November 17, 2011
University of Nevada, Reno
Faculty Senate 2011-12
Meeting Minutes
Meeting 7
1. Roll Call and Introductions:
Present: Pat Arnott (COS), Mike Bennett (A & F), Rahul Bhargava for Rafik Beekun (COBA), Todd Borman
(IT), Susan Donaldson (COOP), Patricia Ellison (CABNR), Isabelle Favre, (CLA), Catherine Goring (SOM),
Keith Hackett (Pres), Eric Herzik (Ex-Officio), Julie Hogan (DHS), Yanyao Jiang (EN), Stephen Lafer (COE),
Kami Larsen (SOM), Kami Larsen for Elissa Palmer (SOM), Amy McFarland (SOM), Amy McFarland for
Gerald Ackerman (SOM), Donica Mensing (JO), Glenn Miller (CABNR), Swatee Naik (COS), Vannessa
Nicholas (Prov), Louis Niebur (CLA), Crystal Parrish (DEV), Chuck Price (SS), Maggie Ressel (Lib), Alice
Running (DHS), David Ryfe (Chair), Valerie Smith (VPR), Jonathan Weinstein (COS), Claudene Wharton
(Pres), David Zeh (Chair-elect).
Absent: Marjorie Vecchio (CLA).
Guests: Joseph Broad (ASUN Senate), Juliana Fehr (ASUN Senate), Martha Hildreth (BCC), Casey Stiteler
(ASUN Senate).
2. Bylaws and Code Committee – “Expedited Tenure” Recommendation – Chair Martha Hildreth
The committee was asked to review the policy revision regarding tenure with hire “expedited tenure”:
“At the request of the Board of Regents, NSHE staff prepared an amended proposal for consideration that
would allow for a similar process for tenure on hire for exemplary faculty who do not have tenure at another
institution, but who have an exemplary record that indicates extraordinary achievement in the field. This
process for granting exceptionally outstanding academic faculty tenure in a manner similar to that defined
above for faculty with tenure at other institutions protects the principles established in the award of tenure and
protects the important role of faculty in the award of tenure. Annual reports to the Board with the list of the
accomplishments that justify tenure on hire would be required.”
While Board of Regents (BOR) oversight was not excessive, this amended policy would allow the presidents
even greater flexibility to hire someone who had never been in academia, but worked in the private or
governmental sectors and could still receive tenure at hire. The BCC recommended against this change.
Questions/Comments:
A senator disagreed with this recommendation, he felt that the change presented to the BOR would allow UNR
to compete with universities that were larger and had more resources.
A senator said that even BOR oversight was better than not having any oversight, and that it might prevent a
president from hiring those that were not capable. Discussion centered on the need for BOR oversight,
whether or not there had been issues in the past since departments were advisory on who would be hired with
tenure. Was this something that could be brought to the P & T Committee? Would it be possible to put a
probationary period on the tenure with hire to make sure the faculty was a good fit? If it went before the BOR or
the P & T it was possible to lose a good candidate as this was a time consuming process. In the School of
Medicine (SOM) all chairs were brought in with tenure.
MOTION: Niebur/Donaldson. To accept the recommendation of the committee as written.
ACTION: Passed, 8 abstentions.
3. Chair’s Report:
Chair David Ryfe welcomed the new senators from the College of Science, Swatee Naik and Jonathan
Weinstein. Senator Alice Running from DHS was leaving the university in December and DHS would hold an
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election for this vacant seat. The December meeting would begin at noon and the January senate meeting
should be held in RSJ 304.
Curricular Review was a substantive issue and everyone hated the way it was organized. Last year Bart
Patterson, Vice Chancellor for Administration and Legal Affairs, created a task force. The recommendations of
that task force were tabled. Patterson met with the council of chairs and asked them to take on the task of
looking at the report and making recommendations. The chairs would like to include more faculty input in the
process. For example: a faculty committee could look at the financial data of their institution and then make a
recommendation to the president. Each institution would need to fill in the academic planning process that
would include faculty oversight. The recommendations would be done in December and the senate could look
at them. Ryfe would have the task force’s report sent to the senate and then the senate could send their
comments to the executive board. Suggested language would need to be general enough to fit all institutions.
Ryfe would like to see faculty involvement throughout the process.
The senate’s language regarding presidential searches has been forwarded to Brooke Nielson.
The SBC had forwarded a recommendation regarding Domestic Partner Benefits to the President last year.
Former President Glick had tabled it as it was not an appropriate time to send forward. Now that we have a
new president the SBC has asked about the status of that recommendation. Both the President and the
Provost were strongly supportive of it. Chancellor Klaich has been in discussions with PEBP and said that if he
can’t get satisfaction, then NSHE would make a concentrated effort to leave the system.
At this point there is no policy for professors to have office hours. Administration has asked that the executive
board look into creating an Office Hour Policy. Ryfe said that he was not sure if office hours were effective for
students as there were many different ways to contact them. Both ASUN and GSA would be asked to look into
this and make a recommendation to the executive board who would then forward it to the Academic Standards
Committee (ASC).
Background checks were currently being used for classified and administrative faculty and it was felt that best
practices would be for all new hires to have a background check done. This would cost $50.00 per individual
and about $7,000 annually. The performance metrics sheet will be discussed later in the meeting.
