December 7, 2006

Tony Ahrens called the meeting to order at 1:45 p.m.

Present: Professors Ahrens, Bennett, Burke, Cochran, Fantie, Flug, Gill, Girard, Belson, Jacoby, Loesberg, Mardirosian, Petit, Richardson, Riley, Rosenbloom, Samarasinghe, Schaeff, Dean Mardirosian, and Provost Broder.

Welcome and Introduction, Tony Ahrens

Professor Ahrens introduced the Faculty Senate’s new staff assistant, Georgia Christou. He mentioned that for the past several months the meetings have been recorded by a transcription service, which has produced verbatim transcripts. Now with the help of the staff assistant, the proceedings of the Faculty Senate Meetings will be recorded by the previous method of note taking and minutes will be produced in a summary format.

The minutes of the October meeting were approved.

Report of the Provost, Ivy Broder

Admissions Update

For spring ’06, the university is very close to tracking where it was last year; there were no substantive changes. Transfer admits are about even and deposits are down by one-third. Of big concern is the Masters Programs whose applications are down by 11%, admits are down by 24%, and deposits down by 25%. For fall ’06, early decision number and volume are quite positive. Both early admissions and regular admissions applications were up.

The university has retained the services of the Noel-Levitz Consultant Group to conduct an enrollment analysis. They will be involved with two projects, one pertaining to the scoring of prospects and the other to the allocation of financial aid. The scoring of prospects involves more effectively communicating with students who are likely to apply to the University and come. Regarding the allocation of financial aid, the consultants have created a statistical based research model, which they refer to as ERMS (enrollment ready management system). This model takes the last two years of yield statistics, looks at characteristics of students who applied and were accepted, and looks at the kind of financial aid packages that were offered, to detect what the patterns of acceptance yield are based on historical data. From these patterns the consultants can make recommendations about how to more effectively allocate undergraduate financial aid to increase the yield rate. During the months of January through March when the admissions office is accepting students, the university will be sending to the consultants on a bi-weekly basis data on students who were accepting and they will be sending recommendations on the financial aid packages.

In addition, the consultants also made recommendations on Marketing and Enrollment Management. Freshman to sophomore retention is at an all-time high of 89%, but it could be better. Provost Broder has put together a Retention Working Group, chaired by Meg Weekes, Associate Dean of Public Affairs. Some of their main responsibilities include: analyzing factors which influence student retention, developing strategies to increase retention, document retention efforts, and recommending an organizational structure to focus on retention that coordinates responsibilities.

Faculty Recognition Dinner & Faculty Awards Process

Provost Broder announced that there have been some changes. For the Scholar Teacher Award, which is the premier award at the dinner, the award will be increased from $2,000 given by the United Methodist Church to $5,000 supplemented by University funds. The only other award that has carried an honorarium is the Morton Bender Award, which is given to an associate professor a few years after promotion to that rank. This award of $1500 is funded by Morton Bender and will remain unchanged. The University will enhance several other awards by giving a $2000 award to each of the following: Outstanding Teaching, Service to the University Community, Outstanding Teaching in an Adjunct Position, and Outstanding Scholarship, Creative Activities, and other professional accomplishments. Some other awards have been eliminated or moved to other venues, while some have been combined. The dinner is traditionally held at the Law School on the last Sunday of April. Provost Broder was very pleased to announce that one AU student was a Marshall Scholar and two others were Rhodes Scholar finalists. This reflects an increasing quality of students and commitment and excellent mentoring by the faculty.

University Relations

Provost Broder outlined a few changes. Al Checcio, Vice President of University Relations, has resigned to go to Fordham University. Neil Kerwin will reorganize that office’s activities. The department of Athletics and Recreation will report directly to the President, which is consistent with the Patriot League. The university marketing and communications will be moved to the Office of the President and the core development functions will remain intact as they are. Abbey Silverman, currently the director of prospect research and stewardship, will be senior director of development.

