Meeting, February 14, 2008
Gallagher Business Building, Room 123
DRAFT
|
Members
Present: |
B.
Allen, E. Ametsbichler C. Anderson, T. Atkins L. Barnes, B. Brown, K. Canty, F. Cardozo-Palaez, J.
Carter, B. Cochran, J. Crepeau, B. Douma, J. Eglin, D. Erikson, L. Frey, J.
Gannon J. Glendening, S. Gordon S. Greymorning, L. Hayes, J. Henry, J. Herbold, S. Justman, M. Kupilik B. Larson, C. Loisel,
J. Lopach, J. Luckowski, M. Mayor, S. McCann, D. McCrea, M. McHugh, J.
McNulty, M. Monsos C. Nichols, M. Papanek-Miller M.
Patterson, M. Pershouse, L. Putnam B. Reider, D. Six, , D. Spencer, R. Stubblefield, D. Swibold, H. Thompson, E. Uchimoto, A. Ware |
|
Members
Excused |
R.
Bendick-Kier, N. Bradley-Browning, A. Delaney, L. Dybdal,
L. Eagle Heart-Thomas, W. Holben, L. Knott, S.
Miller, D. Potts, J. Renz, D. Shively P. Silverman, G. Smith, S. Stiff, K.
Uhlenbruck K. Unger, N. Vonessen |
|
Members
Absent |
L.
Blank, B. Halfpap, K. James T. Seekins,
R. Skelton, D. Stolle, |
|
Ex-Officio
Present: |
Registrar
Micus, A. Szalda-Petree, , |
|
Guests: |
V.
Grund, N. Natale, C.
Thompson |
Chair
Hayes called the meeting to order at 3:10 p.m.
Registrar Micus called role and the minutes from 12/6/08 were approved.
Communications:
Provost Engstrom
Non-tenreruable Faculty Appointment Report
Provost
Engstrom presented the Non-tenurable
Faculty Appointment Report as required by Academic Policy 101.2 and CBA,
Section 9.0. Policy stipulates the
percentage of non-tenurable faculty should be less
than 25%, but that exceptions are made when special expertise is required to
enhance educational quality. The number
of tenure/tenure track faculty was 481.6 in 2007 compared to 469.5 in
2006. The number of non-tenurable is 130 in 2007 compared to 130.6 in 2006. The University as a whole has under 25% non-tenurable faculty.
The School of Law is 36.75% and the College of Technology is 37.32%.
Senators
may make an appointment with the Faculty Senate Office to review the full
report.
Senator
Lopach: Are there any national caparisons that would be meaningful?
Provost
Engstrom was not familiar with any, but could look
into the matter.
Senator Kupilik addressed the Montana State University Faculty Senate yesterday.
During the meeting their Provost indicated that Non-tenurable
faculty at .5 and above made up 35% of its faculty and teach
30-35% of the credit hours.
Credit hours taught at UM are disproportionately high for non-tenurable faculty-- thirty to thirty-five percent of credit
hours are taught by non-tenurable faculty.
Budget
Preliminary budget initiatives were reported to the Board of Regents in
January. The administration through the
Executive Planning Committee is in the process of revising the initiatives for
resubmission at the March BOR meeting. It will be meeting with the Strategic
Planning and Budget Committee this Friday.
The Board will then prepare the budget package that will go to the
Governor and eventually the Legislature for the 2009 session. Major initiatives include:
· Salary augmentation
pool (2%) above the regular salary package used to address salary compression,
inversion, market disparities, and etc.
· Strengthening
graduate programs through enhanced stipends and non-resident waivers
· Undergraduate
recruiting, retention, and excellence
· Strategic research
faculty- to meet obligations from grants
· IT- ability to
deliver education with technology
· Facilities
Northwest
Commission on Colleges and Universities Accreditation
The 2010 accreditation visit has been scheduled for April 14-16. Preparing for the visit is a two-year process
and involves a large number of people. The administration has received
preliminary instructions via a workshop in Seattle and a NWCCU representative
visit. An important part of the
requirement will be closing the loop of assessment- making changes based on
assessment. The process will be starting soon.
