FACULTY SENATE MEETING
Minutes, October 16, 2008
Senate
Members: C. Bell, K. Cole, L. Dohse, B. Haas, M.
Harvey, G. Heard, J. Konz, A. Lanou, B. Larson,
L. Nelms, L. Russell, J.
McClain, M. Moseley, E. Pearson, D. Pierce, B. Sabo, S. Wasileski,
B. Wilson; J. Fernandes; Alt.
G. Ettari.
Visitors: J. Bucher, P. Downes, A. Hantz, B. Haggard, E. Katz, C. Kelly,
J. Leffe, J. McHargue,
R.
Pente, J. Tieman, R. Waskom.
I. Call to Order, Introductions and Announcements
Dr. Dohse called the
meeting to order at 3:20 pm and welcomed Senators and guests.
II. Approval of minutes
The
minutes of September 11, 2008, were approved with an editorial correction.
III. Executive Committee
Report
Dr.
·
Dr. Dohse will serve as the faculty representative
on the Chancellor’s Staff Advisory Council for the term 2008-2009.
·
Dr. Dohse ran a test Discussion Board on One-Port for
faculty to use as a campus forum. He
will try another utility that is more conducive to discussion.
·
Dr. Fernandes will discuss the withdrawal of IDC 1
(Intent to Plan Masters Degree in Climate Change and Society) under the
administrative report.
Faculty
Assembly Report
Dr.
Peg Downes gave the Faculty Assembly (FA) report:
·
UNCA’s Faculty Senate minutes are shared with the 15
other Senate Chairs, and with the Faculty Assembly (through FA President
·
The Faculty Senate Chair or his/her representative
is invited to attend the Faculty Assembly meetings scheduled for Senate Chairs. The next meeting will be held on October 24,
2008.
·
Gwen Ashburn, our second FA representative, recently
sent to all faculty an email summary report which included comments and the
News-Observer article on budget cuts.
·
Branch campuses – as mentioned by President Bowles
to the FA, are possibilities, including a development in
·
Dr. Ashburn serves on the Budget Committee. Dr. Downes serves on Faculty Development.
·
The Faculty Development Committee heard the bad news,
now quite well publicized, that the State Health Plan is in sad shape – “there
will be noticeable cuts in services; rates will increase, and benefits will
decrease. Consultants’ projections were
off.”
·
President Bowles addressed the UNC System’s support
of NC’s community colleges, and said he was intrigued by the fact that in
·
President Bowles also emphasized:
o
Need for better and more teacher training
o
He and the Vice Presidents plan to be more involved
on campuses because over one-half of the System’s Chancellors have been in
office less than two years.
o
Budget priorities include campus safety, and increasing
faculty salaries to the 80th percentile of peers.
o
A close watch on campus’s responses to UNC
Tomorrow.
o
UNC Tomorrow Executive Director Norma Houston emphasized
that faculty service to community needs to be recognized and rewarded; each
campus needs to figure out how best to do this.
Valuable information
is at the Faculty Assembly website: UNC's Commitment to Public Service
IV.
Institutional Development
Committee Report
Dr. Betsy
Wilson reported for the Institutional Development Committee.
Guidelines for future
surveys of administrative offices
IDC was charged by last year’s Senate
to develop guidelines for planning and implementing future surveys of
administrative offices. IDC has begun work
on this task.
First
The following document was distributed for
First Reading:
IDC 2:
Program
Assessment at UNC
V. Faculty
Welfare and Development Committee Report
Dr.
Merritt Moseley gave the Faculty Welfare and Development Committee Report.
First
The
following documents were distributed for First Reading:
FWDC 3:
Proposal to
Eliminate the Asheville Institute Advisory Committee
(SD1205S; Faculty Handbook 10.4.25)
FWDC
4: Proposal to Eliminate the Adjunct
Faculty Committee
(SD0500F;
Faculty Handbook 10.4.17)
FWDC
5: Proposal to Revise the Distinguished Scholars Committee
(Revision to SD5500S;
Faculty Handbook Section 10.3.1)
Second
The
following documents were considered for Second Reading:
FWDC 1: 2008 Revisions to the Post-Tenure Review
Process
(Revision of
SD6405S and Faculty Handbook 3.7.3)
FWDC 1 passed without
dissent and became Senate Document 0208F.
