MINUTES

Faculty Senate Executive Committee Meeting #16 – November 3, 2010

1. The meeting was called to order at 10:00 a.m. in the President’s Conference Room, Green Hall, Chairperson Swallow presiding. All members were present.

2. Minutes from previous meetings were not available.

3. Announcements/Correspondence.

a. Senator Larsen reported on the HERI Survey meeting and said the responses were to be divided up at the University level in broad disciplinary areas (e.g. health sciences) and the data is to be reported out in aggregate. Concerns remain that the length of time the survey will take and questions about identifying individual respondents would limit significantly the number of participants. Questions remain as to whether the FSEC would want to take an official position about the administration of the faculty survey.

b. Chairperson Swallow reminded members of the FSEC that they had been invited by Academic Affairs to attend a post-NEASC reception at 5:15 that afternoon.

4. The Executive Committee was brought up-to-date on committees:

a. Council for Research: Chairperson Swallow reported that he hadn’t been able to meet with Professor Ordonez and Vice President Alfonso before that afternoon’s meeting of the Council for Research. He said that he intended to encourage the Council to learn more as to how other institutions deal with intellectual property expenses and profits.

b. JCAP: Vice Chairperson Eaton said that the next meeting of JCAP was scheduled for November 17. She explained that while the full committee was meeting once each month, the subcommittees were active and meeting more frequently.

c. SBPC: Vice Chairperson Eaton said that she had attended her first meeting of the group. She noted that there was a great deal of information about the budget downloaded from the web, but the meeting wasn’t action oriented. She did report that the SBPC had a subcommittee developing a rubric for prioritizing recommendations.

5. The FSEC discussed potential items for the Agenda for Faculty Senate Meeting #3, scheduled for November 18. Ms. Grubman reported that she expected a report from the Honors Program and Visiting Scholars Committee on their activities during the 2009-10 academic year, along with reports from the CAC and Graduate Council. Chairperson Swallow said that he would try to have a PowerPoint presentation about potential models for changes in officers’ terms and the election process to stimulate further discussion by Senators.

In addition, the Executive Committee agreed to set a November 30 deadline for nominations to the vacant position on the spring 2011 Faculty Senate Executive Committee.

6. The Executive Committee reviewed their list of upcoming meetings with the President and the Provost.

a. President Dooley: The next meeting is scheduled for Monday, November 22 at 11:00 a.m. in the President’s Conference Room. The FSEC agreed that they would be interested in knowing more from the President about the Board of Governors’ Strategic Plan.

It was noted that they would have another meeting with President Dooley on December 15.

b. Provost DeHayes: The next meeting will be held on November 17. It was agreed that they would ask the Provost for his ideas on expanding communication with the campus community during the budget process, especially within academic affairs.

The Executive Committee discussed Provost DeHayes’ idea for a task force to look at gateway courses and curriculum mapping. They agreed that the departments, colleges and deans would be more appropriate to undertake this project for their majors than would the Senate.

The Executive Committee considered the possibility of raising the relevance of URI’s existing vision and mission statements with both the Provost and the President.

The meeting adjourned at 12:00 noon.

Respectfully submitted,

Sheila Black Grubman