A timeline communication will be sent next week requesting volunteers. A steering committee and coordinator will be
selected from the response.
Academic Strategic Planning
Academic Strategic Planning will begin immediately to be completed by summer
2009. These efforts will be linked to accreditation preparation. There will be
open forums for input at every step, including the design of the process itself
– environmental scan, identification of strategic issues, goal-setting,
actions, assessment and annual feedback.
Please consider involvement in this process.
Design
of Undergraduate Curriculum
The
Provost has had discussions with ECOS and ASCRC regarding a framework
for undergraduate curriculum. Due to the
general education revision efforts, these ideas will remain at the discussion
stage for now. Next fall, as part of
Strategic Planning, there will be a broader discussion of a design for
undergraduate curriculum with general education integration.
Early
Alert
The
early alert deadline is next Tuesday. Providing
early assessment is important to give notice to students who are struggling in
100/200 level courses.
UFA President Kupilik
The Regents are engaging in pre-budget negotiations, something
that has not been done since 1993. The 1993 negotiations led to the 4 plus 2
contract which was one of the best negotiated. The Board will meet with
all the unionized campuses (all but MSU) to gain a position on faculty compensation.
UM’s members of the pre-negotiation team are Kay Unger- Economics and Doug
Coffin- Pharmacy.
The UFA has sent in a four page position paper outlining two
positions. 1) There has to meaningful base pay raises- perhaps the state pay
plan plus 2% for base pay raises; and 2) additional monies will be negotiated
to address inversion, compression, and salary floors. The Union and
Administration Special Committee on Inversion, Compression and Salary
Floors has completed their study and will
be presenting their report to the Regents at the March meeting.
The MEA-MFT is still trying to organize MSU. The MSU
Faculty Senate invited the union to address a
meeting. There were 120 faculty in attendance.
They seemed to be very interested. There are more than enough cards
signed to force an election, but the MEA-MFT would like to have over 50%
which will assure success if there is an election.
Chair’s Report:
The
Board of Regents will be meeting in March.
Chair Hayes and Chair-Elect Ware will be attending the meeting. Senators should inform ECOS of any issues
that need to be discussed by Montana University System Faculty Association
Representatives (MUSFAR) and brought to the Regents attention.
Common
Course Numbering
Last
Tuesday there was a joint meeting with ASCRC, ECOS, and representatives from
the Commissioner’s Office. The Board of
Regents passed policy to move in the direction of common-course numbering to
address the transferability problems between institutions in the Montana
University System. The Commissioner’s
Office has put together Faculty Councils or discipline committees to decide
which courses are significantly similar and decide on a prefix, course number,
and catalogue course description based upon course outcomes. Faculty Councils
for Writing, Math, Accounting, and Anatomy & Physiology met November 9th
2007. Faculty Councils for Chemistry,
Psychology, Economics, and Philosophy met January 25th 2008. The following meetings are scheduled:
March 3: History, Biology, Political
Science, Modern & Classical Languages
April 14: Literature, Computer
Science / IT, Sociology, Geosciences
This
is a very important matter and faculty are encouraged
to participate through an online discussion board (www.mus.edu/transfer/councils/index.asp). OCHE is trying to make the process as
transparent as possible and have information available on its website.
Faculty
Outreach to prospective Students
ECOS
recently met with Teresa Branch, Vice President Student Affairs and Jed Liston,
Assistant Vice President- Enrollment Services.
They stressed the importance of faculty involvement in recruitment. Students’ accessibility to faculty makes a
difference in whether students choose to attend UM.
Committee Reports:
ASCRC Chair Holly
Thompson
The curriculum
consent agenda was approved
Certificate
guidelines
were developed to provide guidance to programs considering certificates and to
assist ASCRC in reviewing certificates for approval. There are different types
of certificates that are defined in the guidelines. The item was approved.
Principles
of Quality for Online Courses
A subcommittee of ASCRC was tasked with developing guidelines for online courses. It was joined by the new Director of UM
Online, Keith Lynip and finalized the Principles of Quality for Online Courses. The document was approved. The next step will be to develop best
practices.
