Faculty Senate Minutes
October 11, 2006
R300
Ken Elder, John Hendricks, Diane Dixon, Margaret Avard, Jane Elder, William Fridley, Dennis Miles, Michael Kallam, Dan Benco, Ed Hobbs, Chris Moretti, Charles Matthews, Patrick Reardon, Dave Barnes, Jennifer Hicks, Andy Tiger, John Topuz, Theresa Hrncir, Will Mawer, Paula Allen, Bruce Johnson, Wayne Dixon, Brett Elliott
The meeting was called to order at 3:00 p.m.
Jane Elder made a motion to accept the minutes; the motion was seconded by John Hendricks. Dan Benco noted that a word was misspelled and the minutes were amended with the spelling error corrected. The approval of the minutes from the September 13, 2006, meeting passed unanimously.
Dave Barnes was introduced as a new Senator from the School of Arts & Sciences. He holds the position that Wayne Jones held prior to being elected Chair-elect of the Faculty Senate.
Executive Committee (EC)—Ken Elder reported that the EC met twice after the September 13, 2006, Senate meeting. The first meeting was to assign Senators to committees and to determine the charges/direction for each committee. The second meeting of the EC was to meet with President Glen Johnson, and his administrative team, to discuss the issues of the Faculty Forum. Elder noted that some corrections to the forum issues were made as a result of that meeting.
Committee on Committee (CC)—Diane Dixon provided Senators with a list of committee assignments and requested full Senate approval. Charles Matthews made a motion to accept the committee assignment list as presented by the CC. William Fridley seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously.
Ken Elder announced that Stewart Meyers had brought to the Faculty Senate’s attention that the Graduate Council (GC) handles all student appeals of graduate courses but the GC function statement does not provide for that action (View changes to the Graduate Council information). Accordingly, it was proposed that the function statement of the GC include the following: “The Graduate Council will serve as an appeals board upon receipt of written requests from graduate faculty or graduate students who seek to have grades or records altered.” A motion to accept the change was made by Margaret Avard and seconded by Paula Allen. The motion passed unanimously.
Ken Elder passed out all committee assignments for the 2006/2007 academic year. The Senate accepted the committee assignments as presented.
The Senate discussed the administrative responses to the Senate’s questions and the small number of faculty members that attended. Ed Hobbs recommended that, in the future, the Senate offer specific solutions to questions rather than offering “vague” questions. Hobbs suggested that the questions could be more “student body oriented and still meet our [faculty] goals.” Senators suggested that the administrative responses were “staged and canned” and this was one reason for such a small faculty attendance. The new Senators asked questions about the faculty forum process and suggested that the Senate request that members of the University administration make periodic reports to the Senate as an avenue to provide updates.
Dennis Miles presented a list of committees in which librarians are requesting membership. [insert link to libfacsenateoct11-10] Miles explained that librarians have full faculty status and are therefore required to do service work for promotion. The Senate took no action.
Theresa Hrncir presented a petition signed by the faculty of the John Massey School of Business requesting that the Senate address “equality” issues with the Curriculum Committee. Hrncir requested the membership of the committee be changed to include only one (1) faculty member from each of the three schools. The petition requested “immediate” action. Brett Elliott made a motion for 4 members from Arts & Sciences, 2 members from Education and Behavioral Sciences and 2 members from Business. Michael Kallam made a friendly ammendment that the Curriculum Committee membership would be composed of three (3) members from each school. The motion was seconded by Ed Hobbs. The vote was: 11 (for), 5 (against), and 1 (abstention). It was agreed that Diane Dixon, as chair of the Committee on Committees, would contact the John Massey School of Business and the School of Education & Behavioral Sciences and seek recommendations for membership to the committee. Dixon agreed to contact all members representing the School of Arts & Sciences to see if someone would volunteer to resign from the committee.
Dan Benco handed Senators an email from a student regarding an unknown prerequisite to one of his classes that prevented the student from enrolling. There was agreement that Benco and Ken Elder would work together to resolve the issue.
Dan Benco handed Senators an email from a student regarding the Honors Program not distributing payments for scholarships and thus preventing students from enrolling for the spring semester due to a balance on their accounts. There was agreement that Benco and Ken Elder would visit with the Honors Program to seek a resolution.
The meeting was adjourned at 5:00 p.m.
Submitted by John Hendricks, Senate Recorder.