FWDC 2: Amendment to Student Rating of Instruction policy
(Revision
to SD1482F and Faculty Handbook 3.3.3.1.1)
Ms. Nelms
commented that at one time the SRI was given earlier in the semester when
students were less stressed and could supposedly give a more true
evaluation. Whatever change we make now
will likely change again. Dr. Harvey and
Dr. Sabo served on the SRI task force.
There was agreement to move these two recommendations forward to
standardize its procedural administration.
Dr. Dohse did
not favor giving an evaluation during the last class when classes only meet
once a week. Dr. Moseley and Dr. Sabo agreed
that one day a week classes were special cases.
However, it was still important that the evaluations be given at the beginning
of class. There is a strong relationship
between giving the evaluation at the beginning of class and the number of open-ended
comments.
Dr. Konz made
an editorial change to clarify the document; it was accepted as a friendly
amendment. The amended sentence follows:
“The evaluation instrument should be
given at the beginning of the class period to help alleviate respondent fatigue
and to encourage thoughtful responses.”
Dr.
Fernandes will inform the department chairs of the new procedures. FWDC 2 passed as amended without dissent
and became Senate Document 0308F.
FWDC
hopes to meet soon with Leah Mathews to push the SRI recommendations toward
some successful conclusion during this academic year. Dr. Haas said the task force began by
addressing the objective recommendations.
He was pleased to hear that FWDC will work on the subjective
elements.
Faculty
Representatives on Student Fees Committee
FWDC has appointed Michael Gillum and
Mark Gibney to serve on the Student Fees Committee for 2008-2010. The work of the committee is limited to the
months of October and November. The
committee of students, faculty and staff make recommendations to senior staff
on potential increases to the Student Activity Fee, Athletic Fee, Health Fee,
and the Education and Technology Fee. The committee is co-chaired by the
Vice Chancellor for Finance and Operations and the Vice Chancellor for Student
Affairs.
VI. Academic
Dr.
APC
has nearly completed the protocol for reviewing ILS and general education. APC will submit a document soon which will explain
its plan and vision for how this is to be done.
APC has had a number of spirited
discussions. There are basically three
steps:
·
Survey faculty perceptions
·
Review ILS assessments that are being prepared by
the Oversight Committee
·
A long range plan with specific reports from departments,
similar to the old general education review
There is an emerging consensus
that there will not be another review per se, rather there will be components
that are implemented each year in an on-going cycle.
VII. Administrative Reports
Student Affairs Annual Report
Vice Chancellor Bill Haggard gave Student Affairs’ annual
report.
Dr. Haggard
reported that Fall Semester 2008 is off to a very positive start, marked by a
high level of student engagement in student organizations, co-curricular
activities, and residence hall programming.
Student Affairs departments will be focused this year on activities
which directly connect with the University’s Strategic Plan, especially those
targeted at increasing options for meaningful on-campus engagement for
students. We are excited about the
official opening of the new
Questions/Comments
Dr. Sabo asked the following questions:
·
Nothing in
the list of goals for the coming reflects anything that might have been learned
from the Perceptions of Administrative Offices (PAO) survey that was conducted
last year. Did the figure into your
planning of goals or was it an exercise that meant little?
o
Dr. Haggard said he came prepared to respond to the
four questions about the PAO. In the
development of that goal, the results of the surveys did not influence those particular
goals directly. The survey results
confirmed things that we already knew about perceptions of some offices in that
area. It identified some of the lower
rated offices in the division, departments where we were already focusing a
great deal of attention. But the actual
results of the survey did not directly influence those goals. The goals do not represent all of the work in
the division, but rather our primary emphases.
·
Five new
staff members were listed. Were these
existing positions or new positions?
o
Dr. Haggard said these were all existing positions.
·
What is
developing an Assistant Vice Chancellor for Assessment and Budget?
o
Dr. Haggard said when he came to UNCA in the summer
of 2006 and the division of Student Affairs was re-created, there was a vacant
position dedicated to the need for a budget officer/Banner specialist. He did not fill the position immediately in
order to assess the needs in the division.
He saw a real deficit in the area of assessment and learning outcomes
assessment of our goal setting and that type of planning activity. He found that John Bucher fulfilled those
needs and had experience as a department head of Campus Recreation and
Highsmith Union. Basically that was
redefining a position that was vacant.
