Faculty Senate Meetingo:p>

Minutes 12/6/04

Present:  Claire Cross, Marny Rivera, Peter Wu, Jean Maxwell, Terry Longshore, Jon Harbaugh, Lee Ayers, Dale Vidmar, Mark Siders, Kemble Yates, John Richards, Dan Rubenson,  Randy Johnson (ASSOU), Wilkins-O'Riley Zinn, Cody Bustamante, Sandra Holstein, Sarah Ann Hones, Mara Affre, Parvaneh Scoggin, Dale Vidmar, Alena Ruggerio.

Guests: Cynthia Beckwith, Ed Battistella, Gina Lutz (OSPIRG), Mike Corcoran, Teri O'Rourke, Craig Morris, Paul Steinle, Susan Waldo, Josie Wilson, Barbara Winkler.

I.         Approve minutes from st1:date Year="2004" Day="15" Month="11">11/15/04 meeting

A.      Motion to approve – Vidmar, Second – Rivera, approved.

II.       Announcements

A.      Drs. Zinser and Potter are unable to attend today’s meeting.

B.       Four people have expressed interest in serving on the Faculty Roles and Responsibilities Committee  – Gerry McCain (education), Susan Cain (business), John Whitesitt (math), Zinn (education)

C.       Committee on Committees – William Elliott will take John Englehart’s position on the Faculty Development Committee.

III.     AC Report from the Faculty Senate Vice Chair

A.      Discussed issues that are on today’s agenda

B.       Talked more about the issue of faculty roles and responsibilities – and what to do for people coming up for promotion or tenure this year or in other words, while the discussions are going on.

C.       Dr. Potter candidly shared his rationale and thought processes for what contributed to the decisions he made last year in this regard.

D.      Dr. Potter will make an effort to meet with personnel committees and other constituencies and share his “interim” criteria for promotion and tenure decisions. Interested departments or any other personnel should contact Dr. Potter to request a visit if they would like to engage in such a conversation.

IV.     Student Senate Report - Randy Johnson

A.      Did get enough Student Senators to form committees and start their work.

B.       Precinct 10 (SOU) was the worst precinct for getting out the vote in Jackson County. Randy wants to look more at what to do to change this in the future.

C.       Kemble – wonders if the registration role includes students who originally registered here and are now gone, which would skew the proportions.

V.       Graduate Council Report – Marc Levy

A.      Reported on the activities of the Grad Council for fall quarter 2004. See attachment.

VI.     Action Items

A.      Grading Grievance Policy – Mike Corcoran (see attachment)

B.       Motion – John Richards, 2^nd – Peter Wu to approve.

C.       Cody – Last time we spoke about students having one year from the time grades are posted to file a grievance. Is there a way we could have the language read “one year after the final grade” is posted?

D.      Vote – approved unanimously with agreement to make the change by Mike Corcoran.

VII.   Discussion Items

A.      Proposed change to Section 1 of Constitution – Mark Siders

                         1.       Focused on changing a gender-specific personal pronoun – see attachment.

                         2.       Motion to set aside 2 week waiting period to take a vote (Vidmar), 2^nd – Zinn – on the recommended change in language.

                         3.       2/3 majority vote in favor of the change by the full faculty is necessary to make this change in the Constitution. Cody Bustamante will facilitate this vote by secret ballot.

                         4.       Vote – unanimous to conduct a secret ballot vote.

B.       CREAC Update / 1^st Year Experience – Steve Jessup

                         1.       Subcommittees have been meeting

                         2.       1^st year experience committee has been discussing a proposed plan – a three term program that has cohorts of students. This new formulation will give students the opportunity to take different directions based on their interests – some students will follow an explorations sequence together as a cohort. Packaging a seminar with an exploration sequence is one option.

                         3.       Faculty who would like to teach in a specific academic discipline “interest group” would be responsible for overseeing the cohort that had expressed interest in that topic area for the full three quarter commitment. But logistically, this is difficult for faculty to commit to. Discussions continue in order to come up with a model that would work. For example, perhaps adjunct faculty might take the students through the first two terms and a full-time faculty member would pick up the cohort during the third quarter.

                         4.       Council is looking at creative ways to motivate full-time faculty to get involved in teaching in this program.

                         5.       Peter Wu - Challenge is to not pigeon-hole students by having them focus on a particular discipline. Alena – the intent is to have all academic theme tracks make sure they are simultaneously addressing the three core competency areas – critical thinking, information literacy, and communication (written & oral).

                         6.       Addressing issues with writing problems of incoming freshmen. However, we don’t have funding to implement a full scale assessment and placement program. Mara Affre stated that they are looking at ways to use the SAT essay section as a possible screening assessment tool.

                         7.       Planning to implement some of the new program next fall, with full implementation to be completed by fall of 2006.

