Meeting, March 10, 2004
Gallagher Business Building, Room 123

Approved 4/14/05  

Members Present:	E. Ametsbichler, T. Atkins, D. Bedunah, D. Beck, N. Bradley-Browning, S. Brewer, J. Carter, G. Cobbs, J. Crepeau, D. Dalenberg, L. Dent, S. Derry, P. Dietrich, D. Doyle, E. Edlund, J. Eglin, H. Eggleston, W. Freimund, M. Fromm, S. Ganesh, F. Glass, J. Glendening, L. Gillison S. Gordon, J. Henry, T. Herron, K. Hill, W. Holben R. Hughes, J. Hunt, R. Judd, S. Kalm, C. Knight, B. Knowles, B. Larson, J. Laskin, R. Ledbetter, M. Mayer J. McNulty, V. Micheletto, D. Moore, N. Nickerson A. Peterson, D. Potts, J. Sears, D. Schuldberg, P. Silverman, A. Sondag, S. Stiff, H. Thompson, T.Tonev, C. Winkler, S. Woods
Members Excused	C. Bruneau, M. DeGrandpre, S. Gaskill, C. Lawrence, M. Monsos, G. Smith, F. Snyder, M. Valentin, M. Tonon, A. Ware
Members Absent	J. Belz, C. Johnston, J. Gritzner, E. Putnam F. Rosenzweig
Ex-Officio Present:	Provost Muir, Vice President Branch, Vice President Dwyer, Associate Vice President Ford, Registrar Bain, Associate Provost Staubs and Walker-Andrews, ASUM President Gale Price, and UFA President Kupilik
Guests:	Charles Nichols, Margaret Baldridge, Robert Wachtel- Director Presentation Technical Services, Tony Rudbach-AVP Research and Development, Dan Kemmis- Director of the Center for the Rocky Mountain West

Registrar Bain called roll.

The minutes from 12/9/04 were approved.

Communications:

Provost Muir

§ The five year interim accreditation visit is scheduled for March 31- April 1^st. You will likely be invited to one of the sessions. The review will deal mostly with the five recommendations from the 2000 review (finance, assessment, library, multicultural perspectives, and master planning). The two issues that have not had previous visits are assessment and multicultural perspectives. These were addressed more heavily in the report prepared by the Provost’s Office, which the two reviewers now have.

The University has been working hard on assessment and multicultural perspectives. The report looks at the increase in cultural diversity courses and the increase in faculty diversity hires. Also included is a comparison of tenurable faculty at various ranks and faculty with doctorates. From fiscal year 1999 to fiscal year 2005 tenurable faculty have been increased by 22.5% and tenurable faculty with doctorates have been increased by 31%. Various other changes over the past five years are addressed in the report. The report is available on the Provost’s web site.

Senator Beck asked whether there was an increase in nontenurable faculty. The Provost did not have the report on hand but responded via email the following Monday. Nontenurable faculty increased by 19.3% over the same time period.  Overall, full-time faculty (tenurable and nontenurable) increased by 21.9%.

The Provost is on the Board of Regents General Education Core Workgroup. The recommendation thus far is to allow more flexibility for students. There is sentiment that students should be able to take courses from any of the MUS schools to be credited toward a general education core. The Provost attempted to preserve UM’s core. There has been a suggestion that the system approve the general education core on every campus. The Provost is opposed. She argued that curriculum needs to be approved by institution’s faculty, not at a system level. The issues are all related to the concern that students be treated fairly because they are paying for courses. She encouraged faculty to take a look at the draft policy.

ASUM President Gale Price

§ The students have been working very hard over the last several months on legislative lobbying efforts and are pleased with the boost in university funding. Unfortunately a lot of the increases are in matching funds which means tuition dollars.

The student lobbying day is tomorrow. Students participating should have excuse letters. ASUM thanks the faculty for supporting student participation in lobbying.

The students are interested in the responses to the legislative audit on transferability because this is an area where there has been student discontent; however ASUM is sensitive to the faculty governance implications as well. They are supportive of the control and quality assurance the UM faculty have over curriculum.

Students are concerned about the impact the south campus housing initiative will have on campus overall and are looking forward to continued dialogue. They are sensitive to the affordable housing needs of students, faculty, and staff and would like to see these needs addressed in projects as well.

