Faculty Senate Minutes
May 1, 2000
Present: William (“Wild Bill”) Haltom, Kathie Hummel-Berry, Heather Bruce, Doug Edwards,
Suzanne Holland, Chris Kline, David Sousa, Keith Ward, Terry Cooney, Kris Bartanen, Elma
Nahm, Hans Ostrom, Ryan Mello
Visitors: Steven Neshyba, Bill Barry, Douglas Goodman, Bernard Bates, Jim Jasinski, Bruce
Mann, David Tinsley, Bob Steiner, David Droge
Bill Haltom called the meeting to order at 4:07.
The minutes for the Senate meeting of April 17 were approved as amended.
Announcements
There were no announcements.
Items of Business
Virtually the entire meeting was spent discussing and accepting reports by representatives from governance committees. Complete reports from each committee are attached to this document.
The following are summary comments by representatives from each committee along with discussion among senators and guests.
Professional Standards Committee (Bruce Mann). Bruce discussed the committee’s work on departmental statements regarding procedures and criteria for faculty evaluation, its formal Code interpretation of materials submitted from external sources in the evaluation process, and reviews of students’ evaluation of teaching and materials distributed annually to faculty regarding process and procedure for faculty evaluation.
M/S/P with two abstentions to accept the report.
Academic Standards Committee (Doug Goodman). Doug’s summary focused on changes to the medical withdrawal policy, specifically the Emergency Administrative Withdrawal policy, honors in the major, and policies regarding the acceptance of transfer credit for distance learning courses.
Doug Edwards and Ryan Mello asked questions regarding criteria for limiting transfer credit for distance learning to four units. Goodman noted the use of limits to self-guided courses as the model as well as concerns from President Pierce regarding the absence of any limit. He observed that it can be difficult to distinguish distance learning classes from traditional courses.
Terry Cooney emphasized that the University accepts credits only from accredited programs and that a syllabus is requested in cases where there is doubt about course content or teaching method. Mello also raised issues regarding some administrative policies with the medical withdrawal policy. Goodman noted that the conditions were comparable to other University policies already in place, although petitions would be possible.
M/S/P with one abstention to accept the report.
Curriculum Committee (Steve Neshyba). Steve summarized the committee’s work on the core curriculum review and study abroad issues. He also cited the work of Molly Pasco-Pranger
(Chair), Ken Stevens, Bill Barry, and Brad Tomhave for their voluntary work on a subcommittee that reviewed the BPA curriculum revision. Doug Edwards asked whether the committee had addressed the requirement of two Natural World courses for any Science in Context course. Bill
Barry said that the subcommittee reviewing this was sympathetic to revising the requirement, but the complete committee had not reviewed its recommendation.
M/S/P to accept the report.

University Enrichment Committee (David Tinsley). David reported on the number and total dollar amounts awarded for student grants, faculty research grants, and travel grants for 1999-2000.
He noted with appreciation the $2,500 ASUPS donated to the committee’s coffer this year and expressed the hope that the student governing body would consider increasing its contribution in the future. (Ryan Mello informed the Senate that funding has been set for next year at the same level as 1999-2000.) Tinsley commented on a drop in faculty research grant applications and the significant increase in travel grants. The increased financial support for the latter placed a strain on the budget, although increased support was made possible by the drop in research grant awards. He said the committee will request a budget increase in the Fall. Doug Edwards had questions regarding the number of research and travel awards (Tinsley reported they were 12 and 74, respectively) and the continued funding of student research through UEC, especially in light of the Murdock awards and other funds that now support student research. Tinsley, Kris
Bartanen and Terry Cooney described events and initiatives going back to the 1970s that have led to expanded support of student research through UEC, noting that the funds were used for supplies related to student projects, travel for student participation in conferences, and responses to requests by department chairpersons for greater support of student research. Ryan Mello expressed concern about UEC procedures, specifically the frequency of meetings that presently occur only twice annually. Tinsley welcomed the Senate’s review of this practice. David Sousa asked whether faculty research has been pinched by limited funds. Tinsley said that in the past the committee has not been able to show full use of its funds to the Budget Task Force, but that this year was different thanks mostly to the travel fund being overdrawn. Edwards asked about control of travel agency fees, to which Cooney reported on the success this year in a pilot project
(pun intended by the writer) to control costs in faculty searches by use of a single agent with
United Airlines. Cooney suggested that its success may influence professional travel arrangements made by the University in the future.
