The University of Southern Mississippi
Faculty Senate Meeting
September 8, 2006
Thad Cochran Center (TCC) Room 216
2:00 p.m.
1.0
Call to order: 2pm
2.0 Forum: Fred Varnado,
Director of Office of Non-Credit Programming gave an overview of the
reorganization of ONCP, policies and reporting procedures, and services that
are offered.
3.0 Approval of agenda: Agenda was
approved with the following changes – 6.1 Ad Astra: Letter to Provost
was moved after 6.4 Pre-tenure Review.
4.0 Approval of minutes: Previous
minutes are not yet ready for approval.
5.0 Officers' Reports
5.1 President
5.1.1 Welcome
5.1.2 Summary of Retreat (approval of plaque for Dr. Tom Rhea
Phillips?) – Myron H. briefly recapped the retreat discussion with IHL Board
member, Robin Robertson, regarding the upcoming presidential search. Senators
expressed appreciation regarding the support and hospitality Dr. Phillips and
his wife have given to the Senate in hosting the Senate retreats for the last five
years. The Senate unanimously supported honoring the Phillip’s with a plaque.
5.1.3 Letters Day Awards sponsored by the Faculty Senate and the
Office of the President – Myron H. announced the winners of the Senate Awards:
Junior Faculty Outstanding Teaching Award
Brent Wolfe (Human Performance and Recreation)
Junior Faculty Creative Activity Award
Stephen Sloan (History)
Junior Faculty Research Award
Michael Madson (Pyschology)
Mentoring Award
Marie Danforth (Anthropology and Sociology)
Community Service Award
Hugo Ley (Construction and Technology)
Members of the Senate expressed congratulations to all winners. Myron H. thanked the Awards Committee members and especially the chair, Mary Lux, for all their hard work in selecting the winners.
5.1.4
Shared Governance Document
Update (for approval?) – Myron H. passed out a draft of a Shared Governance
Document approved by the Ad hoc committee appointed by the Provost. There was
considerable discussion regarding the omission in the document of the citation
to the AAUP Shared Governance statement used to create the USM document. There
was also much discussion concerning the words “will be consulted” to “should be
consulted” changed in the 4th paragraph of the document. The Senate
endorsed the document with two changes: 1) In the 4th paragraph,
remove “At the same time, however,” and 2) Add a cover letter expressing the
concern of the Senate of plagiarism if the AAUP citation is removed from the
document.
5.1.5 Outsourcing: A reaffirmation of the Senate's June 9
statement with a lead in paragraph (for approval?) – Myron gave an update on
the IHL’s deliberations regarding the outsourcing of Physical Plant. The Board
will take up the issue again at its September meeting. The Senate voted
unanimously to resend the Senate’s letter of concern to the Board with a cover
letter that strongly reaffirms the Senate’s position against the outsourcing of
Physical Plant.
5.2 President-Elect
5.2.1 Email Policy – Stephen Judd reported on the current status
of the email policy. There is a policy now online that states “prior to
monitoring, the committee will seek the advice of a subcommittee appointed by
the Policy and Compliance Council (made up of faculty and ITech Administrators)
while engaged in monitoring will operate within the constraints defined by that
subcommittee.” But, when Stephen talked to the William Derwostyp, chair of the technology committee,
he said that the committee was waiting on the Senate to send its suggestions regarding the email policy.
Stephen J. has taken on trying to work on a policy and
he has looked at several policies from other universities, particularly University of California which seems to address the issue in more depth than most others. Stephen
will continue to work towards getting a policy in place.
5.3
Secretary
5.3.1 Committee Sign-up Sheets – The secretary forgot to bring
sign-up sheets but will send a note out on the Senate list to elicit committee
preferences.
5.4
Secretary-Elect – No
report
6.0
Discussion Items
6.1 Personnel Spreadsheet
(profit-loss) – It was reported to Senators and Senate officers that a
profit/loss sheet has been floating around depts. 2 handouts were distributed,
one a mock-up of a the profit/loss sheet and an attachment that came with it
that represented evaluation criteria for faculty, chairs and deans which
included minimum performance expectations (i.e. positive value of each faculty,
1 grant application for each faculty, 45 increase in student enrollment, 4%
increase in student credit hours, etc.). Senators expressed their concerns and
concerns of their faculty regarding the implications of this spreadsheet. At
the conclusion of a discussion, the Senate voted to extend an invitation to the
President/Provost to come to the next Senate meeting to clarify and address
some of the concerns. Senators also voted to authorize the Senate’s executive
committee to write a strong statement to the President and Provost about the Senate’s
concerns.
