The University of Southern Mississippi
Faculty Senate Meeting
February 23, 2007
Cook Library 123
2:00 p.m.
Forum speakers: Jodi Pettazzoni, Institutional Effectiveness and Dr. Joan Exline, Planning and Articulation
1.0 Call to order: Stephen Judd presided – call to order 3:30pm
2.0 January 2007 minutes approved.
3.0 Agenda approved with one
addition – 5.10.9 Committee Reports: Academic and Graduate Councils
4.0 Officers' Reports
4.1 President (Stephen Judd, President-Elect, filled in
for Myron Henry)
4.1.1 Report on President Cabinet meeting and Provost Council (and possibly meeting with Provost?) – Mary Beth Applin gave a short report on the Provost Council meeting. The senate executive officers have a meeting scheduled with the Provost. Stephen J. gave an overview of the agenda items:
1) What is the proposed "New Direction" for CoEP?
Why was Dean Pierce asked to step down?
Are there changes being planned for any departments or programs?
Are there plans to move Psychology from CoEP?
Are any other personnel changes planned for any departments?
Do you feel comfortable with the higher ed experience of the two people who now have the two highest roles in the COEP?
HOW were they selected? Were opinions of department chairs sought?
Is CISE filling positions? How many? Are the job ads posted?
2) What is the approval process for job ads and searches particularly during transition period.
Example of process currently happening:
November 7th permission to ad sent to dean
November 14th forwarded to Provost from dean's office
November 21st Joe Morgan indicated funds available for doing so (advertising).
November 21st permissions to ad signed by Provost
February 7th department informed by Provost of okay to post ads
3) Awards Committee. As you remember, last year your office funded the Senate's awards. One very major question that is time sensitive is:
Will your office support the awards for this year? We need to know this so that we can post the awards early enough to make faculty aware of them. I believe that Mary Lux is moving the date of submission back to March 23 in order to allow us time but this is something we need to do soon.
4) Status on Alternative Learning proposal? The joint committee, which included members of the Senate, forwarded to you a proposal regarding definitions of alternative learning for the purposes of salary distribution. An update on the status of that proposal would be helpful and informative. Perhaps you may have some questions or suggestions you would like to communicate to the excom [executive committee].
5) Formal recommendation for faculty involvement in budgetary process, particularly Budget Steering Committee and University Planning Council.
6) Funding for research grants and sabbaticals.
7) Bookstore issues (not consulting faculty on copying of course packets; increase in costs; textbooks coming late). Faculty members have raised this to Senators and some senators have expressed frustrations of their own. We wonder how we might work with the bookstore to improve these areas and whether that might be a joint effort.
8) Graduate assistant raises? (Graduate Council suggested ways to accommodate?)
9) Online courses (pressure to develop?) Partnership with Community College – did not go before Academic Council? Questions about university’s Intellectual Property policy. Consulting group spoke to Exec. Cabinet?
10) Evaluation of Teaching
We hope to have some discussion with Joan and perhaps Jody P. at the Senate meeting on Friday concerning the grade distributions info going to Pick-a-Prof. We also would like to discuss what the administration's position is regarding distribution of evaluation data to Pick a Prof and other types of "evaluation" companies and sites. Obviously, there are faculty concerns about this and perhaps we can reach some agreement on the appropriate materials to be shared and with what venues.
11) Website additions for SUAC.
4.1.2 New IHL Policy and Dates for Academic Programs – This item was addressed by Dr. Exline during her presentation. Dr. Exline stated that at this time, the IHL has not yet decided on the specifics of the new policy.
4.1.3 Status of Academic/Senate Advisement Committee (members and a chair for the Committee)? The committee needs representation from each college – the present volunteers are all from CoAL. Myron asked senators from other colleges to check with their college colleagues and email him some possible names of candidates. Catherine Price from CoB and Tim Rehner from CoH volunteered from their colleges.
