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INDIANA STATE UNIVERSITY
FACULTY SENATE, 2013-2014
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
October 15, 2013
3:30pm, HMSU 227
MINUTES
Present: S. Lamb, R. Guell, A. Anderson, T. Hawkins, B. Kilp, V. Sheets, K. Yousif
Members Absent: C. MacDonald, C. Olsen
Ex-Officio Members Present: R. Williams
Ex-Officio Members Absent: D. Bradley
Others Present: M. Sacopulos, C. Baker, R. Toomey
1) Administrative Reports:
a) Provost R. Williams:
i)
The President is out of town at this time. I have a brief update on our search for a
Graduate Dean. We have 47 applications. The committee is going to meet tomorrow
and narrow them down to 10. We will have airport interviews for those 10 and
Friday, and have three to five on campus to interview on during the week of
November 4 and November 11. We hope to make a decision in December and hire
the best person to start in January. If not we will start the process again.
ii)
R. Guell: If you end up with a need for an Interim Dean, I hope you will utilize the
Graduate Council as the appropriate body in that process?
iii)
R. Williams: Yes, we will.
b) R. Williams: We also had great representation and great turnout at the Student Success
workshops. Only 8 departments were not represented in some way. Each day we doubled
the number that signed up.
2) Chair Report:
a) S. Lamb: I would like to praise the administration’s attitude for being receptive toward the
Wellness/Insurance issues and the increases in rates for those who can least afford them.
I’m glad it’s going back to committee. President Bradley seemed quite empathetic to those
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concerns and I’m glad that R. Guell has worked so closely with D. Richards on the proposed
solution.
3) Motion to Approve the Executive Committee Minutes of October 8, 2013; K. Yousif-A. Anderson;
vote 7-0-0
4) Fifteen Minute Open Discussion
a) R. Guell:
i)
The language of the email regarding the student workers, I feel, puts the onus on
the student to ensure they do not go above 20 hours per week and to ask to go
above 20 to 28 hours. The faculty I have spoken to are concerned and want to know
why that is the case. The problem with it is that if a scientist has a student worker in
the middle of an experiment that has to be done to completion, for example, and
the supervisor isn’t around when the hours are up, the student is the untenable
position of being written up for going long on hours or ruining an experiment. It may
not be that cataclysmic, it may just be making copies that the student fails to do, but
if it’s a graduate student in a Psychology lab and a subject is having a meltdown, it
would be entirely inappropriate for the graduate student to leave. It seems the onus
is on the wrong person.
ii)
R. Williams: Let me share what I know: the Deans have been informed and the
supervisors have been informed. There have been some offenders, and the students
and their supervisors and the supervisors of the supervisors have been informed.
It’s an attempt to inform the students of this policy. Some of them have not been
informed by their supervisors. We have not seen sufficient progress in some areas,
and we will work with those areas individually from here on out.
iii)
V. Sheets: Have the students actually been fined?
iv)
R. Williams: No.
v)
R. Guell: You can’t fine an employee for working too many hours but you can fire an
employee for being persistent in deliberately going over hours. I am happy to learn
that regardless of what the email says the real onus will be on the supervisors.
vi)
R. Williams: Some students have more than one campus job and they will have to
watch it themselves.
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B. Kilp: I have the specific rule here: the first offense is a write-up, the second is a
meeting with the supervisor and a reprimand, and the third time the student is
terminated. The problem is with the way this has been ruled, if you saw the letters
that have been sent, it’s as if they’ve been threatened. I don’t understand that kind
of language against these student “violators.” It sounds like they’re being
deliberately devious.
viii)
R. Williams: I will look into that.
ix)
B. Kilp: It seems the students’ message was, ‘if I go over a couple of times I’m going
to get fired.’ That’s what it implied.
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R. Guell: I understand the 28-hour limit…Obamacare and health insurance. What
about the 20 hour rule? Is it just a pedagogical device that we don’t want them
working any more than 20 hours?
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C. Baker: Federal Workstudy is 20 hours per week on average. That is our
preference. Obviously they’re not all doing Federal Workstudy, but that’s average. It
usually works out to be about 18 hours per week.
V. Sheets: Is there a particular category of offenders who warrant a letter? I have
had a case in the past where a graduate student had an assistantship, was an
adjunct for me, and worked for CEP and she was basically full-time. We didn’t know
that.
R. Williams: I don’t know the specific numbers at this time. There doesn’t seem to
be much progress with the emails.
