Faculty Senate Agenda
Signal Mountain Room, University Center, 3:10 p.m.
2 February 2012
Members in Attendance: Victoria Steinberg: Pedro Campa; Susan North, Michael Bell, Shela
Van Ness, Lyn Miles, Andrea Becksvoort, Katherine Karl, Jim Hiestand, Claire McCullough,
Gaye Jeffers, Kenyon Wilson, Barry Dale, Jamie Harvey, Heather Palmer, Verbie Prevost,
Beverly Kutz, John Matthews, Hill Craddock. Ex-officio: Jocelyn Sanders, Theresa Liedtka,
John Delaney. Guests: Linda Orth, Evan Williams, Avalon Gourlay
Senate meetings are open meetings to which all parties are welcome.
To presenters: If a document camera is needed for a presentation, please make arrangements with
Media Resources.
1. Call to Order
The meeting was called to order by Dr. Victoria Steinberg at 3:15.
2. Approval of the minutes of 19 January 2012
Dr. Pedro Campa moved that the minutes of last meeting be approved; Dr. Kenyon
Wilson seconded. Motion approved by voice vote.
New Business
1. Update on Graduate Council – Dr. Shela Van Ness
Dr. Van Ness reported that the Graduate Council is moving right along. A new doctoral
proposal will be forthcoming from CHEPS. A lot of work is being done on the graduate
school by-laws.
2. Curriculum Committee Proposals – Dr. Ed Rozema
Dr. Rozema said that the committee had approved twelve proposals which had
been posted early, but they met again on January 30 and approved twelve more proposals
were approved and they were not posted until the evening before today’s meeting. He
said they would prefer not to wait two more weeks to approve these because that would
push getting these into the schedule in time for spring registration. The twelve new
proposals were noncontroversial at every step of the way, the departmental or college
curriculum committees passed most of them unanimously, and they were passed by the
curriculum committee without any conflict, though there were some typographical
corrections and the suggestions for clarifying language and punctuation. The committee
moves that all twenty-four proposals be approved.
Discussion: Beverly Kutz expressed concern that several proposals mentioned
that the curriculum changes were necessary because of Banner. She said she was
concerned that we are changing our curriculum because a tool we have will not do what
we want it to do. Linda Orth said that as regards the changes in the number of hours in
the music courses, it is not changing curriculum, but changing so that the associated fee
will process automatically and no one had to manually adjust fees for the one credit hour
courses. Music majors were always required to take two hours, which represented two
30-minute lessons. The one-hour courses were for non-majors who wanted to take music
lessons. Dr. Steinberg asked when thirty minutes became an hour. Dr. Jocelyn Sanders
and Dr. Kenyon Wilson said that is common practice in music. The question was called.
The vote was 18 in favor; 0 opposed, 0 abstentions.
3. Student Rating of Faculty – Richard Gruetzemacher, Director of Planning, Evaluation,
and Institutional Research
Richard Gruetzemacher, Director of Planning, Evaluation, and Institutional
Research, reported on the new on-line student evaluation in the absence of committee
chair, Dr. Karen McGuffy, who was away at a conference. Gruetzemacher said that there
are two issues: 1) moving from a paper survey to the new on-line data collection process;
and 2) the pilot of new questions. He began with a report on the new survey instrument,
which was piloted during last week and a half before holidays. Twelve professors,
representing 30 classes participated voluntarily in the pilot. The total response in these
classes was about 15% and the rate varied from a high of about 30% to a low of 0%. [Dr.
Steinberg added for clarification that the students in these classes had already participated
in the regular evaluations.] The committee felt they had sufficient data for analysis and
met for about two hours to discuss the results. There were many comments from faculty
members and department heads that the first two questions were redundant and the
answers were divided between positive and negative on both questions. [PDF of
questions is available on Faculty Senate website.] The committee decided to eliminate
question two, leaving a total of seven Likert scale questions.
Another change in the new instrument was the addition of a neutral scale. As with
the old instruments, there were overall many more positive responses than negative ones.
The new questions elicited 83% positive and 12% negative responses. The old instrument
skewed slightly more to positive responses, 94% positive and 6% negative. The median
on the new instrument is six rather compared to seven on the old instrument. The item
that received most positive ratings was question seven [Instructor expects high 1uality
work from students]; the lowest response was to question five [Instructor includes
activities and assignments that help students 76%]. The Committee recommends
adopting questions two through eight and open-ended questions. .
