Academic Senate: Minutes 2/19/2013

I. Call to order: 4:00 p.m.
II. Roll call
Present: Michael Andrews, Julia Balistreri, Ray Bard, Fr. William Beauchamp, Russ Butkus, Rich Christen, Mike Eom, Tom Greene, Kyle Hamm, Drew Harrington, Susan Hinken, Sally Hood, Aziz Inan, Larry Larsen, Nick McRee, Tamar More, Meike Niederhausen, Dann Pierce, Alex Santana, Karen Ward, Matthew Warshawsky, John Watzke.
Not Present: Brian Els, Gary Mitchell, Susan Stillwell, Mark Utlaut, Kaye Wilson-Anderson.
III. Invocation: Larry Larsen
IV. Approval of minutes from November 20, 2012 meeting: Minutes approved.
V. Standing Committee Reports:

 i. Executive Committee, Dr. Larry Larsen

1. The Executive Committee met two weeks ago.

2. Brian Els was elected to replace Mark Eifler for CAS.

3. Larry will send out emails to the Deans about replacing the nine Senate members who will be leaving at the end of March.

ii. Committee on Committees, Dr. Susan Hinken No report. The committee thanks Father Beauchamp for appointing Tom Greene as Provost.

 iii. Committee on Rank & Tenure, Dr. Mark Utlaut Chair was not present. Larry reported that the committee is moving forward with evaluating the files for promotion to full professor and those applying for rank and tenure.

iv. Committee on Teaching & Scholarship, Dr. Aziz Inan

1. Committee will meet at beginning of March. During that meeting, the committee will determine the Butine awards.

 2. Committee received nominees for faculty awards and Aziz has contacted the nominees and asked them to submit information. The committee’s second task is to determine the winners.

3. The committee’s third task is to plan for Faculty Development Day. Announcements for proposals will be placed in Upbeat and PilotsUP.

v. Committee on Faculty Welfare, Dr. Tamar More

1. The committee’s most urgent issue has been exam accommodations. They are pursuing inquiries as to how to handle them better. In most cases the barrier is where to hold the exams. Franz 123 is the available location. The committee will meet with all parties. The committee requests that Senate members should solicit information from faculty: How many students have accommodations? What is faculty actually doing to meet students’ accommodations? What are the barriers to helping these students? How does faculty feel about the solutions? If anyone has any feedback, please send them to faculty welfare.

2. The committee is also looking into adjunct salaries which haven’t changed in decades. Could there be raises for those who have been teaching for us for a long time?

3. The committee is going to meet with Bryn Sopko from HR about faculty benefits.

4. The committee is also debating about a way to cover faculty’s publication costs. Many publications currently charge fees for publications. If scholarship is a faculty responsibility, would it be possible for the university to fund publication costs? 5. The committee is revisiting the campus dog policy. The issue was taken to the Committee on Health and Safety and the Chair of that committee is pursuing the issue.

6. The committee is preparing a general survey for faculty to solicit any concerns. vi. Committee on Curriculum & Academic Regulations, Dr. Russ Butkus The committee has not met this semester and has no new business. The committee does have a proposal from Physics and will meet to discuss it.

VI. Presidential Advisory Committees:

i. Committee on Student Media, Dr. Kaye Wilson Anderson Not present.

ii. Committee on Athletics, Dr. Alex Santana The committee met on February 5. They are meeting with Tom Greene and Matt Baasten to discuss academic scheduling and student athletes. Athletes have difficulty scheduling classes with their practice responsibilities. Discussions are ongoing. At the end of the semester, the committee will submit recommendations to the President.

iii. Committee on Health and Safety, Dr. Dann Pierce

1. Safety concern about the intersection at Mehling Hall; Physical Plant is looking into readjusting the streetlight location to increase visibility. 2. Committee is working with the Physical Plant regarding golf carts that go too fast. Committee requests specific markings on carts to identify who is driving them.

3. Committee agreed that faculty and staff need training in CPR and will be providing this service in the near future.

iv. Committee on Information Technology, Dr. Gary Mitchell Not present.

v. Committee on Sustainability, Dr. Rich Christen Committee has not met. Bill Barnes met with Father Beauchamp to discuss the enhancement of sustainability on campus.

VII. Other Reports:

 i. Fr. William Beauchamp

1. Fr. Beauchamp will appoint a task force to look at sustainability on campus. The idea is to form a small group to look at specific issues and present a plan to him by next fall or January. He would like recommendations as to how the university could become more sustainable. This committee will have representatives from faculty, physical plant, finance, etc. They might want to develop subcommittees. The goal is to give us a map going forward. There is an academic component as well; we need to teach our students about sustainability.

2. The tenure letters were sent out. Promotions to full professor will be announced later in spring. He thanked faculty for assistance with writing the letters. He reviews all files.

3. Cross divisional meetings were held this morning; they are held twice a semester and include directors and staff department heads. The main topic of discussion was to give them an update on the job reclassification project. The plan is that it will be in place at the end of summer and will be use for budgeting for 2014-2015. Faculty has different ranks, so a similar need exists for staff for fairness: classification level, pay scales, etc. There will be no attempt to reduce staff or salaries.

