Minutes of the meeting of the Faculty Senate Monday, March 28, 2011
MEMBERS PRESENT: Adler, Ahmed, Anderson, Barut, Bennett, Bolin, Bryant, Celestin, Close, Decker,
DeSilva, D'Souza, Hemans, Henry, Hershfield, Horn, Klunder, Matveyeva, Miller, Mosack,
L. Russell, Skinner, Smith, Smith-Campbell, Soles, Strattman, Thompson, Yeager, Yildirim
MEMBERS ABSENT: Baker, Brooks, Carruthers, DiLollo, Jeffers, Kreinath, Smith, Taher
MEMBERS EXCUSED: Gibson, Lewis, Rillema, Rokosz, Ross, D. Russell
Ex-OFFICO: Pickus, Muma
SUMMARY OF ACTION:
1. Accepted the proposed revisions to Tenure & Promotion Policy 4.18
2. Endorsed the Guidelines for Registrar to evaluate Transfer Coursed for General
education with some amendments
I. Call of the Meeting to Order: President Hemans called the meeting to order at 3:30 pm.
II. Informal Statements and Proposals: President Hemans asked Elmer Hoyer to bring the Senate up to date on the near term
activities of the AAUP. Hoyer announced that the AAUP state meeting will be held at
the Newman University April 9, 2011 (Saturday). The doors will open at 10 am and the
business meeting will begin at 10:30am. Guest speaker, Donna Potts, will address national
issues of interest at 12:45pm. Interested individuals may register on-line at AAUP-in-KS.org,
or pay at the door the morning of the meeting.
III. Approval of the Minutes: Senator Klunder noted that there appeared to be a misspelled name in the list of
members present at the March 14, 2011, meeting of the senate and that several of the
names were unnecessarily bolded. The minutes of the meeting were accepted with the
understanding that those corrections would be made.
|IV. President's Report:
A. President Hemans announced that he and the presidents of the Unclassified Senate
and the Classified Senate (Grady Landrum and Linda Claypool) had met with President
Beggs to request his input and support for a proposal for Tuition Remission Benefit
for the WSU faculty and staff. The President agreed to consider the recommendation
and a task force with two members from each senate was formed to develop a proposal
to present to President Beggs.
B. President Hemans reminded the members of the senate about the President's Service
Award ceremony scheduled for 3:30 pm, Tuesday, May 3, and the Faculty Awards ceremony
scheduled for May 10. He encouraged all senators to publicize both events within their
departments and to attend the ceremonies.
C. President Hemans relayed the good news that the Kansas Senate passed the University
Engineering Initiative act (passed by the House earlier). The purpose of the legislation
is to increase the number of domestic engineering graduates per year at KU, KSU, and
WSU from 875 to 1,365 by 2020. One million dollars will be provided during FY'12,
four million dollars in FY'13, and another seven million dollars in FY'14. A one-to-one
match for this support will be required of the three universities.
D. President Hemans announced that the results of a KBOR supported Economic Impact
Study of the benefits of the state's investment in higher education on the state's
economy are now available on the KBOR website. Among the many positive findings highlighted
include the fact that a $1 investment in higher education brings a $12.80 return,
and 52% of the graduates of the KBOR system remain in Kansas after graduation. These
positive results are counter to the logic of no increase of state support of higher
education in recent history.
F. President Hemans informed the senate of that the KBOR Articulation Task Force
had met. The members of the task force recommend the following: the creation of a
web portal to be used to assist in the examination of transfer credits across the
KBOR system if institutions and the creation of an advisory Articulation Council.
Each institution has been tasked to develop a formal process for appeal of denied
transfer credit by July 1. The senate Executive Committee will create a proposal for
the appeal process to bring to the senate for approval.
V. Committee Reports: Johnnie Thompson, Vice President, alerted the senate that six vacancies remain for
seats in the AY'11-鈥�12 senate. She will be contacting the following areas/departments
this week to request their assistance in filling these seats: Nursing, Electrical
Engineering, Health Professions, LAS Math/Natural Sciences, and LAS Humanities, which
has two vacancies. All senators from the affected colleges were also urged to help
fill the vacant senate seats.
She also announced that the annual Faculty Senate Committee Preference forms would
be distributed this week.
VI. Report on Academy for Effective Teaching Awards Selection Process:
Elmer Hoyer, chair of the Academy for Effective Teaching, reported on the Academy's
procedure of selecting the faculty member to receive the AFET Outstanding Educator
Award. This year (as was initiated last year) students were able to vote on-line for
members of the faculty that they judged to be the best teachers. The members of the
AFET met with several classes of students to encourage them to vote on-line. The members
of the Academy believe that this was the primary reason that the number of students
participating this year was far greater than last year's on-line voting.
VII. Old Business:
1. Proposed revisions to 4.18, Tenure and Promotion 鈥� (2nd reading) The second reading of the proposal to revise the Tenure and Promotion
appeal process prompted a suggestion to change the wording in the added paragraph
from 鈥渢enure or promotion鈥� to 鈥渢enure and/or promotion.鈥� It was moved by Senator Klunder
(2nd Close) to accept the revisions with this minor correction the proposed change
to the section 鈥淎ppeal of Decisions Related to Tenure or Promotion鈥� of section 4.18
of the Policies and Procedures Manual was approved with no dissent.
2. 鈥淕uidelines for the Registrar to Evaluate Transfer Courses for General Education Credit鈥�- (2nd reading) This produced considerable discussion and proposed changes to the document. President Hemans emphasized the point that the intent of this document was to provide guidance regarding the granting of general education credit rather than course equivalency. Most concerns were focused on preventing the assignment of equivalency of upper division courses for transfer courses from community colleges; and, statement d. of the document that appeared to hamper the re-evaluation of a course that had been previously approved for transfer credit. These concerns were addressed by narrowing the scope of the document to only courses from out-of-state institutions; and, by replacing the wording of part d. with appropriate language to indicate that the university would honor its 鈥渁pproval鈥� of general education credit for a course for a specific case (student), regardless of any subsequent reevaluation of the course for general education credit. Senator Klunder moved (2nd Hershfield) to accept the proposal with those changes to the document, it was approved by a vote of the senate with no dissent.
VIII. New Business
A. Proposal from the ad hoc General Education committee - President Hemans presented the current draft of the proposal from the ad hoc General
Education Committee. He spoke to the history of recent attempts to improve the general
education criterion of the university. Most were unsuccessful in bringing about significant
change because of the lack of faculty 鈥渂uy in鈥� throughout the process. That is, a
committee worked hard to create a new General Education structure, which was disassembled
when it was brought to the senate and/or full faculty. In order to prevent this same
fate for this attempt at general education reform, he emphasized that this proposal
will require a great deal of scrutiny by the senate as well as constructive input
during the time of its creation. He encouraged the members of the senate to be prepared
to discuss the issues of the ad hoc committee's proposal, and to help facilitate that
education he will provide 鈥渞eading materials鈥� for all senators on-line regarding the
history, rationale, and committee discussions of the key points of the proposal.
Time limited any further discussion of the proposal, and President Hemans said that
the proposal would be a major part of the senate's work for the remainder of this
semester.
VIII. As May Arise: none.
IX. Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 5:00 pm.
Respectfully Submitted,
Walter Horn for, Dan Russell, Secretary