Chancellor Klaich presented to the legislature a 4 point plan that included fee increases. The legislature did not
accept the 13% fee increase in the second year. Klaich intended to go to the legislature for this increase and
asked for plans from the presidents for a 5%, 8%, 10% and 13% increase plan. The first iteration sent forward
from UNR was rejected because it was not student centered and the chancellor wanted the increase to directly
benefit students. Ryfe stated that we have a health care bill coming up and there was not a budgeted line item
for this. The university would have to find 1.7 million and they were not planning on doing curricular review to
get the money. This would mean that the funds would be coming from the administrative side of the university.
Neither building renovation nor faculty retention was close enough to students to be considered in this
increase. A senator asked about salary decreases and Ryfe responded that he had not heard anything pointing
to that.
4. Consent Agenda:
October 13, 2011 meeting minutes
October 20, 2011 meeting minutes
IAC Institutional Advisory Committee
UAM revisions
Ryfe explained that the revision to the IAC nominating process was to allow the executive board to create a
more diverse committee by replacing the lowest vote holder with someone more diverse.
The Notary Public Policy was removed from the consent agenda for discussion.
MOTION: Larsen/McFarland. To approve the remainder of the consent agenda as published.
ACTION: Passed unanimously.
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Meeting 7
A senator asked why the notary policy was being changed. Michelle Hritz, Senate Manager stated that the
UAM has been undergoing changes to revamp the manual for the past several years. This is not a change to
the policy, but a new policy. He asked if there was an issue with notaries. Why are they developing a policy
that restricts the use of Notary Publics on campus? Ryfe thought that they wanted to the Notary Publics to just
be doing university business on university time. The discussion centered on why this included only university
business, this has been a convenience for faculty, staff, and students to have Notary Publics on campus.
MOTION: Miller/Hackett. To send a letter to administration saying that the senate feels as though this is an
unnecessary additional policy.
ACTION: Passed, 3 opposed, 3 abstentions
5. Faculty Commission:
Ryfe thanked the Executive Board for their hard work on the Faculty Commission. The packet included a
statement and the proposed charges.
MOTION: Herzik/Smith. To adopt the statement and the charges as published.
ACTION: Passed unanimously.
Faculty Commission Nominees:
Ryfe explained the process of how the list was generated and why it was done in this manner. The senators
and executive board members were asked for recommendations to the nominee list and then Ryfe went and
spoke to most of the deans and the chairs to get more recommendations of nominees to the list. There were
about forty people on the list. The names were grouped into 3 categories, administrative faculty, mid-career
level faculty and senior faculty. The commission needed a diversity of minds so that all different ideas could be
represented on the commission. Ryfe spoke to each individual on the list to make sure they were willing to
serve, and all of those that agreed seemed enthusiastic and committed.
Comments/Questions:
There were no College of Education faculty on the list did they decline? There were some comments on the
diversity and unit representation of the list. Ryfe however felt that there would be enough interaction with
faculty from all units to create a pool of diverse ideas. How would faculty be able to reach the commission
members? The commission was a faculty senate sponsored commission and would be reporting to the senate
5 or 6 times a year. The recommendations would come forward to the senate for approval. Ryfe also hopes to
have a website developed for the commission.
Results of the vote:
Kelly Corrigan, Janita Jobe, Reginald Stewart, Christopher Coake, Ana de Bettencourt-Dias, Stacy Gordon,
Gary Blomquist, Patty Charles, Amy Childress, Dana Edberg, and Trudy Larson. The executive board added
two members, JoAnne Skelly and Steven Maples. The commission was now 13 members, plus David Zeh and
David Ryfe as Co-chairs. The first meeting would be scheduled in early December. Ryfe thought the
commission would have approximately ten formal meetings.
Casey Stiteler stated that the ASUN underwent a similar process and developed a Joint Vision 2017.
6. Performance Measures:
This happened quickly; a consulting group looked at the funding formula and created some performance
metrics suggestions. In the last legislative session a committee was established to make recommendations at
the next legislative session. The performance based measures would be important to this process as people
were incentive oriented animals. If there were performance measures in the funding formula, it would be
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Meeting 7
important to have a conversation about what measures should be used. There would need to be input and
output measures. Research should be a part of the performance measures for the universities. These
measures are very over simplified at this point.
Comments/Questions:
Just graduating students does not fill the needs of the state; the graduation has to happen in key disciplines.
It seems that the number of graduates that go on to teach would be important. Klaich said that if the legislature
wanted to spend money on the universities, then we should become the universities that the legislature wants.
UNR does pretty well on those metrics nationally and statewide, but what happens if other institutions don’t
meet those measures? Would they be given less money because they were not meeting the targets? There
would be a need to have a mechanism in place for equity and a need for a balance between what makes a
university a university, such as research or internship experience. There should also be some kind of weight if
more students were graduated in fields like nursing, which came with a higher cost. While the university did
not have control over those measures, if we could help Klaich create or decide on better measures he would
take them to the legislature. We needed to generate ideas and then Ryfe would bring them forward to the other
senate chairs. Please send any ideas to Ryfe regarding performance measures.
7. New Business:
ASUN President Casey Stiteler said that many conversations are happening independently and he would like
students, faculty, staff and administration to push in the same direction.
Meeting Adjourned: 3:50 pm