4. Report on Rise Campaign:

1) So far we raised 145 million; the goal is 175 million. There was 62% participation on part of faculty and staff. 5. Commencement speakers will be announced soon, he is waiting for confirmation. Speakers will include: world-renowned cancer researcher; world-renowned ethicist; representative of a Northwest American tribe; world-class athlete; woman with Downs Syndrome; local cleric; and former Provost of UP. President reported that they are excited about this group, because they represent the university’s Mission.

ii. Dean’s Meeting, Provost, Tom Greene

1. Tom expressed appreciation about the accommodation issue, and said it’s on their minds as well; they will work with Tamar and other parties to find solutions.

2. During the Dean meetings, the budget was discussed. There are 3.2 million dollars of requests with 800,000 dollars available.

3. The Provost Report is being upgraded to serve faculty better. It will not be distributed during the Faculty Gala this year; instead it will be distributed during the convocation at the beginning of the fall 2013 semester. It will become a repository to put research, presentations, publications, service, etc. It will be a place to put and update CVs. . There will be good university information in front that highlights specific faculty research and outcomes. The report will also include alums who are doing well and departments who have done something significant academically.

4. The Associate Provost will call a meeting with the University Core Curriculum Committee (UCCC).

5. Degree Works, an audit program for students and faculty advisors, will make advising easier. Everything from the bulletin will be imported into the software, showing the requirements for a major. The project is a one year process and will make for a very reliable system.

6. Sequoia is a group of University community members working together to pilot a faculty and staff leadership capacity development program on campus in order to build UP’s leadership capacity. The idea is for a group of people to develop a program of leadership that we could use on campus to help people understand the various roles, how the university operates, etc. Faculty and students will work together. Tom will be having meetings over the course of the rest of the semester at specific times for faculty to come in to share ideas for the future.

iii. ASUP

1. They are discussing changes to Theology 101 and are in process of putting together a resolution.

2. The just passed a resolution to raise the standard book fee to $15 to pay for events on campus. They will vote on this on March 26. They want to hold a major sustainable event.

3. Because they pushed back the elections by an entire month and were not expecting to have run-offs, elections will happen the day after Spring Break. Faculty and staff should inform their students about the election and the importance of voting.

 VIII. New Business:

i. Senate Distribution Report by Ad Hoc Committee. Loretta King represented the committee and explained that the Senate must examine the make-up of the Senate distribution every two years. In part this is instigated by changing demographics, new faculty coming in, and the relationship of Senate to faculty and ex-officio.

a. In early December the committee made the assessment; it was last assessed in 2009. They used the by-laws and list of full time faculty as sources. The first concern was the growth in faculty. The second concern was that there are 11 Chairs and a larger Senate would create a larger pool for Chairs. The primary goal is to broaden that pool from which the Chairs of committees, presidential committees, and standing committees would come. The committee recommends increasing the membership from 27 to 29 overall which would increase faculty representation from 19 to 21. The status quo is that faculty make-up 70.4% of the Senate. We could stay with this. It would increase to 72.4% if two faculty members were added. The new members would come from CAS. The goal is to increase faculty representation.

b. Discussion:

i. Clarification, why will new members come from CAS? It is a proportional distribution within CAS. There are other rules to decide proportional representations, but this is the rule that senate has adopted.

ii. Is it a problem to identify a sufficient number of faculty members who are tenured to be on Senate? It was not our experience this year in finding an appropriate number of tenured professors for committees. The challenge is getting responses from faculty about which committees they want to serve on. We placed people who had not responded because we needed to fill committee slots.

iii. The hurdle is that the Senate bylaws have no distinction between junior and senior faculty serving on Senate. There has been an effort to keep it to two-thirds senior faculty, one-third junior faculty, proportionately. By-laws do state that standing committee Chairs have to be senior faculty. It is important to bring new faculty members into Senate, but it is difficult to determine whether they have the right qualifications. The Chair of Rank & Tenure does not have to be a member of Senate.

iv. We could consider changing the by-laws so Chairs of the major committees would not have to be Senators, or so they are not voting members. Can we propose a change in the by-laws?

v. There was a reduction in the number of Senators several years ago. By streamlining the Senate members the work is more timely and reasonable. The committee work gets done before the Senate meeting. This is not a suggestion that the Senate not grow to a larger number, but it does become a challenge. It is important that Chairs be Senate members and have voting rights.

vi. If the motivation is to have more choices for committee members, I think the Chairs shouldn’t be tied to being elected Senate members. I think every department needs to have a Senator.

 vii. It could help to have two more members in order to find Chairs. 60% serving as Chairs now, that would make it 50%.

viii. Proposal was put to vote. Either agree to add these two members or decide to remain with the status quo of the current Senate. The new members would begin on a two-year term to help create a balance. Currently nine members are retiring, the following year there will be four retiring, and the year after that there will be six retiring. A two –year term would help the rotation. I propose a voice vote: move to propose to add two senators—second? Second. Nays/Abstentions? [None]. Move to add to two senators. The proposal to add two Senators passed unanimously by voice vote.

 IX. Announcements:

1. The Executive Committee meets again on March 5, 2013. If anyone has any business for them please contact Larry.

2. Senate meets again on March 19, 2013.

X. Adjournment at 4:45 p.m.