Discussion: Lyn Miles said that she felt that the wording such as “best learning
content” and “acquire knowledge” is passive, which seemed to be in contrast with the
emphasis on critical thinking and active learning. She asked if there was any discussion
of active learning and critical thinking vs. passive learning. Dr. Karen Adsit said that
questions about active learning were discussed and they felt that those concepts were
included in other questions. Dr. Gruetzemacher said that he recalled that the committee
wanted to use questions that focus on learning and not on teacher popularity.
Dr. Pedro Campa said he had questions about the process. He said that in
reviewing results for retention and tenure he noticed that there were comments that were
so offensive that they amounted to ad hominem attacks. Some of the comments were as
long as two pages. Before, whether student responses were good, bad, or mediocre, there
was a time limit for administering evaluations and they represented, essentially, a gut
reaction to that class, sometimes flippant, sometimes not. But he said this has morphed
into something else. Some responses were very beautiful, but others were diatribes that
were personal attacks on the instructors. Dr. Steinberg said that these responses were on
the old instruments and she hoped that the new questions focus more on learning. She
said she did wonder about amount of space the new instrument allows for open-ended
answers. Dr. Gruetzemacher said that it did seem some open-ended responses were rants
that had no bearing on course and one proposal was to cut the character limit from 2000
characters to 1000 characters. I think He agreed with Dr. Steinberg that the new questions
will likely elicit different kinds of answers.
Dr. Claire McCullough said that the elephant in the room is the poor response rate
and extreme skewing toward negative comments. Dr. Verbie Prevost said that in the
English department results have not been skewed in that way. Dr. Gruetzemacher said
they had done a lot of analysis and the response rate has actually dropped only 12%.
Rates were all across the board, from a high 92% a low of 41%. Distribution of positive
and negative responses was almost identical to past response rates. The literature
indicates that response rates drop during the first year and that UTC is actually pretty
fortunate to experience a drop of only 12%, which the attribute to faculty preparing
students for the new system. There was some discussion of Dr. Keith Richards’s research
that says that in marketing research, these kinds of surveys elicit responses from those
who are either very pleased or very displeased with service, while those with less extreme
views simply don’t answer. Dr. Gruetzemacher said that he didn’t question Dr.
Richards’s finding on marketing research, but student evaluations are a slightly different
situation. When the evaluations are distributed in class, they are handed out to 100% of
those present, but because of the limited time available, most students left the open-ended
questions blank and some even refused to fill out the Likert-scale questions.
Dr. Lyn Miles asked if the committee looked at all at how these evaluations were
used. She said that in some departments they are used to improve teaching; in others, they
are used to threaten teachers to improve their popularity. Dr. Greutzmacher said that was
part of the discussion in the past and part of what led to these new questions. Dr. Adsit
said there are always concerns about how these data might be used and how will they
play in EDO decisions.
Dr. John Matthews asked about whether the responses in the pilot represented an
adequate sample. Dr. Gruetzemacher said that the total sample represented nearly 1000
students and the 133 responses represented a 15% rate. They represent a cross-section of
undergraduate courses, mostly in Arts & Sciences; Business was only other college
represented. Dr. Matthews asked whether faculty felt the open-ended question were
equally helpful. Dr. Gruetzemacher said the committee didn’t do an extensive survey of
faculty to assess their responses. He said there was a larger volume of comments than
paper form had generated and that the on-line form gives students longer time to consider
and more time to write. There were more negative comments, but also more positive
comments. The committee felt that with the Likert-scale questions pointed at changes in
learning, the opportunity is there for more positive evaluations. Dr. Matthews said he
didn’t see any actual differences in his comments and ratings, I didn’t see much of a
difference and appreciated the opportunity to have the comparative data. However, he
also expressed concerns about the quality of the data. One received a count of 18
responses, but saw only fifteen total responses. One student thought he might have hit the
omit button by accident. He asked why these discrepancies had occurred.
Dr. Greuzemacher said they really couldn’t explain them het. They hypothesized that
students were mistaking the omit button, which allows students to cancel their responses,
with the submit button. They are considering adding a pop-up window that asks students
to confirm that they want to opt out. They also are considering changing the timing and
appearance of the Submit button. There were also suggestions that some students were
confused about which professor they were rating, and they are working to improve that.
Dr. Greuzemacher said that while they did not find that on-line evaluation results
were not significantly different from the paper system, they are not satisfied and will
continue to work to improve the system. They are, however, confident that this is a much
more secure system than the previous one, in which there were numerous opportunities
for tampering. Dr. McCullough said that she had several colleagues say their reviews
“sucked,” but none who said my reviews were better. She said that this is very serious
business for young professors who do not yet have tenure. She was concerned that this
was presented only as an information item to the Senate. Dr. Gruetzemacher said that he
understood concerns about how these were used in retention and tenure decisions, but
that the question of how these were used is not the purview of the committee. Dr.
