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Scenes from Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Executive Committee Meeting

Minute

Meeting #20

February 9, 2005

1. The meeting was called to order at 1:00 p.m. on Wednesday, February 9, 2005 in the third floor conference room in Green Hall, Chairperson Boudreaux-Bartels presiding. All members were present.

2. The Executive Committee discussed the Minutes of Meeting #19, February 2, 2005 and agreed to consider them at their February 14 meeting pending revisions.

3. Announcements/Correspondence:

a. A memorandum on Facilities, Planning and Programming FY 06 from Jerry Sidio to Deans, Directors and Department Heads was circulated. It was agreed that the material was too detailed for an adequate review at the meeting and members of the Executive Committee requested individual copies.

b. A memorandum from Interim Vice Provost Chris Wessells on appointments to the Information Resources Council (IRC) was circulated. It was agreed to discuss the memo later as part of committee appointments.

c. The Agenda for the Board of Governors Academic and Student Affairs Committee Meeting on Friday, February 11 at RIC was circulated. Chairperson Boudreaux-Bartels explained that she would not be able to attend the meeting because she had a morning class in Kingston. Vice Chairperson Rosen said that he would try to attend the meeting on behalf of the Executive Committee.

d. Chairperson Boudreaux-Bartels announced that Vice President Dougan had provided the Executive Committee with a package of reports on the results of Student Affairs Quality of Life and Satisfaction Survey. She expressed her appreciation to Vice President Dougan for sharing the package with the Executive Committee. It was agreed that the package would be available for review in the Faculty Senate Office.

e. A list of websites on plagiarism, which had been forwarded by Senator Luebke for information, was circulated. It was agreed that Ms. Grubman should put the list on the Faculty Senate homepage for interested faculty members.

f. Chairperson Boudreaux-Bartels announced that Ms. Gomes had provided the Executive Committee with a flow chart for Affirmative Action Office Guidelines for Search Procedures: faculty and non-classified positions. This was in response to the JSPC discussion about encouraging departments to provide flow charts that outlined the steps for specific procedures or processes.

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

a. FSEC Survey: The Executive Committee reviewed a draft report on the survey and agreed to include it in the Agenda for the next Faculty Senate meeting. Chairperson Boudreaux-Bartels thanked Senators Kowalski and Ramsay for their work on the survey and report.

b. JSPC: The Executive Committee reviewed the February 7 meeting of the JSPC. It was agreed that Ms. Newman's report on the classroom study and on the space policy had been useful and informative. It was agreed to invite her to give the report to the Senate on February 24.

The Executive Committee discussed the mid-year budget update that had been presented by Ms. Barrett at the meeting. The report consisted of a review of President Carothers' January 27 memorandums to Commissioner Warner on the unrestricted and restricted budgets.

Also discussed were questions raised by Senator Ramsay as to the appropriateness of the report including HELIN (Interlibrary Loan Program) in the list of programs that had an increase in revenue as compared to the original Budget projection. Senator Ramsay clarified that the budget item referring to the holding account that the HELIN Consortium uses to collect fees from other universities is part of HELIN's operating budget and is not revenue for the URI Library.

With regard to the JSPC discussion of facilitating interdisciplinary activities, the Executive Committee agreed to continue to pursue the matter with the Provost.

Chairperson Boudreaux-Bartels reminded the Executive Committee that the next meeting of the JSPC was scheduled for March 7 and the FY' 07 budget would be on the Agenda. It was agreed that the first item of business for their special meeting on February 14 would be a discussion of Budget priority recommendations.

5. The Executive Committee met with President Carothers, who was accompanied by Dr. Escribano, from 1:30 to 2:30. The following matters were considered:

a. Proposed Charter High School: President Carothers reported that the concept of the proposed charter high school had been so well received by legislators and other leaders in the state that there was a possibility that the proposal might be revised and approved as an independent school district. He explained that discussions were moving beyond the original plan and he couldn't predict what direction the proposal would eventually take. In response to a question by the Executive Committee, President Carothers reported that Professor Byrd, the Director of the School of Education, had been invited to participate in meetings about the high school concept.

b. Long-term plans for lobbying the Legislature: The Executive Committee suggested that the administration follow-up on the suggestions raised at a JSPC meeting earlier that year, that they develop a strategic plan and strategies for lobbying the legislature that would eventually result in the desired improvement of the financial health of the University.

