Faculty Senate Council October 13, 11:00 a.m. Minutes

Transcription

1 Faculty Senate Council October 13, 11:00 a.m. Minutes Present: Don Ulin, Matt Kropf, Kim Bailey, Steve Hardin, Marietta Frank, Julian Joyner, Ernie Kallenbach, Richard Melka, Greg Page, Jean Truman, and Tim Ziaukas Items of Business: Approval of Minutes: A motion to approve the minutes from the September 8, 2015 and September 22, 2015 Faculty Senate Council meetings was made by Dick Melka. Tim Ziaukas seconded the motion. The minutes passed unanimously. Next Faculty Senate Council Meeting: October 27, 2015 in the Academic Dean s Conference Room at 11:00 a.m. Next Full Faculty Senate Meeting: October 29, 2015 in University Room, Commons- Frame Westerberg at 11:30 a.m. (Sept. 29 th meeting was rescheduled for October 29 th ) Meeting of Campus Senate Presidents and Others: Don Ulin gave a report from the ITV meeting held with Oakland s Senate President Frank Wilson and the regional campus s Faculty Senate groups. The meeting was attended by Don Ulin, Jeff Guterman, Dick Melka, one person from Johnstown, and a few people from Greensburg. Wilson started the meeting by mentioning the possibility of revisiting the faculty salary benchmarking issue. This started a discussion about the policy differences between campuses, especially the Distance Learning policy since Bradford is the only campus conducting online learning. It was discovered that teaching overloads are a problem at most of the regional campuses. Conversation also revealed the policy differences in Promotion and Renewal on each campus, which lead to talk of possibly sharing each other s Tenure Document. Some discussion from Bradford Faculty Senate Council took place on whether or not sharing this information would be advantageous or disadvantageous. Division Discussions on Senate Election Procedures: The main issues that came out of the division discussions were: What happens when an alternate can t attend or isn t up to date on the issue? One division didn t like the idea of competing against each other or putting themselves forward to lose. One division really liked the idea of alternates and was already doing selfnominations. Two divisions sent out s and no discussion arose on the issue. Classes are now scheduled on Tuesday/Thursday during the time set aside for Faculty Senate Committee meetings. This is causing disruption for committees, especially the Tenure Committee. Should Tenure and Promotion/Renewal Committees have a set time so it is not disruptive to the committee and faculty who elect to be on this committee don t schedule a class during that time period? Faculty Senate Council Meeting Page 1 Submitted by: Kimberly Bailey

2 Alternates can be beneficial to get information back to the division. Responding to Environmental Hazards Update: On August 21, 2015 during a summer re-roofing project, fumes in Swarts Hall created concern for faculty in the building. The issue was forwarded to Senate Council. There is a policy in place for steps in the case of an environmental hazard. Council felt that policy needed to be publicized better, especially at times when contractors will be using hazardous materials. President s Definition of Academic Excellence: Dick Melka distributed a handout to look over for the next meeting. This item was tabled due to lack of time. Distance Learning: Steve Hardin distributed a handout to look over for the next meeting. This item was tabled due to lack of time. Faculty Senate Council Minutes: A motion was presented by Tim Ziaukas to change the minutes for council to reflect people in attendance, people who are absent, and people who have been excused. Greg Page seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously. Institutional Advancement: Ryan Sowers, Assistant Director for Annual Giving, asked if he could speak a few words to Faculty at a full Faculty Senate Meeting. Council agreed to invite him to the January 2016 full Faculty Senate Meeting. John Slimick: Recently John Slimick, who was a very active Faculty Senate Member, passed away. Don Ulin requested that Faculty Senate publicly acknowledge John Slimick for his years of dedication to the Faculty Senate. A motion to adjourn was made by Tim Ziaukas. Matt Kropf seconded the motion. The motion carried and the meeting adjourned at 12:15 p.m. Faculty Senate Council Meeting Page 2 Submitted by: Kimberly Bailey