4.1.4 Administrative Raises – At the last senate meeting, Myron H. had prepared a handout that contained administrative salaries for 2005-2007. The senate had a long discussion concerning these raises. It was determined that faculty salaries needed to be examined and recommendations made to the new USM president on how to raise the salaries to regional levels. The Faculty Welfare committee is charged with this task
4.2 President-Elect
4.3 Secretary
4.3.1 SUAC website update – Mary Beth Applin reported that after several attempts to contact Dr. Moore regarding the status of getting information posted on the SUAC web site, the senate executive officers wrote a formal request for SUAC minutes to the President and Provost’s offices. Dr. Moore responded that she still did not know what was specifically needed and has scheduled a meeting with us.
4.4 Secretary-Elect
5.0 Committee Reports
5.1 Academic and Governance
5.1.1 Faculty Handbook and Governance Options – Don Redalje and the committee presented new wording for the “8.3 Personnel Committee” three option section (See Appendix 1). The new wording was endorsed by senate and will be passed on to the Faculty Handbook Committee.
5.2 Administration and Faculty Evaluations
5.3 Awards
5.4 Budget
5.5 Constitution and Bylaws
5.6
Faculty Welfare
5.7 Government Relations
5.8 Technology
5.9 Elections
5.10 Other committee and liaison reports
5.10.1 President’s Council
5.10.2 AAUP – Joe Olmi stated that AAUP, at their February meeting, passed a resolution entitled “Motion Expressing Concerns Regarding Recent Activities by the Thames Administration” which is now posted on their web site. Joe also announced that the AAUP Sound Governance survey would be sent to faculty within the next month.
5.10.3 Facility Management Planning Committee
5.10.3.1 Committee will be meeting again Feb. 28th – there will be an open forum for all faculty, staff and students to show draft plan.
5.10.4 Alternative Learning Committee
5.10.5 Distance Education Committee – Since Homer Coffman was present at the senate meeting, Bill Powell asked Homer to give an update on the computer outage that occurred during registration. Homer stated that the problem was unforeseeable but it was resolved and measures were taken to prevent it happening again in the future. Homer also stated that email system has stabilized and that ITech has turned the email system over to IBM. A new system would be piloted in March; Oracle has new features; it will be located off campus. A senator asked if ITech HELP could be localized for non-Hattiesburg campuses – Homer said he would look into it. Homer also noted that Daylight Savings was scheduled two weeks earlier this year and that measures were being taken to try to prevent problems that might occur as a result of that. Ocean web accts. may be going away July 1st – Bill P. stated that the senate needs to sponsor a survey to determine faculty need for the ocean web site. There are a number of problems with WebCT on the WebCT side – litigation is pending. Senators stated that there is a need to have the courses developed for online delivery go through the same approval process (Acad. and Grad. Councils) that other courses go through. Senators also questioned Dr. Exline about the top down pressure faculty felt to develop online courses. Dr. Exline stated that there is not pressure being exerted from the administration; there is some coming from the IHL Commissioner. Another senator questioned the development of online courses when the university’s Intellectual Property policy did not clearly protect faculty’s rights. On another note, a senator expressed concern that the Community College online course partnership with USM did not go before any campus councils. Dr. Exline stated that the online course partnership was not affecting any curricular programming that we were doing and that is why it did not go before any councils. Many senators stated that there were numerous concerns about online courses from advising to appropriateness of online delivery of particular courses and that a committee should be formed to take a serious look at the issue. Dr. Exline stated that the Exec. Cabinet had the same concerns and were in the process of hiring a consulting group to help us with the issues.
5.10.6 Faculty Handbook Committee
5.10.7 Committee on Advisement
5.10.8 Evaluation of Teaching
5.10.9 Academic/Graduate Council – Jeff Evans, chair of Academic Council presented a handout for senators review seeking departmental feedback of a draft of revised General Education Core student learning outcomes prepared by an Academic Council subcommittee last year.
Bobby Middlebrooks, chair of Graduate Council,
stated that Grad Council was to begin review of new programs. Also, there is a
written or unwritten policy that states that faculty cannot use their employee
benefits of free courses to seek a PhD from USM. GC will be reviewing that
policy and Bobby urges faculty to send feedback to himself or Art Kaul.
