Wichita State University Faculty Senate meeting Monday, September 25, 2006
MEMBERS PRESENT: Billings, Brooks, Byrum, Carruthers, Celestin, Close, Coufal, Craig-Moreland, Decker, deSilva, Dooley, Elder, Forlaw, Hamdeh, Hathaway, Lancaster, Liera-Schwichtenberg, C. Moore-Jansen, P. Moore-Jansen, Myers, Owens, Proctor, Rillema, Riordan, Rogers, Rokosz, Ross, Roussel, Schneegurt, Shelly, Spurgeon, Taher, Turk, Vanderburgh, Yeager
MEMBERS ABSENT: Acker,
Campbell, Jarnagin, Johnson, Siginer, Uhing
MEMBERS EXCUSED: Manske,
Markovich, Myose
EX-OFFICIO MEMBERS: VPAAR Miller
Summary of Action:
1. Accepted the appointment of the following Senators:
JoLynne
Campbell, Health Sciences, Janice Riordan, Nursing, and Don Byrum, Art and
Design
2. Accepted Faculty Senate Committee Appointments for:
Faculty
Support -- Betty Elder
University
Exceptions -- Suzanne Tirk, Fine Arts, Krishna Krishnan, Engineering
University
Curriculum-- Ted Adler, Fine Arts
3. University Committee Appointments for:
ICAA Advisory
-- Larry Spurgeon, Frank Rokosz
Faculty/Staff
Retirees -- Loretta Forlaw
Traffic
Advisory -- Kirk Lancaster
Banner
Advisory -- David Hughes
4. Elected the following for three year terms on the
Planning & Budget Committee
Peer
Moore-Jansen, LAS Social Sciences
Terence
Decker, Business
I. Call of the Meeting to Order:
Following a brief social interchange, President Roussel called the meeting to order at 3:30 P.M.
II. Informal Statements and Proposals:
a. President Roussel introduced the President of the SGA, Thanh Huynh, who then introduced his staff. Mr. Huynh indicated that he is experiencing a high level of student involvement with the SGA this year. He is also looking forward to working with the Faculty Senate wherever appropriate.
b. Sylvia Carruthers announced that there will be an AAUP meeting on Friday the 29th at 2:30 in Room 217 RSC. The subject matter is issues related to tenure.
c. President Roussel mentioned a Wichita Eagle article which reflected an increase in enrollment for fall of 2006. She also mentioned a contest, sponsored by the new university recycling contractor, in which the prizes are Rolling Stones tickets.
II. Approval of the Minutes
Minutes from the last meeting of the 2005-06 Senate (May 8th) were reviewed and approved. Minutes of the meeting of the 2006-07 Senate from May 8th were reviewed. President Roussel indicated the need for a modification to the report of the Faculty Support Committee. The minutes state that the Committee’s report was returned to the committee for revisions. The Report was accepted, but the addendum regarding subvention was not and was returned to the committee. President Roussel also indicated that the Minutes of the 2006-07 Senate needed to reflect her call for a Fall general faculty meeting. With these modifications, the Minutes were approved.
III. President's Report
a. President Roussel reported on The Board of Regents Meeting:
1. Dr. Gary L. Miller was introduced as the new Academic Vice President at the meeting, as was the new President of Emporia State University.
2. President Roussel observed that the State’s portion of the funding for higher education in Kansas was shrinking.
3. The list of companies authorized to provide retirement fund management to WSU employees is down to two, TIAA CREF and ING.
b. President Roussel introduced Vice President Miller, to discuss the nature of WSU’s Performance Agreement with The Board of Regents in the area of student learning.
1. To measure student learning, either a direct or an indirect approach can be chosen. At WSU, the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA) is one of the approaches selected to measure the accomplishment of this Performance Agreement.
2. The CLA is administered to a sample of 100 freshmen in the fall, and then to 100 seniors in the spring. The CLA scores are correlated with the same student’s ACT scores to create an index. The index is prepared over a three year period to develop a baseline.
3. WSU and Fort Hays are now using the CLA.
c. Vice President Miller indicated that it is his perception that the other areas covered in WSU’s Performance Agreements are under control.
d. President Roussel indicated that in November, WSU will present a proposal regarding international programs in the age of globalization to the Board of Regents.
e. President Roussel reported on the meeting of the Council of Faculty Senate Presidents. Key observations from this meeting include:
1. The Council supported the use of electronic transcripts.
2. The new provost at KU would like all policies at KU to be available online only, but that is considered a dangerous move by other KU constituencies.
3. The Council supported the view that deferred maintenance must be addressed immediately on State university campuses.
4. The issue of unfilled faculty positions was discussed by the Council. Each Faculty Senate President is to bring a list of ten key problems encountered on their campus in faculty recruiting. President Roussel asked the Senate to provide her with input regarding this issue, prior to the next Senate Meeting.
5. There is a great variance in how student evaluations are handled across the Regents' Universities. Some schools do not have a university wide student evaluation system, while others like WSU not only have SPTE and IDEA used across the board, but are also moving to a portfolio approach to document what faculty has done under teaching.
6. Wichita State received kudos from the group regarding the PIR policy. The revisions to the policy were signed by the VPAAR the day of the meeting (September 25th,)
7. The draft policy regarding Chronic Low Performance will be presented at the next senate meeting.
IV. Committee Reports
A. University Committee Appointments from Executive Committee
1. ICAA: Larry Spurgeon was appointed from the Barton School and Frank Rokosz from the School of Education.
2. Campus Retirees Team: Loretta Forelaw from the College of Health Professions was appointed.
3. Campus Traffic Committee: Kirk Lancaster from LAS was appointed.
4. Banner Problems Committee: David Hughes from LAS was appointed.
B. Rules Committee made the following appointments:
JoLynne Campbell, Senator, Health Sciences, Don Byrum, senator, Art and Design, Janice Riordan, senator, Nursing
Faculty Support -- Betty Elder, Health Professions
University Exceptions Committee: Suzanne Tirk, Fine Arts; Krishna Krishnan, Engineering
University Curriculum: Ted Adler, Fine Arts
c. Tenure and Promotion-a newly formulated schedule for reviewing college/school/ University Libraries promotion and tenure policies was reviewed. The new schedule was accepted by the Senate on a motion from Lancaster.
V. Old Business
A. Electorate --
http://webs.wichita.edu/senate/Bylaws.htm-
President Roussel indicated that she would like to have a revised policy
regarding the electorate in place so that it could be taken back to the
individual departments before the November 14th General Faculty
Meeting. The suggested revised policy requires that each department have their
own by-laws regarding the electorate for departmental administration.
Discussion of this proposed revision yielded concerns from the VPAAR that we may
be in violation of Labor Law by having different policies in place in different
departments. Senator Lancaster suggested that the Executive Committee work
with VPAAR Miller and University Counsel Ayres.
B. Election of members to the
Planning and Budget Committee
Peer Moore-Jansen, LAS Social
Sciences and Terence Decker, Business, were elected for three year terms.
VI. New Business
a. Diane Barnes from the Registrar’s office reported on the progress made in implementing the Banner System at WSU. Problems and future challenges were discussed.
VII. As May Arise
The meeting was adjourned at 5:10 pm
Respectfully Submitted
Bob Ross, Secretary