FACULTY SENATE MEETING
Minutes, February 14, 2008
Senate
Members: C. Bell, G. Boudreaux, K. Cole, L. Dohse, P.
Downes, J. Hartsfield, B. Haas, M. Harvey,
H. Holt, K. Krumpe, A. Lanou,
J. McClain, C. McKenzie, M. Moseley, D. Pierce, B. Sabo,
B. Wilson, J. Wood; K.
Whatley.
Visitors: P. Catterfeld, L. Friedenberg, A. Hantz, J. McKnight, G.
Nallan, E. Katz, G. Kormanik,
B.
Larson, P. McClellan, A. Ponder, M. Ruiz, S. Schuman, A. Shope.
I. Call to Order and Announcements
Dr. Downes called the
meeting to order at 3:20 pm and welcomed Senators and guests.
-
Tribute to
Mike Ruiz said he
remembered 1982 like it was yesterday.
The Senate presented
Kathy with a UNCA pen and paperweight for her new desk so she will not forget
us. The Senate will miss her and is
pleased with her opportunity. A round of
applause followed.
II. Academic Policies
Committee Report
Dr.
Bill Sabo reported for the Academic Policies Committee.
First
The following
documents were distributed for First Reading:
APC 28: Change to the narrative for the Honors Program; Delete HON 492.
APC 29: Change requirements for Honors Program
APC 30: Delete POLS 150
Second
APC
documents 16 -- 27 were considered for Second Reading:
APC 23 and APC 25 from Art History
were discussed. Dr. Wood had two
concerns:
·
In
APC 23 there is a movement from Non-Western Art History to more specificity
which he liked -- African, Asian and Latin American Art History, though it
seems overly ambitious.
·
In
APC 25, he wanted to call attention to specificity – it is a kind of marking
impulse – to mark what kind of art something is. That impulse is correct in “Modern Art and
Modernism.” But “Art Since 1945” (about
Western Art, or American Art, or European Art?) is unspecified. It is a small point but it is important in
the spirit of what the department is trying to do. Some categories of art are marked and other
categories of art are unmarked. He was
not objecting to the proposals but this distinction is an important one to make
in our academy and he wanted to call attention to it.
Dr. Sabo said that APC talked at
length about the labels and the general use of the categories in the
proposals. The question of whether
Modernism is an era or whether it is an era in certain places has been
problematic. This was fully discussed
and the proposals represent some modifications from their original
request. Dr. Wood was heartened to hear
these issues were discussed.
APC
16: Add the option for Special Topics in
Portuguese
APC
16 passed without dissent and became Senate Document 2308S.
APC
17: Add PORT 210 and 220
APC
17 passed without dissent and became Senate Document 2408S.
APC
18: Change in Required
Courses outside the Major for the Statistics Concentration
APC
18 passed without dissent and became Senate Document 2508S.
APC 19: Addition of new course, MATH 397, Chaos
and Fractals
APC
19 passed without dissent and became Senate Document 2608S.
APC
20: Change in Required Courses for Applied
Math
APC
20 passed without dissent and became Senate Document 2708S.
APC
21: Addition of MATH 394 Differential
Equations to required courses for
Pure
Mathematics Concentration
APC
21 passed without dissent and became Senate Document 2808S.
APC
22: Change the narrative for the BA
concentration in Art History
APC
22 passed without dissent and became Senate Document 2908S.
APC
23: Change use of the term Non-Western to:
African, Asian and Latin American Art History
APC
23 passed without dissent and became Senate Document 3008S.
APC
24: Change required courses for the
concentration in Art History
APC
24 passed without dissent and became Senate Document 3108S.
APC
25: Change the descriptions of ARTH 360
and 365
APC
25 passed without dissent and became Senate Document 3208S.
APC
26: Add ARTH 386: Arts of the African
Diaspora;
Add
ARTH 410: Modern Art of
APC
26 passed without dissent and became Senate Document 3308S.
APC
27: Delete Studio Art requirements for
Art History minor and replace w/Art History courses;
Change
Art History minor requirements to allow students to complete a research project
instead
of the comprehensive exam
APC
27 passed without dissent and became Senate Document 3408S.
