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SENATE FACULTY MEETING

Minutes Friday April 6, 2007

Attendees: Chuck Craig Senate President, Eric Niewoehner CIOS, Tony Martin Career Education, David Noon Social Sciences, Yuliya Ivanova BPADM, Jill Dumesnil Natural Sciences, Cathy Connor President-elect, Virgil Fredenberg Education, Elise Tomlinson/Jennifer Brown for Lynn Shepherd Library, Lisa Hoferkamp Juneau at Large, Joe Liddle Stika at Large

Ex Officio, Provost Robbie Stell

Absent: Tim Ewest Ketchikan at Large, Jeremy Kane Humanities

This meeting is our first held on video conference this year although Joe Liddle needed Sitka Tandburg for taping UAF Fisheries seminar and no one was present in the televised room in Ketchikan. The system worked well thanks to UAS Cody Bennet!

1. Call to order( 3:05 pm)

2. Approval of minutes of last meeting (March) ATTACHMENT 2.1  JD moved/passed no opposition

3. Approval of today’s agenda/VF moved/approved no amendments

4. Assembly member’s comments/see specific items

6. Chair’s comments/report (3:15 pm)

A) At all UA levels for governance from the Board of Regents to Faculty Alliance to all UA Faculty Senates and campus committees there is an intensive focus on –UA Student Success. Specifically: Why are UA students leaving and why are UA enrollment numbers down. Visit by invited faculty, Vince Tinto, Univ. Syracuse, N.Y. helped to focus efforts and refine questions and assessments. Task Force (TF), established by Chancellor Pugh at UAS, (includes 14 people, 3 subgroups chaired by Joe Nelson, Dick Dent, Chuck Craig) are looking at student groups within their  demographics:18 yrs olds, 25 yr olds, dorm-dwellers. TF is addressing questions like: How can UA students be encouraged to stay within  UA system? Tinto at Faculty Alliance meetings floated the idea of assessing “Student Intent” by polling students online about what specific courses, certificates, or degrees they intend to attain from UA at the time they register for courses. This would enable system-wide assessment of UA institutional success in meeting these student goals.

B) Faculty Alliance: UA-wide…Electronic Activity Report is being activated. It is unknown whether or not UAS Arts and Sciences will be a pilot group to test this during the 2007-2008 academic year.

C) Ongoing discussion about faculty intellectual property rights especially for distance education. Discussion is now being linked with and union negotiations

D) UA staff  sabbaticals have been approved to allow for leaves of absence to take courses, training, improve skill sets, etc.

E) Under discussion is evolving thought on “guaranteed tuition” which has switched to revenue neutral ”predictable tuition” (4-5 year prediction of cost increases upfront for prospective students and families)

7. Faculty Senate Elections 2007-2008

Senate Chair-Elect nominations (accepted/declined)-

Virgil Fredenberg/accept/ Education/, Eric Niewoehner/decline/CIOS/ Tony Martin/decline/Career Ed/ Lynn Shepherd/decline/Library/ David Noon/decline/Social Sciences,/ Anselm Staack/accept/BAPDM, Jill Dumesnil/accept/Natural Science.

President elect Candidates:    Fredenberg/Staack/Dumesnil

At-Large election results

Matt Heavner Natural Sciences elected 2007-2008 Juneau

Sitka at Large /Ketchikan at Large TBA

5. Provost’s comments (3:40 pm).

ATTACHMENT 5.1 (Posting of all syllabi on UASOnline) By Fall 2007, a special section will be provided by IT on UAS Online Course web pages for uploading all UAS course syllabi. This will make it easier for UAS course  assessment process and evaluation of courses using syllabuses. Presently faculty upload their syllabi to a number of locations…generally the UAS online page area has been the Resources section. Also uploaded syllabuses may be found at faculty websites.

Faculty Handbook revisions are underway, standards for Service will be voted on at the next FS meeting.