The pay increase for faculty and staff was set as a priority by the Student Action Committee from the beginning. The students support and appreciate the faculty and staff.

It is once again time for ASUM elections. Please remind your students of the online process and the importance of participation.

UFA President Mike Kupilik

§ Although the legislature is treating the University nicely, Governor Schweitzer’s budget barely replaces the money that has been lost over the past two biennium, which can’t really be considered an increase. The University of Montana’s pay plan as it stands now is funded at 31%. Bargaining is continuing. The University Faculty Association’s success largely depends on the success with the legislature.

On Friday, March 18^th the MEA-MFT is holding a reception at the Helena Montana Club on the 6^th floor from 6:30-7:00 PM. This is higher education’s reception for the legislators. The purpose of the reception is for faculty to lobby the legislators. The legislators will be in attendance with name tags. So this is an opportunity for faculty to converse with them about the value of the university, its contributions to the community, and how critical it is to fund the pay plan at 50%. You can argue about the inequity of TIAA-cref or other issues. The UFA desperately needs faculty to attend and is offering to pay for transportation and lodging. If you spend the night, you are invited to walk the halls with the faculty representatives at the capital building on Saturday morning. The legislature is in session from 8:00 AM- noon.

You can contact him (x4575, Michael.kupilik@mso.umt.edu) or the UFA office (x6592) and a packet will be sent that includes the travel voucher. You can also show up at the MEA-MFT headquarters, which is directly across from the capital on 6^th street at 5:00 PM. There will be a briefing and you will be given a packet at that time that includes talking points and other information. The Montana Club is a very nice location and has good food, so this alone should be worth the trip. Please inform your colleagues of the opportunity. The UFA really needs faculty participation. Just let them know who will be attending by Tuesday or Wednesday of next week. Thank you.

Associate Vice President Ray Ford

§ The University is now in the process of going to the next generation of networking. In 1991 there was a proposal to join the internet. In 1998-99 there was a proposal to join internet II. The next step can be considered equivalent to internet III or Shared Cyber Infrastructure (the name internet III had already been trademarked).
For most individuals this will mean the network will be faster and the University will put more of its resources into it. Depending on your discipline this will be interpreted differently. You are all familiar with applications that are prevalent (email and web). What you might not be aware of are the emerging technologies that are being considered for National Science Foundation grants.

The demonstration will focus on audio video applications. For many this means MetNet or compressed video, where you see pixilated imagery that is somewhat like strobe light movement. This could be analogous to a Faculty Senate meeting where you only see the lead speaker compared to a round table meeting where you actually see everyone in the meeting. Advanced audio/video applications will allow you to have more realistic town meetings with people all over the world.

The University now has two emerging technology facilities. One is grant funded by the Pharmacy/Chemistry/Cobra/EPSCoR-BRIN program and the other is grant funded by the INRA Consortium. Both of the facilities are being used to teach very specialized distance education courses. Diana Lurie is teaching Neuroscience classes around the state. The Consortium, made up of nine universities in and around the Idaho National Laboratories, is doing subsurface environmental work. In both cases there are real classes taking place. Bob Wachtel, the Directory of Presentation Technology Services is also engaged in the Arts on the Grid project. He was involved in a meeting last week with 41 different video streams from 47 different sites from Korea to Germany, and several in the states.

Sound is the most technologically challenging medium to deliver. So if the technology can be useful for music professors it can be useful in many disciplines. The demonstration showed multiple video streams with Charles Nichols located in one facility, Margaret Baldridge in the other, and the Faculty Senate meeting in a third location. The Senate room is not part of the production and thus is not engineered properly for this type of sound technology and that is why feedback was occurring. The two faculty members rehearsed a small section of a music piece and discussed the way they are going to play for the concert.

The demonstration simulated working together from remote sites on a concert piece, similar to the Art on the Grid Project. The Art on the Grid project meets 2-3 times a week with faculty from the University of Alaska, Utah, Purdue, Maryland, and Illinois- Chicago. The project involves a collaborative work in music, dancing, and motion capture (the technology used in the Polar Express movie). The data is sent in real time to Nichols and he uses it to manipulate sound files to generate music. He was involved in another collaborative concert with the University of Victoria, Stanford University, and UM. The audience was at Stanford and all three musicians were playing at the same time over internet II. So the technology is a real world application. According to Nichols the technology has made it possible to access a greater community and do some projects he normally would not be able to do.