                         8.       CREAC is asking for faculty to volunteer to help with teaching in this First Year Experience.

C.       IFS Information – Marny Rivera / Lee Ayers

                         1.       Report on 12/3/04 IFS Meeting – See attachment for more details.

a.        IFS unanimously endorsed the Oregon Transfer Module proposal.

b.       Are asking respective institution faculty senates to put their support behind this proposal. Hoping that by getting support from all these constituencies will at least keep some of the control over a common core within OUS rather than giving it over to the State legislature.

i.         Jon will put this as an action item on January 3^rd agenda.

c.        Senator Gordly – we should push back and not accept the continued disinvestment in education. Pointed out that the State Constitution explicitly says that in financially challenging times, the legislature will impose a tax.

d.       Rep. Mitch Greenlick – supports dissolving OUS to get rid of the bureaucratic red tape. Admitted, however, that this might not be possible in the context of the specific challenges that regional schools face.

e.        Jean Thorne from PEBB –hoping to implement new vision in 2007. They’re against simply increasing our contributions.

f.         Chancellor – talked about the Governor’s proposed budget and was supportive of many included items.

                         2.       Latest information about the Oregon Transfer Module (see attachment)

D.      University Curriculum Committee – Barbara Winkler

                         1.       Proposal to modify the SOU Course Number Policy – to allow the use of a fourth position taken by a letter to differentiate courses taken in the same term that have the same number (e.g., 407, 399)

a.        Motion to wave 2 week requirement to vote on this proposal – John Richards, 2^nd – Lee Ayers. Approved.

b.       Motion to accept proposal with Barbara Winkler’s amendment – to recommend that courses that are offered three times be assigned a mainstream course number by the host department – John Richards, 2^nd – Marc Levy. Motion retracted after further discussion.

c.        Revised motion – John Richards – take the language out of the proposal that requires conversion of courses taught three times to regular course numbers, and vote on the remainder of the proposal. 2^nd – Marc Levy. Vote – unanimous approval.

d.       Dale Vidmar – motion – that the Curriculum Committee deal with the language mentioned above – and bring proposed change in language back to the Senate in subsequent meeting. 2^nd – Affre. Vote – unanimous approval.

                         2.       Development of new criteria for “independent interdisciplinary majors” (IIM; see attachment)

a.        Note that departments can unilaterally decide not to participate in the proposed IIM program as written (if, for example, a department needs/wants to restrict students from going out of an already established program)

b.       Language regarding the 121 credit limit for submitting a plan to enter this program will be reviewed and resubmitted – due to the fact that many nontraditional and/or transfer students often enter the university with more than the 121 credit limit, and may still like to have this option.

c.        Intent is to make this degree option more rigorous and intentional on the part of the student.

d.       Areas that offer minors, but not degrees, can participate as areas of emphasis for this degree.

e.        Jon will put on 1/3/05 agenda for further discussion.

E.       Higher One Information – Craig Morris (see attachment)

                         1.       Students have a choice whether or not to open a financial account.

                         2.       Biggest misconception is that all our financial management of financial aid is now being outsourced. Not true.

                         3.       Also, rumor that Business Services will go away and services will be outsourced to Higher One. Not true.

                         4.       Eliminating need for Business Services to write a check for students who are receiving reimbursements for overages. Saving a lot of money by having Higher One handle this.

                         5.       Not true that students will have to wait an inordinate amount of time before having checks cut by Higher One. They will cut those checks the next day. Delay only as long as the postal delivery service takes to get it to them. Craig’s office also working with local banks to have them not delay posting funds to student accounts. Students can also have direct deposit to their local account which does away with the problems of timing in comparison to a paper check system.

                         6.       Planning to use the ID cards for access to keyless entry rooms as we transition to those.

                         7.       No faculty or staff salary payments will be made through Higher One.

                         8.       Student Senate helping to support the education of students about how to activate their accounts.

                         9.       Students who come to our campus for one quarter only will not necessarily need an ID card if they are not receiving financial aid.

                      10.       Regarding fees associated with the Higher One checking account fees: There is an “inactivity fee” that kicks in after 9 months.

                      11.       One unfair fee is a $.50 fee charged every time students have to enter a PIN number for a purchase. Craig has been trying to get this reversed but Higher One has been unwilling to do that as of yet.

F.       International Programs Discussion – Josie Wilson (see attachment)

                         1.       Intent is to build our involvement in fulfillment of one part of our mission and vision – international engagement.

                         2.       Asking for volunteers who are willing to serve on this task force.

VIII. Homework Assignment

A.      Organization of the Academic Division for Best Advantage – please read attachment for discussion during next Senate meeting.

Adjourned at approximately 6:02pm.

Respectfully submitted by Marc Levy, Faculty Senate Secretary 2004-2005