Faculty Appointment Process

Regarding the faculty appointment process for the entering cohort of 2006, there are 8 tenure track searches which will be completed before the semester is over. The candidates who are coming in are very strong.

Summer Initiatives

The university has been working with NSLC (National Student League Conference) on the one-credit option for high school students who come to AU to work on the leadership program. There has been progress on the number of high school students involved. This program is a tremendous revenue enhancement for AU and gives high school students an idea of what it is like at the university level, so perhaps they may want to be an AU student. Nathan Price is coordinating this effort.

Summer Distance Requests for Proposals

There will be 16 new courses this summer for a total of 23 courses. This is good news from a revenue standpoint and an opportunity for the faculty to teach during the summer.

Update of Governance Issues, Tony Ahrens

• Professor Ahrens mentioned that seven members of the Senate Ad Hoc Committee on Governance have been elected and up to four more will be appointed.
• He attended the November meeting of the Board of Trustees and reported that the Board has decided to hold off on the President search until after the governance issues have been resolved. The Board has formed a Governance Committee to look at reform to deal with the issues that have been presented to the Board. Furthermore, the meeting was more participatory than previous meetings in that non-members were permitted to voice opinions and ask questions.
• In the meeting, the faculty stressed the extreme importance of the Board’s Governance Committee moving in a manner such that whatever decision be made about reform on the Board by the Board be widely accepted on campus. To that end, the faculty emphasized the importance of open communication. Furthermore, it indicated that it was essential that any consultants that were hired be accepted broadly on campus and that the faculty should have input in the selection of the consultants. The Board also indicated a willingness to allow faculty to nominate possible Board members. The faculty argued for access to the documents that have been sent to the U.S. Senate.

There was an open discussion about the Senate’s role in governance reform. Professor Flug was impressed by the extensiveness of issues the Board was looking at. Professor Jacoby encouraged the Senate to consider the role it may play in Board appointments. Professor Loesburg pointed out that the Board was not saying that the Senate would not have an institutional role but that was not immediately forthcoming from that meeting. Professor Richardson suggested that the process should draw on faculty expertise. Professor Burke indicated that the Board would not any trouble sharing with the Faculty Senate the documents that were sent to the U.S. Senate. But that there are defensive documents that may or may not be shared. Professor Schaeff suggested that there may be potentially large numbers of trustees appointed so there’s a limited time opportunity for change. Professor Cochran indicated that this discussion is premature because the Senate hasn’t heard from its own governance body.

Professor Ahrens noted the process for Board reform would be fluid and that the Board has targeted mid-May, thus giving a 30-day notice, for adopting any changes to the bylaws. Professor Rosenbloom was interested in the expenses of the Ladner episode, in particular what had been and had not been incurred. Professor Samarsinghe asked whether the Board was receptive to campus input and how the faculty could amalgamate opinion across campus. Professor Ahrens responded that it is necessary for campus to work together. The sense is that the Board is expressing an interest in talking and hearing from the campus constituents. It is important to note that the faculty and campus in general won’t know how receptive the Board will be until this is all played out. It’s clear that it is in everyone’s best interest to work together.

Professor Richardson indicated that it is important to see how the different Board members view the process differently, and that it may be a good idea to get to know some of them. Professor Gail Mardirosian wondered if campus was truly united. Professor Ahrens responded that part of the process for the next few months is to get campus more united.

Student Evaluation of Teaching Forms, Lyn Stallings

• The Senate approved the Ad Hoc Committee’s request to redesign the SET in fall 2003 and pilot two forms in spring 2003; the forms were piloted in fall 2004.
• The Ad Hoc Committee members are: Lyn Stallings, Laura Langbein, Bob Jernigan, Bryan Fantie, Haig Mardirosian, John Hyman, John Richardson, and Karen Froslid-Jones.
• The pilot of fall 2004 included fifty-one tenured faculty and eighty–six classes.
• Overall, the new form produces results that are similar to the old form, except that the means are slightly lower in the summative questions on the new form. This may be because the new 7-point scale allows for more variance. Since the old form used varying scales, the committee applied proportion factors to make it comparable to the 7-point scale on the new form.
• The recommendation questions did not produce substantially different results from the summative questions.
• The committee has concluded that the strength of the new form is that it is shorter (which is what the students prefer), the questions are more clear (i.e., it avoids questions with multiple dimensions), the form is easy to see and in bold print, evaluation of teaching is clearly separated from the evaluation of the course, and the scale is uniform and consistent.