III. Faculty Welfare and Development Committee
Report
Dr.
Second
The following
document was considered for Second Reading:
FWDC 3: Proposal to Establish a Textbook Committee as a
Standing Committee
(Faculty
Handbook Section 10.2)
FWDC
3 passed without dissent and became Senate Document 3508S.
Recommendations
on the Merit System
FWDC was asked to make
recommendations on our merit system to Dr. Schuman, interim Dean of
Faculty. Dr. Lanou explained the
recommendations below:
We propose a two step plan whereby
only minor revisions are made for the current year and, in the subsequent year,
more comprehensive evaluation of faculty evaluation methods and the merit
system recommendations are made. We also propose a system for this more
comprehensive evaluation, some key issues to address based on the faculty input
we have received, and we offer a brief rationale for these recommendations.
Step 1:
For deciding faculty merit for the current year, we recommend keeping
much of the current system the same with a couple of important exceptions.
What’s the same?
The basic process remains the same for the review of 2007 Faculty Records.
Chairs collect and review faculty records from the full-time faculty and make
recommendations to their respective deans and the Provost (or interim)
regarding which faculty receive high merit, merit, or no merit. As before, they
also may suggest that a faculty member be considered for exceptional merit.
Funds available for salary increments are divided into one portion to
provide “cost of living” increments at the same level for all full-time faculty
and another portion to provide “merit raises” for a subset of faculty evaluated
accordingly by chairs and approved by the dean’s and provost.
Exceptional merit for a handful of faculty is decided upon by the deans and
provost (or interim).
Dollar amounts for “cost-of-living” increments are determined in the same
way as was done in the preceding year or years, provided that cost of living adjustments do not suffer when
allocating merit.
What’s different? (a.k.a. the exceptions)
Make the process for deciding on
exceptional merit transparent. In order for faculty to understand and strive for highest quality performance
in their positions at UNCA, the administration should publicize information on
how to achieve “exceptional merit” at UNCA.
Remove the 60/40 standards for high
merit/merit for the department chairs. A large majority of constituents find this standard difficult to implement
and inappropriate especially for small departments. Therefore we recommend that chairs exercise
reasonable restraint (i.e., refrain from designating every member of the
department in the “high merit” category) and evaluate their faculty using a
standardized procedure that applies discipline-specific criteria.
If more people are given “high
merit” than the system can support, we recommend using one of the following two
possible solutions.
X (M)
+ Y (2M) = Z
==> M = Z/(X + 2Y)
Example: Suppose the merit pool is $140,000 with 50 people receiving merit and 150
high merit. Then the amount of the merit raise is M=140,000/(50+2(150))=$400.
So a high merit raise would be $800.
The advantage of this solution is that the merit pool of dollars is
stretched to accommodate receiving a particular merit classification and it
does not create additional work for the chairs or the deans. The drawback of
this method is that the increments could be very small if the pool is modest
and the number of faculty receiving merit/high merit is large.
OR
The advantage to this is that the merit and high merit dollar amounts can
be set, and at least within divisions one person is looking at that whole pool
of candidates to see if merit designations are being equitably applied and
remedy any misclassifications if needed to accommodate the size of the
merit/high merit pool. The disadvantage is that this solution makes more work
for the chairs, may increase work for the deans, and shifts the power for the
“tie-breaker” decisions from the chairs to the deans.
Step 2:
Establish an ad hoc committee to review and make comprehensive
recommendations on faculty evaluation and the merit system to be charged with
revising the system before the end of the next Faculty Record cycle
(recommended--May 2009).
Recommended committee make-up:
Two members from FWDC and two faculty from each division at least one of
which should have current or previous experience as a chair. The provost and
deans should be available for consultation and review of faculty committee
recommendations.
Key issues that need to be addressed by
this committee:
Clear expectations on what it means
to succeed as a faculty person (lecturer, tenure-track, and tenured) at UNCA including clear guidelines for tenure,
promotion, and post-tenure review as well as clarity about what it means to
qualify for merit (in whatever number of categories of merit we have). Are
these the same or different? (i.e. should merit status each year factor into
tenure and promotion decisions or is this separate; and/or perhaps should service
contributions figure more importantly in merit and scholarship more in
promotion decisions?)
