Faculty Council News 17 March 2015 The March meeting commenced with approval of the January and February minutes, which was followed by the Chair’s comments. Peter announced that: a. There were about eight folks at each of the two recent Town Hall meetings on shared governance; the general consensus was we should cleanup our shared governance structure, rather than invent or employ another method. b. He attended an H&S Senate meeting; he and the Senate discussed the roles of the two organizations and how each communicates with their respective constituencies. c. The newly reconvened Faculty – Staff Benefits Committee met. d. To enhance communication between Counsel and the faculty at large, perhaps there should be a section at top of Intercom for governance issues. e. Agendas are now posted one week before meetings and sent to deans, staff counsel, and the SGA. There is an expectation that these organizations will also share their agendas with us as well. f. He sent a strong letter to the administration in support of a new staff position for the Student Counseling Center, but the request was denied at this time; more information will be sought. g. The Executive Committee of Council will meet with Tom Grape and the rest of the BOT in their May meeting. Peter will talk with former BOT faculty reps, including Mike Buck (PT), Bodhi Rogers (Physics), Jason Hamilton (Bio), Elia Kacapyr (Economics), and Don Liftton (Management); Don was a Faculty Representative on the Cornell BOT. Next up was Bryan Roberts, Associate Dean of the Park School, who updated us on the progress in the Homer Workflow initiative. Bryan said that the on-line Change of Major and Testing Accommodations processes were working well; he expects that soon we will be able to produce reports on changes in majors. He also stated that the following on-line forms are nearly complete: Change in Minor, Change of Grade, and Incompletes; the latter two forms will have pop-up windows for explanations and to indicate any changes in the original student-faculty agreement if applicable. Bryan indicated that a transcript access toggle is also expected soon on all forms. Bryan closed by asking for faculty volunteers for a new committee to bounce ideas off of as his group tackles the remaining processes they wish to move to an on-line form. After Bryan, Peter gave Council a preview of its new Sakai worksite, largely constructed by Jason Freitag, History; the site shows all the committees on campus with links to their websites and descriptions in the College’s Policy Manual if applicable. Peter mentioned that not all committees have current websites; he charged each Council member to contact one committee on the Faculty Council Sakai site to so as to nudge the committee to update their materials. Council next unanimously passed a motion to recommend to the Registrar to confer degrees on all students who have meet their respective program requirements. Following the motion, we then discussed shared governance. Peter’s main concern is communication. Council decided that we should post the FCN letter on-line with a forums section to invite feedback and solicit questions. To that end, rather than email the FCN, a link will be sent to all faculty taking them to a site that displays the newsletter and contains a comments section. Council closed its March meeting with three issues. The first of which was the use of Executive Session (ES). Peter indicated that at the H&S senate meeting, a few senators indicated that they felt Council was in ES too much. After a brief deliberation, a motion was raised to alter Council’s agenda so that it read that we would enter ES as needed at the end of a session rather than listing it in our agenda as the final 20 minutes of every meeting. The motion failed: six in favor, 11 against, and 1 abstention. Instead, the agenda will stay as it has been, but Council will make a greater effort to report whether or not we actually went into ES. The reality is that at the end of most meetings, we don’t go into ES; instead, it is late, and we vote to adjourn. The next issue was related to Faculty Council Reapportionment; it has been five years since the last reapportionment, and we are due to do so again. In short, every School has a minimum of one Faculty Council Representative and additional representatives for every 20 FTE. Last, John Rosenthal, Math, gave a brief overview of the College’s budget as approved by the BOT in February. Given the late hour, Council tabled any discussion on John’s report. Rather then go into ES, Council voted to adjourn. Respectfully, Tom Swensen Secretary Faculty Council Professor and Chair Exercise and Sport Sciences