Over flow Meeting

May 1, 2003

I. Roll Call

Members Present: Abel, Adams, Banerjee, Bell, Collings, Graham, Hale, Kane, Kneller, Kolenbrander, Lunnen, Mallory, Mercer, Pennington, Philyaw, Proffit, Spencer, Smith, Tholkes, Vihnanek, Chamberlin, Bardo

Members Absent: Beam, Henderson, Huff, Metcalf, Noel, Oran, Shults, Burns

Members with Proxies: Caruso, Wallace, Wooten, Starr

II. Announcements

A. Dr. Bardo, Chancellor

There is still no budget. There may be a 3% cut to the budget. We will receive growth money and perhaps come out even.

The dean for the College of Business will be appointed in a few days.

B. Mary Adams, Faculty Assembly delegate

http://www.wcu.edu/assembly/minutes_4_03.htm

1. We need to begin to dialogue among faculty, staff, students and business about why business are leaving the country. Perhaps it is not just economics. We are losing service jobs and jobs that pay well.

C. Nancy Dillard, UAC chair- No report

D. Newt Smith, Chair of the Faculty

1. Thanks to the Senators who have finished their term!

2. There is no final year end summary.

3. Newt will send Gretchen Battaille a letter responding to her concerns. It will contain what we have accomplished as well as future plans to address concerns.

4. Concerning restructuring. We still have a lot of hard work to do. We need to revise the Faculty Handbook. Members of the current task force will be the core of the group. Some new members will be added. We will study and vote on the new Handbook section by section until its done. We hope to have next years election under the new structure.

5. The Delaware Report: The old report of faculty load didnπt work. The Delaware report studied what faculty do beside teaching. It is being used system wide and can be used within the AFE process.

Discussion:

a. Some things are not in the report. It is not definitive.

b. We can add things if we want to. Send suggestions to Paul Voight. This may also be done by department.

c. We run the risk of people not doing things if it isnπt on the form.

III. Council Reports

A. Faculty Affairs, Gael Graham chair

Report of the Council of Faculty Affairs

2002-2003

We met six times during the year, and conducted some business electronically.

Actions taken by the CFA:

Recommended that Dr. Alan Altany speak to the Senate, for information only, about his proposed ≥certificate≤ in teaching excellence. Nothing further came of this.

Recommended that the administration include salaries of part-time faculty along with the BD-119 (although they cannot be formally a part of this document). I donπt know if this has been done.

Defined 4-4 teaching load plus office hours as 80% of a load, as the criteria for designating the new full-time lecturers (who receive benefits). Emphasized flexibility at the departmental level in defining these loads, so as to fairly reward those who taken on additional responsibilities (labs, advising, heavy-duty grading). 20 part time faculty members were converted to benefits-eligible positions.

Asked Senate to encourage faculty to use 5th week grading reports as the opening line in dialogue between faculty and students about course expectations.

Spent time discussing what constitutes a full-time load for regular faculty. Collected data from faculty on the types of work outside of teaching they do. Concluded that faculty are grossly overworked and underpaid. No solution in sight.

Asked about the rapid increase in the numbers of non-tenure track faculty. Got what looked like good data from Mary Adams, but administration sent around a memo poking holes in the data, and saying that things were really more complex than this. Others have pointed out that WCU benefits from having small class sizes and needed NTT faculty in order to keep classes downãbecause weπve not been able to hire FTTT faculty to do this, presumably because of the retention problem. So we have no good answer as to how a cap could be put on NTT faculty. General sense that this issue should be pursued. In the absence of administrative support for our efforts to garner information, we felt stymied to come up with a åstrategic planπ to deal with the problem.

We examined the phased retirement program and spent some time discussing this. Concluded that most of the damage to departments was done before the 3-year cap was put on. Recommended changing WCUπs guidelines for PR so that every year, each department will determine whether or not it needs to limit participation in the PR program before any faculty member has stated their intention to participate.

Recommended putting the current Faculty and Staff benefits committee under the purview of the UAC, while retaining a committee or subcommittee to keep an eye solely on faculty benefit.

Agenda items for next year

We still think itπs worth trying to figure out a way to limit the use of NTT faculty. It seems as though once these numbers go up, they never come down.

We never got around to looking at it, but several people had recommended early in the year thinking of creative ways to reward faculty in these times when salaries are stagnant or declining. This is probably still worth thinking about.

B. Instruction and Curriculum Council, Scott Philyaw

The Council accomplished the following items:

1. Revision of the Academic year calendar;

2. Redefining majors and minors;

3. Reviewed and revised ≥first year≤ experience;

4. Restructured Faculty Center/Library Committee;

5. Responded to issues raised in the Battaille memo;

6. Presented report for teaching of first year students.

C. Student Affairs Council, Debasiah Banerjeee, chair

What the Student Affairs Council did during the 2002-2003 academic year

Charge: Need a policy on when should WCU students declare a major?

