Minutes of the Faculty Senate
DWR 205
February 21, 2019
3:40 p.m.
Present: Senators Warrick, Bond, Zia, Huang, Louden, Boumtje, Lyubartseva, White, Schroeder, Wise, Fanning, Wilson, Shirey
Call to Order at 3:43 p.m.
Proxies: Jenny Louden for Alec Testa, Connie Wilson for Rhaelene Lowther, Martine Boumtje for Lynn DiPier
I. Approval of Minutes
Minutes from January 17, 2019 were approved (motion – Stanford, second – Wilson).
II. Reports of Committees
Handbook Committee: The Handbook Committee met about the online policy. Sent the online policy to the Online Education Committee to review and then send back to Handbook Committee. The Handbook Committee noticed that the names of accrediting bodies were not current for the colleges of nursing, education, and athletic training and requests that the names of the accrediting bodies be updated to the appropriate current names. They also recommend that the numbering be updated. Since this is a cosmetic change and not a policy change, the Handbook Committee may make the recommendation.
Motion to update accreditor names and numbering as recommended. Motion carries.
Merit Pay Ad-Hoc Committee: The Merit Pay Ad-Hoc Committee met and concluded that a merit pay plan could not be reached. They recommended that in the future merit pay be considered as a one-time merit bonus or an endowment option. President Warrick addressed the Senate on the topic and expressed surprise at the level of distrust within the faculty regarding the appropriate handling of merit pay in an equitable manner. There was also concern because of compression and inversion issues and the committee felt that if there is not money available to address compression and inversion, then it is difficult to justify implementing merit pay.
Back-to-School Ad-Hoc Committee (Recommendations Attached): The Back-to-School Ad-Hoc Committee met and made the following Suggestions:
1). Avoid redundancy not only in back to school meetings but in all meetings.
2). Start with lunch and then hold the back to school meeting following lunch.
3). Blackboard is underutilized in getting information out and more information could be loaded into Blackboard for faculty to access on their own time.
4). Dr. Berry and Dr. Lanoue could run more of the meeting.
5). Set a 2 hour time limit of the meeting with a break in the middle.
6). Do not mandate when other colleges meet.
These were suggestions presented to administration, but the committee recognizes that legally there are certain requirements that need to be met. Dr. Lanoue expressed that administration wants the meeting to be a more positive experience for everyone, but they do not want to lose the opportunity for faculty to interact with one another.
III. Other Business
Early Alert Email: The process hit a snag and they are currently looking at how to make the email happen. Logistics were not as clear cut as originally thought. Some issues are more immediate when submitted to Early Alert, so a plan is being formulated to address this.
Senate Annual Accomplishment Task: The suggestion was to create a treat bag for faculty. It was suggested that senate get together before school starts and make baggies for back-to-school.
Senator White addressed the senate on the topic of a faculty senator’s responsibility
to represent faculty. He expressed that senators need to advocate for issues that we feel are important and would positively impact our students. He suggested it would be productive to have a process in place to review salary schedules within colleges and departments and there should be some transparency in this process. Department chairs should have access to what the pay is for those in their department and they should also have the justification and analysis for each of the salaries. This information would help in hiring decisions and in compression and inversion issues.
Staff Senate Look Up event will be held February 26th and 27th.
President Warrick is hoping that the April Faculty Senate meeting will be held in the new president home.
The next meeting will be held March 28th due to Spring Break being the third week of March.
VI. Adjourn
Senator White motioned to adjourn at 4:24 pm (Louden second). Motion passed.
Recommendations from the Senate Ad Hoc Committee on the Back to School Meetings
Overall:
The preference of the committee is to streamline the meeting and avoid redundancy in presentations.
We like the idea of starting with a served lunch followed by the meeting as in Fall 2018.
Blackboard is being underutilized for the dissemination of information.
Specific recommendations:
We like the “lunch first” format as well as the plated lunches as opposed to the lunch line format
We like the elimination of the back to school dinner
We like the campus update from Dr. Berry but we feel like Dr. Berry could cover more of the items on the agenda that lie outside academics (i.e. finance, etc.)
We feel like Dr. Lanoue can address all things academic including introduction of new faculty (Deans will introduce them to their own colleges), accreditation issues, etc.
We encourage allowing colleges and departments to meet on their own schedules (with required meetings) at the start of the semester.
We encourage the university meeting to be no longer than two hours long (following lunch) including a break in the middle.
Blackboard can be used to get specific information to the faculty for agenda items such as diversity, finance, honors college, Title IX, professional development, etc. similar to the HR policy.
