FSEC_14m07-08

a. Vice Chairperson Martin reported on the meeting of the Board of Governors the previous evening (December 3, 2007). She said that President Carothers had introduced Dr. Donald De Hayes, Dean of the Rubenstein School at the University of Vermont, who had been appointed to serve as URI’s Provost beginning officially in April 2008.

Vice Chairperson Martin said that other items of business included the approval of financial statements for each of the three institutions, degrees at URI and Rhode Island College and honorary degrees at URI and informational reports on progress within the three institutions on outcomes assessment. She said that the next meeting of the Board of Governors for Higher Education was scheduled for January 28, 2008.

b. The Executive Committee discussed a request from the Learning Outcomes Oversight Committee that URI participate in the Faculty Survey of Student Engagement (FSSE), which was the faculty counterpart to the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE). After a brief discussion, it was agreed that Senate Chairperson Miller would encourage faculty to participate in the surveys.

c. It was noted that the faculty of the English Department had written to the Executive Committee with a request for action by the FSEC similar to the ones that had been proposed by other faculty members and groups over recent weeks. Following discussion, it was agreed to devote their next Executive Committee meeting (December 11, 2007) to resource allocation and leadership issues. Ms. Grubman was asked to invite everyone who had contacted the FSEC about these matters and to encourage them to bring interested colleagues to the meeting.

a. Administrator Evaluation: Ms. Grubman reported that she and Senator Rosen, the Administrator Evaluation Coordinator, had met the previous Friday with the AEC for Dean McKinney and had delivered the CD’s with scanned letters from the College of Human Science and Services faculty. She said that Senator Rosen had outlined the process and had emphasized the importance of confidentiality. She reported that the committee had agreed not to select a chair, but to proceed as a committee of the whole, after which she and Professor Rosen left the meeting.

b. Committees: The Executive Committee reviewed the final versions of two letters on the AIIM that Professor Rice had drafted for the Academic Program Review Committee. Following discussion, they agreed that the letters should be mailed from the Faculty Senate Office to deans and department heads and to faculty members.

c. Student/Faculty Ratio: Ms. Grubman reported that she had contacted the AAUP and had been informed that they didn’t maintain the records she had requested. It had been suggested that she check the national AAUP website, but Ms. Grubman said the national website had posted salary data, not numbers of tenure track faculty. She did share data on national percentages at all degree-granting institutions compiled by the American Association of University Professors for 1975, 1989 and 2005 and it was clear that nationally there had been a significant decline in the number of tenure track faculty and increases in non-tenure track faculty and especially in part-time faculty.

Ms. Grubman also shared materials that she had been able to find on URI’s website regarding the official faculty student ratio between 2002 and 2006. She noted that it was not clear in the data who had been counted as faculty. She said that the NEASC Accreditation Subcommittee on Faculty had discovered early in their review that definitions of faculty used by the AAUP and Assistant Provost Katz were somewhat different from those used by the Office of Institutional Research in reporting data to outside agencies.