is doing different things. The Faculty Senate has hired a student from the Faculty Senate budget to try to fix things. Ken Elder and Brett Elliott are working on the Budget survey. They will change the format. Ken asked if anybody else has survey to add to it then please email it to Ken by noon tomorrow. Bill Fridley and Andy Tiger are analyzing salary increases of peer institutions. Wayne Dixon said there is more information about that in the Chronicle of Higher Education.
Ken reminded the chairs of committees to submit a end of year report. Besides the report, they should include charges for next year and forum issues.
Ken handed out a copy of an email by Susan Dodson that responded to the question about a notetaker.
Ken handed out a memo from Shannon McCraw who is the director of Civic Engagement. The memo had proposed members for a Council on Civic Engagement. It was unclear what type of committee/council it was going to be. It was unclear what the function will be. Ken wanted to know if the Faculty Senate wanted some oversight of this committee. The people will be invited to be on the committee by the President. Brett Elliott made a motion to approve of the pool of people on the memo and Stan Alluisi seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously.
Ken passed out a email memo from Ann Haycock regarding the conversion of student ID’s and printing control policy for students. Chris Moretti suggest a counter so students know how many pages they have used. Stan Alluisi moved to approve and Dan Benco seconded. The motion passed unanimously.
Ken Elder reported that the Daily Oklahoman reports that OSTRS is the third worst funded public retirement system in the country. It has 49% unfunded liability totally 6.7 billion.
The meeting adjourned at 4:20.
Diane Dixon, Faculty Senate Recorder