, April 10, 2014
Skaggs Building, Room 169
Members
Present:
D. Beck, B. Borrie, S. Bradford, A. Chatterjee M. Chin, W. Chung, T.
Crawford, M. DeGrandpre, H. Eggert, R. Fanning, L. Frey, C.
Galipeau, L. Gillison, S. Gordon, N. Greymorning, C. Hahn, K. Harris,
C. Henderson, J. Hirstein, H. Kim, A. Kinny, J. Laskin, S. Lodmell, M.
Mayer, N. McCrady, K. McKay, H. Naughton, M. Neilson, E. Plant, E.
Putnam, D. Schuldberg, D. Shepherd, J. Sears, S. Shen, D. Shively,
A. Sondag, M. Stark, A. Szalda-Petree S. Tillerman, E. Uchimoto, K.
Wu, K. Zoellner
Members
Excused
L. Ametsbichler, A. Belcourt, M. Bowman, G. Burns, E. Gagliardi, L.
Gray, W. Holben, B. Layton, A. Larson, D. MacDonald, J. Montauban,
P. Muench, M. Raymond, S. Richter, R. Vanita
Members
Absent
Ex-Officio
Present:
Guests:
J. Bardsley, K. Bell, J. Cavanaugh, D. Hollist, M. Horejsi, J.
Glendening, C. Knight, C. Palmer, R. Premuroso
President Engstrom, Interim Associate Provost Hinman, Interim
Registrar Hickman, ASUM Vice President Williams
T. Thibeau, P. Zagalo-Melo
Chair Putnam called the meeting to order at 3:10p.m. There was a change in the order of agenda to accommodate Graduate Council Chair Sprang’s schedule. He must leave the meeting by 4:00 p.m.
Interim Registrar Hickman called roll. The minutes from March 10th were approved and the meeting started with the UM Minute.

President Engstrom provided additional information about the acquisition of the
Baucus Papers. The process began approximately a year and a half ago at the recommendation of the Archivist Donna McCrea . This morning’s press release announced the decision. Along with the papers, Baucus will donate $850,000 for

processing the papers. The Law School facultywere instrumental in the discussions and will be proposing a Baucus Institute for Public Policy and Service. President
Engstrom acknowledged the work of Archivist Donna McCrea, Dean Irma Russel, and John Mudd in making this a reality. He thanked everyone that was involved.
The details regarding access are not yet know but will be addressed by the library.
UM leads the nation of institutions with Udall scholars. An additional scholar was announcement this morning – sophomore Hope Radford, majoring in Resource
Conservation.
Budget
President Engstrom clarified the budget situation. In FY 14, the current budget year, actual expenditures will be $155,585,118. Projected expenditures for FY 15 will be
$157,430,819. The university will actually spend more absolute dollars next year than this year. However, there will be additional expenses, such as a salary package and a few other items, to fund. In order to fund these, we need to decrease dollars spent on base activity by approximately $9,000,000. The budget committee has been working hard with the various sector heads to identify where this money will come from. The reduction in classroom instruction for next year will be $642,000, approximately a 1% reduction. We worked very, very hard to preserve the instructional piece. If the Senate would like more detail regarding budget planning for next year, Vice President Reid can provide this at a future meeting.
The University is in this position because it didn’t get tuition revenue money.
Ongoing efforts are taking place to improve the enrollment situation. The university contracted with the outside firm, RuffaloCODY, to extend the work of our recruiting and admissions staff. Recruitment materials have been upgraded. More faculty members have visited high school classrooms. Faculty and staff have hosted more high school students for such events as the Jazz concert, Math contest and the
Montana Science Fair. Many faculty members have called prospective students.
There has also been additional outreach to prospective pre-med or health profession students. Of course we won’t know whether these efforts have been successful until next September. The mid-year indicators are encouraging.
There have also been efforts to help students succeed. Just a few weeks ago there was an announcement of a $2.4 million gift from the Washington Foundation for a state-wide Ed Ready project. It focuses on helping students with math difficulties through an intensive online tutorial. Students in the pilot study increased their math scores by 1-3 levels and avoided placement in remedial or developmental math.
The foundation is focused on investing in student success. Brochures were distributed to senators. The effort involves three areas: scholarships of various types, programmatic developments (Davidson Honors College and Global
Leadership Initiative), and two facilities projects (the Library Learning Commons and the Student Athletes Weight/Locker Room Facility). The foundation is doing a terrific job and has already raised over $30 million. A few weeks ago there was an announcement of an $11 million dollar scholarship donation.
The President has asked the Faculty Senate to work with the Provost and the
Academic Deans on planning for future enrollment by engaging in an Academic

Alignment and Innovation exercise. He asks that the following five questions be addressed in terms of our academic portfolio.

