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Scenes from Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Executive Committee Meeting

Minute

Meeting #3

September 2, 2004

1. The meeting was called to order at 9:00 a.m. on Thursday, September 2, 2004 in the third floor conference room in Green Hall, Chairperson Boudreaux-Bartels presiding. All members were present except Senator Martin.

2. The minutes of Faculty Senate Executive Committee Meeting #2, July 15, 2004, were approved.

3. Announcements/Correspondence:

a. Chairperson Boudreaux-Bartels reported on the August 19 meeting of the Board of Governors, which had been held at URI's Narragansett Bay Campus. She noted that despite a strong statement by the URI-AAUP's representative with regard to acting prematurely while negotiations were taking place, the Board voted to approve the Governor's request for a pay increase of 2% with health plan contributions for administrators and other non-union employees. She explained that while there had been some discussion about the advisability of voting against the Governor's recommendation, the item had been linked to approval of 2006-2010 Capital Improvement Plan and a resolution to authorize borrowing for the URI apartment project.

Chairperson Boudreaux-Bartels said that Dean Farmer spoke briefly and Professor Bradley Moran gave a short presentation on research projects conducted by GSO and OCE faculty.

Chairperson Boudreaux-Bartels informed the Executive Committee that the next two Board of Governors meetings had been scheduled for September 20 and October 25.

b. The Executive Committee discussed an e-mail request from President Carothers for a possible reconsideration of the residency policy for permanent immigrants. After discussion, the Executive Committee concurred with Senator Rosen's suggestion that the President could take advantage of the Board of Governor's own policy and that such matters could be resolved by the President on a case by case basis.

c. The Executive Committee reviewed the Annual Report of the Ombud for 2003-04, along with correspondence between the Ombud and the Provost about the report and the Ombud's recommendations. It was agreed to include the Ombud's report in the Agenda for the first meeting of the Faculty Senate.

d. A package of the deans' responses to Provost Swan's request for information on college appeals processes in accordance with section 8.26.10 of the UNIVERSITY MANUAL was circulated for information. Chairperson Boudreaux-Bartels suggested that some of the information provided by the deans should be linked to the Ombud's website. The Executive Committee agreed it would be useful for students to have the information in one place. Ms. Grubman agreed to develop the web page with the appropriate links.

Chairperson Boudreaux-Bartels reported that Ombud Rose had reviewed the materials provided by the deans and he remained concerned that each college document its process for appealing grades. She said that he hoped to work with the Academic Standards and Calendar Committee on a recommendation that would clarify the process for students.

e. Ms. Grubman announced that meetings had been scheduled with the President and the Provost for the following Tuesdays at 1:30 p.m.:

October 12 - President Carothers
October 26 - Provost Swan
November 30 - Provost swan
December 14 - President Carothers

She explained that the President held regular meetings with the Provost and Vice Presidents at the same time as the Executive Committee, which made scheduling difficult.

Chairperson Boudreaux-Bartels reported that the Provost had suggested to her that the Executive Committee meet at least once with both the President and the Provost. Ms. Grubman was asked to find out whether a short meeting with both the President and the Provost could be scheduled earlier than the dates already determined. Ms. Grubman agreed to explore the possibility with the President's Office.

The Executive Committee also asked Ms. Grubman to schedule meetings with Vice President Weygand and Vice Provost Trubatch early in the semester. The possibility of inviting the new Director of Athletics to an Executive Committee meeting was discussed but no specific plans were made at that time.

f. Chairperson Boudreaux-Bartels said that it was traditional for the Senate Chair to send a welcome letter to the faculty at the beginning of the academic year. She informed the Executive Committee that she planned to report on faculty activities related to Senate business that had occurred during the summer. In addition, Chairperson Boudreaux-Bartels asked for advice regarding a statement of goals for the upcoming academic year.

After discussion, Chairperson Boudreaux-Bartels agreed to send a draft of her letter to the Executive Committee for their review and suggestions before sending it to the URI community.

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

a. Committee Appointments: Ms. Grubman reported on the progress of committee appointments and the Executive Committee suggested names of faculty members who might be asked to fill the few remaining vacancies. This included the appointment of a second member to the Web Advisory Committee as agreed to by the Provost.

Chairperson Boudreaux-Bartels reported that Vice President Weygand had indicated that he did not want to reappoint the Campus Security and Parking Committee because he believed that the role of that committee had been subsumed under the Master Plan Review Committee. It was noted that the Campus Security and Parking Committee is under the aegis of the President. The Executive Committee considered the advisability of requesting that the faculty have more representation on the Master Plan Review Committee (MPRC) or possibly the addition of a subcommittee on parking to the MPRC.

