The University of Southern Mississippi

Faculty Senate Meeting

March 4, 2005

Union Hall of Honors

2:00 p.m.

 

 

1.0       Call to Order:  2:04pm

 

2.0       Forum Speakers: 

Joe Paul, Sue Hubble, Mary Dayne Gregg & Don Oberhelman gave the results of our university NCAA Self Study – Links to the complete information can be found at:  http://www.usm.edu/fsenate/misc/NCAA_selfstudy.htm


3.0       Approval of January 14, 2005 minutes:  Moved, seconded and approved.


4.0       Approval of Agenda – Agenda was approved with these changes:

Add and move 7.1 Independent newspaper article ahead of Officers’ Report; add 7.2 Pine Haven closure; add 5.1.1 Continuing Education.

 

7.1       Independent Newspaper Article

There was a great deal of discussion about an article that appeared in the Independent concerning a gathering of local business ‘leaders’ who were meeting to discuss “the future of the University of Southern Mississippi.”  The article specified that Public Relations Director, Lisa Mader, had been contacted for names of business people to host the meeting.  The sponsor name given by Ms. Mader was Bonnie Drews who was quoted as saying that the focus of the meeting would be to determine “the direction in which the University is moving.  The issue is whether the faculty or the President is going to determine the direction...” and whether USM will continue as a liberal arts university or a technological school.  She continued by saying that the liberal arts faculty “has set the direction of USM for the past 25 years.  Now we have to change direction and Dr. Thames is attempting to do that despite opposition from the liberal arts faculty.”

 

Much debate ensued.  A senator introduced a draft response to the ‘business leaders.’  A motion was made and passed unanimously to empower the Faculty Senate executive officers to ascertain facts pertaining to the meeting and to draft a response using the introduced draft as a starting point. 

 

5.0       Officers' Reports
            5.1       President:  David Beckett (Dave B.)

5.1.1 Continuing Education – Dave B. explained why Sue Pace, director of Continuing Education was not on the agenda as had been indicated on the tentative agenda.  Dave. B. had wanted someone from Continuing Education (CE) to come and speak to the Faculty Senate (FS) regarding the changes being made to Continuing Education due to the SACS Probation.  Dave B. had looked up the number in the USM directory which listed Sue Pace as the director.  When Dave B. called CE, he asked to speak to the director and was told that Ken Malone was the director but that he wasn’t there.  Dave B. then asked to speak to Sue Pace since she was listed as the director.  He asked Sue if she would come and speak to the senate – Sue P. said that she’d be glad to.  A half hour later, Sue P. called back and said that she couldn’t come.  She had called Ken Malone to tell him that she was asked to speak to the senate.  She then told Dave B. that Ken would be coming to speak to the senate instead.  When Dave B. called Ken Malone to ask about this, Dr. Malone said that Dave B. was putting Sue Pace in a difficult position by asking her to attend the senate meeting.  Dave stated that he didn’t know how that put Sue P. in a difficult position unless there was some sort of retribution for her attending.  Dave B. and Ken M. had a long conversation about this and Dave decided that to call Sue P. and tell her that she did not have to attend.  He called back Ken M. back to invite him to the senate meeting.  Through voice mail messages, Ken M. said that he couldn’t attend the senate meeting because he would be in Oxford, MS. 

 

Amy Y. said that the same thing had happened to her when she invited Sue Pace to Academic Council for the same reason that the Faculty Senate had wanted her to come – to answer questions about how distant education courses would now be handled.  Sue P. told Amy that she couldn’t come and Amy was under the impression that Sue had been told that she wasn’t allowed to go.  Sue suggested that Amy call Ken Malone.  She called and emailed Ken M. but never heard from him.  Instead, Joan Exline called Amy and said that she could come to speak to the council about CE.  Amy didn’t hear from Ken until today and he said that he would not come to Academic Council and to call Joan E.

 

Bill Powell (Bill P.) explained that the Provost said that Ken Malone was analyzing and organizing CE.  Joan E. and Ken M. were the contact people about CE now. 

