Meeting, March 11, 2004
Gallagher Business Building, Room 123

Approved 4/8/04

Members Present:	D. Beck, T. Bedunah, N. Browning-Bradley, C. Bruneau, G. Burns, J. Carter, J. Crepeau, D. Dalenberg, T. Deluca, S. Derry, D. Doyle, E. Edlund, P. Fandozzi, R. Field, C. Gajdosik, L. Gillison, S. Greymorning, L. Hayes, T. Herron, W. Holben, C. Johnston, R. Judd, S. Kalm, K. Kane, C. Knight, B. Knowles, C. Krussel, R. Ledbetter, M. Mayer, V. Micheletto, N. Priestley, M. Monsos, S. Mueller, N. Nickerson, D. Pletscher, D. Schantz, A. Sondag, L. Tangedahl, T. Tonev, D. Schuldberg, P. Silverman, D. Six, E. Uchimoto
Members Excused:	E. Ametsbichler, M. Bachmann, C. Brewer F. Brown G. Cobbs, D. Fillmore N. Hinman, J. Gritzner, J. Laskin, J. McNulty, B. Reider, G. Smith, S. Stiff, H. Thompson, C. Winkler
Members Absent:	K. Canty, R. Chacon, L. Dent, P. Dietrich, J. Sears
Ex-Officio Present:	Provost Muir, Vice President Duringer, Associate Provosts Walker-Andrews and Staub, ASUM President Aaron Flint and ASUM Senator Rob Walsh.
Guests:	Broadcast Media Center Director William Marcus, Internship Services Director Terry Berkhouse, Clinical Psychology Center Director John Klocek, Wilderness Institute Acting Director Laurie Yung, ASUM Senator Vincent Pavlish.

Chair Knowles called the meeting to order at 3:12 p.m.

Chair Knowles announced a change in the agenda. The Review of Centers will be acted on prior to committee reports as a courtesy to the guests, the Centers Directors.

Chair Knowles called roll in the absence of Registrar Bain. A quorum was present.

The minutes were amended and approved (motion by Senator Monsos, seconded by Senator Winkler).

Communications:

Provost Lois Muir

Provost Muir announced that another candidate will be brought in for consideration for the Dean of the College of Arts and Science. She encouraged senators to go to the sessions and provide feedback to the Provost as quickly as possible.

The Legislative Audit Division prompted a performance audit of transfer credits to the Montana University System. There has been some unhappiness from students. The key areas to be reviewed are Nursing, Business, and Engineering. It will be an interesting audit.

All of the Level I and Level II program proposals approved by the Faculty Senate are on the agenda for the March Board of Regents meeting for final approval. She is hopeful that they will be approved. There will be several faculty there in case the Regents have questions.

Vice President for Administration and Finance Robert Duringer

VP Duringer indicated that he did not have any additional news to add to the memo that was sent by President Dennison regarding the budget deficit in Athletics. This is not the first time Athletics has been down this road. When he first started at the university a reduction plan was put in place to correct budget problems. There is hope that this time with some structural changes the Athletics Department will do better going forward. It seems that the more successful a program is, the more grandiose the idea of how it should exist. When you win you want to win more.

Senator Beck asked about President Dennison’s assurance that none of the debt would be paid out of student funds, but yet there is a proposed fee increase.

VP Duringer responded that there are two problems. The accounting error problem of $380,000 added to the $500,000 in over budget operating expenses total about a million dollar deficit for the year, and even with increased waiver accounts there is a structural deficit problem. The department does not seem to have enough money to operate. The administration is not going to ask for students to help. There will be a major increase in ticket prices next year, an additional home game will be scheduled which will generate between $200-300 thousand. There will be effort to secure additional corporate sponsorship, and consideration of the departmental vehicle situation. If successful, over the next three years Athletics can work down the deficit. If the structural problems are not fixed, the department will not be successful at reducing the deficit.

The administration has been as responsible as possible to students to minimize tuition increases and keep the fee schedule as low as possible.

Senator Ledbetter mentioned the Kaimin article that indicated Northern Arizona did not have a student athletic fee. Some students feel they should not have to pay if they do not attend events.

VP Duringer responded that Northern Arizona rolls the athletic fee into the general fund. Athletic fees are quite varied. The College of William & Mary has an Athletic fee of $960 per year. Northern Arizona also is planning a tuition increase of 40% next year.