B. Kilp: So the students know they’re doing something wrong?
R. Williams: I think so, yes.
5) Financial Aid and Study Abroad, Crystal Baker, Director of Financial Aid
a) R. Guell: (a prepared statement) I have been a member of Exec four times in five years and
during that time I have played the role of inquisitor of one administrator or another on a topic
about which I was both knowledgeable and passionate. That is an important role for Exec to play
and I am pleased that Tim is so good at it. For me, though, this topic is not one about which I
have much of a passion. I am, however, passionate that everyone know the context regarding
the particular member of the administration we are about to question. Directors of Financial Aid
here have had the life expectancy of a second lieutenant on Omaha Beach. They are damned for
being overly generous, that is overly quick, to extend financial aid to students and have in-sodoing subjected the University to potential seven-figure fines. They have been overly-cautious,
choosing to audit a ridiculously high percentage of cases so as to avoid the fate of their auditfailing and fired predecessors. That cautiousness has cost hundreds, if not thousands of students
considerable grief and delayed the dreams of many by not approving perfectly appropriate
amounts of aid to deserving students. Still other Directors have simply been insufficiently
competent managers and cost the university hundreds of enrollments per year by failing to get
financial aid packages to admitted students in a timely fashion.
I can’t say I know Crystal Baker very well. This is only the fifth time I can remember that we have
been in the same room. But long before we were introduced, I knew of her. I knew of her
because nearly all of the inter-Nicene fights between admissions and financial aid stopped six
months into her time on campus. I knew of her because when Rich Toomey and I would chat in
March or April he had been downright giddy about the prospects of the incoming class. I could
not help but contrast that with previous springtime chats where he was angry that a year’s
worth of recruiting work was being scuttled by a slow Financial Aid office. I knew of her because
the chatter among freshmen was about things other than financial aid delays….and when there
were delays it was because students missed the March 1 FAFSA deadline by five or more
months.
Last fall, football fans learned what it was like to go from incredible incompetence to incredible
competence when the NFL restored the regular officials. Now they blend into the game. They
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make a mistake once in a while, but when we yell at the television we should remember the
alternative. It is possible that, upon further review, Financial Aid was overly cautious regarding
study abroad this year. I kind of doubt it, but I look forward to the discussion to find out. I only
ask that we keep in mind the context of Crystal Baker’s work as we ask her these questions.
b) C. Baker: Dr. Lamb asked me to come in to speak regarding some issues with disbursements
being delayed to students coming back from Study Abroad. I sent a memo along that explains
the process. We have been doing this for the past year to make sure students are making
Satisfactory Academic Progress. There were about 12 students that were denied aid that could
not get proof that they attended classes abroad, so they had to get an emergency loan. We have
talked more about communication and plans to help if their aid is impacted, and to talk more
about the process of receiving and evaluating transcripts. For example, Germany doesn’t
provide academic transcripts; it’s more of a roster, and if a student is included on the roster,
that’s their proof they were in the class. There is a bit of a delay with things like this. We have
worked around the requirements that we need for the Satisfactory Academic Progress rule.
i)
S. Lamb: And this semester 12 students had problems?
ii)
C. Baker: Twelve out of about 100 Study Abroad students had delays in aid.
iii)
S. Lamb: What I hear you saying is that you can address them individually and with a
fair standard on the side of the students?
iv)
C. Baker: The International Studies Advisory Board was able to give insight into our
communication and our guidelines and we have been able to use better language to
be more inclusive.
v)
S. Lamb: Can you notify a specific agency that it is highly preferable that we have
feedback by a certain time?
vi)
C. Baker: Those types of things are usually included in the contract. My
understanding is if we are going to give aid to them there is a specific guideline.
Perhaps a question for you to answer as a committee is what type of credit you
would like to see; typically a transcript is the official record. But, if you feel an email
is sufficient…
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T. Hawkins: I guess my reaction to the issues is that it could be cleared up by a little
better communication, making sure students know ahead of time, etc. About ten
percent who went abroad this past summer had this problem. Odds are there will
be more in the future. Whatever we can do to make sure they will go into it more
fully informed would be good. As far as transcripts, it is what we would want at a
certain point. It’s not what they need at the end that matters, it’s what they need by
a certain point to make sure they have what they need next semester with the
promise of a transcript later. It’s not what we ask of the institution, it’s what they
need to have when they get back in the country. If there is room for the student to
come back with the evidence of enrollment in a course abroad or a way to prove
their presence in it, I feel they shouldn’t have to accept an emergency loan for the
next semester. From the student’s perspective, it seems they are put in a bad
position.