 

Dave B. asked the senators if they would like to invite Dr. Malone to the next senate meeting.  Senators said yes.  Another senator wanted the executive officers to ask the president if people were being prohibited from speaking to the faculty senate.  Dave B. said that it would be put on our agenda for the next FS officers’ meeting with Dr. Thames.

 

            5.1.2    Proposed IHL Policy Change on Tenured and Non-Tenured Employment –

Dave B. read the former IHL policy 403.0101 Minimum Standards for Tenured Employment which stated that “At the time of initial employment by the Board, an administrative employee whose preceding employment included faculty rank and tenure may be granted tenure only if so recommended by the department (or equivalent academic unit), the Dean, the Provost/VP, and the President and approved by the Board.”  The Board has recently changed this policy taking out the department, dean and provost.  It now reads “At the time of initial employment by the Board, a faculty member or an administrative employee whose preceding employment included faculty rank at the level of assistant professor, associate professor, or professor and tenure may be granted tenure only if so recommended by the President/Chancellor and approved by the Board.”  Discussion ensued.  Senators wanted to know how the executive officers found out about the change.  It was related that the library received a copy the previous week that was labeled as a draft.  A note was handwritten on the copy asking that comments were being elicited since the IHL Board would be voting on this issue at their March meeting.  Dave B. did not find out until today that the policy had actually already been changed months ago at an IHL meeting. 

 

Dave B. suggested that he send a letter to the commissioner of the board asking for clarification. 

 

A senator asked if other senates at the other state universities knew about this change.  Dave did not know but said that he would try to find out.

 

Another senator wondered if this policy change has been reflected in the Faculty Handbook.  The executive officers will ask the president about it at their monthly meeting.

 

A motion was made, seconded and passed that the Academic and Governance Committee should draft a statement for the IHL Board expressing the reason for our concern regarding the change in this policy.

 

            5.1.3    Provost Search –

            The Provost Search has become rather inactive and has not been meeting lately. 

           

            5.1.4    Drug & Alcohol Policy –

The policy has been sent to Lee Gore and has been sitting on his desk. 

 

            5.1.5    Research Foundation Director –

The FS asked the executive officers to find out from Dr. Thames if there was a research foundation director now since Angie Dvorak left.  He said no.  A senator asked if it has reverted back to VP of Research, Cecil Burge.  Dave said that he thought so, but would asked Dr. Thames if that was the case.


5.2       President-Elect

           

            5.2.1    ITech “Board of Directors” and Email Monitoring Policy –

Bill Powell handed out an organization chart of the new ITech Governance structure.  He found out about it after talking to Homer Coffman , Chief Information Officer (CIO), about the email monitoring policy (the one that was on the ITech Web page).   Homer wasn’t aware that an email policy existed.  Homer said that a policy was being developed by a new ITech committee, the Policy and Compliance Council, which would draft a policy and send it to the ITEch Advisory Council which would then recommend it to the ITech Board of Directors. Bill asked about the membership makeup of these councils and discovered that there were no Faculty Senate representatives.  Bill asked Homer about including Faculty Senate representatives.  Homer said that he would take that up with the ITech Board of Directors.  The ITech Board of Directors chose who would be on these councils.  Nine of the 16 members on the Board of Directors are also on the Advisory Council.  Bill P. was invited to come to the ITech Advisory Council’s first meeting on March 1. 

 

A senator made the observation that the Gulf Coast was not represented on any of the councils.  Bill P. pointed out that there were a lot of omissions and inappropriate representations in membership on these different ITech councils, e.g. there was no representation from Council of Chairs; the designated faculty representatives on some of the councils are the deans; the faculty representative of CoAL is the dean’s Exec. Secretary.

 

 

            5.2.2    Credentials Committee for the Graduate Council –

Bill P. announced that all credentials are being reviewed for SACS accreditation.  Any faculty who have changed colleges will have to be reapproved by the appropriate college.

 

            5.2.3    Provost Council update –

There was a Provost Council meeting.  There was one discussion item concerning continuing education.  The credit programming part is defunct.  Academic control will be brought completely under the college and department.  Apparently, until now, academic control was not necessarily done by depts.  There are still issues to be resolved such as who will arrange for test proctoring, etc.