3 Attachment A Recommendations for changes to the procedures for electing representatives to Senate committees The following concerns have given rise to lengthy deliberations on Senate Council regarding how to make faculty governance simpler, more effective, more transparent, and more democratic: No alternates exist for the Senate standing committees (except Promotion and Renewal, Tenure, and Faculty Development). In most cases a member who cannot attend is free to ask a colleague to attend in his or her place. However, it is often difficult to ask colleagues to perform extra committee service as a personal favor with no professional recognition. Furthermore, such an informal alternate would not count toward a quorum on the committee or be allowed to vote. By contrast, an elected alternate would serve (if necessary) as part of his or her recognized professional duties, not as a personal favor to a colleague, and would have full voting rights on that committee. Committee chairs would be better able to count on full representation, or at least a quorum, at committee meetings, something that is not currently the case on all committees. Faculty wish to serve on a committee but are not put forward by their chairs. There may be good reason for a chair s desire that a given faculty member not serve on a committee (ranging from doubts about that individual s capacity for the position to a desire to protect the faculty member from excessive committee work). Nevertheless, faculty with a strong desire to serve on a committee should be given the opportunity to run for that position in a fair and open election. Currently there is no uniform procedure for selecting nominees for Senate standing committees, and so often the slate is compiled by the chair with little or no input from faculty in the division. As the individual with the broadest knowledge of faculty workloads and abilities within a division, the chair may be uniquely qualified to make such determinations. However, to place such decisions entirely in the hands of an administrator is contrary to all principles of faculty governance. Most of the time our current haphazard process may work just fine, but there should be clearly established procedures for nominating and electing Senate committees, including the means by which an individual faculty member may run for a position regardless of the wishes of his or her supervisor. Elections are usually uncontested. While such a procedure may greatly simplify the process of associating names with committee positions, it is not conducive to effective faculty governance. First, it creates a climate in which competition for positions in faculty governance may be perceived as anticollegial, insofar as senate elections are largely determined by the choices of the chairs in consultation with individual faculty members. Thus an individual s choice to run for a committee position is perceived as an affront to both the chair and the chair s designated nominee. Second, it encourages a lackadaisical attitude about faculty governance when there are no choices to be made regarding who is to represent us on the various committees or in the leadership of the Senate itself. Some might cite Senate s general lack of power or effectiveness in any meaningful decision-making processes as the real reason for that attitude, but it is a vicious circle: the more seriously we take the process of faculty governance, the more effective it will be. Third, with almost entirely uncontested elections, the suggestion has been made that we dispense with elections altogether except in those few instances where the number of candidates exceeds the number of positions. Such a move would indeed simplify the procedure, but it would mean giving up on the idea of faculty governance through open elections, as chairs would become officially the deciders of all Senate committee representation. Individuals who wished to run for a position against the wishes of the chair would be seen as even more disruptive to the process than they currently are. Faculty Senate Council Meeting Attachment A Submitted by: Kimberly Bailey

4 The goals of the following recommendations are as follows: 1. To make faculty governance at UPB more democratic both in appearance and in reality. 2. To insure fuller representation on all committees, even when individuals are unable to attend the meetings. 3. To recognize and validate the work of individuals who attend meetings in place of colleagues who are unable to do so. 4. To encourage all faculty and administrators to take faculty governance more seriously, putting Senate and its committees in a position to act more effectively in the interests of faculty, students, and the university as a whole. 5. To simplify the election process by (a) making it more transparent and (b) eliminating the separate ballots for alternates on those committees currently requiring them. Proposed changes to senate elections procedures Following lengthy deliberation at Faculty Senate Council meetings last spring and some vigorous debate at the final meeting of the full Faculty Senate, Council would like to propose the following changes to the procedures by which faculty are elected to serve on standing committees of the Faculty Senate. Selection of alternates Alternates will no longer be chosen by separate ballot. Instead the alternate position will go to the runnerup for each elected position. Whenever possible, there should be * at least one candidate for each position beyond the number required to fill the regular seats: in other words, two candidates for committees requiring one division representative and three candidates for committees requiring two. In the event that one individual is elected to serve on more than one Senate standing committee, he or she will have the option of taking the alternate position on one of those committees. In that case, the runner-up will serve as the regular representative. (If a division, due to its composition, is unable to provide more than two candidates for the Tenure Committee, an alternate will be selected after the elections from outside the division. The same policy would apply should similar circumstances arise in relation to any other committees.) ( * Note: I say whenever possible, there should be because we cannot absolutely require someone to run for a committee position or punish a division for not coming up with two candidates. We are only trying to establish multi-candidate ballots as the norm.) Self-nomination Each division chair will submit the names of candidates from her or his division by the Monday following the first division meeting in February for all committees requiring division representation. The chair may also include names of candidates for at-large positions. The names should be submitted to the Senate secretary, who will distribute them to all members of faculty Senate by the following Monday. Individuals who wish to add their names to the ballot, for either at-large or division seats, will have two weeks from that Monday to do so by contacting the Senate Secretary. Faculty are encouraged but not required to discuss their interest in Senate committees with their chairs. The purpose of these changes is to make the Senate election process both simpler and more democratic. It will be simpler, because we will not have separate elections for alternate positions. It will be more democratic because (a) we will largely avoid the current situation of mostly uncontested elections and (b) individuals will have a clear and established procedure for self-nomination, instead of having to rely on the will of the chair. Faculty Senate Council Meeting Attachment A Submitted by: Kimberly Bailey

5 Faculty Senate Council Meeting Attachment B Submitted by: Kimberly Bailey

6 Faculty Senate Council Meeting Attachment C Submitted by: Kimberly Bailey

7 Faculty Senate Council Meeting Attachment C Submitted by: Kimberly Bailey

8 Faculty Senate Council Meeting Attachment C Submitted by: Kimberly Bailey