·
What issues
do the Student Affairs Faculty Advisory Committee address?
o
The committee has held three meetings, two last
spring and one this fall. We are
communicating the organization: who
people are, how we work, what we are working on, the goals of the organization. That is communication from me to the
committee; it also provides feedback to us that we may need to hear from
students, faculty or others.
o
Dr. Moseley added that the committee had fruitful discussions
over the safety issues that were part of the wake of the VA Tech tragedy and how
they would affect classes and our interactions with our students. It was an exchange of ideas from Student
Affairs and from the faculty’s perception.
·
In what
way was the diversity of Residential Education professional staff expanded?
o
Over the course of two years, we expanded the rates
of diversity of our live-in professionals from one racial minority to three of
the five.
·
What is
the participation rate of the mentoring program?
o
The participation rate of the mentoring program is
connecting our underrepresented students with mentors on campus. He deferred the question to Dr. Calvin
Kelly. Dr. Kelly said about 75% of our
students are connected to underrepresented faculty members. That translates into about 45-50 African American
students.
·
Last
year’s report had a Comprehensive Citizenship Education Program that would
handle cases of academic dishonesty and problem behavior in the dorms. It was requested that this be brought to the Faculty
Senate when it was complete. I do not
remember seeing it and it is not on your list of accomplishments for this
year. Has it been put on hold? Has it been dropped?
o
The first year that work resulted in a new Code of
Community Standards for our students that dealt with non-academic misconduct. The second year there was discussion of the possible
intersection of the academic misconduct with the non-academic misconduct. It was Dr. Haggard’s understanding that the committee
decided the current system was working fine and there was no recommendation to
do anything differently.
·
Dr. Dohse referred to the goal to increase retention
and graduation rates and asked where they were going to put their resources to
help in that effort.
o
To increase retention, we have to do everything
better. It is also important to try to
target our specific needs. He and Dr.
Fernandes are co-chairing a Strategic Planning workgroup and the first meeting
was evidence of the complexity of the issue.
What we try to do first and foremost in all of our primary service areas
is to listen to students and to respond to their feedback. We have created new advisory committees for
all of our functional areas as they weigh feedback and we are enhancing our
assessment efforts in that regard.
o
An initiative begun this fall is Map Works. It is a web based information sharing program
where those who work most closely with first semester students (either as their
LSIC instructors or as a community representative in the residence halls) have
a way to get immediate feedback from students who may be struggling in one of
four particular areas. This initiative
will identify students who are at risk that we otherwise would not identify
because they would not seek help.
o
We hope to increase on-campus residential beds within
the next two or three years; there is evidence that has a positive effect on
retention.
o
Increase focus on providing cultural presence for
our underrepresented students.
·
Dr. Lanou said she found the inclusion of the
Student Affairs departmental goals (Student Affairs Website)
with retention goals and specific actions to be helpful. (Goals may be accessed by clicking on
“Assessment and Planning” in the upper right hand corner.)
Dr. Dohse
thanked Dr. Haggard for his report. To
see the complete report, visit: Student Affairs Annual Report
Academic Affairs
Provost
Status of Climate Change and Society Masters Program
Dr. Fernandes updated the Senate on
the status of the master’s program on Climate Change and Society and how it
came to be withdrawn last month. During
the summer and fall, she knew vaguely that the group was working on the program
and she assumed that people had garnered a lot of support. Climate Change and Society is an important
issue and she knows that people in
During
a meeting Chancellor Ponder showed her the Strategic Planning brochure; it said
the degree was being offered by a consortium of universities. That was Chancellor Ponder’s understanding
and that is why it was included in the brochure. The proposal to the Faculty Senate was
different and Dr. Fernandes was not comfortable with it. She did not want the program to move forward when
it was so vague. She called Dr. Sandra
Byrd and asked her to please remove it from the agenda. Dr. Byrd graciously agreed to withdraw the
proposal.
Dr.
Fernandes has met with the Provost at NC State University; he will propose options
we may consider after he talks with his faculty members. At that time she will contact the Faculty
Senate and the task force working on the degree. Hopefully we can move forward with a unified
plan that will ensure the success for the degree and for the issue of Climate
Change. Nothing is decided at this
point.
Questions/Comments
Dr. Heard referred to an
email he sent to Dr. Fernandes and asked if she had read the six month report
from this group in her perusal of this issue.
The
Dr. Fernandes was not familiar
with the report. She noted that Climate
Change is a serious issue; if we have a degree in it, we want it to be
successful. After she talked with Lenny
Bernstein and Sandra Byrd, she found it to be a fascinating proposal. Dr. Heard noted that Lenny Bernstein has been
a lobbyist for a number of years and he can be quite a convincing
gentleman.
