Approved 9-0-0
02/15/11
EC #21
UNIVERSITY FACULTY SENATE
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
February 15, 2011, 3:30 p.m.
HMSU 227
Present:
S. Lamb, A. Anderson, K. Bolinger, J. Conant, R. Dunbar, R. Guell, C. Hoffman, J. Kuhlman,
V. Sheets
Ex officio:
President D. Bradley, Provost J. Maynard
Guests:
Elizabeth Lorenzen, Shelly Arvin (Library)
I.
Administrative report
Provost Maynard:
a.
The president is having budget hearings tomorrow. There will be presentation summaries
on how the campus is responding to the $1.2 million reallocation. I hope that some
Executive Committee members will be able to come to that. Nothing has changed from
our previous conversations.
b.
The Board of Trustees will meet on campus this Thursday and Friday. If EC members have
time on Thursday from 2:00-5:00 p.m., they are invited to hear deans’ presentations on
what their individual colleges are presently working on. On Friday the regular Board
meeting will take place.
S. Lamb: Reminded everyone of Thursday’s Faculty Senate meeting at 3:30 p.m.
Unfortunately, that time will conflict with the various dean presentations to the Board,
between 2:00-5:00.
Provost: R. English will act as ex officio at the Faculty Senate meeting on Thursday.
c.
Provost: This year the administration is doing the external evaluation of the president.
Consultants will be on campus from Wednesday-Friday evening.
d.
Monday we will have our scholars collaboration and prospective faculty day. There will be
22 scholars on campus for a day and a half. We have attracted some very interesting
people coming as far as Oregon and Texas.
S. Lamb: I’m sure there will be some solid networking taking place. I hope for some
consideration of continuing this process in the future.
Provost: I believe we will. That is the intent right now to continue the scholars’
collaborative program.
e.
Provost: On Tuesday, David Hopkins will be here to assist us with Unbounded Possibilities.
Many of us have worked with David in the past when he was at Indiana State.
S. Lamb: I do need to remind Executive Committee members that Dave Hopkins will be
meeting with EC members on Tuesday, February 22.
f.
Provost: The State Student Assistant Commission of Indiana (SSACI) just passed the State
student’s assistant group. I sent a memo out this afternoon regarding the Corrections
program, and they are basically saying that as of January 1, 2011, no SSACI funds can be
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used to support the education of an inmate. The future of the Corrections program
continues to be in question. At the maximum we will be phasing out the program next
year. Corrections will have some money to educate inmates. We will try and get more
details later. We’re assuming the courses presently being taught will be reimbursed.
President: It’s more likely to be July 1 - in the new budget cycle.
Provost: We have commitments for this semester that we will honor. Beyond that, we
will have to wait and see.
President: I believe we have a moral and ethical responsibility to these students to try to
help them complete their programs. The Commissioner is supportive of that but
unfortunately SSACI does not have any connections to the Indiana Commission of Higher
Education. It is a totally separate agency that works with the Governor’s office.
President Bradley:
a.
Board of Trustees meetings on Thursday and Friday. There are several interesting items
on their agenda such as:
 The deans made a presentation to the Foundations Board in Naples, Florida in
January. Ron Carpenter was so impressed that much of Thursday’s conversation
will be given over to the deans. They can talk directly to the Board about what
they are doing in their respective colleges.
 Jay Gatrell (Dean, GC) will also be talking about task force results. The Trustees
will be very interested in that.
 We will be able to give the Trustees some understanding of where we think we
are with the budget(s). No new news in that regard. The governor has proposed
$4.1 million in cuts. There may be some move to give us more flexibility in that
they would allot some existing R & R monies and some from the general fund. We
would have to decide whether or not to use it for R & R. In our case, taking the
money from R & R and putting it in the general fund or leaving it where it is
doesn’t make a huge amount of difference because the amount is about 3%
either way. But that is the only movement that we have been able to see. They
would like to give us more money, but they do not have it. In April we will have a
revenue forecast, and we’ll see if there is any movement at the last minute.
 We had some good things happen at the Commission meeting on Friday in that
they retroactively approved our PhD cohort in Evansville. More importantly, they
gave us a bunch of “at a boys!” for it, primarily because we were being responsive
to the local school district. We need to continue to walk that line where we are
working hard to be responsive, not only to school districts, but also to other
sectors of our state. We need to make sure we demonstrate that we are being
proactive in our community.
II.
Chair report
S. Lamb: No report
III.
15 Minute Open Discussion
a.
C. Hoffman: The Trustees’ agenda proposes a bid to purchase the parking garage at 7th
and Cherry for $4,850,000. How are we going to use that?
President: D. McKee is scheduled to meet with the parking committee. We did have a
consultant come in, which recommended that we base parking costs on two things: 1)
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proximity to the center of campus and 2) quality of the space. They suggested that
parking within 7th to Third Street area should cost more than parking just east of campus.
They recommended that we charge $30 month for parking in the garage. The dynamic
concern related to the parking garage is that - it needs to be full. This could mean that
those who do not park in the garage will subsidize those who do. I would like to see next
fall that we have 630 cars in garage every day, which would take pressure off the other
parking spaces and other areas northeast of campus - giving everyone a much better
chance of finding a parking space. The culture on this campus is that no one wants to pay
for parking. The main reason for purchasing the garage is our growing enrollment and
envisions moving 75 employees and 800 students across the street to the garage in the
next two years.
b.
C. Hoffman noted (to Provost) that the Trustees’ agenda lists 20 people with B.S. degrees
and three with B.A.’s as Lecturers I & II. We’ve had this discussion before, and I believe
you said that there were some restrictions.
