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Scenes from Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Executive Committee Meeting

Minute

Meeting #5

September 21, 2004

1. The meeting was called to order at 1:00 p.m. on Tuesday, September 21, 2004 in the third floor conference room in Green Hall, Chairperson Boudreaux-Bartels presiding. All members were present.

2. Announcements/Correspondence:

a. Ms Grubman informed the Executive Committee that Interim Vice Provost Swift and Ms. Grossman-Garber were scheduled to meet with them on September 28 at 2:30 to discuss the timeline for the development of assessment of student outcomes as mandated by the Board of Governors.

b. The Agenda for the September 22 meeting of the Council of Deans was circulated for information.

c. Chairperson Boudreaux-Bartels, Senator Ramsay and Senator Rice, who had attended the Bond Issue meeting on September 17, brought the other members of the Executive Committee up to date on plans for a campaign to support the bond issues in the November election. It was noted that the emphasis would be to support all four of the higher education bonds. The campaign slogan is "The right combination for Higher Education Vote Yes on 5-9-10-13."

It was agreed to distribute bond issue campaign stickers to senators with the circulation of the attendance roster at the September 23 meeting of the Faculty Senate.

d. Chairperson Boudreaux-Bartels reported on the September 17 meeting of Board of Governors Academic and Student Affairs Committee. She noted that timelines for student assessment for all three institutions of higher education had been presented at that meeting and that URI's plans, which were the most specific and detailed, had been well received. She said that Dr. Peggy Maki had been retained as a consultant by the Board to give workshops for faculty at all three institutions on outcomes assessment.

e. Senator Rosen and Chairperson Boudreaux-Bartels reported on the Board of Governors Meeting of September 20, 2004. They noted that Commissioner Warner had given a presentation on the higher education bond issue items and had urged the Board to support all four of the referendums on November 2. They also said that Commissioner Warner had addressed the issue of states devolving themselves of support for public higher education and placing an increasing burden on students and their families. He asked the Board to pursue creative ways to substitute for the loss in state appropriation that will most likely continue into he future and referred the Board members to President Carothers' Convocation address (see http://www.uri.edu/president/convocation/2004)

Vice Chairperson Rosen said that the chair of the Academic and Student Affairs Committee reported that the three institutions of public higher education had all submitted timelines for initiating the Board mandated outcomes assessment process. In addition, he had announced that changes to regulations governing all higher education institutions in Rhode Island would be presented for approval at the Board's next meeting.

Chairperson Boudreaux-Bartels and Vice Chairperson Rosen also informed the Executive Committee that the unrestricted and restricted budget requests, including tuition and fees, and tables of organization for FY 2006-07 had been approved at the recommendation of the Finance Committee. Vice Chairperson Rosen noted that the budget includes an approximate 4% increase in state appropriation for higher education.

f. The Executive Committee discussed issues related to classroom conditions and the allocation of general assignment and special purpose classroom space that had been brought forward by Senators Martin and Ramsay at the request of their constituents.

Following discussion, Senator Kowalski agreed to inform the members of SEDA about concerns that the delay in making renovations to Independence Hall and the concurrent rise in costs, will make it impossible to perform all of the originally designated repairs using the amount of funding approved for the project. He also agreed to discuss with Ms. Newman, the space planner for the university, a recent study by an outside consultant on the use of classrooms at URI.

In addition, Ms. Grubman agreed to find out how the classroom use is determined and whether photographs and descriptions of general use classrooms were available on the web.

g. Chairperson Boudreaux-Bartels reported that Associate Commissioner Cariullo had sent an e-mail suggesting that the three institutions revisit their mission statements as they begin to develop plans for outcomes assessment. Chairperson Boudreaux-Bartels noted that Provost Swan had explained that changing the mission statement would take at least six months to move through the University's process, which includes the Faculty Senate.

Ms. Grubman distributed copies of the 1996 Mission Statement, noting that Senator Kowalski had been Senate Chair at that time.

Chairperson Boudreaux-Bartels pointed out that the 1996 Mission Statement had been reviewed by the JSPC at two meetings during the previous academic year. She said that it had been the consensus of the committee that the original land grant mission of the University remains relevant into the future.

3. The Executive Committee reviewed the Agenda for Faculty Senate Meeting #1, September 23, 2004 in preparation for the meeting.

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

a. Outcomes Assessment: Chairperson Boudreaux-Bartels reported that a group of faculty members, some of whom had not participated in either the Utah Conference or the Alton Jones workshop on Outcomes Assessment, had been invited to a Conference in Indianapolis in November. Chairperson Boudreaux-Bartels said that she was pleased that more faculty members have been invited to participate in outcomes assessment. Vice Chairperson Rosen said that he had been among the group of faculty who was asked to attend the Indianapolis conference, but campus commitments made it impossible for him to participate.

b. Strategic Plan: It was noted that Mr. Bakr had forwarded to the Executive Committee updated metrics for the strategic plan as requested by Vice Chairperson Rosen at the previous JSPC meeting. In addition, they had received as clarification of some points raised in e-mail correspondence between Vice Chairperson Rosen and Mr. Bakr.

c. Issues identified by the Ombud: The Executive Committee discussed the article titled "The Cheating Culture," which Ombud Rose had shared with them previously. They agreed that effort was needed to follow-up on the article by alerting faculty and helping them reduce the opportunities for cheating and plagiarism. The issue was identified as one that should be discussed with the Provost or possibly, the Vice Provost.

d. Meetings with Administrators. The Executive Committee agreed to spend some time at their next meeting developing questions they wanted to address with administrators at their individual meetings.

e. Survey of faculty concerns: After discussion, Senator Kowalski agreed to draft a brief survey for members of the Senate about issues they believe are the most pressing from their perspectives. Senators Ramsay and Rice agreed to work with him in following up on the responses. It was agreed to distribute the question and collect them at the September 23 Faculty Senate meeting.

5. Chairperson Boudreaux-Bartels asked the Executive Committee to review the revised draft minutes for the August 5, 2004 meeting of the JSPC. Approval of these minutes been postponed because the most recent iteration (9/8/04) was not available until they were distributed at the September 9th meeting.

6. Senator Kowalski volunteered to serve as the Senate's photographer. He said that he would try to take photographs of members of the Senate at the upcoming meeting and project the pictures on the screen at subsequent meetings as an additional way to help Senators get to know each other.

7. Senator Rosen suggested that members of the Executive Committee read an article in the September-October 2004 issue of Academe titled "The Faculty's Role in Reforming College Sports."

The meeting was adjourned at 2:35 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Sheila Black Grubman