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Scenes from Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Executive Committee Meeting

Minutes

Meeting #30

April 20, 2005

1. The meeting was called to order at 1:00 p.m. on Wednesday, April 20, 2005 in the third floor conference room in Green Hall, Chairperson Boudreaux-Bartels presiding. All members were present except Senators Ramsay and Rice.

2. Draft Minutes of Executive Committee Meeting #28, April 6, 2005, were reviewed and suggestions made for modifying the draft. It was agreed to postpone consideration pending revisions.

3. Announcements/Correspondence:

a. The Executive Committee discussed an April 13, 2005 memorandum from President Carothers to Vice President Weygand, Vice Provost Trubatch and Assistant Provost Katz regarding improved efficiencies in research programs. It was noted that some of the issues were related to both the Executive Committee’s concerns and those raised in other settings. The Executive Committee agreed that they would forward a short list of items that might be addressed at the local, rather than at the state level. Among the items was the suggestion discussed previously that it would improve administrative processes if whoever stops paperwork should inform the initiator where a form was held up and why.

b. Ms. Grubman distributed a schedule for the Executive Committee’s upcoming interviews with candidates for the positions of Dean of Admissions and Vice Provost for Academic Programs. After reviewing the schedule, Ms. Grubman was asked to contact Dean McKinney about rescheduling at least one of the Dean candidate interviews and Vice Chairperson Rosen agreed to ask Dean Richmond to reschedule the open interview on April 28 so it wouldn’t conflict with a recess meeting of the Faculty Senate.

Ms. Grubman informed the Executive Committee that electronic copies of the resumes for the Dean of Admissions candidates were not available, but that the Faculty Senate Office had received a set of paper copies. The Executive Committee asked Ms. Grubman to announce on FacSen-Bus that paper copies of the resumes were available for review in the Faculty Senate Office as well as in the offices of the Provost and the Dean of the College of Human Science and Services.

c. Chairperson Boudreaux-Bartels said that the Provost had postponed the April 18 meeting with Mr. Henderson from Health Services and that it would be rescheduled for another time. She said that she had met with the Provost and AAUP President Cohen on April 18 and reported on the discussions which concerned the University’s budget and related matters.

d. Ms. Grubman distributed copies of an April 13 memorandum from Provost Swan to Vice Provost Trubatch suspending admissions to the Masters in Community Planning Program. It was agreed that although the President and Provost had the authority to suspend admissions to programs, as had been the case in 1995, there might be other issues related to the program suspension that fell under the Faculty Senate’s purview. It was agreed to discuss the memorandum further at their next meeting.

4. The Executive Committee reviewed the Agenda for the following afternoon’s Faculty Senate meeting. It was agreed that Chairperson Boudreaux-Bartels would announce early in the meeting that a recess meeting would be scheduled for April 28 if the Senate has not completed the April 21 Agenda by 5:00 p.m.

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

a. JSPC: The Executive Committee discussed section 5.70.12 of the UNIVERSITY MANUAL which stated that “The President and the Chair of the Faculty Senate shall report on the progress of the Committee to the Faculty Senate at least once each year and to the university community as appropriate.” Chairperson Boudreaux-Bartels agreed to report to the Senate on this year’s activities at the May 12 meeting. She said that she would remind President Carothers of that provision as well.

Also discussed was Vice Chairperson Rosen’s suggestion that the JSPC consider the formation of subcommittees or task forces comprising broader representation that might begin to explore creative ideas for increasing revenue or producing efficiencies. Senator Rosen noted that an Ad Hoc Task Force formed jointly by the Faculty Senate Executive Committee and the President, and Chaired by the President during the 2002-03 academic year, proposed a number of financial suggestions that eventually lead to the formation of the JSPC and the Fiscal Year 2003-06 strategic plan for the university."

b. (Murphy) Program Review Model: Chairperson Boudreaux-Bartels brought the Executive Committee up to date on the progress of the subcommittee that continued to refine the model developed by Mr. Murphy to meet URI’s requirements. She said that she hoped that the second round of beta testing with several departments would begin in May.

Chairperson Boudreaux-Bartels said that she and Senators Martin and Rice, along with Ms. Morrissey planned to visit departments that would participate in the second round of beta testing to explain the model and answer questions.

Chairperson Boudreaux-Bartels reported that Mr. Murphy had assured Ms. Morrissey that the web-based evaluations would be up and running for the beta test. Following discussion, it was agreed to use paper copies of the surveys to test the web process before moving exclusively to the web-based survey.

The Executive Committee agreed to postpone the start of the subsequent week’s meeting until 1:30 in order for Senators Martin, Rice and Boudreaux-Bartels to have time to attend a 1:00 pm presentation of the Murphy Model to one of the beta test departments.

c. Meeting with the President and Provost: The Executive Committee briefly reviewed their April 13 meeting for Senator Kowalski, who had not been able to attend. It was agreed that the Executive Committee should continue to pursue with Provost Swan the budget priorities that the FSEC had drafted.

d. Recommendation of the CBUM Committee: The Executive Committee discussed the CBUM Committee’s response to the suggestion for two Vice Chairpersons. The CBUM Committee had offered an alternative proposal for designating a member of the Executive Committee to serve as a liaison between the Senate and the JSPC. After discussion, it was agreed that the Executive Committee could appoint one of its members to serve as the liaison without changing the UNIVERSITY MANUAL as proposed by the CBUM Committee.

6. The Executive Committee reviewed their previous list of topics for their meeting with the Provost. After discussion, they agreed to the following topics for their April 27 Meeting with Provost Swan:

a. Feedback on the FSEC’s recommendations for budget priorities. What are our best ideas? Which suggestions have the highest probability of being funded?

b. Discussion of the vacancy in the position of Vice Provost for Graduate Studies, Research, and Outreach.

c. A University-wide Land Grant, Sea Grant and Urban Grant initiative.

d. College Faculty Governance.

e. Update on efforts to improve the processing of lab fees

The meeting was adjourned at 3:08 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Sheila Black Grubman