Normally the participants would be able to see and hear the others in the project through a web cam. In the normal facility there are three web cams so that everyone in the meeting or class can be viewed.

Senator Glass asked how the participants are seen—on a computer screen or enlarged screen; what is the setting? Nichols responded that some individuals are looking on their computer monitor while others are looking at projection screens that are almost life size. The facility used for Art on the Grid has three projection screens where Wachtel brings up each picture on an array on the screen. When participants are showing/describing animation it is possible to view output of their computer, or if talking about the structure of the project, the text file can be displayed on the screen. The technology has a fairly easy interface.

If you are interested in the technology stop by the facility in the basement of the Honors College. To see how the room is structured visit Tuesday or Thursday afternoon when Diana Lurie teaches her class. What you will see typically is a power point presentation projected at the front and images of people tuning in on the side screens. The performance of the Art on the Grid project will be in mid–April and all are welcome to attend. Announcements will go out.

It was asked whether the music faculty could play at the same time or there was a lag in the technology that prevented this. Ford responded that because of the trouble with the feedback they decided not to have a simultaneous performance. This could have been done with the other facilities by carefully arraying the sound and pickup so that there is no feedback. Bob indicated that there are some latency issues that cause a slight delay. There is new technology (DBST) that can be interfaced with the access grid technology which allows for a tighter correspondence between the two sites. According to Ford this is why we need a faster network. We are currently at 100 megabits. The target is 10 gigabits or 100 times faster.

The advanced networking goal is a10 gigabits network from Chicago to Seattle with Montana connected. Soon it will be announced that North and South Dakota, Montana, and Idaho have received a $100,000 planning grant from the National Science Foundation. The project is moving forward slowly, a total of $20 million dollars is needed to compete the advanced network.

ComNet and VisionNet are the same technology as MetNet or a single video stream where you tend to only see the one person that is talking. This technology is slowly expanding, but a need for multiple video streams requires a technology change. The new technology is focused on the end voice like the internet and will not have an associated fee. Currently the Schools of Business and Education have contracts with VisionNet for delivery to particular endpoints.

There will be a power point explanation of the technology available on the Faculty Senate’s web page for anyone who is interested.

Chair’s Report

§ The Board of Regents’ work addressing the transferability audit will be discussed at the Board of Regents meeting next week. Please take a look at the draft policies and send your comments/concerns to the Chair. The Provost will provide the revised general education transfer policy for dissemination to senators.

The draft policy has a few items that are of concern. One of the recommendations is the formation of a General Education Council to oversee the provisions of the policy. ECOS would like to see members of the Faculty Senate on this Council. It also stipulates that a student may be required to take additional general education credits at the upper-division level in order to complete the degree and program requirements at the new institution. This could preclude a second composition or writing requirement as well as UM’s foreign language or symbolic systems requirement.

The revised policy includes the following notable provision:

Transfer students who complete 20 or more general education credits, but who do not complete the general education core at the sending MUS campus, may choose, after consulting with their advisor at the receiving campus, to complete either the distribution requirements of the MUS Core OR the general education core on the receiving campus.

Please get in touch with the Faculty Senate, ASCRC, or the General Education Committee Chairs with your comments.

Chair-Elect Report –Deanships

§ Board of Regents Policy 711.1 defines professional and administrative permanent positions, which applies to deans. It describes how the contracts are created and the approval process. Chair Elect Crepeau spoke to Kathy Crego, the OCHE interim Director of Labor Relations and former UM Human Resources Director, for clarification on the issue. She indicated that if a dean position was to be created at UM the process would involve President Dennison making a proposal to the Regents to hire a dean. He would probably run the proposal by the Commissioner of Higher Education. The primary argument would involve demonstrating the need to spend the money. This would probably be very unlikely given the current state of fiscal affairs.

Senator Judd inquired about the requirement that deans had to have tenure in discipline. He asked whether this was a University, Board of Regents or Commissioner of Higher Education policy. Crepeau did not have the answer.

Committee Reports:

ASCRC Chair Don Potts

§ The curriculum motion was approved unanimously.