8. The Ad Hoc Curriculum Clarification Committee suggested changes to the faculty handbook; Lynn Shepherd/Elise Tomlinsen for  Lynn (3:30-3:40 pm) ATTACHMENT 8.1   ATTACHMENT 8.2

Motion 1 Approve new language (8.1) curriculum committee submission & procedures, form revisions VF /Seconded

Friendly amendment 1: change “Policy Change form” to “Changes to Academic Requirements” that crosses faculty (Discipline) lines.. Chuck pointed out that policy is not being changed here and it is not in the purview of the Curriculum Committee to change Policy.

Friendly amendment 2 Minor=small, major=substantive

We treated today’s overview as a first reading. We will reconsider this motion next time when Lynn can be here to present finalized version.

Incomplete Matrix which was attached , was not discussed today.(RS comment) Registrar Barbara Hegel is thinking about transferring Curriculum Committee changes and forms to an Access software database to track changes for curriculum issues…digital curriculum change info can be archived more easily than binders. Hopes for timing of this new system are for the end of summer 2007. ET commented that based on her efforts in this area it would be challenging to complete in that time period.

9. First Annual Faculty Excellence Awards; Cathy Connor

ATTACHMENT 9.1

Purpose: To recognize UAS faculty excellence in the three areas of endeavor….. Teaching, Service, and Research.

Eligible faculty: All full time faculty (tenure track and regular) on any of the UAS campuses (J,K,S)

No part-time faculty will be eligible.

Application Procedure: application forms will be posted on the UAS faculty senate webpage. Faculty Senate will annually set the deadline date. For this first run the deadline date for application and support letter submission will be April 27, 2007. Submissions must be made to Faculty Senators from each department. Faculty Senators will forward their submissions to President elect (Connor in 2007).

Selection Procedure: A FS subcommittee of 2-3 volunteer senators will forward meet, assess applicants and forward their desired candidates to Provost Stell and Chancellor Pugh for final selection of the 3 awardees.

Selection criteria

Faculty Senate Awards ad hoc subcommittee will select from submissions by faculty Senators from all Departments. Selection criteria will be guidelines for research/teaching/service developed for the UAS faculty handbook used by Faculty Evaluation committees and common sense.

Awarding Procedure

Faculty Awards will be announced at the Fall 2007 faculty convocation for 2006-2007 awardees and thereafter at each spring commencement (beginning with 2007-2008 awardees during May 2008 commencement). Awards will be $1,000 and an E BIZ airline ticket for each of the 3 faculty awardees thanks to the generosity of Provost Stell.

10. Report from Service Committee with their suggested changes to the faculty handbook; Jill Dumesnil

ATTACHMENT 10.1

ATTACHMENT 10.2

University Service  Matrix-First Reading…. Description and Matrix review in faculty department groups…give Jill feedback.

Jill’s feedback to date (You need more examples in matrix vs. you have too many examples in matrix).

Jill will bring back for final reading at the next meeting.

11. Update on the Faculty Development Seminar 2006-2007  by Jennifer Brown.

In general the organizers have received good feed back from participants. Jennifer proposes that for next year the seminar continues as a

One semester only course. Organizer(s) would deploy the topics deemed most useful by past participants.

Second semester have new faculty mentored ,,,,,,,by experienced faculty (service for mentoring faculty). Cathy DeLorenzo would like to facilitate seminar and help organize 6-7 expected 2007-2008 new faculty with spring senior faculty mentors. Connor suggested establishing mentoring in the fall when most needed and continuing entire first year.

Jennifer will not be an organizer by will be available to serve in an advisory role.

Issues:

Presently new faculty attendance is not required. Expectations between new faculty and their Department Chairs should be well understood, Attendance should be required and linked to workload service.

Jill recommended 2 organizers who represented the opposite teaching style spectrums of distance-delivered versus face to face classroom teaching to identify and implement a variety of seminar presenters for the wide array of faculty roles required at UAS.

Meeting adjourned at ~5:00 pm.

Minutes by C. Connor

 
 

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