6.0 New Business – Motion passed encouraging
the administration to commit to funding sabbaticals and summer grants (see
Appendix 2). Bob Press and Stephen Judd will finalize wording and send to
Myron H. who will forward to the President and Provost
7.0 Old Business
8.0 Other
9.0 Adjournment
Appendix 1
8.3 THE DEPARTMENTAL PERSONNEL
COMMITTEE (revised 2/23/07)
8.3.1 Committee Membership.
All members of departmental Corps of Instruction with a minimum of three (3)
years of service with the University and who hold the rank of associate
professor or higher are eligible for committee membership. The
Departmental Personnel Committee shall consist of three (3) standing members
elected by the department faculty. The faculty may or may not choose to
elect the department chair to the committee. Alternatively, the faculty
may elect to have the department chair serve in lieu of the committee. In
such cases, the chair will function as the committee. Only those faculty
members who have achieved tenure may evaluate a colleague seeking an award of
tenure. Likewise, promotions may be considered only by faculty holding a
rank equal to or higher than the rank being considered.
8.3.2 Faculty Ineligible for
Membership. Faculty holding appointment within an academic department
and serving as University administrative officers in the positions of
President, Provost, vice president, and dean of the college or director of the
school or division in which a department is organized may not sit as members of
Departmental Personnel Committees. Staff members employed with a
fractional FTE are ineligible. Faculty members holding honorary rank,
employed on a terminal contract, or who are otherwise excluded for reasons
specified in the rules governing the several departmental personnel proceedings
are ineligible.
8.3.3 Replacement of Committee
Members. If a committee member other than the Department Chair -
if he or she has been selected by the department faculty to serve on the
Departmental Personnel Committee - resigns, dies, or otherwise
relinquishes the committee position, another eligible faculty member within the
department must be elected in the same manner that the original members were
chosen. If the Department Chair has been selected by the departmental
faculty to serve on the Departmental Personnel Committee, then the Chair must
serve on the committee. Should the Chair resign or otherwise relinquishes his or
her position as Department Chair, then the department faculty must reselect the
members of the Departmental Personnel committee following the procedures listed
in section 8.3.1.
Appendix 2
February 23, 2007
Summer research grants, grants
for improvement, and sabbaticals are integral to the academic quality of the University of Southern Mississippi. It is of concern to the Senate that the university’s
administration has not yet been able to assure that these important programs
will be funded. We encourage the administration to commit to funding such
programs for the upcoming academic year. We also encourage the administration
to demonstrate its commitment in a timely fashion so that those who are awarded
research grants, grants for improvement, and sabbaticals will have adequate
time for planning.
Members present and those absent but represented by proxy (in parentheses):
College of the Arts & Letters
Anita Davis
Cheryl Goggin
Stan Hauer
Stephen Judd
John Meyer
Greg O’Brien
Bill Powell
Bob Press
Paula Smithka (Bill Powell)
Amy Young
College of Business
Catherine Price
College of Education & Psychology
Mary Ann Blackwell
Taralynn Hartsell
Tony Rodriguez-Buckingham
John Rachal
College of Health
Wendy Bounds
Bonnie Harbaugh
Mary Lux (Mary Beth Applin)
Steve Oshrin (Stan Hauer)
Tim Rehner
College of Coastal Science
Chet Rakocinski
Don Redalje
College of Science & Technology
Jeff Evans
Randy Buchanan
Jerry Griffith (Mary Beth Applin)
John Hannon
Myron Henry (Stephen Judd)
Larry Mead
Bobby Middlebrooks
Gail Russell
University Libraries
Mary Beth Applin
Jay Barton Spencer
USM-Gulf Coast
Julie Cwikla (Anita Davis)
[Wil Watson] (Amy Young)
Members Absent:
College of the Arts & Letters:
College of Business:
Stephen Burshardt
Bill Gunther
Scott Magruder
College of Education & Psychology:
Joe Olmi
College of Health:
College of Coastal Science:
College of Science & Technology:
Charles McCormick
University Libraries:
USM-Gulf Coast:
Patsy Anderson