§ The writing deliberations document summarizes issues that ASCRC has identified in relation to the perceived writing problem on campus and the proposed second composition course. The committee has been asking lots of questions but has not yet come to a resolution on the issue, because the answers are elusive and lead to more questions. Also available for review on ASCRC’s web page are writing discussion excerpts from the past minutes. Please take a look if you are interested in the level of consideration that has taken place. The committee is in the process of drafting recommendations that may be related to policy or administrative issues. There has been lots of concern and confusion that required additional investigation. One perception is that students have a hard time passing the WPA. Statistics are revealing that this may not be the case.

ASCRC will be establishing a writing subcommittee because there are so many issues that need attention. There was a proposal from the Provost’s Writing Committee to strengthen the writing criteria. The potential impact on upper-division writing courses is a concern. There obviously is a lot of work to be done. The structure of the subcommittee will be formed to assure representation of the disciplines and functionality. One of the charges will be to evaluate current writing courses.

Please take a look at the writing deliberations document and send your concerns or comments to him or the Senate Office.

It was asked whether any of the other MUS schools had a Writing Proficiency Assessment. Potts responded that he thought this was one of the unique elements of UM’s general education program. The WPA would not be an issue with the proposed BOR general education transfer policy. The MUS core only requires 3 credits of English composition. At issue might be the number of credits required for writing. UM requires 6 credits of writing prior to the WPA. Ideally the second writing course should be lower-division, but this is where UM’s program has a structural problem. There are far more upper-division writing courses than lower-division. A second composition course would require a huge reallocation of resources. This could also create a transferability problem. There are many aspects of the issue that are of concern.

General Education Chair John Eglin

§ The draft general education preamble is coming to the Senate as an information item only. The first draft included several of the bulleted points addressing each competency and perspective. The committee deferred work on this language until there is agreement on the structure of the general education program. Please read through the document and send comments to him or the Faculty Senate Office.

Graduate Council Chair Rick Hughes

§ The curriculum motion was approved unanimously.

New Business:

New Center- UM Paleontology Center

§ Tony Rudbach, AVP Research and Development presented the proposed new Paleontology Center. George Stanley, is on his way to China to do his sabbatical research for the Smithsonian, otherwise he would have been here. This year is the 105^th anniversary of the Paleontology Museum at The University of Montana. It is located in the basement of the Science Complex and contains 100,000 specimens of which 1,000 are type specimens or original species designation of the fossil type. Scientist all over the world use the collection for research. Since its inception over 300 scientific papers have resulted from studies in the Museum. Giving the Museum center status would recognize the significance and uniqueness of the collection in the Rocky Mountain West, and make it easier to obtain grants and contributions. It will also become an administrative home for an associated Fort Peck field station. UM, through the Museum has been invited to be the curator and exhibitors in the museum at the new interpretive center at Fort Peck. The grand opening is May 27^th.

Senator McNulty asked how this is different from MSU’s Museum of the Rockies. MSU’s paleontology research is focused only on dinosaurs. There are many other fossils included in UM’s collection including small mammals, invertebrates, plant fossils, as well as dinosaurs—pure paleontology.

The center was approved unanimously.

Review of Centers:

§ Center for Rocky Mountain West

ECOS recommends continuation of the Center. However it recommends that the Center be reviewed again in two years because of the controversial nature and concerns about the budget. Out of concern about the perception of the Center among faculty, ECOS invited the Director Dan Kemmis and the Associate Director of Humanities and Culture William Farr to talk with them. ECOS suggests that rather than continuing to expand the Center, a greater effort should be made to become less dependent on state funds through more aggressive fund-raising and grant writing. As funds increase, the Center should reinstate and strengthen programming.

Senator Mayer stated that when the Center was created the Senate was promised that the Center would become self funded within a relatively short time. He asked at what level is Center state funded and what level is the funding raised by the Center.

After talking with senior fellows from the CRMW, ECOS found that: 1) the Center has changed over time, thus funding sources and expectations have changed. 2) Salaries reflect competitive market value. 3) Personnel (circa 84% of overall budget) are fixed costs, whereas the resources for the budget from endowment funds fluctuate with the market.

The CRMW Director Dan Kemmis and VP Research Dwyer addressed the question. State support is about 31% of the overall budget, 42% is grants and contracts, and the endowment which has been shrinking over the past few years represents 23% of the budget. These budget figures are prior to the hiring of Bob Brown.