Dr. Konz said he was a member of
the task force that helped design this and it did involve several faculty from
UNCA including a member of the Atmospheric Sciences department as well as faculty
from NC State, UNC-Wilmington, and Appalachian State. The curriculum portion in particular was
designed from an academic perspective by faculty members. He was not familiar with the six month report.
Budget update
The administration learned
last Friday that General Administration will be withholding our repair and
renovation monies. This includes
$1.1Million for
Dr. Fernandes is working on the budget
for Academic Affairs with the Deans and Pat Catterfeld. She has a plan that will hopefully minimize
the impact to academic departments and faculty as much as possible, but she wants
Ms. Catterfeld to review it before it is disseminated. Department Chairs will have their budgets
this week.
Faculty appointees for
Although funding has been
withheld, the Chancellor has asked Dr. Fernandes to continuing planning for
Carmichael Hall. Dr. Fernandes will be
leading an ad hoc group to plan for what will be
included in the new
Strategic Planning
Highlights of Dr. Fernandes’ Strategic Planning work groups
follow:
2008 Faculty Workload Report
Recommendations
Dr. Alan Hantz reported that in Fall 2007, a
group of chairs (Hantz, Gwen Ashburn, David Peifer, Betsy Wilson and Robert
Dunning) was asked to examine the effectiveness of UNCA in delivering its
curriculum, particularly for entry level students. As the inquiry proceeded it became clear that
to properly address the committee’s charge a broader approach was needed. The challenge of delivering a liberal arts
curriculum that emphasizes student learning at a state funded institution is
complex.
Its dimensions include:
· Offering a curriculum in general
education and majors that enables students to progress toward graduation,
· Providing students
closely-supervised individual experiences entailing advising, undergraduate
research, independent studies, internships and/or practica,
· Organizing faculty time to reserve time
for individual scholarship, creativity and service,
· Meeting expectations of the state
with regard to student credit hours generated.
The group
of chairs has made its recommendations to Dr. Fernandes and she has requested
feedback from the Faculty Senate. Dr.
Hantz noted that budget reductions are before us, which in the past affected reassigned
time and adjuncts. It is appropriate for
the Faculty Senate consider these important issues.
The report outline and summary of
recommendations follow:
Report Outline and
Summary of Recommendations
1.
Curriculum Delivery. Is UNCA
offering curriculum that enables students to progress toward graduation?
-- Should our approach to any of the
other three variables in our model (equivalencies, reassigned time, and
semester hours generated) change, chairs will need to remain sensitive to the
impact of those changes on their schedule of offerings, and adjust schedules
accordingly.
2. Experiential learning. Is UNCA providing
students a closely supervised individual experience entailing advising,
undergraduate research, internships and/or practica?
-- UNCA should explore ways to more
accurately count equivalent courses.
-- Chairs should review their course
lists with the Office of Institutional Research to make sure that each course
is categorizes appropriately.
-- The Deans and/or Provost should
review the definitions of equivalencies and revise them where appropriate for
consistency among activities and departments.
-- UNCA's Office of Institutional
Research should examine ways other UNC campuses (particularly those classified
similarly to UNC A) define and count equivalencies. This might be better accomplished by direct
conversation than through the examination of various reports.
3.
Faculty Load. Is UNCA organizing faculty time so as to reserve adequate
time for individual scholarship, creativity and service?
-- UNCA should seek to find a way to
compensate these faculty for their work without penalizing their home
departments or inflating departmental and university reassigned time
statistics.
-- UNCA should seek ways to count
Family and Professional Development Leaves in ways that will not penalize home
departments.
-- UNCA should review the current
reassigned time allocations and policy, reformulating it to account for
potentially expired assignments, departmental vs. extra-departmental
reassignments, and the impact of equivalencies on the use of faculty time. A
new policy should be articulated to clearly define assignments and
responsibilities for reassigned time.
Such a policy should recognize the need of faculty for real time to work
with students, it should seek greater equity of workload across departments,
and it should suggest ways for departments to distribute reassigned time while
still meeting university productivity expectations.
4. Generating student semester
hours. How can UNCA best meeting
expectations of the state with regard to student semester hours generated?