           

            5.2.4    Faculty Positions and Budget –

The executive officers asked President Thames during our monthly meeting if there would be a freeze on faculty hiring because of the potential budget cuts.  Dr. Thames said no, that for now, hiring would go on as usual.  We told him that the “as usual’ was what concerned us since in a previous meeting Dr. Thames had told us that only positions that made money (such as in the sciences where they could bring in research dollars) were being given the go ahead for hire until the budget cuts were known.  Dr. Thames looked at Dave Beckett and told him that he had been ‘misinformed’ by whoever had said that.  Dr. Thames assured us that hiring would go on across campus for needed positions.

 

            5.3       Secretary – no report

            5.4       Secretary-Elect – no report


6.0       Committee Reports
            6.1       Academic and Governance
            6.2       Administration and Faculty Evaluations

6.2.1    Update on Current Evaluations - J.T. Johnson has all the evaluations and is compiling the results.

 

6.2.2    Discussion on Adding Dr. Malone to Admin Evals? – Ray Folse revised the provost form for evaluating the Gulf Coast Chief Operating Officer, Ken Malone.  Dave B. will meet with Ray Folse and Pat Smith to discuss details of sending the evals out.


            6.3       Awards

6.3.1 Report – Nominations have been received.  More can still be submitted, particularly from the arts.  It was decided that if an awards committee member nominated someone, they will recuse themselves from voting on that person.


            6.4       Budget
            6.5       Constitution and Bylaws
            6.6       Faculty Welfare
            6.7       Government Relations
            6.8       Technology
            6.9       Elections

6.9.1 Report - The process has begun for elections.  Election committee has lists of faculty from all the colleges.

6.10     Ad hoc committee reports and liaison reports (AAUP and others)

 

6.10.1  PC – Myron Henry had submitted a report to senators via email prior to today’s meeting.  The emailed report is included below.  He added that he has not received the names of the individuals invited to the “stealth” meeting with the president nor the agenda though he has asked for both.

 

Myron Henry PC Report (Feb 9th, 2005)

We [Myron Henry and Anne Wallace] were both in attendance at the President's Council this morning.  The agenda now follows with some of our observations under each topic.   Thanks. Anne and Myron

The minutes were approved without discussion.

Thames talked in terms of a five percent reduction in State support, or a 3.8 million dollar reduction for USM.  Some losses could be made up in tuition.

Mr. Coffman described the email monitoring policy that is now in place. He also stated that no one's email is being monitored now, and that it would take a committee (the Grade Review Committee is the entity but we aren't sure why) to authorize monitoring of an individual's email.  Your Faculty Senate PC representatives asked Mr. Coffman how the monitoring was done last year.   He emphasized that he wasn't in his current position  last year.  Mr. Coffman then declined to answer because of "security reasons" and claimed that if he talked in a public venue about how email monitoring might be done, he would be in violation of federal law.  He did say that this topic could be discussed in closed session with assurances that participants would not reveal what was discussed.  As someone whose email was monitored last year, Myron asked that such a session be scheduled and that he be a participant. 

A meeting of this committee has been scheduled for February 23.  The precise agenda has not yet been provided.  Myron and Michael Forster are Faculty Senate representatives to the Faculty Handbook Committee.

Dr. Thames provided basically the same response to this resolution today as he did in the Hattiesburg American.  Tammy Greer talked about trust and how Dr. Thames could reclaim it by involving faculty and others on the front end.   Your Faculty Senate representatives stated that there are real issues and gave a few examples (e.g., Gulf Coast Library, EMBA, letters of reprimand, classroom invasion and incorrect information by administrators on that matter).  We also stated that not acknowledging that there are real issues is an issue in itself.  We then asserted that unless colleagues are involved in meaningful ways upfront instead of after the fact, the issues would remain and there no doubt would be more of them.

          Mitch Berman gave a short update on this much improved policy.