The University’s mandatory fees are like condo fees. It’s necessary to pay for what we are--a mid-sized university. Students have asked for the Rec Center fee or computer fee to be waived because they will be away for a semester. In order to have good programs and provide service to the community the fees are mandatory. We can’t let people opt out.

Senator Mayer: How much of structural deficit is caused by the renovation of the Adams Center?

VP Duringer indicated that originally there were grandiose plans to have boxes and bars in the Adams Center. However, private money (approximately $6 million) could not be raised for this plan, so instead the Adams Center was renovated at a cost of 16 million. In evaluating the venue, we discovered that Athletics was treating the facility like a gym. So oversight was taken away from Athletics and instead of two or three concerts a year, there are now 12 per year. The Athletic Department is charged $370,000 per year to use the Adams Center. The Center is a large, viable, busy venue and costs a fair amount to operate. Last year the Center’s gross revenue was $1,527,000 and gross expenses were $975,785. The Center also is responsible for paying a portion of the bond each year.

ASUM President Aaron Flint

ASUM President Flint pointed out that ASUM is the reason there are so many successful concerts at the Adams Center.

There is a Parliamentary Procedure seminar on Saturday, March 13^th from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. in Gallagher Business Building108. The presenter is Lin Carlson of Salish-Kootenai College, who is certified by, and comes recommended by, the American Institute of Parliamentarians. The seminar is free and open to all who are interested. On March 23^rd there is a conference in Billings with Tribal Colleges focused on how can work together in the state.

The Board of Regents meeting this month will be March madness. The students will present a congressional delegation letter on financial aid. The message has broad based support. There are talks throughout student government regarding drug regulations and the MontPIRG fee issue is coming up.

Over spring break there will be visits supporting higher education to Roundup, Browning, Malta and Glasgow. ASUM President Flint is interested to here how faculty feel about this tour.

Please get involved if you are interested in the Athletic fee issue. The fee affects the bottom line of support for athletic programs. The proposal is to double the fee. The outcome will be that students will be paying the same amount as season ticket holders but 10,000 of them will not be going to the games.

Some universities combine the recreation and athletic fee. Also there are some sources of revenue that have not been evaluated. The tailgating practice at Colorado State might be something to consider. The administration should be looking toward the private sector not the students.

Chair Knowles asked if Flint would like to share his position on MontPIRG funding. Flint: For over 20 years organizations have been able to raise money in this manner. The proposal is a compromise and the result of hours of negotiations. Essentially the proposal reforms the reaffirmation process and stems from the political standpoint that the process truly needs to be open to all student groups. Otherwise it looks like we are taking sides and giving advantages to certain organizations.

Are students paying a mandatory fee for MontPIRG? Flint responded that the fee would not be automatic. Students would have to elect to pay the fee. Then it goes on their scheduled bill. There is a process for the fee to be taken off.

In response to how the change will affect the financial fees, ASUM President Flint responded that UC Davis can be viewed as an example. There were only four groups that took advantage of the program. Some organizations can be taken off the ASUM funding program. Hopefully the change will involve an increase.

Chair Knowles report:

Commissioner Stearns asked Chair Knowles to recommend faculty members to serve on the Athletic Department Investigation Committee. The member has been selected; however there is a press embargo until 4:30 p.m. At that time Chair Knowles informed the Senate that the faculty member selected was Senator Mike Mayer.

Regent Mercer met with ECOS last week. He came to learn more about faculty governance. Regent Mercer was at the meeting for about an hour and was briefed on the principles and tradition of higher education. He is interested in the business and processes of the Faculty Senate. Regent Mercer has implemented a Shared Leadership project that will be discussed at the March Board of Regents meeting. He would like to get faculty involved.

Regent Roehm instigated a statewide salary survey of faculty and staff. He wants to learn if pay levels and salaries are equitable, competitive, compressed, or comparable. There will be a discussion at the Board of Regents meeting in Dillon. It’s nice to know that one of Regents cares about compensation and its impact on retaining good faculty and staff.

Chair Knowles announced that the electronic ballot for voting in the Faculty Senate Elections will be sent March 22. Faculty have until March 26^th to vote. There have been a few glitches to work through in the new process. Several faculty received duplicate messages for the opt-in/opt out process and some systems are not able to access the secure site. If you are having difficulty you can go to a different computer and access the site with the identification number provided in the email or you can respond to the email and the office can opt-in or opt-out for you. There is also a document that provides some trouble shooting suggestions available in the reminder email that was sent.

