UFS#7
Approved.
February 15, Minutes
Indiana State University
Faculty Senate 2006-07
Time: 3:15 p.m.
Place: HMSU, Dede III
Officers: Chair S. Lamb, Vice Chair B. Evans, Secretary C. Hoffman
Senators: C. Amlaner, E. Bermudez, J. Buffington, D. Collins, J. Conant, S. Davis, J. Fine,
B. Frank, A. Halpern, P. Hightower, J. Hughes, K. Liu, M. McLean, M. Miller, G. Minty, T.
Mulkey, L. O’Laughlin, S. Pontius, J. Powers, S. Shure, T. Steiger, C. Stemmans
G. Stuart, S. Wolf, D. Worley, G. Zhang
Absent: S. Allen, K. Bolinger, H. Chait, S. Ghosh, T. Hawkins, S. Phillips, R. Schneirov, J.
Wilson, D. Yaw
Ex-Officio: Provost Maynard
Visitors: R. English, D. Findley, R Gennaro, E. Kinley, J. Janz, K. Wilkinson
I. Memorials
A Memorial Resolution for William M. Clary was read and accepted by acclamation.
II. Administrative Report: Provost Maynard:
1) The presentation to the Commission of Higher Education was well received.
ISU requested an overall increase of 3% for the biennium (1.5% per year).
2) The proposal for the new Recreation Center was approved and ground breaking will occur in the Spring.
3) The Senate is encouraged to be involved in the interview process for the Vice President of Human Resources.
4) A new president for the ISU Foundation has been selected and will be announced soon.
5) Interviews are in progress for the position of Assistant VP and Director of HR.
Stability and vision are important in the position.
6) Events next week: Thurs: Retirement Tea; Trustees' Enrollment Seminar; dinner honoring retiring Trustee Don Smith. Fri: Trustees' Agenda meeting, preceded by an executive session.
III. Chair Report : S. Lamb:
As of February 1, applications from new freshmen and transfers for Fall 07 are up 9 % over last year and 10% over 2005. Admissions are doing even better -- up 17% over 2006, and up 13% from 2005.
Confirmations, however, are way down — at 229, which is 56% of last year's and only
32% of 05’s confirmations at this point in time. Again, Kevin Snider has assured us that confirmations have never been a reliable predictor of enrollments at this early stage, and that the ratio between admissions and enrollments has been a much better indicator. I do, however, hope that the Administration does all that it can to change admissions into confirmations.
Given that we have the Spring 07 enrollment numbers, we can employ simple ratio analysis to predict the Fall 07 FTE enrollment from the Spring 07 enrollment. Using the

average of the ratios from the last four years, which have been fairly steady, the predicted enrollment is 8,621, which is less than 97.6% of last year's fall enrollment. Please remember that ratio analysis assumes that what occurred in the past will occur in the future. Projecting the recent past into the future produces a prediction of disaster. We must do better. We have our work cut out.
The Enrollment Task Force met on Monday, February 12 and is again considering initiatives. Denise Collins is on this task force at the request of the Executive Committee.
Also, another faculty name has been sent to the Provost from the Executive Committee for consideration for service on this committee.
I am pleased that both the College of Nursing and the College of Health and Human
Performance are going to, or have, voted on the formation of the College of Nursing and
Health and Human Services. Due process must be followed, especially in the domain of primary authority. I know that CAAC and the Graduate Council will give this issue the highest priority.
I met recently with a set of knowledgeable people who are partially responsible for coordination of the Web pages. They were not aware of an existing WEB advisory committee, nor were they aware of a marketing advisory committee. I thought we had come to an agreement with the administration that these committees would be formed. One of the concerns of this set of WEB experts was the navigational difficulty which potential students experience trying to obtain information about departmental units. The experts at this meeting were saying that our web sites are not “recruitment friendly.” Are we doing everything we can to effectively use our web sites as a recruitment tool?
The January meeting of the Board of Trustees was cancelled. The February meeting is about to be held. I expect the Trustees to discuss the 360-degree review of the president in executive session.The Executive Committee of the Faculty Senate is advising Board members of its concerns.
I am pleased with all the discussion about the importance of the physics and philosophy majors and have some reason to hope that this issue will be resolved. I am pleased to have individuals present who will speak to this issue today.
There is some discussion about the possibility of the Executive Committee forming a joint General Education task force with the administration. If this occurs the Executive
Committee would provide input into the charge to this task force. The primary emphasis should be on creating a General Education Program that will give our students a quality liberal arts education.
IV. SGA : A.J. Patton:
1.
All of the projects mentioned in the last meeting are continuing.
2.
The Commission of Higher Education meeting went well.
3.
Looking forward to the Events Calendar being online today.

