Minutes
Faculty Senate Meeting
February 12, 2014
Professor Nelson called the meeting to order at 2:35 PM
Present: Professors Candice Nelson, Lacey Wootton, Barlow Burke, Daniel Abramson, John
Douglass, Todd Eisenstadt, Artur Elezi, Larry Engel, Bryan Fantie, Joe Graf, Iris Krasnow,
Gwanhoo Lee, Glenn Moomau, Mohamid Nimer, John Nolan, Arturo Porzencanski, Gemma
Puglisi, Jerzy Sapieyevski, Chris Simpson, Matthew Taylor, Provost Scott Bass, Dean Phyllis
Peres
Chair Report – Candy Nelson
Professor Nelson welcomed everyone to the meeting. She apologized to the senators for the late
distribution of the minutes and asked if the senators would like to table them until the next
meeting. The senators voted and the November minutes were tabled until the March meeting.
Professor Nelson stated that the Senate Executive Committee would like to propose unanimously
that Larry Engel be the Vice Chair of the senate for AY 2014-2015. The senate VOTED 19-0-2
in favor.
Professor Nelson stated that as mentioned in the November minutes, the discussion of SETs
would come back to the senate and it has. The senate has put together a committee to review
SETs and other teaching evaluations. Elizabeth Worden has agreed to chair the committee. If you
have questions about the committee Professor Worden has asked that you email her. The first
meeting for this committee will be February 27, 2014.
Provost’s Report – Scott Bass
Provost Bass stated that the undergraduate enrollment has seen some new development and
changes this year. He stated that this is a reflection of the student population. There have been a
couple of problems this year with the common application. Not only was the application not
working for some time but there have been some changes that have influenced the way students
apply. Examples are, for example, an applicant cannot submit their application until all essays
have been completed and with the application fee. In addition, for the special programs, the
university has required additional essays. At the final hours before the application closed the
numbers were down 33% but in the last 24 hours an additional 2700 applications were submitted.
The numbers were still down. The special program numbers showed that with the three year
programs that most of them doubled or almost tripled. The new honors program, which has 45
seats to fill of which 5 are for the Fredrick Douglass Distinguished Scholars program, received
2700 applications which required the intensive essays. These are highly qualified students in this
pool. For the Fredrick Douglass Distinguished Scholars program the numbers last year were
over 800 applications for 5 slots, but this year there were 2300 applications. These numbers are a
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clear representation of the number of quality high learning students that need to be converted
into other special programs at AU. This will be the focus for this year’s large applicant pool.
Emeriti Faculty Manual Changes – Candy Nelson
Professor Nelson stated that the language changes presented were to remove the sentence
allowing emeriti faculty to vote on the by-laws of their teaching and academic units. Concern
was expressed that taking away emeriti rights to vote will make them feel removed from the AU
community. The Academic Budget and Benefits Committee has specific language in the by-laws
that state the voting rights of emeriti faculty for benefits. Concern was expressed that allowing
emeriti to vote on current issues within their school or college might sway a vote on information
that they are really not informed about. The senate tabled the proposed language changes and
voted to bring new language back to the next meeting reflective of the senators expressed
concerns.
Senate Information Meeting – Lacey Wootton
Professor Wootton stated that the senate elections will be coming up in March and the senate
leadership has been discussing ways to get more faculty involved with the senate particularly
with new faculty. There will be an informational meeting on February 19, 2014 from 11:30 AM
to 12:30 PM. This meeting will be an opportunity to let people know what the senate does and
how faculty can contribute to important issues at the university. We are asking that you please
encourage faculty in your units to participate.
Library Manual Changes – Lacey Wootton
Professor Nelson stated that the Library manual has been reviewed by legal counsel and has been
voted on and approved by the library faculty. The Senate subcommittee members are Professors
Lacey Wootton, Barlow Burke, Mohamed Nimer and Dean Phyllis Peres. The subcommittee has
gone through the manual and will present their findings.
Professor Wootton stated that the revised manual is a radical change from the previous manual.
The last revision to the library manual was done in 2003. She stated that the bulk of the changes
are to conform to the changes made to the main Faculty Manual. The policies and procedures are
essentially the same except where there are changes that reference the library:

Sections 1-11 (including Tenure-Line section): These sections are essentially the same as
the corresponding sections in the main Faculty Manual, except for language and
descriptions that have been adapted to the circumstances of the library faculty.

Sections 12-16: These new sections cover the “Continuing Appointment-Line Faculty,” a
new faculty category for library faculty. Overall, the timelines and procedures
correspond to those for tenure-line faculty. However, a requirement of “professional
contributions” replaces the tenure-line requirement for scholarship.
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
Sections 17-19: These sections cover term faculty and differ somewhat from the term
faculty sections in the main Faculty Manual, particularly in the faculty ranks.

Sections 20-32: These sections are the same as those in the main Faculty Manual, except
that section 29.iii. offers the possibility of sabbatical leave to continuing appointment-line
faculty, and there’s language to allow for annual leave and sick leave.
Professor Wootton stated that Dean Nancy Davenport and Librarian Rachel Borchardt were
present to answer any questions.
Dean Davenport thanked the senate for their review of the new library manual. She said that the
new library manual was imaged as much as possible to be the same as the Faculty Manual,
changing the language only where it applied to librarians rather than teaching faculty.
The senators discussed the following:

Why are the titles not different for Librarians?
The recommendation came from the library tenured faculty that they have the same titles
regardless of the type of appointment. It is a sign of collegiality. The titles in the library
are not included in the AAUP rankings.

Scholarly Activities – how are they evaluated?
This will be better developed in the Library guidelines. There are a very small amount of
impact related journals in library science. The current librarians are publishing in other
fields other than library science.

How will the librarians be evaluated by students like faculty are with SETs?
The library asks for feedback from the professors where librarians are a part of the class
especially for information literacy, particularly with the college writing programs where
librarians are deeply embedded.

How does the annual review work?
What use to be the merit review committee will be expanded to address this issue but the
guidelines for the process have yet to be developed. It will not be a full file for action but
it will be something similar to a review process similar to what is current practice for the
merit review.
The Senate VOTED to accept the manual and was passed 15-1-1.
Provost Bass stated that the library faculty have worked on the manual for many years. They
have researched nationally and have struggled to see what is happening with librarianship and
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address these very complex issues. This manual is a real contribution of leadership. The final
decision rests with the Board of Trustees. Provost Bass stated that he is very proud of the library
faculty for their accomplishment of this manual.
University Learning Outcomes – Joe Graf
Professor Graf stated that early ideas for these outcomes were drawn from a variety of sources,
including Gen Ed outcomes and some information from Student Affairs, as well as the
statement of common purpose for the University. The big opportunity for the Committee on
Learning Assessment (COLA) took place at the Ann Ferren Conference. From this meeting a
large document of notes was sent to COLA and COLA then broke into subcommittees that each
handled various outcomes creating the current draft. Professor Graf stated that he would like the
senators to think about how these outcomes can be used. The senate further discussed the draft
outcomes and how they would like to see them impact all areas of the institution and the AU
graduates. The senate also discussed having the draft document approved by the senate by the
next senate meeting in March to be available for the Middle States visit.
Professor Nelson asked the senators to take the draft back to their units for input and to please
send any comments to aulearning @american.edu as soon as possible so the revised draft can be
presented to the Executive Committee for review for the next senate meeting. She also reminded
the senators that Conflict of Time Commitment will be coming in March as well and to get any
feedback to bring to the senate.
The meeting was adjourned at 4:10 PM
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