President Carothers agreed that there were some ways to work toward a general goal but that there were always interests beyond the administration and the University that would work for matters that were not necessarily the University's highest priorities. Given this political situation, it was clear that a direct step-by-step plan would inevitably be sidetracked when new issues arose in the state. He noted that the University had worked to get a blue ribbon committee established to look at improving the financial picture for higher education. However, the blue ribbon committee under consideration was on higher education governance rather than finance.

c. Convocation: The Executive Committee discussed with the President his proposal to reconsider holding an opening Convocation in the fall. President Carothers noted that Convocation, as it has developed in recent years, was probably not as meaningful an event to the community as it once was or more recently envisioned. President Carothers noted that the URI Foundation Excellence Awards tended to be overshadowed by speakers when convocation was linked to the opening of the Honors Program and that fewer and fewer faculty members attended the event since the opening Honors Colloquium was separated from Convocation. The other purpose of being the opening meeting of the general faculty had been replaced in 1998 when the general faculty meeting was tied to the first Faculty Senate meeting of the academic year.

It was noted that the Convocation did bring members of the Board of Governors to campus, which provided an opportunity for interaction.

When President Carothers and Ms. Escribano left the meeting, the Executive Committee resumed its regular order of business.

4. c. Enrollment Services, e-Campus and prerequisites: The Executive Committee discussed a number of concerns about the implementation of e-campus and its effect on curricular matters.

Following discussion, Ms. Grubman agreed to draft a letter to the Curricular Affairs Committee requesting that the CAC consider general policy statements that would make informational changes to courses resulting from programming constraints less cumbersome, for departments and colleges to implement. Examples include prerequisite clarification and the total number of credits permitted for topics courses.

d. Student Learning Outcomes: Chairperson Boudreaux-Bartels reported on the most recent meeting of the Student Learning Improvement Assessment Advisory Committee (SLIAAC), which she and Vice Chairperson Rosen had attended. They noted that the committee had discussed ways to make upcoming workshops with Dr. Maki more useful to a broader group of faculty members and said that Vice Provost Swift and Ms. Grossman-Garber continued to seek suggestions for these workshops.

Chairperson Boudreaux-Bartels said that it was taking somewhat longer than expected to get the URI Student Learning Outcomes and Outcomes Assessment homepage on the web, but that the prototype at http://www.ecentricsites.com/assessment/was continually being updated to provide links to what other institutions are doing or have done with regard to the assessment of student learning outcomes. The permanent URL will be http://www.uri.edu/assessment.

e. FSEC Meeting on February 14, 2005: The Executive Committee agreed to devote their special two-hour meeting to a discussion of two topics:

1) Developing priorities for the FY '06 budget;

2) Continuing to refine and adapt the Murphy Program Review Model instrument to make it more relevant and useful for URI.

f. Committee Appointments: The Executive Committee discussed possible appointments to the Information Resources Council (IRC). They also discussed the appointment of a replacement for Senator Ron Lee, who had resigned as chair of the Admissions Advisory Committee.

6. Ms. Grubman provided the Executive Committee with a brief overview of the Agenda for Faculty Senate Meeting #6, February 24, 2005. Ms. Grubman explained that there would not be a CAC Report because their meeting had been scheduled for January 24, which was the snow day. She said that she expected several reports from the Graduate Council because they hadn't submitted any for their November and December meetings and they met in January as well.

7. The Executive Committee discussed possible topics for their February 16 meeting with Provost Swan and agreed that they would finalize the list by e-mail.

The meeting was adjourned at 3:20 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,
Sheila Black Grubman