Overall expectations for faculty
success and merit should be in line with the strategic plan.
Merit system should be trusted by and
meaningful to the faculty. It’s purpose is
to provide financial expression of our values as an institution.
Merit system (number of categories
of merit and how it is decided) fits with the expectations outlined above.
Teaching evaluation system review
·
Revision of
student rating of instruction system
·
Peer-evaluation—how
to best implement
·
Establish a
way to measure both quantity and quality of teaching
How does administrative service
(chairing, program directing, and other major university service) fit in to the
faculty evaluation and merit systems?
Who makes the merit recommendations
and decisions?
·
Chairs
·
Faculty
committee
·
Deans/Provost
·
Or some
combination of the above
And how will equity across campus
be maintained? For example, if chairs continue to make recommendations,
some type of oversight is needed, either by an administrator or a committee of
faculty, to adjust chair recommendations in the direction of equity. For
example, if merit categories are inequitably distributed across departments
then that may need to be corrected. Chairs can help this along
by RANK ORDERING all faculty in terms of performance before sending their
evaluations to this oversight person or body.
Given that different dollar amounts are
allotted for merit raises by the state each year, some system for making that
distribution equitable across years should be considered.
·
By using a 3 year
moving average
·
By administration
making formulaic adjustments to compensate those who earned high or
exceptional merit in years when few monies were available when a year occurs in
which more funds for raises available.
·
Or some other way
Work together with other committees already
addressing related issues:
·
University Service
Council (Shirley Browning)
·
Task Force for Student
Rating of Instruction (Bill Haas)
·
Workload Committee
(Alan Hantz)
·
Tenure Committee and
Post Tenure Review Committee
Input available to the ad hoc committee
·
Review and address
input from faculty collected by Sam and the FWDC on the web at: UNCA MERIT SYSTEM WEBPAGES
and solicit additional information as needed.
·
Research systems for
merit and faculty evaluation in use by other universities (especially those in
the UNC system.)
Discussion
Dr.
Schuman will take FWDC’s recommendations under
advisement along with Senate comments and all the faculty comments made over
the last several months. He will respond
very precisely to the recommendations in Step One early next week.
Dr.
Krumpe opposed removing the 60/40 standard for high merit/merit and doubted
that chairs were capable of reasonable restraint in regard to that
recommendation. There is a gross
inflation of evaluations on campus and the 60/40 directive is useful. Dr. Harvey said that is why the
recommendations offer Option 2.
Dr.
Dohse said he was the first chair of the Post-Tenure Review Committee. The Faculty Senate, in its wisdom, wanted a
60/40 standard. The faculty on the PTR
committee made a decision that there was over-evaluation and 90% - 95% of the
people submitted got merit.
Consequently, there was a lot of anger.
He agreed that evaluations are inflated, but questioned the 60/40
standard.
Dr.
Holt questioned how a department could complete Step 2 (clear expectations on
what it means to succeed as a faculty person) as this varies by
department. If you do your job, is that
merit? And how much beyond that makes
one high merit or exceptional? And how
can a committee make it universal? Even
expectations for tenure vary by department.
Dr. Boudreaux said the criteria could be done by department or by
division – as opposed to what we have now which is completely abstract. These issues will be considered by the
committee.
IV. Institutional Development
Committee/University Planning Council Reports
Dr.
Program Review and
Assessment
The need for program review and
assessment has come to the forefront for a number of reasons:
·
Preparation
for SACS review.
·
Expectation
from GA of assessment data and documentation on what we are doing and how we
are improving.
·
Provost-elect
Jane Fernandes has talked about an emerging need for a culture of
evidence.
There is a sea change that will
involve faculty documenting what we are doing, how we are responding to that
documentation, and evidence that we are improving. IDC plans to recommend an assessment model,
for at least our academic programs/departments, one that is consistent with our
interests yet provides valuable information that we can use to improve. IDC is also looking at campus-wide assessment
projects to ensure we are asking the right questions and getting the
information we need to do our work, i.e., the freshman survey, the sophomore
survey, and the graduating senior survey conducted by Institutional Research.
