Minutes — Approved  | download as pdf

Faculty Senate, March 20, 2012

Plaza Room, Administrative Center, 3 p.m. 

Present: Ebersole, Ward-Smith, McArthur, Stancel, Burnett, Wyckoff, Plamann, Gardner, Peng, Ellinghausen, Sherburn, Butner, Luppino, Sykes Berry, Alleman, Hermanns, Krantz, Kumar, Bethman

 Excused:  Taylor, McDaniels, Sohraby, Thiagarajan, Madison-Cannon, Holt, Nickel, Gerkovich, Stanley, Igwe

 Absent:  Durig, Lyne, Odom, O’Brien

 Guests:  Nancy Day, Ombudsperson; Linda Plamann (School of Biological Sciences), Tom Stroik (College of A&S), co-chairs of the General Education Oversight Committee; Steve Dilks (College of A&S).

 1.  Welcome and Informational Items

 On the first Tuesday in April (April 3) will be the All Faculty General meeting in the Thompson Courtroom in the Law School, during the regular Senate meeting time.  At that meeting we will present the changes to the Standard Operating Procedures for final approval.

 There are two minor changes that the executive committee wants to add:

1) Insertion of Nominations as a subcommittee of the Administration Affairs Committee.

2) In the description of COSCO, we want to add the phrase “all other studies as directed by the Faculty Senate.”

 2.  Approval of Agenda

Senator Sykes Berry moved to approve the agenda and Senator Kumar seconded the motion.  All approved.

 3.  Approval of Minutes

Senator Luppino moved to approve the Minutes of the March 6^th meeting and Senator

Wyckoff seconded the motion.  All approved.

 4.  Ombuds Report:  Nancy Day

 Day thanked the Senate for its support.  She has had about 20 visits from across schools and departments. She also works with Jeff Traiger, Assistant Dean of Students and Dr. Marita Barkis, executive director of Counseling, Health, Testing and Disability Services to come up with peer counseling for faculty who have student incivility issues in the classroom.  The major issues Day has noticed this year include

• Supervisory relationships. It’s not only supervisors but faculty who need to beef up their communication skills. New skills may be necessary when a new supervisor arrives on the scene.
• Non-clarity in the nontraditional contracts. The major issues are with adjuncts, visiting scholars, and written contracts which aren’t clear. Roles are not clearly defined.
• Many universities have Ombudspersons who deal with students. Right now I’m only dealing with faculty but Dr. Barkis reports that it would be good to have a student counseling service apart from the counseling services for faculty.

 Chair Ebersole noted that the College of A&S has a life coach for students.  Senator Butner added the School of Education also has one. 

 5.  Latin Honors:  Steve Krantz

The problems that have been run into while evaluating the Latin Honors procedure:  

1) Exceeding the quotas in Units.

2) Student concern about the question of whether or not last semester GPA should be counted in.

3) Whether or not in the event where the last semester GPA is not counted, which is the current procedure, can students petition for that?

4) Students graduating with multiple degrees, can they have more than one Latin Honors?

 We had a meeting with the academic issues committee and came with up some solutions:

1) That the Senate support the policy of GPA requirements of upper 5, 10, 20% as written.

 2) The general consensus says Latin Honors should be given at graduation and graduation happens before the last semester grades are out. So the last semester should not be counted into Latin Honors.

What semesters do count is the next procedural issue?  There was majority of the committee who recommended that the GPA that counts towards the Latin Honors be 3 of the last 4 semesters.

 3) Because the Latin honors are calculated based on GPA and there is only one GPA considered only one Latin honors degree is awarded irrespective of the number of degrees i.e. No student should get honors more than once.

 4) In calculating the grade point average it is recommended that the grades received in upper level courses in the last two years should be taken into account.

 5) Can we have a Latin Honors degree post hoc and the answer to that is NO. We recommend that students not be allowed to petition based on last semester. We have two reasons for that.

• If we create a procedure that last semester doesn’t count then some students may petition for that since they might get good grades in the last semester.
• By doing that we don’t to do more violence to the procedure since that may be helping only 20% of the students.

 

Senate discussion on recommendation #2 concluded that instead of considering the last two years, instead, the last 60 hours of the degree should be considered for awarding the Latin honors degree.  Then the honors would be awarded at graduation on a provisional basis, just as the diploma is done.

 Secretary Burnett: When I read the policy the 5%, 10% 15% are not in there, I think we should add that in there for consistency.

 Senator Steve Krantz: I would put it in the procedure and not policies.

Dr. Burnett: Does the catalogue represent the new policy?  Senator Steve Krantz: The catalogue reflects the procedure not the policy.

  Everyone approved the recommendations as amended.

 6.  General Education Updates : Jerry Wyckoff

 It has been a month since the formal presentation of the two models were proposed.  Senator Wyckoff reports that there have been positive and negative comments. 

 Negative comments revolve around two issues:

• How to create new courses?
• How do we decide which classes will count for GenEd?

 He would like the Faculty Senate to vote on the proposed models in four weeks [April 17]. And he is still looking for feedback.  .

 One question asked was “how many courses are we going to need for this whole model to roll it out for 2 years?”  Senator Wyckoff responded that the courses that need to be redesigned are the Anchor and Capstone courses and the need will be for 15 courses for the #2 model to be rolled out in the next 1 to 1 ½ years.

 Senator Butner asked where the courses would be housed.  Senator Wyckoff thought the Discourse courses would be in Arts & Sciences but the Anchor courses and Capstone courses need not be in Arts & Sciences.  Chair Ebersole suggested that a Glossary and a Frequently Asked Questions page be available on the University website.  Senator Wyckoff said he thought such were ready but not yet uploaded.  He stated that there will be 4 videos up very soon which will answer your questions. 

 7.  Committee Reports

 Senator Luppino reported that the University Budget committee is awaiting reports from Administration & Finance on (1) the results of the recent budgeting exercise to take into account the anticipated reduction in the State Appropriation and (2) analysis of consulting and professional fees expenditures before the UBC makes final recommendations to the Chancellor regarding FY 2013 apportionment of General Revenues.  He also thanked the Senators for their assistance in getting the UBC faculty input on salary increases policy for FY 2013, and explained that the current discussion proposal contemplates a 1% merit-based salary pool per unit. 

 The Faculty Senate meeting adjourned at 4:20 p.m.