UNIVERSITY OF RHODE ISLAND
Kingston, Rhode Island
FACULTY SENATE
MINUTES
Faculty Senate Executive Committee Meeting #28 – April
6, 2005
1. The meeting was called to order at 1:00 p.m. on Wednesday,
April 6, 2005 in the third floor conference room in Green Hall, Chairperson
Boudreaux-Bartels presiding. All members were present.
2. The Minutes of Executive Committee Meeting #27,
March 30, 2005, were approved.
3. Announcements/Correspondence:
a. Chairperson Boudreaux-Bartels noted that there
had been further additions to the Student Learning and Outcomes Assessment
Website. She explained that a new link had been provided which will
contain information about where each department is in the process. The new
link is http://www.uri.edu/assessment/pos.html.
b. Chairperson Boudreaux-Bartels announced that she
was planning to attend the following meetings on April 18: 1) Provost and
Chad Henderson to discuss possibility of student illness notices from Health
Services and 2) lunch meeting with Provost Swan and Professor Stewart Cohen
representing the AAUP.
c. The Executive Committee discussed an issue raised
by Senator Ramsay by e-mail that concerned a serious delay in hiring in the
Library. The delay in filling the position, which would have forced
the Library to reduce its hours, was caused by a hold in processing the paperwork.
The Library was unaware of the hold because no one was informed that the
process had been stopped.
Following discussion, The Executive Committee asked Ms. Grubman to
write to Vice President Weygand and suggest that as part of efforts to improve
administrative processes, whoever stops paperwork should inform the initiator
as to where a form was held up and why. This prompted revisiting the importance
of a work flow visual or flowchart for all paperwork/processes. Senator Ramsay
noted that Interim Vice Provost Wessells has software that would help with
work flow charts that he would be willing to make available to the Department
of Administration. There was also discussion of the possibility of instituting
a tracking system to pinpoint where paperwork is in the process.
d. Ms. Grubman reported that Provost Swan had forwarded
copies of e-mail correspondence that she and President Carothers had sent
to the undergraduate student who had proposed changes in the training of
teaching assistants. These e-mails had been in response to the student’s
request for action on her teaching assistant training proposal.
Ms. Grubman reported that she had forwarded to Provost Swan all of
the previous correspondence between the Executive Committee and the student
and between the Senate and the Graduate Council with regard to the student’s
proposal.
4. Ms. Grubman provided the Executive Committee with
an overview of the Agenda for Faculty Senate Meeting # 8, April 21, 2005.
She said that she expected reports from the CAC, Graduate Council, UCGE Committee
and Academic Standards and Calendar Committee, as well as an oral report
on the Athletics Advisory Board by Professor Ramstad.
Ms. Grubman reported that she had scheduled the Cherry Auditorium for
April 28 in the event that a recess meeting after the April 21 meeting was
necessary.
Ms. Grubman explained that the Executive Committee was required to propose
the Senate’s calendar for the upcoming academic year as well as the composition
of the nominating committee for the following year’s officers and Executive
Committee at the April meeting.
After discussion, the Executive Committee agreed to the following schedule
of meetings for 2005-06 and Ms. Grubman said that she would try to schedule
the Cherry Auditorium for another year.
September 22, 2005* January 26,
2006
October 20, 2005
February 23, 2006
November 17, 2005
March 23, 2006
December 8, 2005*
April 20, 2006*
May 11, 2006 (organizational)
*Will immediately follow General Faculty Meeting
The Executive Committee reviewed a list of Senators who were leaving
the Senate this spring. After discussion, Ms. Grubman was asked to
contact the Senators, who represented three colleges, and to invite them
to serve on the Nominating Committee.
5. The Executive Committee considered the following
matters of Continuing Concern:
a. Faculty Governance at College Level:
Following discussion of the revised draft memorandum to the CBUM Committee,
a final version was approved. Chairperson Boudreaux-Bartels said that she
would sign the memorandum on behalf of the Executive Committee and it would
be forwarded to the members of the CBUM Committee and a copy would be sent
to Provost Swan.
b. JSPC: The Executive Committee discussed
proposals for processes for consideration of the University Mission Statement
and the development of a new three-year Strategic Plan, which had been introduced
at the March 28 meeting of the JSPC:
1) With regard to the process for considering the
University’s Mission Statement as mandated by the Board of Governors for
Higher Education, the Executive Committee discussed their concern that if
the first meeting for reviewing/revising the Mission statement was held in
July, as currently scheduled, this might not provide enough time for general
faculty input and participation in revision process to occur before the December
2005 deadline. The suggestion was made to have the first meeting before the
Spring semester ended. Chairperson Boudreaux-Bartels said that she would
discuss these suggestions with Ms. Morrissey.
