WESTERN CAROLINA UNIVERSITY

FACULTY SENATE MEETING MINUTES

Date: February 13,2003

Taft Botner Room (Killian 104)

  1. ANNOUNCEMENTS
    1. Minutes of meeting were approved as corrected (Mercer & Hale)
    2. 1. Edit out all names from question/discussion sections.

      2. Old business, B4 was asked as a question.

    3. Dr. Collings for Chancellor Bardo,
    4. 1. Reminder : Attend the Regional Summit on February 21 at 10:30 A.M., in RRAC. Call the Chancellor’s office if you wish to attend.

      2. Legislature is still organizing for this year. No work done on budget as yet.

      Questions/Discussion:

      1. Is Arts and Sciences going to be split into two colleges?

      2. There has been some discussion, but nothing formal has taken place.

      3. President Broad has asked for raises for faculty. Perhaps this is wrong and she should be asking for a "cost of living adjustment". It might be easier politically.

      4. The legislature doesn’t differentiate when it comes to asking for money. The Office of the President (OP) can only ask for raises for faculty. SPA employees get raises as other State employees do.

      5. Should public employees lobby for higher taxes?

    5. Mary Adams, Senior Faculty Assembly Delegate, no report.
    6. D. Lex Davis, SGA President, no report.

      E. Keith Stiles, Staff Forum Chair: No report.

      D. Nancy Dillard, University Advisory Council Chair

      The Council discussed the following issues:

      1.A request to the Chancellor to review the current e-mail system in place for students. It is needed for good communication between faculty and students.

      2. WCU will begin to convert to Banner software for administrative functions as soon as possible. Other functions will be converted over the next five years. Banner will also allow for an alternate ID number.

      F. Newt Smith, Chair of Faculty

      1. We are continuing with the restructuring process.

      2. We should proceed with elections under the old governance system.

    7. Roll Call

    Members present: Abel, Atterholt, Banerjee, Beam, Caruso, Collings, Graham, Hale, Kane, Kneller, Kolenbrander, Mallory, Mercer, Pennington, Philyaw, Shults, Spencer, Smith, Starr, Tholkes, Vihnanek, Wallace, Wooten,

    Members with proxies: Burns, Chamberlin, Adams, Henderson, Lunnen, Metcalf, Noel, Oran, Proffit,

    Members absent: Bardo, Huff, Bell.

  2. COUNCIL REPORTS

A. Faculty Affairs, Gael Graham chair:

1. The Council will be discussing phased retirement and it’s effect on the Colleges and departments.

B. Council on Instruction and Curriculum , Scott Philyaw, chair:

1.The subcommittees are meeting but have thing to report.

2. There is the motion from the Liberal Studies Over-site Committee.

Motion:

Place the First Year Seminar in an independent category that does not intersect with the perspectives areas. Because the sciences have been placed in the Liberal Studies core, this change is necessary to allow freshman seminar in the sciences.

Remove the requirement that First Year Seminars must fulfill a Perspectives category. This change is designed to encourage faculty to propose innovative seminars and opens the door to development of truly interdisciplinary seminars. This change will also help clarify advising issues raised by the current overlap with the Perspectives area requirement. The academic rigor of the First Year Seminars will be maintained because they still must meet the general objectives of the Liberal Studies program.

Change the name of the Freshman Seminar to First Year Seminar. This change will make the seminar’s label gender- neutral.

Summary of the CIC discussion:

The Liberal Studies Oversight Committee proposed the following changes to the Freshman Seminar component of the Liberal Studies program to the CIC, where it was approved on February 10. Additional points that were discussed are included after the proposal.

The motion is:

1) to place First Year Seminars in an independent category that does not intersect with the Perspectives areas. Because the sciences have been placed in the Liberal Studies core, this change is necessary to allow freshman seminars in the sciences.

2) to remove the requirement that First Year Seminars must fulfill a Perspectives Category. This change is designed to encourage faculty to propose innovative seminars, and opens the door to development of truly interdisciplinary seminars. This change will also help clarify advising issues raised by the current overlap with the Perspectives area requirement. The academic rigor of First Year Seminars will be maintained because they still must meet the general objectives of the Liberal Studies program.

3) to change the name of Freshman Seminar to First Year Seminar. This change will make the seminar's label gender-neutral.

 

Members of the LSOC attended the CIC’s discussion of this proposal and explained that this proposal would NOT change the following attributes of the Freshman Seminar.