After meeting with various groups on campus, the committee has come up with three recommendations.

• First, to remove both recommendation questions.
• Second, to change “I am satisfied with the amount I learned in the course” to “I am satisfied with what I learned in the course.”
• Third, to remove “the purpose of this course was clear.” Lastly, the committee added three questions to the Student Evaluation of Course: “the learning objectives for this course were clear”, “activities required for this class contributed to meeting the learning objectives of this course”, “materials required for this course contributed to meeting the learning objectives.”

In summary, the committee hopes that you approve this new form. The new form is an improvement over the new form in clarity, length, and consistency in scale. And, piloting the new form will probably not produce substantially new results.

At the end of the presentation there was an open discussion. Some Senators asked whether it useful to use the same form for both the undergraduate and the graduate students. It was mentioned that items on the form refer to general teaching concepts and are not designed to be specific. In addition, Professor Stallings mentioned that the length of the form was shortened because in general students do not like to spend very much time on the evaluations and they tend to fill out the questions very quickly. Lastly, Professor Richardson said that the old form was created twelve years ago and that it is time for a new form based on new research and the committee’s professional knowledge. There seems to be an unexpressed presumption about the way the form is used. Is it the sole way for evaluating tenured faculty for tenure? It should not be the sole evaluation for faculty. This should be considered the starting point for evaluation. It was decided by the Senators to send back this new form to Professor Stallings’ committee and they would consult with Professor Schaeff’s committee for further revision.

Professor of the Practice, Richard Bennett

• The University needs a tune up since there are many differences between the adjunct and temporary teachers. While they make a commitment to the students and faculty, temporary faculty add an extra dimension, but then the University ends up firing them at the end of the 5th year. Professor Bennett proposed a new category for these teachers, called the Professors of the Practice.
• Provost Broder stated that 25-30% of the faculty is temporary, of which there are three types. First, are the base temporary positions who can be reappointed without any limit if they are in one of these categories: Washington Semester Program, college writing instruction program, and the foreign language instruction program. These categories have increased over the past ten years as the university has switched to more temps and less adjuncts in an effort to bring more stability. Second, there are the sabbatical and leave replacement faculty who are typically on one-year appointments. Third, there are base faculty positions which are not tenure track positions. Provost Broder added that there is no intent to increase the number of temporary faculty at the expense of tenure track faculty, and there is some flexibility to lower the number of adjuncts and increase the number of temporary faculty.

There was an open discussion regarding how this new category would fit into the existing system. Professor Richardson said that this should be reviewed by the Committee on Faculty Relations and he made two points. Point one is a description of the Duke program. He has equity concerns for these new teachers and fears that they would be considered second class citizens. His second point is that these are excellent teachers but they are not equal, so what is the message the university is sending to the students? There was a question as to whether someone hired at this position would be able to jump to another position? Provost Broder answered that eligibility would be based on teaching for at least five years. Several Senators expressed concern about how the teachers in this new category would be treated. Professor Ahrens suggesting that the topic of Professor of the Practice be discussed at the next Faculty Senate Meeting.

Report of the Chair, Tony Ahrens

Professor Ahrens thanked Pat Wand who is leaving the University. In addition, he encouraged people to attend the winter graduation ceremony on Friday.

Open Discussion

Professor Cochran wants a description of administrative controls over Blackboard from Professor Richardson, who added that he will put in safeguards to prevent this.

The meeting was adjourned at 4:15 p.m.