UNC
Tomorrow
UNC Tomorrow is the primary planning
document for the UNC system. The UNC
Tomorrow report is calling on us to respond in terms of GA’s strategic
plan. This is an opportunity for us to
articulate what we are going to do in our interests rather than having these
determined for us. Dr. Wood’s
understanding is that UPC is the point organization for the university’s
response to UNC Tomorrow. However, the
Faculty Senate needs to communicate to IDC what faculty interests are.
Dr. Wood highlighted areas of the
report:
·
There
is an emphasis on integrating teaching, research and service. We already do this – but we need to
articulate what it is doing for the public as part of the culture of evidence.
·
There
is a general disposition toward inter-disciplinarity,
inter-institutional cooperation and international engagement. We are called upon to do this and we can
design it in our interests.
·
There
is a renewed interest in professional training, such as teacher training. For us, it probably means pre-med. The public is interested in having more
professionals trained by us.
·
The
report advocates “soft skills” – writing, reading, communicating, thinking,
problem-solving. We already do this – we
need to articulate and channel it.
·
There
is an emphasis on including historically under-represented populations,
specifically African Americans and Hispanic students.
·
There
is an emphasis on increasing public access to our university. We need to think proactively about how we are
going to respond.
·
Interest
areas include: economics, poverty,
global competitiveness, environmental sustainability, youth schools, primary,
secondary education, health and quality of life. We have an opportunity to articulate and
control our destiny instead of having GA tell us how we are going to do that.
Dr. Wood said as an anthropologist
reading the report, he saw a turn toward a corporate culture. GA is talking about students as customers and
they are talking about an interface and an emphasis on how we are articulating
and cooperating with business leaders.
It is important that we think about how we are going to respond to this
report in collusion with UPC.
Dr. Whatley said the full report with
outline, timeline, PowerPoint slides and structure of the response is on the
Academic Affairs website: UNC Tomorrow
Dr. Sabo said on the issue of
assessment, the fundamental question to ask is: What is its purpose? Is the purpose to make us look good – or is
the purpose to make us better? In the
past we erred in trying to make ourselves look good instead of making the
assessment process useful to us. He
encouraged UPC to consider this on both levels.
Dr. Downes reported for the
Executive Committee
Perceptions of Administrative Office Survey
Sixty offices were surveyed in the
recent perceptions of administrative office survey co-sponsored by the Faculty
Senate and the Office of the Chancellor.
This was the fifth survey conducted by UNCA since 1986. The survey was completed on January 11, 2008,
with a 54% participation rate by fulltime faculty and staff. The Office of Institutional Research
conducted the survey and performed the data analysis, producing summary tables
which will be available to UNCA employees on a special on-line campus
website.
As the Office
of the Chancellor and the Faculty Senate Executive Committee agreed,
Institutional Research has provided
The Senate
will invite the chancellor and vice chancellors to respond to this survey at
this semester’s remaining Senate meetings.
They will be asked: How was the
survey helpful? How could it be more
helpful? What kinds of comments were
made? How does the information help you
in planning improvements? We will ask
for a written response to allow time for questions.
Discussion
Dr. Pierce
asked if anyone would see all the comments.
It would be strange if only department heads see the comments from their
department – someone needs to look at all of the comments. Dr. Downes said that the Chancellor will see
all of the comments.
General Education Review
Dr. Downes reported that five years
ago, Ed Katz led us in a campus-wide review of general education, and led the
implementation of our ILS Program. Dr. Katz
did a great job, and the Listening Project contributed to his receiving a
national award for leadership in liberal arts general education. We have had conversations recently about
having a five-year review of ILS, which was called for in the plan, to see how
it is working, how it could be tweaked.
Even if we are not teaching it right now, general education affects us
and our students; the whole faculty is responsible for it. We are looking forward to a review process
that is productive rather than burdensome and would be helpful for our SACS
review.
Remarks
Dr. Hantz,
Chair of the Integrative Liberal Studies Oversight Committee (ILSOC) remarked:
· ILSOC meets weekly; subcommittees
often meet weekly. Members receive no
reassigned time.