Myron read parts of two paragraphs from the Grimes memo to Dean Harold Doty, and stated that if the statements were carried out, then AACSB accreditation would be threatened.  He also stated that Provost Grimes compared the USM MBA enrollments with MBA enrollments at William Carey and the University of Phoenix, both institutions with distinctive missions that do not require AACSB accreditation.  Anne tied academic quality to AACSB accreditation and stated that the University should not compromise the quality of our MBA program as we try [push] for more [greater] quantity [of students]. Trellis Green indicated that there were now discussions going on between the [Business] College and the Administration.  Dr. Thames then talked about MBA enrollments at William Carey and expressed his concern about our own MBA enrollments.  He then stated that he supported AACSB accreditation and that he did not wish to discuss any more about this topic in public. That pretty much ended the PC meeting. There was a good audience that included AAUP President Amy Young, faculty senator Stephen Judd, and others.  For those who are interested in the College of Business Administration MBA issue, Kevin Walters has a Hattiesburg American story on-line today to which the Grimes letter is electronically linked. 

 

This concluded the PC report.

 

6.10.2  AAUP – The next AAUP meeting is scheduled for March 10th at 4pm at the CoB.  Amy Young also stated that the Grade Review Council (the university actually has two – one here and one at the coast) would be merged into one with a chair and a co-chair from the coast.


7.0       New Business

7.1       Pine Haven - Residents from USM Pine Haven Family Housing came and spoke to the senate.  A student told senators that Pine Haven would soon be torn down and described how the residents were informed.  Residents were left a flyer telling them that there would be a “Residents Meeting.”  They were told at the meeting that the Pine Haven family units needed too many repairs, that the costs were prohibitive and that they were not feasible to maintain. The university would only support housing that could pay for itself.  Therefore, the university would be razing the units and replacing them with a sorority village.  Further, an official from Residence Life said that the Hattiesburg housing market could now support the needs of these students.  The student’s question was, if the market can support married couples or students with children, can’t it also support the other students presently living in dormitories? 

 

Discussion ensued.  Some faculty commented that they thought that this decision would be particularly detrimental to grad students and thus would hurt recruitment of grad students.  Some commented on how discriminatory this was and that it would disenfranchise a population of our university students.

 

It was suggested to the residents that came to the senate meeting that they approach the SGA about taking this issue on.  Senators also agreed that the senate should ask for that a committee be formed with senators, Gregg Lassen and Joe Paul to look at other options.  Executive committee will also speak to Dr. Thames about it at their monthly meeting.

 

8.0       Old Business
9.0       Other
10.0       Adjournment

 

 

 

Members Present  and Those Represented by Proxy (Proxies are in Parenthesis):

 

College of the Arts & Letters

[Joe Brumbeloe] (Bill Powell)

Amy Chasteen-Miller

Phillip Gentile

Kate Greene 

Stephen Judd 

John Meyer

Bill Powell

[Bill Scarborough] (Amy Young)

[Paula Smithka] (Bill Powell)

[Jennifer Torres] (Stephen Judd)

Anne Wallace

 

College of Business

[James Crockett] (Laurie Babin)

[David Duhon] (Laurie Babin)

Bill Gunther

Laurie Babin

 

College of Education & Psychology

[Taralynn Hartsell] (Mary Beth Applin)

Melanie Norton

[Joe Olmi] (Dan Tingstrom)

[Janice Thompson] (Mary Beth Applin)

Daniel Tingstrom

 

College of Health

Bonnie Harbaugh

Susan Hubble

Margot Hall

Mary Lux

[Mary Frances Nettles] (Tim Rehner)

Tim Rehner

 

College of Coastal Science

Chet Rakocinski

Don Redalje

 

College of Science & Technology

David Beckett, President

Randy Buchanan

Peter Butko

Raymond Folse  

Mary Dayne Gregg

Myron Henry

[Gail Russell] (Don Redalje)

[Alan Thompson] (Randy Buchanan)

 

 

University Libraries

Mary Beth Applin

Jay Barton Spencer 

 

USM-Gulf Coast

Allisa Beck

J. Pat Smith

Wil Watson

Kay Harris

 

Members Absent:

College of the Arts & Letters:

College of Business:

College of Education & Psychology:

College of Health:

College of Coastal Science:

College of Science & Technology:

University Libraries:

USM-Gulf Coast:

 

42 total members

12 proxies