Academic Senate: Minutes 11/16/2010

I.     Call to order: 4:03pm
II.    Roll call

Present:    Brian Adams, Robin Anderson, Jim Baillie, Ray Bard, Genevieve Brassard, Lauretta Frederking, Sally Hood, Aziz Inan, Larry Larsen, Shannon Mayer, Laura McLary, Kathleen McManus, Hilary Merk, Nick McRee, Stephanie Michel, Elise Moentmann, Hans Nordstrom, Stephen Rowan, Br. Donald Stabrowski, CSC, Karen Ward, Joanne Warner, Kaye Wilson-Anderson, Teri Woo. Absent: Rev. E. William Beauchamp, CSC, Hillary Burrelle, Rich Gritta, Katie Scally

III.  Invocation: Larry Larsen
IV.  Approval of minutes from meeting from 12 October 2010.
V.   Standing Committee Reports:
    a.   Executive Committee, Dr. Larry Larsen
       1.   Met November 2 to discuss business to be brought forth at this meeting and business for the upcoming year.
       2.   Will meet again December 7.
       3.   Senate does not meet in December; the next Senate meeting is Tuesday, January 18. Please email Larry Larsen with any business to be discussed at the upcoming Senate Executive Committee meeting.

   b.   Committee on Committees, Dr. Elise Moentmann
       1.   Met with Br. Donald Stabrowski prior to Fall Break to provide names of potential search committee members for the Dean of the School of Engineering. The committee has been formed.

    c.   Committee on Rank & Tenure, Dr. James Baillie
       1.   Work of the committee is continuing.

   d.   Committee on Teaching & Scholarship, Dr. Nick McRee
       1.   Met November 11 to discuss the task force proposal for online student evaluation; proposal will be discussed under New Business. 
       2.   Met November 16 to discuss Butine awards; the committee will meet again on November 23 to complete Butine awards decisions and will report to Br. Donald Stabrowski. 

   e.   Committee on Faculty Welfare, Dr. Laura McLary
       1.   Met September 27:
          a)   Met with Bryn Sopko, the new director of Human Resources.  Ms. Sopko discussed her desire to standardize Human Resources practices and to clarify and document practices. She would like to create salary survey, have job descriptions for all positions, and she seeks to increase support to departments conducting job searches. 
          b)   Denis Ransmeier reported on the new retirement plan committee which has been created in response to new legislation requiring employers to audit their retirement plans. Mr. Ransmeier had requested a recommendation of a faculty member to serve on the committee. The committee will define criteria for evaluating funds and establishing benchmarks. 
          c)   Tuition remission policy needs to be clarified to indicate that dependent children may not use tuition remission to earn more than one Bachelor’s degree. The tuition remission policy regarding summer classes also needs clarification.
          d)   An office window in Buckley Center has been obstructed by a new mail room package storage cage. The committee consulted with Jeff Rook, who indicated that the issue is not a safety concern, since windows in Buckley are considered too small to serve as egress. Issue has been passed on to the Presidential Advisory Committee on Health and Safety for investigation of possible air pollution issue.
    2.   Committee met October 25:
          a)   Discussed Physical Plant’s inquiry about replacing Franz Hall chalkboards with whiteboards; committee was not in favor of this idea.
          b)   Committee was asked to discuss status of faculty raises, salary, and benefits in context of administrative expansion.
          c)   Denis Ransmeier is looking at five-year projections of tuition income, as well as deferred maintenance, and their potential influence on faculty salaries.
          d)   Faculty salaries will be approved by the Board of Regents in January; they should keep pace with inflation. 
          e)   Process of requesting furniture, equipment, or work is unclear. Sandy Galati from Physical Plant reports that work can be requested by: (1) email: workorder@up.edu ; or, open an internet browser and enter “workrequest” as a URL.

   f.    Committee on Curriculum & Academic Regulations, Dr. Brian Adams
      1.   Met October 26; both proposals were carried over to the November meeting. 
       2.   Chair will email Deans and Department Chairs that additional changes to the Bulletin need to be approved by CAR by January 17 so they can be discussed at the January 18 Senate meeting.

VI.  Presidential Advisory Committees:

   a.   Committee on Student Media, Dr. Kaye Wilson-Anderson
       1.   Have not met.

   b.   Committee on Athletics, Dr. Aziz Inan
       1.   Committee met to discuss academic performance of student athletes. 

   c.   Committee on Health and Safety, Dr. Hans Nordstrom
       1.   Met November 10. 
       2.   University is working with the city on adding an audio or visual alert to the pedestrian crossing on Willamette.
       3.   Discussed safety issues with skateboarders on campus and Mehling crosswalk.
       4.   Committee members have received building inspection training. Buildings will be inspected soon.

   d.   Committee on Information Technology, Dr. Teri Woo
       1.   Has met twice. Committee is determining tasks for this year. 
       2.   3 subcommittees have been created: Online Learning Standards, Portal, Desktop.

   e.   Committee on Sustainability, Dr. Hillary Merk
       1.   Met October 25; will meet again November 22. 
       2.   Committee is working on goals for the year.

