Faculty Senate Meeting
April 23, 2014, 2:30 pm, Noble 130
Senators attending: David Blake, Nancy Cardona, Beverly Chew, Betty Dorr, Jay Dougan, Mary
Ann Erickson, Kathy Fine-Dare, Ginny Davis, Michael Fry, Kris Greer, Andy Gulliford, Erik
Juergensmeyer, Melissa Knight-Maloney, Justin McBrayer, Carrie Meyer, Kenny Miller, Astrid
Oliver, Ellen Paul, Jennifer Rider, Chuck Riggs, Heidi Steltzer, Kaori Takano, Deborah Walker,
Amy Wendland
Senators absent: Michelle Bonanno
Guests: Barbara Morris, Sandy Gilpin, Carol Smith, Dugald Owen, Lisa Snyder
Reports / Announcements:
President’s remarks – Chuck Riggs
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Minutes, any corrections? Will do this next time.
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Ballot for SEC for 2014-2015 academic year. Secret ballot was done with only members of senate for next year voting.
BOT Faculty representative update
 none
Curriculum committee consent items:
Motion to table approval of Bio 208 Molecular Biology by David Blake; seconded by Erik
Juergensmeyer . Approved by all.
 This course would not work for PH majors if changed, so should not be changed at this time.
 Comment by Nancy Cardona: some courses are not getting approved for title changes, because they are 4 credits; so while approval at this time of English course title changes is appreciated, it is concerning that other courses are not also having this opportunity.
Unfinished Business:
Academic Affairs Policies
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Request for postponement by Dugald Owen of taking policy changes to cabinet.
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However, many chairs yesterday said that many of their concerns were addressed by discussions in meeting.
 Following a procedure to share information on policy changes with different groups on campus. Procedure is not stated, but this effort today is to share these policies with senate.
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Sabbatical policy –If BOT does not approve a sabbatical report, then the faculty is never eligible for sabbatical again. Proposed report would require greater depth. o We will create a template for report and more eyes on it before it gets into the board packet. There needs to be a robust front end process – will need to go to
Dept chair, Dean, and Provost. We don’t want someone to get hung up at the reporting stage. o Share statutory language? Yes. There is a link. o What committees will help with review? On front end would be the personnel committee, on back end as stated above. This will be going to the BOT for their
May meeting. o Will all proposals for sabbatical be provided for review? Asked for by a member of the BOT. Provost had offered to provide a quick synopsis. Got pulled into discussion of poorly written report. BOT has asked for all proposals, directly, so they have been sent to them. But BOT delegates the approval authority. This will likely be discussed at the May meeting. There are some concerns.
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Program review policy – can we have cycle of reviews based on external accreditors.
Then would not go through outside review and then internal review. Align. o External review cannot substitute for internal review, because different questions are asked. o Will be working on a new schedule. Best to do year before, year of, year after the external reviews. o Next year, one program review teacher education. They would like to do it the same time as external review. o 2015-2016 is when new program review schedule would be put into place. More detailed and more dynamic so map to HLC requests. o New that will include advisement – alumni tracking. Resources? Will come out of IR. How do we think of tracking the advisement of students? o Teacher Ed will be the guinea pigs using the new template. o Friendly addition, BOT will receive Full program review and report by the external reviewers. o External review did not seem particularly useful. Good use of time or money?
Dean or someone outside department could invite someone to ensure productive/critical input. Policy does not exclude this from happening. What you want is for someone to look at program as HLC would.
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Policy on policies – Group of faculty and staff go to conferences on policy making. This has gone through legal consultation. This is what is needed to create an evidence file. o Policies are meant to be dynamic. This also gets at decision making template, putting in black and white what that looks like.