M/S/P to accept the report.
Student Life Committee (Jim Jasinski). Work by SLC focused mostly on review of selected student services and review of the Student Integrity Code. Questions from senators focused on parking (Ryan Mello), Counseling Health and Wellness Services (Chris Kline), and the Student
Integrity Code (Mello).
M/S/P to accept the report.
Library, Media, and Academic Computing Committee (Bob Steiner). Bob reported that the work of the committee included establishing a use policy, promoting the sharing of information and expertise among faculty, faculty committees, and staff active in technology (especially as it relates to teaching), and addressing concerns from OIS. The two large issues facing the committee next year are defining its function (it has become, according to Steiner a committee still trying to find its purpose) and assessing the pedagogical value of technology. Doug Edwards raised issues of use and accessibility of technology-enhanced classrooms (TEC). Terry Cooney said he believed the situation to be good for access to TEC’s, but that faculty who want to use the spaces need to plan ahead.
Following the Senate’s acceptance of the report, Bill Haltom moved by acclamation for the
Senate to praise Bob on his years of “combat duty” and to wish him well as he enters retirement.
Diversity Committee (David Droge). David highlighted five issues/challenges the Diversity
Committee raised or addressed: the relationship between retention and recruitment, the development of a speakers bureau of faculty, applications to the Gates Millennium Scholarship
(the University has fourteen nominations), development of a single institutional statement o diversity, and disability as an aspect of diversity. Ryan Mello questioned the substantial focus on
African-American diversity. He wondered whether other minorities would receive more attention and whether the definition of diversity used by the committee would expand to explicitly include religious diversity and sexual orientation. Droge cited the 1990 Diversification Report that has

guided work by the committee, which notes a lack of progress in attracting African-American students. He said that a change could happen depending on the charge the committee received from the Senate. Terry Cooney sounded a note of caution about how a speaker’s bureau would be pitched as community service, especially for junior faculty, since service is not part of tenure criteria. He was concerned that faculty would feel pressure to do something that is not a Code responsibility.
M/S/P to accept the report .
Faculty Advancement Committee (Terry Cooney). Because of the confidential nature of the committee’s work, it can only be reported that the committee met and performed its duties in accordance with schedules and procedures established in the Faculty Code. Approximately sixty faculty were evaluated during the 1999-2000 academic year. Cooney said this was a particularly busy year for the committee, producing a substantial workload for those faculty on the committee.
M/S/P to accept the report.
Unwittingly thwarting Doug Edwards’s gambit to move for adjournment, Chairperson Haltom recognized Senator Ward, whose item of business threw the senate into legislative overtime.
Ward brought forward a concern from a faculty member regarding an undertaking led by ASUPS
Senator Jennifer Tillett, and ostensibly sponsored by ASUPS, to compile information for an
“ASUPS Students Resource Guide.” His concerns focused on two e-mail solicitations from
ASUPS Senator Tillett, the first which described the goal of the proposed guide and which gave faculty the opportunity to decline participating, and the second which suggested to faculty that they may wish to submit copies of the course evaluations administered by the University as substitutes for the form being distributed to students. While recognizing students’ right to undertake such a project, Ward was concerned by the implications of it for faculty, whether they participated in it or not. He also took issue with the questions on the form purportedly to identify an instructor’s “teaching style.” Ryan Mello informed the Senate that while the “Resource Guide” was being compiled by an ASUPS senator, it was not an approved or funded project of that body.
Discussion also included concern about unapproved human research, the impact on junior faculty, the possible damage of skewed responses, the feasibility of doing credible analysis with so much information, and procedural issues related to the possible submission of course evaluations from the Spring term. The Senate took no formal action, although consensus supported Terry Cooney’s offer to circulate a memo to faculty clarifying that participation is entirely voluntary and that the project is unrelated to University evaluation processes.
The meeting, and a semester’s worth of work, ended at 5:44.
Respectfully submitted,
Keith Ward