6.2 Promotion and Tenure (un-written criteria) – Several faculty
have reported to senators and executive officers that promotions or tenures have
been denied to persons in their departments not on grounds of research,
teaching and service but upon other unwritten criteria such as economic
development. Senators again expressed concern regarding evaluation criteria
that seemed to hinge on economic development. After much discussion, senators
asked that an additional paragraph addressing this issue be added to the
statement being given to the President/Provost on the personnel spreadsheet and
that this item be added to the agenda for the Senate meeting in which the
President/Provost.
6.3 Pre-tenure Review (third year review) – Concern was expressed
by senators that some faculty are being terminated after third year reviews
that are deemed “good” but not “excellent.” Myron H. noted that on at least
four occasions, faculty members have been supported by departments but turned
down by deans. Fortunately, the Provost has overturned the deans’ decision in
some of these cases. One senator stated that their dean said that the Faculty
Handbook gave deans the authority to terminate faculty after third year
review. Another senator asked whether the Administration has to be
involved at all in the process. Senators asked that the Senate officers
discuss these issues with the Provost and also asked that representatives on
the Handbook committee look into these issues.
6.4 Ad Astra: Letter to Provost – Mary Beth Applin spoke to senators concerning the classroom space issues. She stated that she has spent time the last couple weeks speaking to many faculty that have had issues and has even spoken with Greg Pierce at the Registrar’s Office. Everyone knowledgeable about the problems agree that the main solution is to put the scheduling back into the hands of the departments. The current Ad Astra program is not web-based and so has limited access points thus restricted access to the Registrar’s Office. Greg Pierce is aware of the problems and is instituting a possible solution – a “scenario” file that will go to departments this October so that they can do classroom scheduling offline. The file will then be incorporated into the Astra program. Greg Pierce agreed that the scenario file may not solve all problems and he has endorsed a draft of a letter to the Provost suggesting the appointment of a committee to look at the classroom scheduling problems and to make recommendations for resolving the issues. The committee members would also act as a communication bridge between departments and the Registrar’s Office. Senators voted unanimously to approve the letter to the Provost. Senators Hauer (CoAL) and Buchanan (CoST) volunteered to be committee members representing their colleges if volunteers were being sought.
At this point in the meeting, Myron Henry recognized John Rachal, faculty in Educational Leadership and Research, who had come with a statement concerning our earlier discussion on “Unwritten Criteria.” John R. stated that he had spoken to some new faculty in his college who had attended the New Faculty Orientation and then to 3 chairs trying to get clarification about expectations for faculty regarding external funding. There were four “basic facts” that John R. found:
1) It was stated by the President at the New Faculty Orientation that external funding was expected from every new faculty member and that the President himself would review each of their records at the end of the year to see if they had applied for at least one grant.
2) The dean of CoEP told the chairs of that college that he had been told by the president that each faculty member was expected to submit a grant and that getting a raise was dependent on having done so. Three chairs in Ed/Psych told John R. the same thing.
3) The chair of John’s department stated that the dean told him that not only was every faculty required to do a grant but that the salary recoup had to equal or exceed the faculty member’s salary and benefits.
4) That chair also stated that all departments in their college are expected to revise one course towards distance delivery or advance at least one degree program towards going online.
Faculty senators from other colleges stated that they have not heard the same from their deans.
6.5 Faculty Handbook/Section 2.2/Salary Appeals – Myron
shared information that the administration is considering revising the Salary
Appeals policy through an Ad Hoc committee. It has been Myron’s opinion, as Senate
representative of the handbook committee, that salary appeals are covered in
the Faculty Handbook section 12.2. Myron passed out a copy of the handbook
policy – he believes that the section covers salary appeals, personnel
benefits, salaries, working conditions, etc.
6.6 Teaching Load Policy: edition six? – Myron H. handed out
a draft of the policy and stated as a point of information that the draft of
the Teaching Load Policy had been discussed at an earlier Senate meeting and
was still being reviewed by the administration. Dr. Exline felt that the
current policy needed clarification. Myron H. suggested changing the wording
on the draft to “Guidelines” instead of “Policy” because if it was a policy
change it needed to go through the Handbook Committee. Dr. Exline agreed to change
the terminology to “Guidelines” – no change in policy. There was a discussion
of whether “directed research” was covered under reassigned time. Myron stated
that he felt that it was covered under bullet four concerning activities that
justify reassigned time.