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3 | P a g e o Concerns have been stated about decision making template. Policy on policies is statement of fact. o Friendly amendment to add in Faculty Senate for approval, but it is not a final decision maker. Faculty senate is a stakeholder. o Why does chain differ if idea is from a faculty (then includes senate approval) or an administrator (then senate not included for approval). Why this difference? o Voice of a faculty member is the faculty senate. This is why faculty ideas need to go through senate. We need to be comfortable with 1C, but can’t rewrite delegated authority approval process. We could create processes to consider/plan collaboratively, but can’t change the authority for approval. o What if there is an idea proposed by an administrator, but it is an academic policy? What if a faculty had a good idea for an administrative policy? This is just the skeleton, protocols are where description will be for how it works. o One day council of chairs, us looking at policies, doesn’t feel like we have the trust at this point in time. Past examples of administrators imposing community based learning; other mechanisms in procedures for how to plan for something like this. o One concern with blizzard of policies is the lack of dates. When were they created? When will they be reviewed? Should this be written into the policy?
Yes, it states that it will be reviewed. A 5-year policy to look at again. This policy for policies needed to precede, but timing hasn’t worked well for this. o Initial question on review process for why difference between academic and administrative policies? Is faculty senate approval required for academic policy proposals. Yes, would be good to have example included. o Carol has toyed with a draft, but is not ready yet. Protocols are critical to this living. Where faculty play a role is in the strategic planning process; this is where there is a blueprint for so much of what is being created. Individual faculty need to go through the elected body. Faculty go through Faculty senate; administration can’t delegate authority from BOT back to the faculty. This is the difference. o Timing – procedure not a policy issue – Andy stated blizzard, Dugald asking for more time, way to articulate need for more time? A lot of work over summer, articulate a fair time expectation for summer work? Yes, would be in the procedure. Yes, they are coming at difficult time. o Three top agenda policy items presented last year at end of year. Accepted by senate to create a policy committee. Administration saw the train coming and that’s why this was requested. Works both ways. If policy committee is not

effective, then propose another way. This vetting process doing right now is not effective. o Yes, could have more council of chairs meetings. Shared governance lives in the procedures. o Written somewhere that the Provost is equal to the vice president for academic affairs. Board manual states this. This is delegated authority from the board. So the president and provost position are considered on equal fitting? No.
Approval by president after consultation with provost. VP has consultation power; this is stated in the Board manual. Is there a way to change board manual? Yes, this could be requested by sending request to the president and they are the communicator to the board.
 Academic credit hour policy – there were few questions. 4 credit courses being scheduled into 3 credit slots. Scheduling needs to align with credits. Appendix, has a column that comes straight out of CCHE guidelines and we must be able to demonstrate following guidelines. o Art has said that national standard is not consistent. A couple may change to make sure match national standards. Should state minimum credits. Teacher
Ed, Art, Music credits will be corrected. o Is the policy reasonable with the federal definition and with best practice within the discipline. At public institutions, credit hour policies need to be aligned with state guidelines. CCHE did the front end, but not the back end, so can still you practices of the discipline.
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Go back to policy on policies – clarification. We do have a faculty policy committee – should these policies have gone to this committee first? Other institutions create policy committee often do vet policies, but could also go through faculty senate. o Senate does not have its own procedures. Time needed to work through this when not getting business done. Time to sit down and say what the policy committee does. We’ve given them different kinds of tasks. o Senate needs to write its own policies. How many charges have we changed?
We often debate this rather than having it be clear. As a clarification, Carol was stating there was a different committee approved by senate last year, separate from the faculty policy committee.
 Curriculum oversight policy – Faculty and students are also stakeholders. We don’t have students involved in any standing meetings on curriculum. o What are the procedures behind this? Faculty senate decides how curriculum gets approved. That’s why committees not listed in the policy. o What is non-exempted policy? (ex. minor course description).
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o Request for what happens when faculty senate and provost disagree on a nonexempted proposal? Provost must provide a rationale for the dissent in writing and a meeting must be held with the faculty senate to resolve issue. President would serve as arbiter if meeting does not lead to resolution. o How comfortable do we feel about signing off on proposals? Curriculum
Committee does not currently have sufficient information to approve curriculum.
We want to ensure that if there is disagreement there is another layer.
Adjorned at 3:30.
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