4.
SGA elections will be held before the next Faculty Senate meeting. If a new SGA president is elected and this is his last meeting, he thanked the Senate for a wonderful experience.
V. Fifteen Minute Open Discussion
1) Rocco Gennaro, Philosophy (Interim Chair), read the following statement:
On behalf of the Department of Philosophy, I respectfully ask that Provost Maynard and
President Benjamin seriously reconsider the currently proposed action of eliminating the philosophy major (and physics major for that matter). My understanding is that nothing is definite yet and I take Provost Maynard’s word on that. I also ask for the strong and unambiguous support of the Faculty Senate.
It is one thing to reduce the large number of programs within a department, but quite another to eliminate the only Physics and Philosophy degree programs in existence. As
Interim Dean Sauer and Provost Maynard know, we have made significant efforts to try to combine with five other departments, so far without success. Part of the problem, of course, is that we have no leverage and the larger departments have little incentive, not to mention the fact that there is no longer a Humanities Department (we now teach the only two remaining
Religion courses). We have no objections to continuing those discussions and to try to find a creative solution along those lines. We continue to talk with such departments as History and
Political Science, and we have been discussing yet another possibility with Charles Amlaner
(i.e. some kind of Environmental Sciences/Philosophy/Ethics program). We have also approached the Dean’s office with the idea of a new “Philosophy and Interdisciplinary
Studies” unit (based on Dean Sauer’s idea) which would house AFRI and Women’s
Studies, but no progress thus far. I will follow up on this very soon. Any help from faculty or administrative leaders to facilitate such discussions would be appreciated. At the very least, we ask that we be given time to make one of these options work, much like many other programs have been given time to work something out with other programs/departments. We are, in any case, still determined to maintain our major program; we could not live with ourselves if we gave it up “voluntarily.” Any responsibility to end our major program must ultimately rest with the administration.
We think it is unjust to eliminate programs that were not recommended to be eliminated by the Task Force and that are the only programs in current stand-alone departments. Our department unanimously opposes this. Moreover, no rationale has been offered as to how or why the recommendation changed. Our Task Force average score (609) is over 20 points above the average score within category 3, the category above elimination. And our College score was even higher.
To be virtually the only 4-year “non-technical” institution in Indiana (or maybe the country) without a Philosophy program (or at least some combined Philosophy and
Humanities program) would have a terrible impact on the reputation of the entire University and diminish the value of an ISU degree for all students. Comparison with other “peer” institutions is already embarrassing with respect to philosophy

faculty resources. Such a decision could also be professionally damaging to department members who deserve better treatment after what we have put into our careers here.
Very little money, if any, would be saved unless even more radical cuts are made, such as the eventual elimination of most philosophy faculty positions. And satisfying any external sources of pressure to reduce the number of programs (e.g. ICHE, NCA) can be achieved in other creative ways. I find it hard to believe that they have in mind eliminating programs like
Philosophy and Physics.
The number of our majors has also increased over the past five years. We had 10 graduates over the five year Task Force period (2001-2005). We expect even higher numbers over the next few years. The number of philosophy majors has increased to 20 as of now. We do not see why it matters that about half of them are “second majors.” We also have an active Philosophy Club: three of its members finished so high on the regional Ethics
Bowl debate competition that they were invited to participate in the nationals on February
22nd.
Having a Philosophy program is an essential liberal arts outlet for interested ISU students and central to the University mission. The major is only 30 credits and many philosophy majors go on to Law school. The philosophy major can also help prepare students for many careers (not just one); it is perhaps more similar to History or English in that respect. ISU is already getting the reputation of being a vocational school, and eliminating the philosophy and physics programs will surely only add to that perception in a damaging way. It is difficult to think of too many other disciplines that are more central to the very idea of a university, both historically and in today’s world. We think such “centrality” should count heavily in our favor in the final analysis, regardless of any particular statistic or quantitative measuring stick.
I ask all of you to help save the Philosophy (and Physics) program. Thank you very much.
2) A.J. Patton asked what projects and promotions are being offered to increase the number of majors and minors in philosophy. R. Gennaro mentioned letters, working with other majors, and the targeting of open-preference students.
3) K. Liu read the following statement:
I am dismayed, disappointed and disturbed by the International Affairs office’s way of handling international student organization sponsored activities. Students from Asia, especially students from Taiwan, China, and Southeast Asia Regions, have sponsored the
Chinese Lunar New Year celebration at ISU campus for near 30 years. Several offices, such as the Union Board, the President’s office, the Alumni Office, the Office of Diversity &
Affirmative Action and the City of Terre Haute Mayor’s office have provided funds to support this year’s event. Local restaurant owners have donated food and other resources to support international student organizations’ New Year celebration event. Faculty, staff and students at ISU as well as people in the Wabash Valley Community all enjoyed the Asian