· The End-of-Year report in progress
will contain three components:
o
Extensive
Statistical Data
o
Discussion
of points of connectivity between ILS and both UNC Tomorrow and our strategic
plans.
o
Detailed
outline of a comprehensive assessment plan for year five of the Program and
beyond.
} Subgroups
are working on their respective sections and will submit to Dr. Hantz by March
19.
·
Activity
since taking on ILSOC:
o
Number
of Intensives is up and department participation is widespread. Program now includes >60 % of faculty and
all students.
o
The
use of Intensives, particularly DI, as faculty development opportunities has
been increasing.
o
Number
and variety of LSIC courses increased with a wide range of faculty
participants.
o
Number
and types of clusters has increased: more importantly – faculty cooperation and
collaboration within clusters is increasing and evolving. For instance, the food cluster, assessment
has been linked to faculty development and a research and publication
opportunity.
·
Footnote:
o
Dr.
Hantz presented a report last year but it was not distributed beyond the
APC. That report is available at your
request upon request.
o
All
of the suggestions of last year’s APC concerning ILSOC have seen action.
Questions/Comments
Dr. Downes
asked if ILS includes all general education.
Dr. Hantz said that by the Senate document ILS includes all general
education but ILSOC is only tasked with overseeing specific components of it. The humanities, the sciences, foreign
languages and health and wellness are not under the purview of ILSOC. Dr. Downes suggested this might be a good
time for an all-campus general education review. She asked if there is a plan for an
all-campus Listening Project akin to when we founded ILS. Dr. Hantz said one was not planned but it is
never a bad idea to have people talk.
Dr. Wood was
interested in knowing if there was an articulation of what students should have
learned, and a way to measure whether they did or not. Dr. Hantz said yes – the Intensive
subcommittees are creating learning outcomes and they are proposing means to
assess those without using surveys.
Dr. Krumpe made the following
points/clarifications:
·
The Listening Project was not part of the
review of general education. APC did the
review of general education. After that
review, the Faculty Senate charged GERTF with revising the general education
program. It was at that point that we
implemented the campus-wide Listening Project.
·
One of the outcomes of the APC review was the
fact that in the previous general education there was no oversight of general
education. That led to the creation of
ILSOC and the presence of an APC member on ILSOC.
·
He questioned the need for a campus-wide
assessment of the effectiveness of the ILS program as we have a structure
(ILSOC) that does constant oversight and assessment. Maybe ILSOC should have some authority over
LANG 120 and the humanities program. If
the Senate thinks our system is broken, it needs to look at itself because the
Senate has been part of that process with representation on ILSOC. He would hate to see us waste a lot of energy
trying to fix something that is not broken.
Dr. Harvey
urged the Senate to not repeat the Listening Project now.
Dr. Moseley
said he was involved in the Listening Project and he agreed it was a lot of
work. But to say “is it time to assess”
is not to say that it is broken. It is
not an attack on any group to ask how well it is working. Large parts of general education that are not
under ILS are not being assessed.
Dr. Katz supported making more formal
relationships between ILSOC and the programs that are a part of ILS such as the
humanities, arts and ideas and the learning foundations courses. He thought it was a good idea to hear what
colleagues think would improve their experience and there are ways to do this
that would not be as labor intensive as the Listening Project. Regarding the timing – we may want to do this
after we have developed more longitudinal information about outcomes and
programs. The intensives, in particular,
are a great way to learn how to be better at what we want to accomplish. People are engaging in the intensives, and
coordinators and subcommittees now have an opportunity through faculty input to
refine the learning outcomes and have behavioral statements to look for hard
evidence of learning outcomes. That is a
new thing for us in the general education curriculum and it will be a great
tool for us to go forward.
Dr. Sabo said
he meant no disrespect, but the Senate has heard a tremendous defense about how
good this is when in fact we have not had the assessment. Dr. Moseley’s point is well taken – we do not
know if it is broken or working – that is the point of assessment. Last year when Ms. McKenzie chaired APC she
put this on the agenda. He met with Dr.
Hantz and was told to back off (wait until they were finished and then they
would come to APC.) The original Senate
document says APC is to review this and now Dr. Hantz is talking about
bypassing APC. He was curious to know
why. There is a difference between
assessment and oversight. If ILSOC says
this is working well, that is your assessment.
