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