UNIVERSITY OF RHODE ISLAND

Kingston, Rhode Island

FACULTY SENATE

MINUTES

 Faculty Senate Executive Committee Meeting #11

November 4, 2003

1. The meeting was called to order at 1:00 p.m. on Tuesday, November 4, 2003 in the third floor conference room in Green Hall, Chairperson Beckman presiding. All members were present.

2. Announcements/Correspondence

a. A copy of a memorandum from Provost Swan to Vice Provost McCray granting temporary status to the Center for Urban Studies and Research was circulated for information. The Executive Committee asked Ms. Grubman to obtain a copy of the center proposal for their review.

b. Copies of a petition from URI Students for Sensible Drug Policy were distributed. It was agreed that members of the Executive Committee would consider individually the request that they sign the petition and that Ms. Grubman would inform the community about the petition on FacSen-Bus.

c. The Agenda for the November 5, 2003 meeting of the Council of Deans was circulated for information. It was noted that a discussion on reorganizing colleges was on the Agenda.

d. Chairperson Beckman reported that she had recently attended a meeting called by Vice President Dougan in response to the recent anti-Semitic graffiti incident. She said that the people at the meeting had discussed ways to follow-up on the matter on campus. She also circulated a pamphlet titled 10 Ways to Fight Hate on Campus which had been developed by the Southern Poverty Law Center's Tolerance Project.

It was agreed that the Faculty Senate should participate officially in the upcoming program and decided to invite one of the Senate's representatives to the Affirmative Action Committee to serve on the planning group.

3. The Executive Committee discussed the previous Faculty Senate meeting, which had been held on October 30, 2003:

a. Policy on Small Research Vessels: Ms. Grubman said that she had contacted the Research Office about meeting with Senator Oviatt to address the concerns that she had raised at the Faculty Senate meeting. Ms. Grubman said that she hoped the matter could be resolved before the end of the semester.

b. State of the Budget Address: The Executive Committee agreed that it would be useful in addition to putting the slides from the Budget address on the web, for the Budget Office to include some of the background material that Interim Vice President Barrett had used for her update on filling faculty positions.

4. The Executive Committee reviewed a preliminary draft Agenda for the November 20 Faculty Senate meeting. Ms. Grubman said that because the deadline for submission of reports was the following day, she would forward any additional materials by e-mail.

After discussion, the Executive Committee agreed that they would like to review the Agenda once more before it is printed. Ms. Grubman said that she would wait to send the Agenda to Printing Services until after their November 12 Executive Committee in case they wanted to make any last minute changes. Ms. Grubman said that the printing delay would probably hold up the distribution until Monday, November 17 rather than Friday, November 14.

5. The Executive Committee considered the following matters of continuing concern:

a. Quality Issues: The Executive Committee agreed that it was their responsibility to continue to insist that the PCA must be supplemented by information on quality. They further agreed that for the sake of fairness, departments should have the opportunity to correct any errors in the PCA before it is made public.

Members of the Executive Committee concurred that they would continue to assert to the Provost that all department chairs should have the opportunity to comment on the PCA accompaniment/ complement as part of a pilot project. They noted that departments could begin to review the materials whether or not the Office of Institutional Research has the time to provide the necessary data.

Ms. Grubman was asked to provide the Executive Committee with background material on Program Quality Review in advance of their meeting with Interim Vice Provost Swift so they could become familiar with previous efforts by the Senate to ensure that quality of programs was addressed as well as their cost.

b. Policies: Ms. Grubman brought the Executive Committee up-to date with regard to University Policies. She reported that the President had signed the form officially approving the wireless policy and that she had published it on FacSen-Bus and had included it as Policy #03-1 in the web version of Appendix G. She said that she had also forwarded the Policy on Graduate Student Payroll to the President for his approval but had not received a response.

Ms. Grubman reported that she had been contacted by Ms. Costa, the Assistant to the Vice President for Administration, about the status of the safe workplace policy and had referred her to the AAUP and Assistant Provost Katz because the AAUP had determined that it was a matter of collective bargaining.

c. Library Committee: Vice Chairperson Hollinshead reported that she had spoken to Vice President Beagle about the possibility of asking the Library Committee to work with him on fund-raising for the Library and he had been receptive to the idea.

Ms. Grubman said that she would contact Vice President Beagle to follow-up and would then post an announcement on the FacSen-Bus list and inform senators who are not on the list about the new opportunity and ask for faculty volunteers to serve on the Library Committee.

6. The Executive Committee met with Professor Ramstad, Chair of the Athletics Advisory Board, from 2:10 p.m. to 2:55 p.m. Professor Ramstad reported on the AAUP 2003 Governance Conference, which had been held in collaboration with the National Collegiate Athletic Association and the Coalition on Intercollegiate Athletics on October 9-11 in Indianapolis, Indiana. He said that the theme of the Conference had been "Making Teamwork Work."

Professor Ramstad reported that the group had developed a best practices proposal, which contained recommendations to strengthen the role of faculty in governing university athletics programs. He agreed to share the proposal with the Executive Committee and suggested that the Senate might want to consider the proposal's recommendations further.

Professor Ramstad also indicated that he would share with the Senate the Report of the Athletics Advisory Board Subcommittee on the cost and value of athletics at URI once the Board has had the opportunity to consider it. He explained that because the Athletics Advisory Board wasn't planning to meet until December 11, the report to the Senate wouldn't take place until the January meeting.

The meeting was adjourned at 2:55 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Sheila Black Grubman