Chair Knowles encouraged senators to go to this weekend’s Big Sky Conference Women’s Basketball Tournament in Missoula to support the Lady Griz. They are wonderful student athletes and should not be forsaken because of the budget problems in the Athletic Department.

New Business:

Review of Centers, ECOS Workgroup Chair Mike Monsos

Four Centers were reviewed. The workgroup was satisfied with the reports for the most part and asked questions of the directors for clarification on some points. The forms created last year served as a framework for the review.

There was a question regarding process. What would happen if the Senate did not recommend continuance?

Provost Muir reminded the Senate that the process is for the Faculty Senate to evaluate the reports and make a recommendation to the Provost. The Provost then makes a recommendation to the President.

The directors of the Centers were in attendance and stood as introduced.

Broadcast Media Center Director William Marcus
Center for Work-Based Learning (Internship Services) Director Terry Berkhouse
Clinical Psychology Center Director John Klocek
University of Montana College of Forestry and Conservation Wilderness Institute Acting Director Laurie Yung

The University of Montana Rural Institute: Center for Excellence in Disability Education, Research, and Service Director Timm Vogelsberg

There were no questions. The Centers were unanimously approved.

Committee Reports

ASCRC Report, Chair Louis Hayes

• The curriculum motion for crating four 3 credit courses from two 6 credit courses in Health and Human Performance was unanimously approved.
  
  
• Additional language under the symbolic systems requirement is proposed to clarify that courses need to have rigor.

Senator Ledbetter asked if the change would exclude any of the current courses. Chair Hayes: ASCRC will be reviewing general education courses on a three year rotation. At that time current courses will be evaluated to see if they still meet the criteria.

Senator Krussel stated that mathematics classes don’t have a complexity comparable to a spoken language. The Mathematics Department does not object to comparability and is not opposed to the spirit of the motion. They are not sure a comparison can be made of a math course and a language course.

Senator Schantz asked how this would be defined and by what criteria would ASCRC make decisions.

Chair Hayes: The additional language was developed because the existing language is so nebulous. The intent was to add something to give it more tests to establish that the course possess some symbolic rigor.

Senator Johnson pointed out that the statement is more of a suggestion or a hint because of the wording “should have.”

Chair Hayes indicated that a very simple, small system would satisfy the current language. Even though the revised language is rather vague it sets a standard.

Senator Silverman suggested it might be helpful to provide examples because the criteria are difficult to define.

Chair Hayes stated that there were courses purposed that met the spirit of the requirement but lacked rigor.

Senator Judd suggested that the statement be folded into the first paragraph.

Senator Gajdosik suggested that a definition be created for each type of course (math, music, and foreign language).

Senator Holben reminded the Senate to be careful not to disqualify courses for general education by having too many prerequisites.

ASUM President Flint asked whether the intent of the language took into account the credits/time required for foreign language courses. They typically meet five days a week.

Perhaps a qualifying statement should indicate rigor such as these courses (examples) that are currently accepted.

Senator Cobbs indicated there are Geometry courses in the Elementary Education program that have the symbolic systems designation.

Chair Hayes stated that there needs to be something to measure against. The measure would be conducted by comparing.

Senator Johnson suggested changing the “should” to “must.”

Senator Crepeau clarified that ASCRC would be doing the comparison/ interpreting.

Senator Mayer asked a point of information whether anyone knew anything about the proposed changes to general education.

Chair Knowles replied that the Provost will bring the information to the senate on April 8^th.

ASCRC Chair Hayes stated that there would be no virtue in postponing this issue because any changes in general education will not be acted upon for a while.

Senator Crepeau moved to postpone the issue until the May meeting (seconded by Senator Johnson).

Senator Eglin inquired whether the May meeting was devoted to the reorganization of the Senate.

Chair Knowles responded that the old Senate sets until the end of the meeting, when the new senators are seated. Business has been conducted at the May meeting for the last couple of years.

Senator Mueller moved the previous question. It was not seconded and failed.

Chair Knowles suggested the Senate should be given the opportunity to hear the report on general education prior to voting on the issue.

The motion to postpone was approved with one opposing vote.

· The resolution for revised grading option language was drafted by ASCRC student member Rob Welsh. The biggest problem is one of equity. Two students who produce D quality work in a course, one would receive three credits the other would receive nothing according to the grading option. Two end results for the same level of performance are inequitable.