1. Because our mission is grounded in the liberal arts, how do we ensure that the liberal arts are central to today’s higher education and how should we communicate the importance of the liberal arts to prospective students, parents, teachers, and the general public?
2. Design a process for identifying programs across campus that are challenged by low enrollment or perception of relevance. For those programs, examine what can we do to strengthen them and make them more attractive to today’s students? It is possible that you will identify programs that are no longer viable, but that is not the primary purpose of the project.
3. Identify existing undergraduate, graduate, or professional programs present distinctive opportunities for growth or strengthening because they are already in high student demand and have strong placement opportunities?
4. Suggest programs that are not yet present on campus, but should be, given our mission and the opportunities that those programs present?
5. Suggest new or expanded opportunities exist for interdisciplinary, international, and on-line offerings?
We want to make sure that we are offering a portfolio of academic programs that are of interest, relevant and important for today’s students given our mission as a liberal arts research institution.
Questions
For the next two years the foundation ’s priority is investing in student success, however, it is also thinking about what should be included in a major campaign. A major campaign, probably a 5-7 year activity, would include endowed chairs and professorships. President Engstrom would like to see every College and School have at least some endowed faculty. Forestry now has four, and the Business School has a few. This is an area of great potential. The payout rate is 4.25% for an endowment. So an annual salary of $100-120,000 would require approximately a $3 million endowment. Partial endowments for professorships start at $1 to 1.5 million.
Interim Provost Hinman presented the list of graduation candidates. It was clarified that a correction list from the previous semester is also available on Moodle for your consideration. Any errors on the autumn list should be brought to the Registrar’s
Office ’s attention. The lists were approved.


The Graduate Council has been working on Graduate Advising Guidelines for the past two years. The student’s relationship with his or her advisor(s) is the core of the graduate experience. The Graduate School does not have a general reference that would apply across all programs. There have been a few incidences where that relationship breaks down. These situations are difficult, traumatic, and time consuming to resolve. The Council’s goal is to establish guidelines that could serve as a point of reference regarding the expectations of the advising relationship.
The Council recognizes that there are cultural differences across campus. It hopes that the guidelines can transcend these and address the core elements of the relationship of the graduate student and the advisor. Creating the guidelines has been an iterative process that has been informed by the GSA, ECOS, and the UFA.
The Council asks that you disseminate the guidelines to your programs for feedback due by April 30th. The Council hopes the final guidelines will be endorsed by the
Faculty Senate.
Questions
There is no mechanism to coerce students to follow the guidelines. Students are held to the regulations of their program. The guidelines do not supersede or substitute for the student’s program. The Council noticed inconsistencies across programs during its discussion of program review documents and felt that a guidelines document would be helpful. The guidelines are directed to programs and inform faculty of the nature of the advising relationship and reasonable expectations on both sides. The Council took great care not to add a regulatory burden not already in place.
A section in the language was confusing and should be revised ( E…counseled to seek mutual agreement expectations). These are the types of feedback and comments that the Council requests. It is helpful to have faculty review the language in terms of their experience in their programs. Please send your comments to
Camie or Steve Sprang, Chair of the Graduate Council.
Associate Provost Hinman clarified that the guidelines do not supersede the policies of the Graduate School. The Graduate School oversees the relationship between the graduate student and their department. When there are disagreements between a student and a faculty member, the student’s committee can serve as a resource to resolve the issue. If the committee is not responsive or successful, then the issue goes to the Dean of the Graduate School. The guidelines are not enforceable.
The draft will be posted to the Graduate Council, Gradate School, and the Graduate
School Association’s website for comments. Please review carefully and comment by April 30 th .


Faculty will receive ballots for the UFA Executive Board Election according to their
UFA Bargaining Unit category. Members are able to vote on the officers and members at large positions. Supporters of the UFA are able to vote for members at large only. The elections will conclude by April 30 th . Please take the election seriously and return your ballots as soon as possible.

The UFA has completed the process of reviewing faculty salaries for inversions.
$150,000 was negotiated to be allocated to salary bases for inversions. The
Executive Committee examined the between rank inversions first and made maximum allocations of $1,000 to 116 faculty. A percentage inverted ranking system was developed to allocate the remaining money to faculty inverted within rank.
There were approximately 43 within rank allocations. Some faculty may have received two allocations, not to exceed $1000. Allocations should be in the May 1 st pay check. A letter will be sent to faculty receiving inversion allocations. There is an explanation of methods in the communication. If you have question or concerns contact him or another member of the Executive Committee.
ASUM elections take place April 30 th and May 1 st . Please encourage your students to vote on Cyberbear. There are several ballot referenda as well as elections for 26 senate seats, the Business Manager, and President and Vice-President Team. One of the referenda involves a fee increase. The new team takes over on May 7 th and will be introduced briefly at the next Faculty Senate meeting.