Service
Learning
The
President put together a Service Learning Advisory Board after the university
did not receive the Carnegie Engagement Classification. The Director of the Office for Civic
Engagement and member of the Advisory Board, Andrea Vernon explained that the
service learning course designation will provide recognition and increase
visibility of service learning on campus. The increased awareness may increase
partnerships and increase the course offerings in service learning.
Senator
Lopach: Is the intent to add a service learning requirement to the general
education program.
ASCRC Chair Thompson: That intent was not apparent in the proposal.
Senator
Lopach: What is the prevalence of these courses?
Director
Vernon: There are currently between 20-25 courses in a variety of disciplines
including Business, EVST, Education, Chemistry, Communication, Pharmacy, and
Social Work.
The
Service Learning Designation was approved.
Repeat
Fee Resolution
ASCRC
has been reviewing the repeat fee for several years. Students pay the fee to have their GPA
recalculated using only the final grade.
There is no evidence that the fee reduces students retaking courses and
none of the other MUS campuses have such a fee. The way the fee is administered
disadvantages low income students. ASCRC recommends that the fee be eliminated.
There was considerable discussion regarding the repeat resolution. There was strong sentiment not to allow
students to remove the first grade from the GPA calculation – the transcript
should be a record of performance and the grades should be averaged.
Provost
Engstrom clarified that all fees and changes to fees
must be approved by the Board of Regents.
The action taken by the Senate on this would be advisory to the
President. The President would then make
the decision to take it forward to the Board or not.
Senator
Mayer: The Faculty Senate through ASCRC has authority to change academic policy.
Provost
Engstrom asked that faculty governance do more
thinking about incentive for students to take courses seriously the first time.
There are many students that retake
courses for legitimate reasons. However,
there are students that retake courses for reasons that may not be
appropriate. The repeat fee is one tool,
however imperfect- especially the way it is implemented. He asks the Senate to think about what tools
we should have in place to encourage students to take the course seriously and
succeed the first time through. There is
a great deal of literature related to course repeats and students success in a
reasonable period of time. He requests
that the issue go back to ASCRC for review of possible replacement tools to
help students succeed the first time through.
The
resolution was finally approved (36 to 6) with the removal of the
specifications (Use only the most recent grade of a repeated course to calculate
the cumulative GPA; and Show all grades on the transcript). An amendment to have all grades calculated in
the GPA failed 21 to 23.
A change was made to ASCRC’s Adding New Courses Policy. ASCRC found that there was different
information pertaining to new courses under policy, procedures and
instructions. This change will bring
them all into alignment. This was available for information to senators and did
not require a vote.
Graduate Council
Chair David Erickson
The
curriculum consent agenda included a footnote regarding the new doctoral
program. The Council supports the new
PhD program in Medicinal Chemistry but has concerns and would like the new
program to be reviewed in three years.
Professor
Natale: Every Medicinal Chemistry Program in North
America is housed in the Pharmacy college and has a
strong association with the Chemistry Department. These programs have strengthened the
Chemistry program.
The curriculum consent agenda was approved.
Last
spring the Board of Regents approved a new admissions policy to graduate
programs that no longer requires the GRE. The
Graduate Council is not recommending that every program revise their admissions
criteria. However if programs are
interested in alternative admission selection criteria, these should submitted
to the Council for review and approval.
Programs can submit proposed revisions at anytime. Review will be ongoing.
Unfinished Business:
Revisions
to Academic Policy 103: Establishment and Periodic Review of Academic Institutes, Bureaus,
Centers, Stations, Labs, and Other Similar Entities
The amended language was unanimously approved.
International Baccalaureate
The amended language was unanimously approved.
New Business
Three-Year
Review of New Programs
The outline for review
of new programs was introduced for initial consideration.
Chair
Hayes: The sense of the Senate is for ASCRC to review the grade calculation
issue. He requested that Senators who
have strong views express their ideas to ASCRC.
Executive Session- Honorary Degree Candidates
The candidates presented by Dean Kuhr and
Professor Johnson were unanimously approved.
Good and Welfare:
None
The
meeting was adjourned at 4:48 pm.