May 9, 2012
University of Nevada, Reno
Faculty Senate 2012-13
Meeting Minutes
Meeting 1
1. Roll Call and Introductions:
Gerald Ackerman (SOM), Jamie Anderson (SOM), Pat Arnott (COS), Todd Borman (IT), John Dell (DHS),
Susan Donaldson (COOP), Patricia Ellison (CABNR), Mariah Evans (CLA), Rosemary McCarthy (JO), Glenn
Miller (CABNR), Swatee Naik (Chair-elect) , Vannessa Nicholas (Prov), Elissa Palmer (SOM), Anna Panorska
(COS), Crystal Parrish (DEV), Chuck Price (SS), Todd Renwick (A & F), David Ryfe (Ex-officio), Amy Shannon
(Lib), Deborah Shindell (DHS), Shanon Taylor (COE), George Thomas (CLA), Marjorie Vecchio (CLA),
Claudene Wharton (Pres), Stephanie Woolf (VPR), David Zeh (Chair).Leah Wilds (CLA).
Absent: Rafik Beekun (COBA), Catherine Goring (SOM), Keith Hackett (Pres), Robert Wang (SOM),
Guests: President Marc Johnson.
2. Visit with President Johnson:
President Marc Johnson welcomed the senators and thanked them for their service as this was a very
important body. They represent a group of faculty that interacts on a regular basis with administration to bring
the voices of faculty together for shared governance. This has been a difficult period of time, and now we need
to move forward into the future together. Good lines of communication needed to continue with the senate and
with their constituents. The president would continue to meet monthly with the senate chair, meet with the
executive board whenever they needed and he also would continue to speak with the senate regularly. He also
meets monthly with the SEC Chair and Ron Zurek, the ASUN and GSA. The university still faced some
challenges, but things were stabilizing and it was felt that there would be slow growth. He would like the senate
to help communicate that message and need to come together in a positive way for the future.
Discussion/Questions/Comments:
What would the effect of the funding formula be on the university?
In its current form, we would lose approximately $1.5 million. The issues with the formula at this point were
research dollars being based on SFTE and the definitions (such as incompletes, Fs and Unsatisfactory grades)
used for the output measures. If the formula goes through as it stands, and we lose the $1.5 million, it was felt
that as long as we were able to keep tuition and fees then we would still have revenue gains from growing our
student body. This formula would hurt the Northern Nevada Community Colleges more than us and President
Johnson offered to help get a conversation going to take care of rural students.
A senator expressed concern that the search for the provost would not be a fair and open search. Johnson
responded that he wanted the search to be fair and open and a national search. He contracted with Isaacson
and Miller (the search firm used when he was applying for the provost position) as he felt they were very
thorough. While there would always be questions about any committee the President convened, this committee
had balance with faculty, some deans, and the senate chair.
Chair David Zeh asked the president to talk about his vision for the university for the next 6 months to 2 years.
Johnson responded that along with the search for the Executive Vice President and Provost position, he had
formed a committee to identify a three year investment plan for research support he has been following
through with the Outreach Committee on how to implement a university outreach program. He was working on
an enrollment management strategy, so that if we get to keep our tuition and fees we would be ready to
increase enrollments. Johnson said that he has been encouraged by the Redfield Foundation to do something
major with the Redfield Campus such as focusing on an innovation campus. They would need enough support
for research professors and graduate students to be located there. The Technology Transfer Office has been
working with individual faculty to help them look at ways to tweak their research for more commercialization.
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In discussions regarding restoring salary and merit, Johnson would like to bring everyone back to where they
belong and then look at the merit pool. Annual evaluations would count cumulatively when there was merit
money again. They would need to look at fair ways to spread the merit money over a couple of biennium. Part
of the discussion would include salary equity studies.
Johnson would like to have full-time faculty in the classrooms as opposed to hiring more LOAs.
A question was asked about an increase in department chair’s salaries. Johnson responded that a few years
ago they needed to increase the chair’s stipend to include a 10th month. In order to have faculty willing to be
department chairs they needed to reward leadership.
President Johnson requested that additional comments and questions be sent to him via email him at
marc@unr.edu.
3. Orientation:
Link to the orientation presentation:
http://www.unr.edu/facultysenate/meetings/12-13/Agendas/Senator_Orient_%202012.ppt
Chair David Zeh discussed the importance of shared governance.
NSHE is a three tiered system, with the community colleges, the state college, and the universities.
He briefly discussed the responsibilities of the chair and the responsibilities of the senators. It would be
important for senators to let their constituents know what was happening and getting their input prior to votes in
the senate. Zeh would like senators to take a more active role in communicating. He suggested some ways to
be more communicative, such as sending out information on a list serve to constituents, or asking the dean or
director to attend the department chair meetings to give a short report to their constituents. We want to
enhance the voice of the faculty senate.
He went over the order of senate business.
4. Where are we going:
Zeh said that the view he developed as the aftermath of curricular review was that the senate needed a plan. If
we could see a way forward, then we could get people on board. Faculty have a tendency to pretend that the
outside world does not exist.
UNR received 46% of its funding from state appropriations which was greater than most other universities.
Past Chair David Ryfe went over the funding formula and how money was disbursed to NSHE and the
institutions. A senator asked if Bruce Shively could come and speak to the senate on how the budget worked
with state appropriations and the general fund.
Zeh would speak regarding the funding formula at the Interim Committee on Funding of Higher Education
meeting May 23, 2012.
Senate work in the coming year would be:
 The Commission on the Future of the University
 Senate Apportionment
 Faculty Senate Committee Work
 General Education and Core Curriculum Revisions
 Faculty Morale Issues
We face a lot of challenges; we have 4 major issues facing higher education:
The economy
Our image problem
Disruptive innovation
May 9, 2012
Meeting 1
Faculty morale
Job security and merit were things that the senate needed to look at. We need to communicate
to our constituents that the senate voice actually matters.
5. Executive Vice President and Provost Search Committee Members:
Ryfe said that while the turn-around time for the search committee members was short, we were
following policy. The reason for the short notice was that the President wanted to have the committee up and
running so they could begin their work over the summer and have a new EVPP in place for the spring
semester. The senate was not happy with the timing and would like a memo sent to the President regarding
this. The senate asked what would happen if they chose not to send forward names at this time. Ryfe said that
the search firm was scheduled to be on campus early next week and then the faculty senate committee
members would not have input into what characteristics they wanted in the new provost. It was decided to go
forward with the election and send a memo to the President regarding the short notice for this very important
search. The senate would like to see a timeline of how the search process would progress.
MOTION: Miller/Panorska. To have the election with an abbreviated voting schedule to begin Thursday and
end Friday and the senate would express their unhappiness regarding this issue.
Claudene Wharton asked to make a friendly amendment that would request a timeline on the search process.
This amendment was accepted.
ACTION: Passed unanimously
6. New Business:
Michelle Hritz said that we needed a senator to serve on a scholarship committee and asked for volunteers.
Ana Panorska said she would serve on this committee.
A question was asked if the chair or chair elect could proxy for a senator. Yes.
Meeting adjourned: 5:12 pm