UNIVERSITY OF RHODE ISLAND

Kingston, Rhode Island

FACULTY SENATE

MINUTES

Faculty Senate Executive Committee Meeting #10

October 28, 2003

1. The meeting was called to order at 1:00 p.m. on Tuesday, October 28, 2003 in the third floor conference room in Green Hall, Chairperson Beckman presiding. All members were present.

2. The minutes of Executive Committee Meeting #9, October 21, 2003 were approved with minor editorial corrections.

3. Announcements/Correspondence

a. The Agenda for the October 30, 2003 Meeting of the Board of Governors was circulated for information.

b. Chairperson Beckman reported that she had attended the October 24 meeting of the Board of Governors Academic and Student Affairs Committee at which the main topic of discussion was tenure and promotion processes at the three institutions.

She said that she had also attended a meeting of the Subcommittee on Articulation and Transfer at which the group identified a number of transfer issues remaining to be resolved, including the transfer of credits for students who have chosen not to pursue one of the agreed-upon majors and issues relative to transferring general education credits.

c. Copies of "Indicators of Quality" by Thomas S. Cleary from the Spring 2001 issue of Planning for Education were distributed. Chairperson Beckman asked members of the Executive Committee to review the article, which had been forwarded to them by Ms. Morrissey and indicated that she wanted to refer to it later in the meeting with regard to both the accompaniment/complement to the PCA and efforts by Mr. Bakr to develop measures for monitoring quality indicators for the Strategic Plan.

d. Ms. Grubman announced that Professor Ramstad's meeting with the Executive Committee has been rescheduled for November 4, 2003 at 2:00 p.m. She reported that he had also indicated that he expects to have a report on the cost and value of athletics for the December 11 Faculty Senate meeting.

5. The Executive Committee reviewed the Agenda for Faculty Senate Meeting #2, October 30, 2003. Chairperson Beckman reported on her conversations with Interim Vice President Barrett with regard to the State of the Budget Address and those items that the Executive Committee had indicated that they wanted to see addressed in the report to the Senate. She said that Interim Vice President Barrett had also agreed to contact Dean Brownell to clarify the dean's request with regard to budget information.

Chairperson Beckman reported that Ms. Barrett had clarified for her, and would do so for the Senate, that the 10% exercise required by the state was to develop a scenario if the University received a 10% reduction in the state's allocation to the Fiscal '05 budget. Ms. Barrett had explained that the University had projected how much tuition would have to be generated in order to make up for a 10% reduction in state funding.

6. The Executive Committee was brought up to date on the following matters of continuing concern:

a. Faculty Governance: The Executive Committee reviewed Chairperson Beckman's draft memorandum to the faculty regarding reorganization proposals and asked Ms. Grubman to post it on FacSen-Bus and to forward it to those Senators who were not subscribed to FacSen-Bus.

b. Library Committee: The Executive Committee agreed that the Library Committee was too important to the faculty for them to recommend that it be combined with Information Services or disbanded. The Executive Committee discussed alternative possibilities for getting the committee appointed and moving again.

It was suggested that rather than concentrate on the state appropriation and the University's allocation, it might be more profitable for the Library and the faculty if the committee could work with Vice President Beagle on fund raising for the Library as part of the upcoming capital campaign. Vice Chairperson Hollinshead agreed to explore this possibility with Vice President Beagle.

c. PCA Accompaniment/Complement: The Executive Committee considered matters related to compiling information on program quality factors. The discussion included the Executive Committee's belief that it was necessary to undertake a pilot project that would provide academic department chairs with a chance to comment on the PCA accompaniment/complement and to suggest questions that might better reflect issues of quality.

In addition, the Executive Committee discussed Ms. Morrissey's suggestion that the JSPC form a subcommittee to try to define possible qualitative measures for consideration across the academic curriculum that would also provide the dashboard longitudinal measures that Institutional Research would design into their system for tracking. Ms. Morrissey had proposed that the subcommittee be comprised of Chairperson Beckman, Senator Boudreaux-Bartels, Mr. Bakr, Mr. Wessells, and possibly other interested members of the JSPC and other faculty. The Executive Committee agreed that Vice Chairperson Hollinshead should be included.

Following discussion, The Executive Committee also decided to invite Interim Vice Provost Swift to meet with them to discuss both the PCA accompaniment/complement and the Program Quality Review process, which had been held in abeyance for the last two years. Ms. Grubman agreed to provide the Executive Committee with background materials on the PQR in advance of their meeting with Vice Provost Swift.

d. Fiscal '05 Budget: The Executive Committee reviewed materials prepared by Senator Rosen that illustrated the change in share of the total state revenue expenditures for the years FY '94 through '04 for each Rhode Island department. It was noted that the percentage of the Department of Administration has increased by 140% over the period, while Higher Education's share has decreased by 14.2%.

e. Ad Hoc Committee on Graduate Education and Research: Ms. Grubman reported that appointments to the ad hoc committee were completed as follows:

Senator Faye Boudreaux-Bartels, College of Engineering

Professor Shaw Chen, College of Business

Professor Bongsup Cho, College of Pharmacy

Professor Nancy Cook, English, Arts & Sciences

Professor Robin Devin, University Libraries

Professor Arthur Gold, College of the Environment and Life Sciences

Senator Michael Havener, Library and Information Studies, Arts & Sciences representing the Graduate Council

Senator Robert Rodgers, College of Pharmacy, Chairperson

Professor Joseph Rossi, Psychology, Arts and Sciences representing the Council for Research

Ms. Grubman also noted that she had been able to adapt as a home page the WebCT postings that were developed originally by Senator Kester for the original ad hoc committee. The address of the new homepage is http://www.uri.edu/facsen/AD_HOC_GERC.html. She explained that it was now possible to access all of the background materials gathered by the original committee from that page.

It was agreed that Chairperson Beckman would include an update on the Ad Hoc Committee on Graduate Education and Research in her announcements at the Faculty Senate meeting.

f. Administrator Evaluation Committee for Dean Brownell: The Executive Committee agreed to appoint the following faculty members from the list of volunteers: Ann Danis, Music; Edmund Lamagna, Computer Science; and Lynne Pasquerella, Philosophy.

Senator Rosen, who had recused himself from the discussion and vote because of his role as Administrator Evaluation Coordinator, said that he would share the remaining names with the Provost and with Dean Brownell in the event that they were interested in appointing their representatives from the list of volunteers.

The meeting was adjourned at 3:15 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Sheila Black Grubman