Made a motion proposing a 45 hours policy. Motion passed by senate

Charge: Change the wording of the new probation/suspension policy adopted by the Senate in Spring π02 to read ≥Students are placed on academic probation when [emphasis added] their cumulative WCU grade point average falls below 2.00.≤ instead of ≥Students are placed on academic probation the first time [emphasis added] their cumulative WCU grade point average falls below 2.00.≤

Made a motion proposing change of wording as suggested. Motion passed by senate

Report on the Committee work:

• The University Scholarship Committee met on April 15, 2003 for the purpose of selecting recipients for WCU Endowment Scholarships. These scholarships each have selection criteria, which are specified by the donor when the endowment is set up. Examples of the selection criteria specified are financial need, major, county/state of origin, GPA, or some combination of criteria. The committee awarded 14 new scholarships and renewed 27 scholarships that had financial need as one of the selection criteria. The total amount awarded in this category was $38,681. The committee awarded 7 new scholarships and renewed 11 scholarships that have no financial need component attached to the criteria. The total awarded in this category was $13,366.

• The ARR committee met three times (June 2002, August 2002, and January 2003) to hear appeals for suspensions or those on suspension under the old policy wanting to return to WCU earlier than the old policy permitted. The APR committee met again in April 2003 to hear appeals from 6 students who had been denied admission. The committee will meet again sometime in May to hear suspension appeals from Spring 2003.

Unresolved Issues:

ß Technology issues:

Charge: The computer labs are terribly slow and have a bare minimum of software. There are no sandboxes or media centers with support for the technology whizzes that could be leading the way. Donπt we wish we could establish a special cadre of students who got scholarships or work-study support for being truly innovative and truly supportive of student computing? Maybe we can look into ways of getting better student support. (Initiated, gathered information and appointed a subcommittee; not completed).

ß Freshman computer policy:

A few faculty members have pointed out that there are freshmen students who are being admitted to WCU without computers. Is this an issue that should be examined by the Council on Student Affairs? Maybe someone from the Admissions Office could help us understand the policy and how it is being enforced, monitored. The freshman computer policy has been in place for a number of years and maybe it needs to be reviewed. (Initiated, gathered information and appointed a subcommittee; not completed).

IV. Old Business

A. Health Benefits

There may be increases in premiums, changes in deductibles and prescription costs.

It is in conference committee now.

Peg Shafer will have the details and will let the faculty/staff know as soon as possible.

The problem comes because money was borrwed from the funded and now we are not properly funded.

The benefit package hurts our recruiting. Legistators need to know how difficult it is .

The Staff benefits committee is looking into this.

3. We may have the worst benefit package in the country.

4. We need to gather factual information about the effect of the benefit package on WCU and send it to the Faculty Assembly and the Legislators.

5. We need to join forces with other state employees to effect a change.

V. New Business

A. Ratification of new senators, officers and committees for 2003-2004

Motion to Accept the officers and committees of Senator for 2003-2004

(Abel and Philyaw)

Passed by voice vote

Proffit and Spencer were appointed to the UAC.

B Motion to ratify resolution as presented by the Faculty Assembly (Abel & Graham).

Passed by voice vote.

C. The 4plus 1 Masterπs degree program

Motion to bring to action (Graham & Philyaw)

Discussion/ questions:

1. The old program was revised.

2. What about the issue of double counting of courses in undergraduate and graduate programs.

3. This will not be allowed. Courses may be used only once.

4. There will be 30 in 1year.

5. Modeled after the NC State program. Crossed listed grad/undergrad courses may be taken in the senior year.

6. It doesnπt work in all departments. It works where skills are cumulative ie. math.

7. 4 plus 1 is not for every program. The department must put together a proposal and take it to the Graduate Council.

8. It will impact some undergraduate programs.

9. The proposal must be submitted to the Graduate Council.

10. There is not a template for this.

11. This 4 plus 1 went through the correct acceptance process. All changes went to the Liberal Studies Oversight Committee and then to CIC. Graduate changes went to the Graduate Council. It then come to the Senate.

12. There are problem. It only works for programs not whole departments.

13. What is the intention of the 4 plus 1 program?

14. It allows students to get a masters degree in a reasonable amount of time.

15. part of the problem is that there is no curriculum committee at the undergraduate level. That problem need to be addressed.

Call the question ( Graham & Spencer)

Passed by voice vote.

Vote on 4 plus 1 program motion

17 favor 2 opposed

The meeting adjourned at 4:30 PM

Respectfully submitted

Elizabeth Vihnanek