Oversight looks at ILSOCS’ practices to see if it adheres to the
original plan. The Senate is primarily
responsible for laying out the foundation of how this is to be done and it
usually delegates it to one of its committees.
All of these discussions are premature.
Let ILSOC do its work; APC will synthesize it and come to the Senate –
then we will talk about it.
Dr. Downes
said ILSOC is doing a lot of good work.
We need to see how ILSOC is complemented by the rest of general
education. Everyone on campus needs to
be reminded of what connections there are between all of general education,
ILSOC, and what everyone teaches.
Dr. Hantz
wanted to be clear – he did ask Dr. Sabo to back off. When he stepped into the role as ILSOC chair,
he realized they had a lot to do and he wanted the time and space to move in
that direction. He wants the Senate to
see the report because we all own this program.
So why not take it to APC and give it to the Senate to look at.
Dr.
Friedenberg clarified that the Deans receive (in odd numbered years, in June) the
Institutional Effectiveness Reports from humanities, Arts & Ideas, math and
science departments. The reports are
supposed to have the learning outcomes that it assessed over a two-year period. Dr. Downes agreed the data would be helpful
as an overview and faculty will have a chance to give input.
Restructuring Academic Affairs
The Senate’s Executive Committee has met with the
Chancellor, Sam Schuman, and
VI. Administrative Reports
Academic Affairs:
- Budget
Dr. Downes explained that when UPC has completed the
strategic plan and the UNC Tomorrow responses, we can anticipate that budget
information will come to the Senate through UPC.
Dr. Whatley
said she limited the discussion to state funds (both receipts and
appropriations) because of time constraints.
The Foundation funds and all the fees that go to auxiliary services are
not included (health fee, athletic fee, food, room and board.)
Dr. Downes
said there have been times when deans have generosity offered to help her with
finances for special opportunities. It
would be good to have a process so faculty have an opportunity to request
funds. Dr. Friedenberg said two
opportunities for faculty to request money for special opportunities are on the
Academic Affairs website: 1) curricular
enhancement (fieldtrips and other kinds of travel and study that might be
involved in developing a new course or enhancing an existing course, and 2)
faculty research (an independent program from the URC program.) The requests are reviewed by the deans. Dr. Whatley said for the last four years they
have tried to have special opportunities handled at the departmental level
rather than at the dean level. Two
reports distributed are available on the Senate website:
- Enrollment Report
Ms. McClellan reported that spring enrollment was
less than expected and we are outside the 2% window. She offered three factors: we graduated our
largest December class ever, last year Senate approved our new first semester
suspension policy (GPA <1.0), and transfer student enrollment was down. These factors affect our budgets and our
revenues and we are hoping to improve next year.
- Transportation Report
The transportation report was postponed until March
13th due to the late hour.
Mr. Baxley said that on February 28th and March13th there
will be open sessions to discuss various parking issues.
Dr.
Sabo expressed concern over two items in the Transportation report: one section
refers to finding solutions that will work for UNC Asheville; another section
says “…our discussions must be guided by proven best practices in the field of
TDM (transportation demand management).”
He noted that “proven best practices” is often at odds with “solutions
that work for UNC Asheville.” The
section also refers to “…input and guidance obtained from meetings and forums
with the University community, and the Strategic Planning process.” That implies that they are listening but
there is no decision-making capacity outside the expertise of the group. He asked Senators to keep this is mind if
they are concerned about governance and who makes decisions.
VII. Old Business
There was no
Old Business.
VIII. New Business
Dr. Downes reported for the Student Environmental
Center (SEC). This semester computers in the computer labs will have a prompt
“how to do two-sided printing” as an option.
If the response is positive then beginning in Fall 2008 the computers in
the computer lab will have two-sided printing as the default. The SEC wanted the Senate to be aware of this
project and would like its support.
IX. Adjourn
Dr. Downes reminded members of the
Executive Committee to remain for a brief meeting. The meeting was adjourned at 5:35pm.
Respectfully submitted
by: Sandra Gravely
Executive
Committee