December 4, 2002

Patrick Kehoe called the meeting to order at 2:00 p.m.

Present: Professors Ahrens, Brenner, Burke, Doolittle, Douglass, Forst, Hakim, Heintze, Jennings, Jernigan, Kehoe, Kravetz, Langbein, Olmsted, Riddick, Riley, Rosenbloom, Rubenstein, Schaeff, Sha, Williams. Provost Kerwin.

Absent: Professor Irvine Belson

The minutes of the November 13, 2002 meeting were approved.

Report of the Provost
Neil Kerwin provided a progress report on budget preparation for fiscal years 2004-2005. He noted that the following steps had already taken place or were forthcoming:

• The Board of Trustees had approved a set of budget formulation guidelines that were consistent with the recommendations from the Committee on Instructional Budget and Benefits.
  
  
• The call for expenditure budgets had gone out to the vice presidents and the deans.
  
  
• The deans had submitted enrollments estimates.
  
  
• The Committee on Instructional Budget and Benefits was scheduled to begin its review of the enrollment estimates, which will be converted into revenue projections. The committee will match revenue projections against expenditure requests and presents its recommendations on the budget to the Senate in January or February.
  
  
• The new University Council will assume the role played in prior years by the former University Budget Committee. The Council, which includes faculty, students, and staff, will have an opportunity to review overall revenue projections and expenditure requests.
  
  
• President Ladner will make his recommendations to the Board of Trustees in February.

Provost Kerwin advised that President Ladner had requested that the vice presidents give special attention to items in the 15-point plan that will have implications for the budget. Provost Kerwin noted, for example, that two issues that will have a significant financial impact are: (1) the proposal to reduce the number of adjunct faculty; and (2) the proposal for a system of differential teaching and research loads. The University College concept, he observed, was not sufficiently delineated to allow for estimates with regard to the budget. The Graduate Program Review had also not reached a stage where estimates could be made about the net impact of the elimination of some programs and the enhancement of resources for other programs.

Dr. Kerwin then provided a progress report on the Graduate Program Review, noting that as a result of differences in governance structures in the units, the teaching unit councils were at various stages for submitting their recommendations to the deans. He also reported that he had met with the Joint Committee on Curriculum and Academic Programs and, based on the discussion in that meeting, the process for the Senate’s review of proposals from the academic units will be as follows:

• Recommendations from the major teaching units will be distributed to all the deans and to the Curriculum Committee. The deans and the committee will be asked to determine which proposals have cross-unit implications.
  
  
• Proposals with cross-unit implications will be referred to the Curriculum Committee for an in-depth review and recommendations. The recommendations will be presented to the Senate.
  
  
• Dr. Kerwin will submit to the full Senate a summary of all proposals from the deans. That summary will include a statement about the rationale for each of the program changes.

Dr. Kerwin said he had been convinced by the discussion in the Senate that the Senate needs an opportunity to comment on all intended changes to the university’s graduate programs. He added that significant changes were being contemplated in at least four of the major academic units.

Provost Kerwin then spoke in greater detail about the goal of adjunct faculty reduction. He noted specifically that a number of complex variables will need to be manipulated as the university moves toward the goals outlined in point 8 of President Ladner’s plan. Commenting on a graph that showed changes in three variables—enrollments, average class size, and number of sections--over a period from 1971-1972 to 2001-2002, Dr. Kerwin pointed out that despite the fact that enrollments had declined since 1971, the number of sections that the university offers has stabilized at a level higher than in 1971. He also noted that the university’s average class size had increased by two bodies in the past two years, which he said was not an insignificant change. He asked that members of the Senate contact him with suggestions about the kinds of pertinent data the Curriculum Committee initially, and eventually the full Senate, will need to make decisions with regard to the adjunct faculty issue.

In response to the Provost’s comments, members of the Senate made the following suggestions:

• The data on enrollments, average class size, and number of sections needs to be broken out into three groups: undergraduate, graduate, and total enrollments.
  
  
• The Student Evaluation of Teaching forms should be coded for adjuncts.
  
  
• Focus groups should be used as one means of discerning how students feel about such issues as average class size.
  
  
• The approach to the adjunct faculty issue should be characterized in more positive terms, since an ultimate goal is to improve the quality of the university’s adjunct faculty.

As a final item, Provost Kerwin reported some good news for the current fiscal year. He said the Office of Sponsored Programs was running 5 percent ahead of last year on total awards by faculty. And on the recovery of indirect costs, the university was running almost 20 percent ahead of last year.

Report of the Chair
Pat Kehoe reported that in the first weeks of his role as chair he had met with several groups. He noted first that he had met with President Ladner’s new University Council, and he said he was favorably impressed by the manner in which the group conducted its business. The topics taken up were some of the hot issues on campus, such as parking fees and parking restrictions, and proposed changes to the graduation ceremony. There was an appropriate amount of briefing, so the discussion was informed. And there were candor and openness in the way the members of the Council participated. Professor Kehoe noted that two other senators, Tony Ahrens and John Douglass, were also on the Council.

Professor Kehoe reported that he had also attended a reception, sponsored by the Student Confederation, for senators and committee members. He said that event was helpful in that it provided an opportunity for the students to voice their concerns. He said it did not appear from the discussions that there were particularly burning issues. He added, however, that he did sense a certain amount of frustration on the part of some student leaders who feel they have been disenfranchised by the reorganization of the faculty governance system.

As a housekeeping matter, he reported that the redesign of the website was almost complete. Information about access to the site will be shared with members of the Senate.

Finally, Professor Kehoe reported that the governance section of the Academic Regulations will need to be revamped, to bring the regulations in line with the governance proposal that was ratified last spring. Some portions of the Faculty Manual will also need to be revised; proposals for changes to the manual will come from the Committee on Faculty Relations.

Revision of Academic Regulation 50.00.04
Pat Kehoe asked for volunteers to serve on an ad hoc committee to revise section 50.00.04, Rules of the University Senate. He noted that while a number of changes will be editorial, there may also be a need for some substantive changes. Leigh Riddick, Kogod School of Business, and Jim Heintze, University Library, agreed to work with Professor Kehoe on a draft of the revisions.

During the discussion about the revision of the regulations, the Senate addressed several issues relating to its operations. The following ideas were noted:

• The individual committees will be asked to codify the definitions of their roles.
  
  
• Communication between the committees and the body as a whole may be either informal or formal, as appropriate, with regard to sharing the minutes of meetings and/or summary reports, and to soliciting feedback on committee agendas.
  
  
• Information about committee activities will, as much as possible, circulate electronically. The chairs will have the option of making brief reports to the Senate.

Professor Kehoe noted that the revision of 50.00.04 may need to be done piecemeal, with some sections, such as the procedures for elections, revised as soon as possible, and other sections, such as the committee jurisdictions, changed at a later time.

Leigh Riddick called on the senators to come back after the Christmas break with suggestions about large policy issues for the group to consider during the current academic year.

For the Good of the Order
Paul Williams, School of International Service, reported that the SIS Council had met that morning and asked that he make the following observations:

• The Faculty Senate should explore broad policy questions in a more aggressive way.
  
  
• The Senate should raise questions about the processes for evaluating administrative units.
  
  
• The Senate should think creatively about how to encourage further engagement by President Ladner in fund-raising endeavors.
  
  
• The Senate should play a consultative role with respect to the development of new programs such as those recently created out of the president’s office.

Jill Olmsted, School of Communication, announced that the SOC was holding a memorial service for Professor Emeritus Ed Bliss on December 12th at 2:00 p.m. in Kay Chapel.

The meeting was adjourned at 4:05 p.m.