At this time, Myron H. recognized Jerome Kolbo, chair of the Research Council, who announced that he had just found out that summer grants will be funded this year.
6.7 Graduate Assistants: the next part of the Provost's plan for "Allocation" – Stephen reported that the 2nd part of the the Graduate Assistant plan is about to be implemented and that several programs could be adversely effected by this implementation. There was insufficient time to go over this at this meeting but the Executive Officers would continue to pursue a resolution.
6.8 Gulf Coast Faculty Offices – Allisa Beck stated that
the coast faculty are very concerned about the lack of office space and the
fact that they cannot get anyone to give them a definitive timeline for getting
office space. Senate asked that the Coast Council propose a letter stating
their needs for Faculty Senate endorsement. Allisa Beck was charged with
addressing this with the Coast Council. Senate Executive Officers will also
make an effort to attend the next Coast Council meeting in an effort to work
with the Council to help in this effort and others.
6.9 CFO and Library Director Search – Myron noted that executive officers present at the monthly meeting with the president, asked about the filling of key positions on campus, particularly the CFO and Library Director. The president indicated that he would wait and let the new president initiate those searches. There was concern raised as to whether the library director job might need to be filled sooner. Library senators stated that they would try to ascertain a general consensus among librarians regarding the search.
6.10 SACS Draft Letter on Shared Governance - The Senate voted to go into closed session to discuss items 6.10 and 6.11.
6.11 IHL Commissioner’s visit to a special September 22 Faculty Senate meeting (discussion and questions)
7.0 New Business
7.1 A
statement that features a "bundling" of some or all of the issues
from 6.1 through 6.8???
8.0 Committee Reports
8.1 Elections – Paula Smithka
reported that 2nd round ballots have been sent out though the return
address was left off. She asked senators to be sure to tell the colleagues in
their colleges to return ballots to Box 5015. She also asked that the
Constitution and By-Laws Committee this year look at changing the voting rules
for winning an election to a simple majority instead of the current “one more
than half of the valid votes cast.”
8.2 Academic and Governance
8.3 Administration and Faculty Evaluations
8.4 Awards
8.5 Budget
8.6 Constitution and Bylaws
8.7 Faculty Welfare
8.8 Government Relations
8.9
Technology
8.10 Ad hoc committee reports and liaison reports
8.10.1 President’s Council (need to elect representatives)
8.10.2 AAUP (Mitch Berman)
8.10.3 Facility Management Planning Committee
8.10.4 Alternative Learning Committee
8.10.5 Distance Education Committee
8.10.6 Faculty Handbook Committee
9.0 Old Business
10.0 Adjournment
Members present and those absent [in brackets] but represented by proxy (in parentheses):
College of the Arts & Letters
Anita Davis
[Cheryl Goggin] (Paula Smithka)
Stan Hauer
Stephen Judd
Bill Powell
Bob Press
[Bill Scarborough] (Amy Young)
Paula Smithka
Amy Young
College of Business
Scott Magruder
Stephen Bushardt
College of Education & Psychology
Mary Blackwell
Taralynn Hartsell
Joe Olmi
Tony Rodriguez-Buckingham
College of Health
Wendy Bounds
Bonnie Harbaugh
Mary Lux
Steve Oshrin
Tim Rehner
College of Coastal Science
Don Redalje
College of Science & Technology
Randy Buchanan
Jeff Evans
Jerry Griffith
Myron Henry
Larry Mead
Bobby Middlebrooks
University Libraries
Mary Beth Applin
Jay Barton Spencer
USM-Gulf Coast
[Patsy Anderson] (Allisa Beck)
[Darlys Alford] (Joe Olmi)
Allisa Beck
Members Absent:
College of the Arts & Letters:
Cindy Brown
John Meyer
College of Business:
Bill Gunther
College of Education & Psychology:
College of Health:
College of Coastal Science:
Chet Rakocinski
College of Science & Technology:
Bob Coates
Mary Dayne Gregg
Gail Russell
University Libraries:
USM-Gulf Coast:
Eric Nelson