Steinberg said she is looking forward to seeing the results of the new questions because
they get at the kinds of things she asked her students to comment when the evaluations
were done in the classroom. Professor Kutz asked what form would be given in the
spring. Dr. Greuzemacher said that depended on how soon the Senate could vote to
approve the new questions Dr. Steinberg asked to put off the vote until the next meeting
(2/16/12) so that Dr. McGuffee could be available to answer questions.
Dr. Campa said that he would like to take note that the Senate did not approve the
move to an on-line system. It was presented as a fait accompli.
4. Voting at Full Faculty – Dr. Victoria Steinberg
Dr. Steinberg opened the discussion of questions that were raised during the full
faculty meeting that because many faculty teach during the meeting, voting in-person
essentially disenfranchises them. Others do not come because the meeting is too long.
She said that she has for some time thought about on-line voting. She wondered if
senators had thoughts about how to resolve this issue and noted that rules about secret
ballot are different between the Faculty senate and the full faculty.
Dr. Prevost said she would like to see all major votes conducted on line and Dr.
Steinberg agreed. Dr. Matthews asked what the timing should be. Dr. McCullough said
votes should not be mixed; they she be either all in person or all on-line.
Dr. Campa said he agreed with both sides. The number of full faculty at the
meeting has decreased and. we lost reading day, which was a day when all faculty could
meet. So we either have to return to substantive meetings where everybody is available or
turn to on-line.
Dr. Jim Hiestand said that he opposes on-line voting in general and is more
concerned about people who don’t come out of choice than people who can’t come. He
said he prefers voting in the meeting is because there is opportunity for discussion. You
can have a pre-vote on-line discussion, but it is not the same. Dr. Verbie Prevost said she
agreed with the sentiment, but recognized that poor attendance at meeting is a result of
the history of the university. Most universities of our size simply have a Faculty Senate
and that’s it. They no longer have meetings of the full faculty. Dr. Van Ness asked if we
could have voting at the faculty meeting if we got back reading day. Dr. Hiestand said the
ad hoc calendar committee is looking at that.
Dr. Prevost pointed out the irony that we fuss about students who won’t do online voting. Dr. Wilson asked about voting by proxy. Dr. Miles asked whether there is an
objection to voting on-line after the vote if we have some mechanism for dialog. Dr.
Matthews asked about opening the voting during the meeting and then allowing a grace
period after the meeting. Dr. Hiestand asked how discussions of bills, amendments,
dividing questions, etc. can be handled in on-line votes. Dr. Hill Craddock said that
maybe a faculty election is less dependent on parliamentary procedure that policy issues.
Dr. McCullough said she would like to consider on-line voting for policy issues as well
as for elections because she has missed a number of votes.
Dr. Steinberg said the next question was whether to make the policies for secret
ballots in general faculty meetings and the Faculty Senate meetings equivalent. Dr.
Hiestand said the difference is that in the Faculty Senate a secret ballot can be requested
by a single member, but in general faculty meetings it must be requested by more than
one member. It was determined that the question should be referred to handbook
committee.
5. Nominations for UT Faculty Council - Dr. Victoria Steinberg
Dr. Steinberg asked for nominations for a campus representative for the UT Faculty
Council. Goal of council is for campus representatives to have direct input to the
president and vice presidents of the UT System. It also allows us opportunity to appoint
members to task forces and gives us opportunity to network with other campus. DiPietro
is much more accessible. The term is for two years and there are several meetings, some
of which are conducted by videoconference and some in person. The representative
serves along with the Faculty Senate President. Thus far, Dr. Ralph Covino has been
nominated. Dr. Campa nominated Dr. Lyn Miles, who said she had been honored to
represent the UTC community and appreciated the opportunity to serve, but she was no
longer eligible. Dr. Steinberg said that any additional nominations should be sent to
Faculty Senate Secretary Colleen Harris.
6. Member Concerns
There was some discussion about the problems with the new exam schedule. Dr.
Hiestand said the Ad Hoc Calendar Committee had been collecting lots of data, had
talked to department heads, and within a few days would be conducting a poll of the
general faculty. Please be sure to answer the questions when you receive the e-mail
message with a link.
7. Announcements
Provost Student research Awards – forms posted on Senate site under “Forms”
link, deadline is March 1, 2012
Linda Orth announced that the My Mocs Degree evaluation program was this
afternoon loaded into faculty Self-Service Banner accounts. She said it is much
easier to use than the CAPP program.
8. There being no further business, the meeting adjourned at 4:35 p.m.
[Minutes submitted by Profs. Susan North & Beverly Kutz]