Faculty Senate Minutes
April 19, 2012
Call to Order: Chair Sharp called the meeting to order at 4:16 pm; Riggle Room; ADUC
Senators Absent: Karla Aleman, Ray Bailey, Vincent Cesaro, Gary LaFleur, April Miller, Vanessa Sammons, Mee-Ryoung Shon, Denise Watkins
Visitor: Dr. Dayna Seelig
Minutes: Senator Carlson suggested the absent members and the proxy representatives be revised to match. The minutes of March 29, 2012, special meeting, were approved as amended.
The minutes of April 5, 2012 were approved.
Committee Reports:
Academic Issues: No Report
Evaluation: Revisions have been made to Student Course Evaluation Instrument (SCEI); SCEI has been sent to Institutional Research and Assessment and Accreditations’ offices for review; spoke with IR regarding Deans Evaluation
Faculty Welfare and Concerns: PAc 29 2nd reading
Governance: No Report
Senate Committee on Issues: 1st reading of PAc 33 - Faculty Ombudsperson
Reports:
Chair’s Report:
• Noted that a quote attributed to her regarding an incident after a ballgame in the April 12th edition of the Trailblazer was incorrect
• Made a statement about an email indicating an April 19th deadline regarding summer teaching compensation
• Encouraged all faculty to respond with honest feedback to the “Are We Making Progress Survey” and indicated that completion should only take about 10 minutes
• Attended, with Chair-Elect Chatham, the joint meeting of COSFL/AAUP at the CPE office in Frankfort; Chair Sharp forwarded electronically two documents to the Senators containing Kentucky Public Institution Data.
• Chair Sharp, Chair-Elect Chatham and Regent Morrison met with Dr. Andrews on April 17th to discuss faculty salary and the proposed Faculty Salary Model. Chair Sharp shared the following:
The President is supportive of the proposed Faculty Salary Model
Total cost to bring all faculty to Market is approximately $750K
To bring staff up to their equity levels would cost an additional $3.4 million
Regarding faculty salary, the President is holding firm with a few guiding principles:
a. That the departments revise and have approved their FEPs by Fall Semester 2012
b. Complete/pass in Senate the PAcs which have a bearing on faculty evaluation, workloads, tenure and promotion. This includes PAc 29;
c. That provisions for “merit” --- something substantive, like a $2K to $4K bonus --- be factored into the FEP rubrics
• Discussed anticipated enrollment figures for next year; plans for adjusting “discount tuition” processes; and meeting CPE performance indexes
• Chair Sharp and Chair-Elect Chatham also met on Tuesday April 17th with Provost Hughes, Jane Fitzpatrick (General Counsel) and Phil Gniot (Director, Human Resources) to discuss issues involving PAc 7 (FEPs). “(1) PAc 7 will be assigned a new number (2) The second issue involving this PAc is with due process. Ms. Fitzpatrick and Mr. Gniot recommended a clause be added at the end of the PAc titled, “Appeals.” Since this PAc involves faculty evaluation, the section should describe the steps for appealing SUBSTANTIVE errors or contests, and should be the same for all faculty on campus.” Chair Sharp recommended that the Reconciliation Committee meet as soon as possible to develop this section so that the PAc can on the June BOR meeting.
• Encouraged faculty to attend one of the President’s forums to be held on April 24.
A question was raised regarding how Administrators salaries compare to market value.
A Senator encouraged faculty to be very diligent in revising their FEPs to clarify gray areas to be sure they protect faculty with regard to appeals regarding tenure/promotion.
A Senator asked if there are any guidelines that the departmental FEP committees need to have in order to construct a rubric for meritorious work leading to a salary bonus. Senator Hennen stated that meritorious work should be reflected in salary not bonuses.
Scheduling Committee: Analyzed all data and drafting a report with recommendations for the Provost. Number one comment from everyone was that a class schedule framework must be flexible.
General Education Report: Reported on the status of computer competency; a survey was sent to faculty asking about students’ knowledge, or lack thereof, regarding their computing skills. Many of the Senators indicated that they had never received this survey. Chair Sharp and Senator Rathbun will look into the problem. Dr. Seelig stated that the Provost had intended to speak on computer competency today, but was unable to attend the meeting and suggested allowing the Provost to speak on the issue at the next meeting. A Focus Group was formed by GEC to discuss assessment. Paula Serra compiled a report of the findings and presented it to the GEC. Subcommittee has been formed to review and “clean up the very cumbersome” SLOs.
Regent’s Report:
• May 3rd BOR work session
• April 11th Regent Morrison attended the Staff Regent forum
• Presented data from the AAUP regarding salary compared to other Masters Institutions. Asked Chair Sharp to send the link to all Senators
Senate Actions:
Senate Committee on Issues: Senator Chatham presented PAc 33 – Faculty Ombudsman Proposal for 1st reading. Questions and suggestions followed. Dr. Seelig recommended Ombudsman training similar to what the Student Services Liaison received, if and when a Faculty Ombudsman is approved.
Faculty Welfare and Concerns:
Senator Rathbun presented PAc 29 for 2nd reading. She stated that she forwarded questions from the last session for clarification but has not received answers at this point in time.
• There was a question regarding the term FWA in line 66 as “next academic year” or “calendar year”. The committee will look at the language and clarify it and make it consistent in all PAcs, if possible.
• There were concerns regarding line 71 thru 74 regarding tenured faculty requesting a FWA to excuse themselves from the department, college, or university service responsibilities and the next sentence referring to tenure-track faculty. Several suggestions were made. FWC will review and revise/clarify the wording of this section.
• A question was asked “Given the description of teaching loads for chairs and deans at the beginning, the suggestion seems to be that they could negotiate for FWAs also. If so, should line 82 be changed to be in alignment with that fact?”
• Question regarding how deleting lines 17 thru 20 affects lines 24 thru 28. Line 27 - 28 refers to …”as calculated by the formulas for determining faculty teaching load based on instruction type.” Where are and what do these “formulas” look like? Dr. Seelig stated that there is a workload sheet for these calculations that can be obtained from the Provost.
• FWC will take under consideration a proposed amendment to delete lines 34-38.
• FWC accepted the following proposed amendments:
• Line 47: add “and PAc-30” after “PAc-7”
• Lines 58, 71, 108, 110, 117 & 135: add “school” after “department,”
• Question regarding lines 61 – 62 and how it relates to 82 – 83. Suggestion to add “before being sent for approval”. This brings the two types of FWAs into alignment.
• Line 61 reads like the faculty member must provide written justification for an administrative-initiated FWA.
Meeting time ended before discussion of the PAc was completed. Discussion will continue at the next meeting on May 3, 2012.
Adjournment: 6:00 p.m.
