WICHITA STATE UNIVERSITY FACULTY SENATE MINUTES

Wichita State University Faculty Senate meeting Monday, September 14, 2009

MEMBERS PRESENT: Anderson, Baker, J. Bennett, T. Bennett, Bolin, Bryant, Carruthers, Celestin, Craft, Dale, Decker, DeSilva, Driessen, Hemans, Henry, Hershfield, Horn, Hu, Klunder, Kreinath, Lewis-Moss, Lezotte, Miller, Moore-Jansen, Mosack, Myers, Pickard, Rillema, Rokosz, D. Russell, L. Russell, Scherz, Skinner, Smith-Campbell, Soles, Spurgeon, Strattmann, Thompson, Yeager

MEMBERS ABSENT: Baldridge, Taher, Wolf, Yildirim

MEMBERS EXCUSED: Brooks, Monroe, Ross

Summary of Action:   
       1. Accepted the appointments of Bin Shuai, LAS Math/Natural Sciences and Stephen Hathaway, LAS Humanities, to Exceptions Committee for 3 year appointments

I. Call of the Meeting to Order: President Soles called the meeting to order at 3:30 pm

III. Approval of the Minutes:
The minutes of August 24, 2009, were accepted with one spelling correction, Kirsten Johnson, not Kristen.

A. President Soles summarized a memo from Ted Ayres addressing WSU's state of preparedness for H1N1. Precautions have been taken, such as the Physical Plant has enhanced their cleaning and the use of Hand Sanitizers is highly recommended. . The Student Health Service's website addresses steps students should take for various circumstances --http://webs.wichita.edu/?u=shc&p=/index#FLU_SWINEFLUINFO.

B. President Soles stated that the Faculty Senate Planning and Budget Committee has met twice. They have received between 40-50 suggestions thus far regarding the Reshaping: Imagining WSU for the Future project. However, as of today, they have not had time to discuss any of the suggestions. The committee meets every Friday. Additional suggestions are welcome and can be submitted to Reshaping, Box 13 or via e-mail at reshaping@wichita.edu

C. President Soles addressed a query regarding the source of the 10 points that President Beggs mentioned in his speech at the Faculty Assembly. These 10 questions were generated by the KBOR, in response to the legislative post audit. The university must develop responses to the 10 questions by December.

D. On October 13, 2009, the Regents will visit the WSU campus. The senate will host a 50 minute meeting with the Regents, in the RSC East Ballroom beginning at 10:30AM. Members of the faculty senate are asked to attend. Suggestions are needed as to the format of the gathering.

V. Committee Reports:
A. Rules: Fritz Hemans, chair, presented the committee recommendations for Bin Shuai, LAS Math/Natural Sciences, and Stephen Hathaway, LAS Humanities, become members of the Exceptions Committee for three year appointments ending in 2012. Committee recommendations were accepted.

VII. New Business:
A. Wade Robinson, Vice President of Campus Life and University Relations: President Soles introduced V.P. Robinson. He shared his vision for the office. For the current year he will focus on retention and recruitment of students, with a special interest on minority students in particular. He noted that addressing the Latino population is very important. He stated that everyone in his office is focused on the idea that every interaction, and every relationship, is about retention and recruitment. He announced he would like to see some renovations to the RSC. VP Robinson expressed an interested in hearing from everyone, he said his door is always open and invited any suggestions for better ways for his office to perform.

VP Robinson addressed questions from the senators regarding retention, recruitment, 1^st yr retention rates, and 6 yr graduation rate. He said that the interaction between the student, the parents and the faculty is extremely important in recruitment and retention.

B. Community Health Charities (CHC) -- Rick Muma WSU CHC Campaign Director & Jenny Shipman, CHC Kansas Development Director -- R. Muma explained that Community Health Charities is an organization that collects donations for agencies concerned with health issues. He noted that some of these agencies are also the same agencies that some WSU faculty receive research support from (e.g., March of Dimes, Wichita Medical Research and Education Foundation). CHC is similar to United Way, but different in that CHC allows donors to directly identify a specific agency to benefit from their donation. Jenny Shipman discussed some of the health agencies and said that pledge forms would be distributed to all staff and faculty through campus mail. Both urged support for the charity.

C. Honors Program and CTRE update -- William Vanderburgh -- He shared information regarding the current state of the Honors Program including an overview of the program, the current admission requirements, and the changes to the program recommended by the Honors Taskforce in 2008. These include creating a cohort feeling, increasing service learning and global experiences, and creating more unity/purpose in the Honors program especially in the upper division. Some of the changes have had to be delayed because the funding crisis stopped the national search for a new director; but he is doing as much as possible in the interim. Current problems are a low percentage of students completing the program, the need for more faculty involvement from across the campus, and the need for new courses. Seminars with distinctive academic experiences (not just “more work”) and having students involved with research are the ideal. There is a need for departments and colleges to see Honors as essential to their mission or the program won’t be successful. He asked for suggestions for increasing participation and higher graduation rates. Senator D Russell suggested that instead of relying on 300-level "H" sections or courses for honors students and trying to find some way to make them special & distinctive academic experiences, we could require honors students to take a certain proportion of their upper division credits at the 500 level, perhaps with a GPA requirement within those courses, which offer special & distinctive academic experiences already. Doing so would also make it more feasible for departments to offer 500-level seminars more frequently.

Dr. Vanderburgh ended his presentation saying the CTRE will offer a "how to develop an Honors class" seminar in the near future.