Senator Judd explained that ECOS asks to review the Center again in two years because of what has been going on with the budget. There was also concern that the salaries are relatively high.

Kemmis suggests that to have an accurate comparison to faculty salaries the Center salaries would have to be converted to 10 months. The matters are interrelated. On a couple of occasions the President has seen and taken opportunities to bring people to the University to make substantial contributions by broadening and deepening the experience of students and outreach to the region. One of the earlier hires was Congressmen Williams. The salary in this case was driven by consideration of competition with other institutions and the Center inherited a changed budget situation.

VP Dwyer indicated that he and the President have discussed putting more indirect money into the Center, with the idea that this money is being collected by the Research Office to support scholarship and research. The work being done at the Center is important and there will be effort to replace some of the state dollars with indirect dollars for research.

Director Kemmis’ salary does not include any state money.

Senator Gillison asked about the academic function of the Center. Kemmis responded that all of the senior members of the Center have varying classroom responsibilities. Professor Farr is the only tenured faculty member. Pat Williams teaches three courses every year. Kemmis regularly teaches a graduate seminar in Environmental Studies. All of the members are engaged in advising as well. He serves on two or three masters theses committees and has served on a couple of PhD committees. There are many lectures given at other universities throughout the region as well. The Center personnel also participate collaboratively with many units on campus. They have worked with the Law School to put on the Public Land Block Youth Conference. They have regularly participated in and provided the lecturer for Charter day. They try to be integrated with the university. Their teaching activities and involvement with students is a very important part of what they do. The idea behind the Center is that there is important interdisciplinary work to be done that is not being done otherwise. The Center’s ability to look at the whole Rocky Mountain West in a multi-disciplinary way is very beneficial to the University.

Senator Beck asked whether the Center is planning to raise other money or will there just be shifting of state funds to indirect funds. What is the active fund raising program?

Kemmis responded that the Center has and will be active in the university’s capital campaign. In order for the Center to be sustainable it has to have more endowment support for the senior positions. The Center recognizes that if Williams were to leave the Center the funds that cover his salary would no longer be in the budget. The Center is committed to raising the endowment to fund at least half of the senior fellow positions. His and Larry Swanson’s positions are almost entirely paid through grants and contracts and there are efforts to continue these. Just recently a new three year grant was received from the Hewlet Foundation.

The Center is highly motivated to stabilize its funding base and will not be any more vigilant based on a two year review. But will of course abide by what ever recommendation the President makes in terms of review.

Senator Hill asked about how the Center was assessing its goals. The Center personnel participate in strategic planning and the Director performs annual evaluation of the senior staff at which goals and objectives are set for the next year. The Director presents to VP Dwyer the objectives for the next year. In terms of meeting the goals, they would be happy to provide any information that is requested. In preparation for the report each of the senior staff were asked to prepare vitae, which can be made available for review by senators if necessary.

Senator Hill was wondering whether there was assessment done by those that the Center serves.

Chair Winkler indicated that anyone interested in viewing the full report can do so at the Faculty Senate Office by appointment.

The recommendations made by ECOS were approved by the Senate.

§ English Language Institute
There was a recent change in the director’s position, so ECOS decided to postpone the review to allow the Institute’s new leadership time to organize and put together a balance sheet for the budget.

§ Institute for Tourism and Recreation Research
ECOS recommends continued operation of the ITRR. The ITRR has been accomplishing its goals, providing meaningful interaction with one or more UM-Missoula educational programs, and operating within its budget. The ITRR is considers revenue-neutral by ECOS and is recommended to continue. The Senate concurred with ECOS’ recommendation.

Good & Welfare:

§ The office of the Vice President of Research has printed up 81/2 x 11 logos in maroon in silver to advertise the university’s presence. If you would like some of these for events at the legislature please stop by UH 116.

§ There will be Girl Scout cookies for sale tomorrow in the University Center.

§ The minor glitch in the Elections process was corrected in the first 10 minutes after the message was sent. The coma between the last and first name was a problem for the programming. The process was upgraded this year to allow for better functionality from the Senate Office rather than the secure site provider.

§ Senator Carter, a member of ECOS, suggested that senators consider service on ECOS next year. The experience on ECOS is very informative in terms of University operations and the Board of Regents.

Executive Session:

§ The candidate for honorary degree was approved.

The meeting was adjourned at 5:03 PM.