Ms. Grubman noted that, she had not asked for nominees to fill other university committee vacancies. She suggested that the Executive Committee wait until the roles and responsibilities of the Instructional Space Advisory Group (ISAG) and the Information Resources Council (IRC) were clarified before appointing faculty representatives to them.

b. Ad Hoc Committee on Admissions to the Providence Campus: Ms. Grubman reported that the committee had continued to meet during the summer although she hadn't been able to attend all of their meetings. She said that it was her understanding that the committee was moving ahead on a proposal to be considered by the Curricular Affairs Committee.

Senator Kowalski and Ms. Grubman gave an account on their meeting with Professor Wenisch, Chair of the CBUM Committee and Senator Luebke, Chair of the CAC for 2004-05, on July 28. They informed the Executive Committee that the consensus at that meeting had been that the establishment of an overall proposal for offering degrees at the Providence Campus would require approval by the Curricular Affairs Committee, the Faculty Senate, the President and the Board of Governors. They explained that with regard to offering existing degrees at the Providence Campus, the consensus was that a plan for offering the degree must be approved by the department faculty and forwarded to the appropriate college. This plan to offer a program would address issues related to advising and staffing along with projected costs. The colleges would consider the proposals and would forward them to the Curricular Affairs Committee for approval in accordance with existing procedures. Simultaneous with college consideration, the Vice Provost for Urban Programs would be asked to inform the CAC whether or not the plan has his/her support. If the CAC approves the plan to offer an existing degree in Providence it would be reported to the Faculty Senate for information.

c. Ad Hoc Committee on Graduate Education and Research: Chairperson Boudreaux-Bartels reported that Ms. Morrissey and Ms. Tolunay, a graduate student working with Planning Services and Professional Development (PSPD), had been very helpful to the Ad Hoc Committee on Graduate Education and Research (GERC) in efforts to obtain actual information on the different sources of financial support URI currently gives to graduate students and on the different types of work or services that graduate students provide in return for that support. She shared with the Executive Committee preliminary information about the distribution of graduate assistantships in FY'04 as well as and projections for FY'05.

Chairperson Boudreaux-Bartels also noted that the Ad Hoc Committee, with the assistance of PSPD, was developing a survey of departments on different types of financial support for graduate students and whether the student workload is in teaching, research or administration.

d. Mr. Murphy's Factor Analysis model: Chairperson Boudreaux-Bartels informed the Executive Committee that she had continued to attend meetings of the group working on the model. She said that after much discussion, it appeared that PCA data (information on cost - tuition revenue) would be weighted equivalently to that of data on research funding in the model.

She said that Mr. Murphy had agreed to attend the September 23 Faculty Senate Meeting to give an overview of the model as it is being developed.

e. Student Learning Assessment: The most recent iteration (dated 9/2/04) of the Draft Statement on Expected Student Outcomes was distributed. This draft had been developed by the subcommittee that had agreed to follow up on the Alton Jones workshop and sent for suggestions to everyone who had attended either the June 30 workshop or the Utah AAC&U Conference. Chairperson Boudreaux-Bartels said that she was encouraged to see that the Provost's Office was broadening participation by bringing the draft to additional faculty members for their review and comment.

5. After a brief discussion, the Executive Committee agreed to consider on Tuesday, September 7 the items related to the September 9 meeting of the JSPC to provide an opportunity to review the materials for that meeting.

6. The Executive Committee reviewed a draft of Agenda for Faculty Senate Meeting #1, September 23, 2004. Ms. Grubman noted that they would be able to review the final Agenda before it is sent to Printing Services.

7. The Executive Committee discussed the possibility of enhancing the Faculty Senate website, and facilitating the acclimatization of new senators, by providing links to Senators' websites.

The meeting was adjourned at 12:10 p.m.

8. The meeting was reconvened at 1:00 p.m. on Tuesday, September 7, 2004 in the third floor conference room in Green Hall, Chairperson Boudreaux-Bartels presiding. All members were present except Senators Martin and Rice.

The Executive Committee reviewed draft minutes of the August 5 meeting of the JSPC and made suggestions for clarification.

It was noted that the two items on the JSPC Agenda were a review of the proposed budget for FY '06 and an update on capital improvement projects. The Executive Committee reviewed materials they had received for the meeting and discussed questions and issues they wanted to bring forward during the JSPC meeting.

Members of the Executive Committee also discussed the need to identify possible issues that they might bring forward to the JSPC during the 2004-05 academic year.

The meeting was adjourned at 3:00 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Sheila Black Grubman