-- Department chairs need to better
understand the function of student hours generated statistics (SHG), the
contribution of individual departments and divisions in achieving these
university goals. Chairs need to have
the appropriate tools for planning and scheduling around an SHG model. Deans and Provost should make an effort to
provide coverage of SHG lost when reassigning faculty from teaching, or should
devise a way for faculty to have such reassignments in a way that does not
penalize the department.
-- Overall, use of and accounting
for SHG at UNCA is unclear. UNCA's
administration should clarify the role of chairs in managing SHG
contributions. The administration should
seek ways, whether locally or through negotiation with the General
Administration, to make reassignments from teaching as "penalty-free"
as possible for departments.
5. Curriculum Revision. Can UNCA rebalance faculty load and balance
the other elements of its curriculum delivery model by moving to a four-credit
our curriculum?
-- UNCA should continue to explore
the "four credit course" model.
Because of the extensive "equivalency" teaching that goes on
at UNCA, the model may be more appropriate for some departments than others.
Individual departments should explore the possibilities of this model for their
programs.
Discussion
·
Dr.
Sabo complimented the group on an excellent report that includes how
calculations are made and reads like a worksheet. He encouraged Senators to read the entire
report.
·
He
noted a “stunning” finding under part 3.
We have 17 positions for which faculty receive reassigned time. That is 5.8 faculty positions – six faculty
members that do not teach. He suggested these
positions should be rolled the administrative budget, which will open six
full-time tenured faculty positions which would dramatically increase our ability
to deliver the curriculum.
·
One
of the appendices is very insightful, but did not answer the question of what
percentage of all seats available for classes were empty? Do we fill 50% of the seats; 70%?
o
Dr.
Hantz said this is available in a spreadsheet, but he did not trust the
data. Sometimes we schedule a course
that is appropriate to 16-20 students and the room seats 42 yet we do not have
any intention of filling the seats; that skews the data. Dr. Sabo suggested that Dr. Hantz use the enrollment
caps imposed by departments.
·
Dr.
Sabo asked what percentage of all students in a given semester were taught by adjuncts. Are adjuncts filling the classes of faculty
on reassigned time? If so, at what cost?
o
Dr.
Hantz said adjuncts were specifically omitted because they were looking at
reassigned time. He noted that when you
have reassigned time, or if you are on leave, the student credit hour
expectations for your department do not change.
If the faculty member is replaced with an adjunct, it adds to the FTE of
your department – raising the expectation of student credit hours
generated. The faculty member on leave
had 25 students in a class, but the enrollment needs to be 32 to pay for the
adjunct.
Dr. Sabo
suggested a small group of three or four faculty members be formed to develop a
decision agenda so the issues could be systematically addressed. Dr. Fernandes agreed to bring a plan to the
Faculty Senate so small planning groups can work on the issues. The Senate will then discuss specific issues
and their ramifications. Dr. Hantz supported
this approach. The report comes from the
chairs with multiple perspectives; the next step requires action by the Faculty
Senate. Senators will receive the full
report for review.
Student Government Association Report
Rob Waskom, Executive for Campus
Affairs, reported on behalf of the SGA.
·
Vote feast is Saturday with entertainment on the
quad in conjunction with One-Stop Early Voting.
·
Compared to other schools in the system, UNCA is last
in notifying students of required textbooks.
Textbook costs are hidden in financial aid. Because of our size, practices used by other
campuses are not applicable to UNCA. We
have a guaranteed buy-back for some of the humanities books, but the price is
not determined. Some universities post
their required textbooks during or immediately after registration. Others have a minimum two-month notification
to students before class starts. This
coincides with the 6-8 weeks delivery guaranteed by most internet sources for
textbooks. SGA wants to work with the
Faculty Senate to find a simple mechanism for faculty to notify students ideally
8 weeks prior to class.
·
In an effort to reduce water and electrical
consumption SGA has been working to remove trays from the cafeteria. This began after a trial run last semester
with “Trayless Thursdays”. However this
semester some faculty and staff have complained on trayless days. Senators supported this effort and thought most employees
would participate; they were likely unaware of this campaign. After further discussion Dr. Haggard said
that the intent is to move to a trayless campus – and the campus will be
notified of the change. Trays will be
available upon request.
VIII. Old Business
There was
no Old Business.
IX. New Business
There was
no New Business.
X. Adjourn
Dr. Dohse adjourned the
meeting at 5:15pm.
Respectfully submitted
by: Sandra Gravely
Executive
Committee