cultural events in the past and are eagerly looking forward to attending the 2007 New Year
Global Night event scheduled on Saturday, Feb. 17.
Unfortunately, a group of faculty has used political propaganda and proposed five guiding principles which indicated that only the Chinese Student and Scholar Association
(CSSA) as the “leading” organization to host the New Year celebration event. Other organizations can only participate in the event under the “lead” of CSSA. When IAC received this information which is totally in violation with university’s affirmative action policy that all students from diverse cultural background are equal and all international student organizations are equal, IAC did not inform this group of faculty that their proposal is in violation of university policy. Instead, IAC tried to comprise the situation and left 120 students from Taiwan in limbo.
There were several planning meetings scheduled between those two groups, but CSSA were NO show. The decision was supposed to be made on Monday, Feb. 12 at 10:00 am, but until NOW, I have no word from IAC whether we will have the New Year celebration or not this Saturday.120 students from Taiwan were very upset with their unfair treatment and concerned with IAC’s inability to protect and speak on behalf of them.
The provost noted that the situation has not been resolved and that, at his direction, the
Chinese Lunar New Year celebration had been postponed indefinitely.
3) Mergers – Other points / questions raised:
CAAC has been charged to examine all proposals
.
Are we giving up on advanced students?
Will Physics still serve other majors / programs such as premed?
"Departments" are different from "programs."
If the number of majors is reduced, how will we market ourselves?
Three universities which do not have philosophy departments have been identified;
perhaps we can exist without philosophy.
4) Other matters:
Faculty Annual Report: If a faculty member does not turn in digital measures what will the punishment be since this is a non-pay increase year
Library reorganization: Changes were to have been considered by the appropriate library governance bodies, but no documentation of discussion and votes has come forward to the Senate office, as required by the University Handbook.
Dean McCallister advised that the required discussions and votes did occur and that she had

assumed that the information had been forwarded. She will follow up to be sure that the information is forthcoming.
VI. Minutes #6 – 2/18/07 – APPROVED (Davis, Frank 30-0-0)
VII. Information Items – CIRT – E. Kinley, K. Janz, K. Wilkinson
E. Kinley reported:
1) A week-long summer workshop will assess what is important to faculty.
2) Because snow kept people away from the Center For Visualization, the event will be rescheduled.
3) CIRT and the Library will increase collaborations. He thanked Dean McCallister for her help.
4) Two Web design staff have resigned. Replacements are being sought. Salary is a problem. Funds to hire a suitable person may be recouped through the elimination of another
OIT position.
5) Faculty orientation programs (regular faculty and T.A.) are being established. The intention is to customize as appropriate for individual departments and situations. Faculty input is sought.
6) Speakers Series: Four speakers are scheduled during the spring term.
7) IBM representatives will be on campus discussing 2010-2012 and beyond, and will also meet with local civic and government groups.
IX. Old Business:
AJ Patton requested assistance from CAAC and the Student Affairs Committee
concerning the proposed SGA Online Evaluation of faculty.
S Lamb suggested that SGA send a request to the Executive Committee.
X. New Business: None.
XI. Standing Committee Reports : None
XII. Adjournment : 4:46 PM (Stuart, Evans - acclamation)
Respectfully submitted,
C. Hoffman, Secretary