VII. Other Reports:

   a.   Fr. William Beauchamp – not present; no report.

   b.   Dean’s Meeting (Br. Donald Stabrowski)
       1.   Deans have met regularly since start of year. 
       2.   Met with officers to discuss strategic planning. Have drafted some proposed goals; plan to distribute goals to the university after the first of the year. Next step will be to use strategies to create tactical plans for campus units.
       3.   Appreciate participation in strategic planning survey; received good response from students and staff. 
       4.   Recent visitor’s to Deans meetings include:
          a)   Br. Thomas Giumenta, who works in the learning center in Franz Hall, gave an overview of his work.
          b)   Bryn Sopko provided an overview of her role and how she can assist the deans. She conducted an audit of faculty and staff evaluations, and was pleased with the results.
       5.   A template is being created so majors and learning outcomes are described consistently in the Bulletin. 
       6.   Midterm grades: Brenda Greiner of the Shepard Freshman Resource Center received 180 calls in response to posting of midterm grades. All but 2 faculty complied with posting midterm grades.

   c.   ASUP
       1.   Met with Rev. Gary Chamberland to discuss the Faith and Formation strategic planning committee.
       2.   Finished capital improvements funds process. Executive Board narrowed ideas to three choices; the top choice is increasing seating, such as creating patio areas near Shipstad, Kenna, Christie, and Howard Halls, or adding benches along the Academic Quad. ASUP is discussing the possibilities with the Physical Plant.
       3.   This weekend UP is hosting a Pacific Northwest leadership summit for student government leaders at 12 area universities. 

VIII.       New Business:

   a.   Proposal from Committee on Teaching & Scholarship regarding on-line teaching evaluations
       1.   Committee on Teaching and Scholarship (TAS) received the report from the task force on online course evaluation in mid-October. TAS thanks Tom Greene and his committee for their work.
       2.   Committee submitted proposal which recommends:
          a)   University should adopt an online method of course evaluation. Current vendor should be retained.
          b)   Task force should manage online evaluation process in Fall 2010, Spring 2011 and Summer 2011 so all faculty can become familiar with the process.
          c)   After Summer 2011, university would exclusively use online evaluation methods (with the exception of faculty about to be considered for tenure, who could choose paper or online evaluations).
       3.   TAS discussed concerns about online evaluation process: 
          a)   All evaluation methods have potential issues; however it is important to solicit student feedback.
          b)   Evaluation data could be problematic if response rate is too low; TAS recommends that Senate establish a response rate of 80% (which matches average response received during pilot project). Task force will compare response rates of print and online evaluations.
          c)   Expressed concern about using any form of evaluation to rank faculty on basis of proficiency. Data shows that all faculty are good teachers; variations between faculty may be very small. TAS encourages Senate, by adopting the proposal, to discourage ranking of faculty on the basis of teaching proficiency.
       4.   Proposal requests that Senate:
          a)   Ask TAS to develop alternative evaluation measures.
          b)   Recommend that a task force be established in five years to evaluate online evaluation process.
       5.   Discussion of proposal:
          a)   Document title should be “Academic Senate Resolution”
          b)   Br. Donald Stabrowski clarified that Regents are not involved in faculty evaluations; requested that references to Regents be removed from the document.
          c)   Senate approved two wording revisions submitted in writing.
          d)   Clarified that under point #8, the intent is to preventing use of quantitative data to rank faculty; this item does not prevent deans from making use of quantitative data.
          e)   Suggested changing references to “proficiency” to “proficiency and efficacy.”
          f)    Br. Donald Stabrowski notes that in his twenty years of reviewing Rank and Tenure files response rates for print evaluations have rarely reached 80%. 80% threshold was based on the average response rate during the pilot project. This also reinforces need for data comparing response rates of print and online evaluations.
       6.   Senate voted to approve the resolution.
       7.   Additional comments:
          a)   Recommends TAS create a reasonable, manageable alternate form of evaluation.
          b)   Recommends TAS create a template of criteria for evaluation (e.g. syllabus, flow of hour, quality of participation).
          c)   Notes that faculty evaluation of peers may help to better interpret student evaluation data. 
          d)   Recommends consulting the Teaching and Learning Collaborative.
          e)   Committee should look at content covered by Rank & Tenure committee’s workshops; workshops clearly describe data (beyond student evaluations) that need to be presented.

IX.  Announcements: none

X.   Adjournment: 4:53pm

Note: All members of the University community are welcome to attend any meeting of the Academic Senate. The meetings begin promptly at 4:00 pm .