Performance Based Funding
Chair Putnam thanked everyone who participated in the open forums. Participants ’ input were extremely valuable. There were 8 potential metrics discussed at the forum. These have now been distilled down to the top 3 for the flagship campuses.
Early next week there will be a phone conference with MSU to discuss a common set of metrics that can be submitted to the Performance Based Funding Taskforce. If you didn’t have a chance to comment there is still time. There is a link to the information on the Faculty Senate website.
Evaluation of the Administration
The results of the evaluation have been available for review by appointment in the
Faculty Senate Office. These cannot be posted or disseminated electronically due to the confidential nature of personnel materials. The results have been communicated to the administrators evaluated and their supervisors, the Provost and the President.
The Executive Officers evaluated were invited to meet with ECOS to discuss the results; however, no one accepted the invitation. Both the Provost and President met with ECOS. ECOS has been assured that the results are taken seriously and

are addressed in performance discussions.
Please let ECOS know if you have any ideas on how to improve the response rate, which has declined in recent years. It is important that faculty participate, the review is analogous to the FEC process.
The report was accepted.
Academic Alignment and Improvement Program
ECOS and members of the administration met Monday afternoon (April 7) to start discussion on the framework and goals for the review. The group interpreted alignment to mean alignment to t he University’s strategic plan and vision for the future. The group discussed what type of information would be needed. Some of the information would be quantitative but some would be qualitative and perhaps the same metrics would not be appropriate for all programs. The faculty want to respect the individuality of programs and create a process that is inclusive. It was noted that students were not invited to the initial meeting and should be included moving forward.
Faculty need to own the process and be engaged as much as possible. Faculty should communicate how their programs compare to the national norms and what is needed for improvement to become more attractive to students. We do not want this to be a top down process.
Data will be collected over the summer, then in the fall a committee will be appointed to review the data, then there may be interviews with programs for clarification and discussions. For the most part the data will be from program reviews, accreditation reports, and other reports that have already been prepared.
Part of the discussion was with regard to what are appropriate criteria. For example, how do enrollment numbers speak to innovation or alignment? There is still some work needed to identify all the components of the project. The results of the evaluation may not necessarily be a plan but rather information that informs plans.
Questions:
Members of ECOS were invited to the retreat. Professors Ametsbichler, Borrie,
Lodmell, Mayer, Putnam, Sears, were able to attend. Senator Bradford attended to represent Missoula College in place of Professor Layton who was unable to attend.
The administration was represented by Provost Brown, Deans Kalm and Ross,
Associate Deans Harper-Whalen, McNulty and Patterson. Sylvia Moore facilitated the meeting and Claudine Cellier from the Provost’s office attended for administrative support. This was just the initial meeting. Additional involvement of staff, students, and faculty will be necessary moving forward.

Senate Elections
Please encourage your departments to vote. The ballot deadline is April 15 th . It was clarified that there were a few voting groups with more seats than candidates.
Camie has contacted the voting groups to recruit additional candidates.
State of the Community
Chair Putnam reminded the Senate that the annual State of the Community event is on Monday, April 14, at City Club Missoula. Titled “The Future is Now: Today’s
Initiatives Serving Generations to Come,” the event will feature Missoula Mayor John
Engen, UM President Royce Engstrom and County Commissioner Michele
Landquist. A notice was sent to the campus community.
New Regents
We have two new Regents: William Johnstone from Great Falls and Martha Sheehy from Billings.

Revised Crosslisting Procedure
The Crosslisting Procedure was approved with a friendly amendment to the language to clarify that one course will have no more than three crosslistings. Next fall all courses will have to reapply to retain crosslisting.
English Language Proficiency Policy
ASCRC investigated available support for international students struggling in courses due to their comprehension of English. The English Language Institute and English as a Second Language programs provide support courses for students, whose native language is not English. ASCRC met with Paulo Zagalo-Melo, the Director of
International Programs and Effie Cohen, the Director of Foreign Student and Scholar
Services. Some work was needed to clarify the resources available for international students. A subcommittee was created which included members of ASCRC, including Professor Thibeau, English as a Second Language Supervisor, Director
Zagalo-Melo, and Assistant Vice President for Enrollment Services, Jed Liston. The
Subcommittee worked out the requirements and clarified the language. The minimum score on the TOEFL was increased to be clear that proficiency is necessary for success and is consistent with most Universities. The intent is to make the pathways to English proficiency clear for international students. Please carefully consider the policy which will be voted on at the next meeting. Members of the subcommittee were available to address questions.
Questions:

Applicants whose native language is English usually have started to learn English prior to school age. For example an applicant from Nigeria would be required to take a proficiency exam to exhibit his or her near native proficiency in English. The
Subcommittee considered language that stipulated English is the country’s official language, but some countries have numerous official languages. The policy indicates applicants whose native language is English “may” be exempted. So there will be an analysis. Only a few applicants are in this situation.
There was some confusion regarding the steps for conditionally admitted students.
The policy isn’t changing from what is currently in place. All conditionally admitted students are required to take ELI courses until they score at the level of full admission. However, applicants can continue to take the TOEFL until they have a passing score without taking ELI courses. The Subcommittee will clarify this section of the document. Please forward any additional concerns / suggestions for consideration.
Clarification of Options and Other Terms
During the mapping of degrees in Degree Builder a number of inconsistencies were discovered in the catalog. The letter clarifies the official term used by the Board of
Regents and listed on students’ transcripts is “option”. Advising tracks or specializations are informal, do not require review/ approval by ASCRC, and do not show on students transcripts. ASCRC requests that faculty be consistent with how terms are used so to avoid confusion for students.
Advanced Research Literacies
Another issue that has come to the attention of ASCRC is students not having the appropriate ability to conduct research in upper-division writing courses. The
Mansfield Library provides teaching and outreach with regard to information literacy.
A new experimental offering (LSCI 391) which can be taken as a co-requisite to an upper-division writing course is one option for students to learn to conduct discipline specific research. ASCRC offers the attached letter of support to introduce this course. It is up to the instructor of the upper-division writing course to recommend that their students take the course. If the course is proven to be successful and has adequate enrollment then the Library will offer a section each semester and request a permanent number.
A senator expressed interest in a similar course for graduate students. She was encouraged to speak with her Library Liaison about the possibility.
Dormant Course Report
Courses are placed on the dormant report if they have not been offered in three years. A notification was sent to department chairs to allow departments to request courses be retained. Please inform the Registrar’s Office if there are courses on the report that your department plans to offer, otherwise the courses will be removed from the catalog.


The procedure changed last year to include an external review. ECOS only received one of the external reports before it conducted its review. The review for Museum for
Art and Culture included consideration of the external report and was approved. The others will be presented as the external reviews are received.

Posthumous Degree
The Senate unanimously approved a posthumous degree for Chris Tucker presented by Irma Russel, Dean of the Law School during executive session.

Senator Greymorning informed the Senate of a difficult situation with regard to an IIP student. He began working with the student in December of last year. The student was interested in changing the composition and chair of the advisory committee.
The student met with the Graduate School and then changed the committee and chair. Two of the original members remained on the committee and the chair was replaced by co-chairs. The names were submitted to the Graduate School, but the former chair refused to step down. As one of the co-chairs, he decided to proceed with a doctoral defense to which the previous chair was invited. The defense lasted two hours and the student was passed unanimously. However, this decision has not been acknowledged. The former chair is not recognizing the new committee. The student is being asked to follow the policy that was drafted as a result of the situation. The student feels like they are being held captive.
Senator Harris is familiar with the case and indicated it has multiple layers that are not appropriate to discuss in this format. Chair Putnam requested that any additional considerations be sent to her and she will assure the situation is resolved by the appropriate authority.
Associate Provost Hinman indicated that Graduate School Policies (D4.2)
Appointment of Dissertation Committee Members states “Prospective committee members shall be chosen by the student in consultation with his or her academic advisor and the program chair shall forward the nominations to the dean of the
Graduate School for his or her approval.
”

The Kyi-Yo Pow-Wow is next weekend. It includes a viewing of the film
“Heenetiineyoo3eihiiho” (Language Healers) which documents the efforts to try to save language from Alaska to Oklahoma.

Next Thursday the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs is sending a staff member to hold a listening session about the Tribal Language School Immersion Center. The

session will be held in the NAS building from 5-7.

A couple of weeks ago there was Major fair at the Missoula College. It involved representatives from the main campus providing information to the Missoula College students about available majors. It created a nice bridge and was a positive step in the two-year / four year relationship.
The meeting was adjourned at 5:03 P.M.