2) The Executive Committee reviewed the initial
proposal for the Strategic Planning process that had been developed by Ms.
Morrissey and presented at the previous JSPC meeting. This planning meeting
is currently scheduled to occur during a one-day retreat type meeting in
June. The Executive Committee expressed concern that this timeline
may be too soon after the new FSEC officers had been elected for them to
have had time to go through the JSPC orientation and tutorials on budget
process, Capital Improvement Projects, etc., before they found themselves
in a position of having to make recommendations on complex, jargon-laden
issues. One possibility is for the previous and new FSEC officers to participate
in the June meeting so that faculty will have informed representation in
the process. The other alternative is for the Strategic Planning meeting
to be moved back to July or August to give new FSEC members time to “learn
the ropes” related to JSPC. Chairperson Boudreaux-Bartels said that she would
discuss these suggestions with Ms. Morrissey.
c. Providence Campus Advisory Committee:
The Executive Committee reviewed revised draft sections of the UNIVERSITY
MANUAL on the committee specified in the Four Hundred and Twenty-Eighth Report
of the Curricular Affairs Committee: Providence Campus Option for Freshmen.
Ms. Grubman agreed to make further revisions for discussion at the
next FSEC Meeting. She was also asked to talk to Associate Dean Ferszt about
academic and student support personnel at the Providence Campus.
d. (Murphy) Program Review Model: Chairperson
Boudreaux-Bartels reported on meetings that she, Ms. Morrissey, and Senators
Martin and Rice had with Senators Cohen, Ramsay and Tyrell and Professor
Sullivan about the Value and Success surveys used in the Murphy Program Assessment
Model. The last four faculty members listed were selected to review
the survey methodology and content because of their expertise in surveys,
modeling, or statistics. Chairperson Boudreaux-Bartels noted that one positive
aspect of the faculty experts’ response was that there was consensus that
the new process was better than the PCA and the Program Quality Reviews had
been. She said that the experts had provided a number of suggestions for
clarifying questions, answer options and scoring. She reported that
there were two concerns raised at the meeting which must be addressed: 1)
differences in the mission, pedagogy and nature of research/scholarship of
departments could make some questions and answers, if interpreted too narrowly,
appear less relevant; and 2) a possible bias in some questions in favor of
professional programs as compared to programs in the social sciences, arts
and humanities. Chairperson Boudreaux-Bartels said that she and Senators
Martin and Rice would meet again to revise the surveys based on the expert
advice.
The group also discussed the pros and cons of a “one-size-fits-all”
approach versus a “cherry picking” approach to survey questions. That is,
should all faculty be required to answer the same set of survey questions
totaling 100 possible points or should faculty be allowed to self-select
only a sub-set of those survey questions which they deem pertinent to their
department’s mission and renormalize the allocation of points in the subset
to total 100? For example, a department whose faculty focus primarily on
research might say that questions related to outreach don’t apply to them
and shouldn’t impact their score. Ms. Morrissey responded that to facilitate
a standard, across-the-board assessment of departments needed by the administration,
all faculty need to answer the identical set of questions. Several faculty
mentioned that the University’s mission includes the areas of teaching, research,
service and outreach and that faculty should contribute to multiple areas;
therefore, each department should be evaluated based upon its relative contribution
to the overall University mission, not just its contribution to those one
or two areas where the department felt particularly strong.
Chairperson Boudreaux-Bartels said that she and Assistant Provost Katz
would continue to meet to determine how financial data, such as tuition,
fees, research dollars returned to URI, Direct Costs and Indirect Costs,
would be calculated.
Chairperson Boudreaux-Bartels said that the hope was to refine the
surveys in time to run the second round of beta tests on a few departments
in May.
6. The Executive Committee agreed to the following
topics for their meeting with President Carothers and Provost Swan on April
13:
a. The proposed University Calendar for 2005-06 through
2010-11 (Faculty Senate Bill #04-05--24);
b. The Executive Committee’s recommendations for
budget priorities;
c. Issues related to encouraging interdisciplinary
activities;
d. Distribution of Lab fee and Arts fee income: timeliness,
accuracy, and accountability;
e. University freeze on filling vacant staff level
positions.
The meeting was adjourned at 3:05 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Sheila Black Grubman