A) Seminars would still be academically rigorous. These proposed changes are NOT intended to introduce transition issues into the Seminar.

B) Students would still be expected to take the seminar during their first semester (This would be Fall semester for the overwhelming majority of new students.)

C) The number of hours (42) required for Liberal Studies would not change.

D) The LSOC is planning to revise the LS document to reflect the changes in the science requirement and, if approved by the senate, today's proposed changes to the seminar.

Questions/ Discussion ( Senate)

1. It is a good proposal to help with the implementation of the Liberal Studies requirements. We don’t want to think of liberal studies as bits and pieces but as a whole. By taking seminars out of the perspectives area, any faculty member will be able to propose a seminar. Hopefully this will lead to more seminar classes.

2. This is not meant to change the rigor or in-depth feeling, but to get away from the "grade 13" syndrome.

3. Where do the hours from the freshman seminar go?

4. They will be transferred to the freshmen seminar. It will be 21hrs. in the core, (including 6 hrs. in the sciences,) 3 hrs freshmen seminar, 18 hrs perspectives.

VOTE:

Passed by voice vote. One abstained.

    1. Council on Student Affairs, Debasish Banerjee, Chair

The Council is discussing :

1. The Freshmen computer policy as a whole including hardware and software issues.

2. Studying other schools to see when they declare a major. No recommendations yet.

  1. OTHER BUSINESS
    1. Old Business

1. Restructuring Task Force- David Claxton

The Task Force is reviewing with the intent to change:

a. The Senate membership of the Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs and the Chancellor or designee. Should they have a vote?

b. General Senate membership. May recommend each college decide how to elect their Senators. Who will be eligible for membership? Tenure track, part-time?

c. Representation of part-time, non-tenure track faculty

d. Rename "Senate Leadership Council" Clear up the purpose of this group. It will not set the yearly agenda for the Senate but will be an input group. It willcontinue to organize the agenda for monthly meetings.

e. Revisit the Council on Academic Issues and Curriculum with the idea that the council will be split into two councils.

Questions/Discussion:

1.One compromise may be to share Senators among departments.

2. Why not turn Senate membership of part-time and non-tenured faculty over to the colleges?

3. Senators are allotted in this manner; 2 per college and 1 for every 20 faculty.

Motion to un-table the major/minor proposal (Philyaw & Abel)

Vote passed by voice.

Motion to make the following changes: (Philyaw and Starr)

CIC has spent its last three meetings discussing a series of catalog changes for Major, Minor and Program Requirements as proposed by Academic Affairs. Current policies are on pages 67-68 of the 2002-2003 undergraduate catalog.

Major Requirements: CIC voted to remove the upper limit on the number of hours required for a major, to wit: "A major consists of a group of prescribed and elective courses (totaling at least 27 hours)."

Minor Requirements: CIC voted to strike item (4) of the opening paragraph on page 67, "in cases where majors are less than forty-six hours, a minor, second major, concentration, or other approved program as specified by the appropriate school and department." Note: Similar language is repeated in third paragraph on page 67.

Program Requirements: CIC voted to include program requirements as part of major requirements, thereby deleting the section on Program Requirements on page 67.

 

Waivers and Substitutions: The Office of Academic Affairs also asked CIC to review the current policy on Waivers and Substitutions found at the top of page 68. The committee consensus was that this approval process for departmental waivers and substitutions should be left in the hands of the department heads as it is now.

Question/Discussion

1. It was the consensus of the Council that this language only apply to the University and not to each individual program.

2. This is to clear up the catalog language.

Motion to call the question (Shults & Spencer)

Vote : Passed by voice vote.

B. New Business

Motion: It is suggested that because our mission statement is a legal document that one of the Councils review the statement to be sure it reflects what we are actually doing. ( Mercer & Pennington)

Questions/Discussion:

1. Won’t the SACS review do that?

2. Won’t the Regional Summit meeting look at that?

3. Suggest that the Council on Curriculum & Instruction look at the Mission Statement.

4. It needs to be looked at seriously. We need to look at the mechanisms available to us by which we can "enforce" the mission.

5. Some departments look at the mission as part of strategic planning.

6. We need to look at the structure as part of the SACS review. Implementation of the mission is a SACS issue.

7. Program assessment must assess meeting our mission.

Vote: Passed by voice vote.

C. Curriculum items

Reviewed and approved.

The meeting adjourned at 4:10 PM ( Philyaw)

Respectfully submitted,

Elizabeth Vihnanek