Minutes

Faculty Senate Meeting

August 19, 2003

On August 19, 2003, the SPSU Faculty Senate met in M100, Auditorium, at noon. Prof. Tom Currin, Moderator of the Faculty presided.

 

Senators

  

Ex-Officio/Visitors
 

D. Brani (MET)

  

D. Hornbeck (Int. VPAA)
 

A. Churella (SIS)

  

W. Barnes (Dean-ACC)
 

L. Dollar (IET)

  

A. Gabrielli (Dean-AS)
 

J. Duff (BCP)

  

M. Murphy (Dean-CSE)
 

S. Edwards (Math)

  

B. Pearce (Int. Dean –ETM)
 

A. Faruque (for J. Rupf)(CS)

    
 

W. Hodges (ECET)

  

R. Bennett (SIS)
 

B. Nuhfer-Halten (SIS)

  

P. Carden (chair-IET)
 

R. Richardson (Mgt)

  

V. Desagi (chair-CS)
 

J.A. Samra (IT)

  

K. Rainey (chair-TCOM)
 

M. Stevens (HTC)

  

S. Tippens (director-CTE)
 

W.Thain (ECET)

    
 

S. Vincent (Lib)

    
 

A. Wang (SE)

    
 

M. Wilson (CET)

    

1. Welcoming remarks-Moderator

1.1 Two handouts were issued.

1.1.1 Agenda with attachment: Dr. Rossbacher’s e-mail to the moderator, dated June 13, 2003, titled "Re: P&P 803.08 on faculty promotion)

1.1.2 Senate Items 3/16/03 (Rev. 8/19/03): List of items on faculty docket

1.2 Moderator, Dr. Tom Currin, and Faculty Secretary, Prof. Robert Dreyer, were introduced.

1.3 Meetings are scheduled approximately every two weeks. Please refer to the calendar in the Fall 2003 course bulletin. Hopefully unscheduled meeting will not be required.

1.4 Senators were requested to review all the meeting agendas and converse with their faculty about their faculty’s concerns. Note that all senate meetings are open to faculty and staff. And this year, there are many things that affect both the faculty and the staff.

2. Introduction of new senators-Mark Stevens

2.1 Prof. Mark Stevens introduced the new senators: Prof. Hodges and Thain (ECET), Prof. Rupf (CS), Prof. Wang (SE), Prof. Samra (IT), Prof. Vincent (Lib), Prof. Rizzuto (Arch), Prof. Duff (BCP), Prof. Brani (MET)

Prof Tippens (Ex. Officio –CTE)

3. Overview of Senate’s Goals for the Year-Moderator

3.1 Goals are to develop the P&Ps as per the 8/16/03 "Senate Items" document.

3.2 Primary goal is the Promotion and Tenure P&Ps, since this is the fourth year that SPSU is using "working" P&Ps. One reason for this situation is that new P&Ps have been dependent on the Statutes, which in turn are based on the re-organization, which were only approved last year.

3.3 Discussion on goals.

3.3.1 Question: are drafts of P&Ps on-line? Answer: No, since there are over 100 draft P&Ps under consideration with over 40 draft P&Ps affecting the faculty. The moderator keeps hard copies of all of the drafts and their iterations. Only those P&Ps approved by the President are posted on the SPSU web site. Senators should have e-mails with the drafts attached.
      1. Important reminder: procedures to develop P&Ps have been approved and are on the web. Basically a draft is reviewed by the senior staff (VPAA et al), then sent to the Senate for review, then sent to the faculty for their approval, and then sent to the President for approval.
      2. Note that currently the President ended up with two drafts of the Promotion P&P- one from the faculty and one from the senior staff.

3.3.4 The 15 P&Ps on the 8/16/03 list were originated by the VPAA, and reviewed by the senior staff,

and are ready for senate review.
      1. Note that the P&Ps are NOT in effect until the President approves them, except there are "working" ("acting") P&Ps for promotion and tenure that are in effect.
  1. Discussion on How to Achieve the Goals-Full Senate

4.1 After discussion, the consensus was to look at both the tenure and promotion P&Ps, but first focus on the direction the senate wants to go. E.g. some of the questions to be resolved are the faculty status of librarians, the President’s concerns, as per her e-mail, etc. E.g. how to handle faculty who have had significant release time, how to evaluate administrators with faculty status, etc.
    1. Action Items

4.2.1 Moderator’s action item #1: To allow the senators to be more productive before the next meeting, a subcommittee is to be formed to determine the big questions, and their solutions in terms of the promotion and the tenure P&Ps.

Chair is Prof. Dollar, and Prof. Brani, Nuhfer-Halten, and Stevens volunteered to serve.

4.2.2 Moderator’s action item #2: All other senators, and interested faculty and staff, should contact this subcommittee, by Friday, Aug 22, about their "big" questions and proposed solutions. Prof. Dollar can be reached at edollar@spsu.edu, and/or x7379.

5. IT-Dr. Richardson

    1. Prof. Richardson, on behalf of the IT department identified two IT areas of importance.

5.2 With respect to the Spam problem, IT is seeking feedback on solutions, noting that aggressive strategies

might hamper some faculty’s access to e-mail. One suggested solution, to reduce spam attacking group e-mailings, is to only allow group e-mails to be sent from on-campus computers. A Symantec product is on order and will be evaluated.
    1. The library and other departments are bringing wireless connectivity to campus.
      1. One concern was noted: this could allow students who use notebooks during tests, to "google" answers.

5.4 Suggestion with respect to determining the faculty’s concern about spam, is to use the IT faculty advisory committee to solicit ideas.

6 Promotion and Tenure P&Ps, Rossbacher’ email regarding Promotion P&P

6.1 Issue was briefly addressed earlier and will drive the next senate meeting.

7. Other.

7.1 Secretary was charged to send an e-mail to all SPSU standing committee chairs to develop their committee’s P&Ps as soon as possible. Note that this is an opportunity to rebuild, redefine, these committees.

7.2 Question to moderator: is there an up-to-date Senate web site? Answer: No because no resources have been provided the Senate.
  1. Adjourn
    1. Next meeting, Tuesday Sep 2, 2003, noon
    2. Meeting adjourned at 12:52pm

_____________

Secretary

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Moderator