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S. Lamb: I am in agreement. I hope we can set it up with the institution so that if
transcripts aren’t available by a certain time they can have a note signed by your
office if they are attending, have a certain amount completed, etc. How many have
finally never turned in a transcript?
C. Baker: We don’t know that yet. The reason we put it on the student is that the
institutions weren’t sending it or sending it with all F’s on it. This is the issue Dr.
Guell referred to regarding the fine from a few years ago. We have to show that
students have earned academic credit for their summer experience to prove that
they are eligible for aid in the next term. We do eventually have to get proof of
credit, and for now it’s our only way.
K. Yousif: I totally agree but it’s cultural and you’re asking students to go into a
foreign country and navigate the culture and the language. There are cultural
differences between what we’re wanting them to do and what they’re actually
doing. There are 60 majors in my department and they are all required to study
abroad, and they’re not all doing it in England. We already know it takes six months
to get a transcript from Italy, for example. There has to be some other mechanism
to prove this.
R. Guell: Five years ago I had an issue with state payroll laws. Chip Rogers told me I
was doing it wrong. What it took was for Chip and I to sit down together and
communicate what we needed out of the process. Financial Aid has specific needs.
The students have specific needs and J. Halpern has specific needs. I hope that they
can iron out a set of procedures where each gets what they legitimately require to
do their jobs. We need an understood set of procedures.
K. Yousif: In terms of department issues, we just instituted a Study Abroad contract.
All fall trips have a contract signed the spring before. We know where they’re going.
They are going to pre-departure meetings, and having other conversations, and
maybe somehow this can be part of that information.
C. Baker: Janis has been very helpful. The core issue is exactly what you brought up.
This problem only affects students who receive Federal aid while abroad. Most who
study abroad during the summer have exhausted their aid in the spring and don’t
have any in summer at all.
R. Toomey: We are simultaneously trying to reconcile all this. The contracts before
departure are a great idea. Right now we are asking about the process. Do they
need to be centrally received, etc. There was one or two that we couldn’t even
prove went abroad. We are working with the Center for International Engagement
on this. If we have students returning in August who are planning to graduate the
next spring, it is going to spawn greater issues than just class credit.
B. Kilp: Eastern Illinois University has a huge study abroad program; how do they do
this?
C. Baker: Eastern is very flexible. I went to IU, and they aren’t so flexible.
R. Toomey: Historically we have partnered with outside agencies; with Michigan
State it is inside the institution and they have a “slush fund” where the university
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can be the intermediary. We can’t and we are following the regulations as we need
to.
xviii) R. Guell: I hope we are changing to fit these needs; granted, 10 percent is a low
number.
xix)
T. Hawkins: It sounds like a lot of people are talking. I’m glad you are talking to J.
Halpern.
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S. Lamb: When would be the next crucial time to talk about this?
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C. Baker: January or February.
xxii)
R. Toomey: If there’s an opportunity to go to groups and prepare them, we’d love to
talk to them, especially if they’re going to be in the program.
xxiii) K. Yousif: Dr. D’Amico, who is also in the program, is also the head of our Study
Abroad committee. J. Halpern will not help any student of ours without a written
contract between the student and the advisor.
xxiv) C. Baker: We could probably use a preferred list of programs who use this
procedure.
xxv)
K. Yousif: I would want the academic integrity to be of the utmost quality when
dealing between the cultures.
6) Legal Training and Issues, Melony Sacopulos
a) M. Sacopulos: We started talking about this during the summer, and I’m pleased to answer
any questions. This is the same list of questions that goes to Senate. As for Question 1, the
general answer (Are Faculty Senate meetings and those of the standing committee subject
to Indiana open door laws) is ‘no’ but I’d like to expand upon that a bit. When I think about
the open access, there are two things: there is the notice and posting of agenda issue and
there is an open record aspect of it. Unless it falls under an exception, people have a right to
see any record of the meeting. There is an exception for deliberate records, but generally
documents are attainable. For the public to attend meetings, they have to know publically.