Another dimension is that faculty members are free to do what ever they please. There is no such thing as the grading police. Some can choose to allow the grading option others don’t. Problem number two is one of semantics. The language used should be precise and agreed upon. The term pass means satisfactory completion of a course. We define D as poor, so how can poor be satisfactory. Poor should not be passing.

The third issue is one of standards. Therefore, ASCRC decided to not allow this grading option for general education courses as the intent of the option was not for it to be used for requirements but rather for exploration in electives. There was discussion that this could be a record keeping problem as some courses that can meet a general education requirement could be taken as an elective.

Senator Ledbetter asked for clarification that the intent of the motion was not to allow the option for general education courses. Chair Hayes stated that the option can not be used for the course submitted to meet the student’s general education requirement.

Senator Crepeau indicated that his personal issue is satisfied with the exclusion of general education courses. Currently students only look at half of the cost benefit analysis. With traditional letter grading they have incentive to do better work.

Senator Edlund stated that the student who got the credit for D paid the price in the grade point average.

Senator Greymorning indicated that some institutions assign letter grades regardless if the course is taken as pass /no pass or traditional. C is equivalent to pass and D is no pass and the whole issue does not exist

Senator Schantz is mystified that the university is talking about quality and this option. When he was in school when you wanted to take a course and not have it impact your GPA you took it as audit.

A visiting ASUM senator, Vincent Pavlish, stated that students still accept some risk if they plan to go to graduate school.

Chair Hayes indicated that this is mitigated by the fact that major departments have the authority to disallow the option.

Senator Schantz stated that students can take the course over.

Senator Johnson clarified that ASCRC is not changing the timeline of when the grading option decision needs to be made.

It was asked how extensive the problem was. ASCRC Chair Hayes responded that according to the Registrar students choose the pass/no pass option quite frequently. With the previous language over a thousand grades were missing because of students changing options at the end of the semester.

Senator Ledbetter has a large lower division general education lecture class that is the only class he teaches where students request the pass/no pass option.

Senator Johnson stated that in the School of Pharmacy the option is used frequently in pre-requisite courses.

The question was called and the motion carried with 28 in favor and 7 opposed.

Graduate Council, Chair Nigel Priestley

• The curriculum motion was approved unanimously. The motion primarily included adding a prerequisite to Accounting courses and a title change in a Forest Management course.
  
  
• The graduate increment guideline document was created to provide assistance to departments in using the curriculum forms. Graduate Council often does follow-up regarding graduate increments that lack clarity or robustness. The intent is not to prescribe how faculty members teach, but to offer a framework and examples. Graduate student need to know what is expected of them. Graduate students should have harder questions to answer not be graded on a harder scale.
  
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Executive session:

The candidate for honorary degree was presented by Interim Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Gerald Fetz. The supporting letter created by Professor Gritzner was available on the screen for senators to review. The Senate approved the nomination unanimously (motion made by Senator Judd, seconded by Edlund).

Dean of the School of Journalism Jerry Brown presented Richard Brown Stripp as a candidate for a posthumous degree. The supporting letter was available on the screen. The Senate approved awarding the posthumous degree unanimously.

General (open) Session resumed

Good and welfare:

Chair Knowles announced that the General Education Task Force report will come as a communication from the Provost on April 8^th. She will just bring the information forward and the Senate will refer it to the appropriate committee to figure out a mechanism of what to do about a forthcoming huge amount of work.

The information will be put on the web site in advance. Many of our distinguished colleagues have worked on the Task Force. Senators should talk to their constituencies about the information.

Senator Crepeau shared a comment made by Regent Mercer at ECOS. He is a very eloquent speaker and has some good ideas. He said, “Being the chairman of the Board of Regents is just another facet of my hobby.” Regent Mercer is going to have a lot to say about how the Regents work

Senator Judd announced that ECOS formed a workgroup to look into the faculty background check issue. The workgroup developed a plan for a committee that was approved by the Director of Human Resources Kathy Crego and Captain Lemcke. The proposal has been sent to University Legal Council David Aronofsky for review. Who sent it to the President and the Provost, but is not confident they will support the proposal. The issue was brought up at Good and Welfare during the November meeting. The wheels are spinning.

Senator Mueller announced that the Mansfield Library will host an Authors reception next Tuesday, March 16th at the Davidson Honors College from 4 to 6 p.m.

The meeting was adjourned at 4:54 p.m.