Provost: Yes. We did have that conversation.
C. Hoffman: There was one Lecturer who had only a high school diploma.
Question about college-level instruction on a high school diploma. Something seems to
be wrong.
President: It might be wrong if we were looking at every single case – but this would have
to be evaluated on an individual basis.
Why did it take SIRs eight weeks to get back to us?
President: There were delays to some departments.
Provost: I will follow up with John Beacon’s group. But this will be the last semester that
we will experience this problem.
C. Hoffman: The bird (crow) problem around Root Hall is getting worse.
President: Now that snow/ice are beginning to melt we can get in there and pressure
hose some of the droppings off. We will soon start to see spring clean up. The city is
trying to work on this problem, but it is expected to take some time. It may take twothree years to get the birds to go where we want them to be. I can’t tell you if that is an
accurate estimate, but the snow and ice did make this condition worse. The crews are
trying.
The performance evaluation document text which the Senate approved is not up on the
Senate website. It should be posted on the Senate’s webpage.
S. Lamb: It will be. I have also asked the provost to send the version that passed through
the president’s office to the Trustees to me, so that we can post it on the Senate Web site
as well.
President: The official document is whatever the Trustees approved. It is on the Board’s
agenda this week.
c.
R. Guell: Are the constitutional changes for the Handbook on the BOT agenda?
President: I will get back to you on this.
d.
J. Kuhlman: Student Services building entrance door on third floor/classroom near
Counseling Center is causing a privacy issue.
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President: We offered to move the Counseling Center to the first floor, but they do not
like being next to the cadaver lab. They are satisfied for now where they are.
e.
R. Guell: In regards to the president’s contract and the evaluation process that the
Faculty Senate Executive Committee is taking part in, is there a trigger within your
current contract that causes a positive evaluation to result in a substantial raise?
President: It does not state that that is the case. There is no commitment on the part of
the trustees here.
R. Guell: It is my hope the president will be sensitive to the presidential raise issue.
f.
V. Sheets: Arts & Sciences Faculty Council Issue – they are having a discussion about
whether or not pre-tenured faculty should be allow to serve on the college governance
body. They have many concerns, certainly about the dominance of pre-tenured faculty on
that body, but another concern is that one of the non-tenured faculty would by voicing
their opinion, thus, jeopardizing someone’s status for tenure; I find that very concerning
in that removing people from involvement because a crucial aspect of that job is
performing governance duties. I think it is something that we all should be conscious and
how we need to approach this situation.
S. Lamb: In the College of Business (COB) there is a committee that deals with
personnel issues. That committee for us is the Faculty Affairs Committee (FAC), and I am
quite sure that that committee has to have only tenured faculty.
R. Guell: What we are talking about is that the College of Arts and Sciences Faculty
Council has historically been a Council of Assistant Professors. It essentially became the
stepping stone of service in the College of Arts and Sciences. I neither like that nor do I
like the proposed solution. However, the only issue for the Faculty Senate is whether
such a provision would be consistent with the University Faculty Constitution.
V. Sheets: I agree. I don’t like the direction of this change but I also know we only look
at consistency with the Constitution.
R. Guell: It seems like a perfectly Constitutional, yet unwise over-reaction.
g.
J. Kuhlman: I have a concern that curriculum seems to being getting hung up for a large
amount of time when it goes through the Registrar’s office and the Library.
Provost: It has been brought to my attention. I have asked A. Comer and A. Hays to
explain what is happening.
h.
J. Kuhlman: There has also been some concern related to graduate students, faculty who
are supervising graduate student research - and faculty members in the Institutional
Review Board (IRB )process. They are being asked questions that are really not in the
purview of IRB (e.g. about power analysis, number of students/subjects being used, etc.)
which is really not IRB. The way I read IRB – this is not its major concern. This is quite
frustrating to both students and faculty.
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S. Lamb: You have to look at the significant risk to the individual. I understand the need
for the statistical questions, but I tend to agree with J. Kuhlman that you evaluate the risk
of the study to an individual. Some of these are very descriptive in nature.
R. Guell: With whom would you file the concern? To whom does IRB report?
Provost: IRB is supposed to be autonomous. Need to have conversations with the IRB
spokesperson (Tom Steiger and Chief Research officer (Mark Green.)
V. Sheets: Another related issue is that we are still trying to learn the new electronic
system (budget cuts also reduced the staff there), but the amount of time taking to
review - even those things that are exempt or expedited - are causing substantial delays
to students.
IV.
Approval of the Minutes of February 8, 2011 as corrected. R. Guell/A. Anderson 9-0-0.
V.
FAC Item
Accepted Audit Procedure for Senate Elections (C. Hoffman/K. Bolinger 9-0-0)
VI.
Resolution on Faculty Status for Librarians
E. Lorenzen, S. Arvin presented a unanimously passed resolution with regard to their concern
that the President may seek to change the faculty status of librarians. The Library faculty wished
to unequivocally reiterate their belief that the Library faculty should retain faculty status.
R. Guell asked J. Maynard whether the topic of changing the faculty status of librarians had been
discussed in a formal way that would likely result in specific proposal to change the status of
librarians or whether that discussion was still in the early stages among administrators.
J. Maynard noted that the President has asked about this status and has questioned A. Comer
and others about it but that he knew of no formal plans to seek a change.
R. Guell asserted that it was his belief that the faculty of the University had primary authority
over the question or who did or did not have faculty status and that any proposal must go
before governance.
After further discussion, a motion was made to accept the resolution (without endorsement) as
any other action at this point would be premature. C. Hoffman/K. Bolinger 9-0-0.
Meeting adjourned: 4:45 p.m.
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