Still, it is my opinion that it is the Trustees or a committee appointed by the Trustees that is
subject to the open door law. Is the Faculty Senate appointed by the Trustees? No, it’s
appointed by the institution.
i)
V. Sheets: Since the Board approved the Constitution but let us pick the
membership, it’s not directly appointed by them.
ii)
M. Sacopulos: In my memory I’ve never seen a committee utilized to do their work.
We publish the nominating committee but there’s no other they work through. In
my opinion, you are not subject to the Open Access law. They’re open because
faculty governance is to have open meetings. Usually requests for public records
come through my office. If you receive requests please route them through me…not
that I recall any requests from the public for documents.
iii)
R. Guell: I remember being asked repeatedly by one person in particular, but
generally the answer for documents is that we give them a hyperlink that they can
get the desired documents themselves.
iv)
M. Sacopulos: For Question 2, (When are faculty legally liable for actions they take
as part of their job) really you are never liable individually. The only time is in a case
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of some criminal act you undertook. You can be sued in an individual capacity in the
case of civil rights, harassment, or discrimination. You can be individually named,
but the practical impact is as an employee of ISU. In those cases you are provided
counsel and it has two components: representation, and if the university were in the
wrong, any damages paid are through that insurance.
V. Sheets: Is the university responsible for finding such counsel?
M. Sacopulos: In tort matters we have first dollar coverage. In cases of educators’
legal liability, which is more likely, we have retention that is under $85,000 but we
utilize people who do whatever kind of litigation is afoot. I work with the litigator
that specializes in it and the insurance pays for that.
R. Guell: If the individual’s interests diverge from the university’s interests, are we
able to assert that our interests differ and we want independent counsel, and will
you still pay the bill?
M. Sacopulos: Yes. For example, in the, now public matter of J. Czerny, our
insurance paid for his fees. Because the university made the determination in that
case that we had separate interests, we had separate counsels.
V. Sheets: So even if we present an unusual case, if a faculty member is acting in a
capacity of the university but violating policy it will pay?
M. Sacopulos: If it amounts to a crime, until that matter were settled you would still
have counsel and representation, but you might have to pay back counsel.
S. Lamb: Let me raise another topic before we get into that. If I speak to a class
about the benefits of the Tea Party for a few minutes, or the benefits of Atheism in
the same class, would I be in trouble?
M. Sacopulos: Because you’re proselytizing? Yeah, it would be covered.
R. Guell: Regarding the graduation guarantee and faculty liability, let’s start with an
honest screw-up with advising and the university has to pay for a student to take a
class, or a class is on the graduation plan and suddenly it’s not. How do we fare
during those situations?
M. Sacopulos: There’s no basis for a claim against you there.
R. Guell: Could the university fine us as a result of a decision for bad advising?
M. Sacopulos: No. We have looked into this issue in regards to fining people in
particular. The long and short of it is, we really would, short of some kind of
contractual employment agreement that says you would succumb to a fine, have no
basis to fine you. We don’t have that authority. We can’t garnish wages. There’s no
vehicle in place for that.
B. Kilp: I thought students were ultimately responsible for the advising.
M. Sacopulos: That is the current state of the law.
R. Guell: But not the graduation guarantee. It really removes the onus that is legally
on the student.
M. Sacopulos: Just because the faculty can’t be sued doesn’t mean the institution
can’t.
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R. Guell: B. Kilp’s point is the understanding of who’s responsible. We have
transferred a considerable amount of burden on the faculty.
xxii)
M. Sacopulos: You’re right. The law hasn’t changed but the contract—the
graduation guarantee—changes things. ISU could be liable. The question is who has
breached the contract. We admit them to study as long as they hold up their part,
and if we hold up our part, it is fine. For example, there was a student that did
extremely well in Counseling classes but did very badly in clinicals. They were the
ones who breached in that case.
xxiii) R. Williams: It would be a good idea to talk with University College advisors and let
them know it will be in performance reviews.
xxiv) R. Guell: Part of the concern expressed by D. Hantzis is that there are three areas on
performance evaluations: teaching, research, and service. Advising is not specifically
named. I could be very distinguished in other areas but not in advising. In University
College, where all they do is advise, I understand. As faculty advisors, we shouldn’t
face a consequence for an honest mistake when it is not part of our specified duties.
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K. Yousif: I think the summer and the lack of classes causes problems. Students need
advising in the summer, but most of the faculty take the summer off. It’s voluntary
during the year. Faculty is just not here in the summer. If advising is going to
become more onerous, they need to provide for that. It requires an extensive
amount of work. It’s no longer ‘what are you taking? Okay, here’s your PIN.’
xxvi) V. Sheets: This isn’t necessarily us, it’s the state making us liable. It’s nice the
institution is held liable but I think we should be made aware of advisors who don’t
deliver.
xxvii) R. Williams: Perhaps the discussion has to be at the promotion and tenure
document level.
xxviii) V. Sheets: It also ignores thesis and dissertation advising. Another thing I think we
need to look at is the language on the evaluation forms. We know what the
expectations are at the university level but departments have needed
encouragement to use them at the departmental level.
Adjournment 4:28 (Hiccup)