From 7:00-7:30 p.m. Alice Clark, Office of Research and Sponsored Programs, gave a brief presentation until a quorum was present.

Dr. Clark: the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs is trying to make it easier for faculty to be successful; just call the office and they'll put you in touch with the right person.

Two types of funding out of this office:
External Resource Funding

• Division of research: help develop proposals for external funding;
• Division of sponsored programs and administration: administration of external funding;
• Research compliance: Animal and Human Subject research, etc.;
• Technology management: Reporting, Protecting, and Commercializing Intellectual Property;

Internal Resource Funding

• Support travel to ID funding opportunities, summer stipend, and small grants;
• Travel awards have been standardized (FYI: not really to just attend a conference; must explicitly state how the conference will aid towards a further research outcome). Also for faculty to attend regional and national government agencies for workshop or one-on-one with the program officers;
• Offering second year of workshop series to support faculty;
• Divide support into three areas: Life Sciences, Physical and Engineering Sciences, and Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences.

Finally, the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs is responsible for the University Research Board Standing Committee (URB), [available in the PDF version of the Standing Committees booklet online @ http://www.olemiss.edu/news/committees/2003StandingCom.pdf] which is governed by the Senate. Senators should bring URB issues to this body. One example is that there has been some concern about how 12-month faculty will benefit from the internal funding program. This, and similar issues, are being taken up by a URB task force.

Questions for Dr. Clark

• Senator Davidson: what to do with funds that are spread out over two years? AC: Call office and someone who will get that straightened out;
• Senator Alidaee: what is the average amount of travel money provided to graduate students? AC: will have to look up. Senator Alidaee encourages the office to give more. AC: Trying to coordinate funding with the Graduate School/Dr. Eftink to provide support;
• Senator Cassidy: do faculty have access to a subscription grant information on the on the web? AC: programs are on available only in the Office of Research. A program development specialist will use the resources to ferret out funding opportunities for you, and run down the funding forms, etc. However, the Office of Research will be sending out email alerts for keywords research areas for those interested.

Meeting called to order with a quorum at 7:30 p.m.

Present: Donna Adler, Aileen Ajootian, Brahram Alidaee, John Bentley, Luca Bombelli, John Bruce, Victoria Bush, Judith Cassidy, Laurie Cozad, Gregg Davidson, Michelle Emanuel, Charles Ingene, Ahmed Kishk, Amy E. Mark, Clifford Ochs, Rosemary Oliphant-Ingham, James Reid, David Rock, Bobbie Smothers, Ken Sufka, Nancy Wiggers, Haidong Wu (22 names; who is missing?)

Absent: Edmund Acevedo*, Milam Aiken*, Deborah Barker*, Nancy Bercaw*, Robert Brown*, Wei-Yin Chen, Daisy Cheng*, Steven Davis, Kirsten Dellinger, Rick Elam*, Laurdella Foulkes-Levy*, Kris Gilliland, Matthew Hall*, Anne Quinney*, Charles Ross,Warren Steel, Steven Stodghill*, Diane Tidwell*, Annette Trefzer, Waheed Uddin, Joseph Urgo*, Charles West, Dawn Wilkins*, Jordan Zjawiony

* Prior notification

I. Old Business
A. The minutes for September 11, 2003 minutes_20030900.html were approved without dissent.

II. New Business
A. Student absence policy, Bob Weems, Karen Schifferal, Assistant AD for Academic support, and Ryan Kuklinski (Business major/baseball player)

Senator Cassidy moved to approve the addition to the student absentee proposal with the friendly amendments and addendum; second by Senator Davidson. Handcount: yeas 23; nays 0; abstained 0. For current policy and policy with changes, click here.

Bob Weems

• Student athletes sometimes have to miss class to attend athletic competitions where attendance is required in order to receive financial aid;
• Some faculty will not let student athletes make up examinations or coursework;
• The present Catalog statement does detail make-up examination or coursework procedure;
• An addition to present statement outlines that faculty must allow student athletes to make up examinations or coursework;
  • Proposed addition: "Also, students and their counselors or advisors are expected to plan their class schedules so as to minimize the number of classes that student will be forced to miss."

Discussion

• Senator Ingene: why doesn't the athletic department approach the administration and have them change the rules so that the student can miss the competition in order to take the examination?
• Senator Cassidy: old policy also includes that instructors must be notified prior to the competition, which does not happen. ANSWER: the students themselves must get the letter to the professor themselves prior to competition. Will look into electronic notification methods.
• Senator Adler: concern that students are taking advantage of this policy by saying they are on the road when they are not. As to the issue of notice: faculty are only required to make up work or examination accommadations if faculty has had prior notification. ANSWER: how coursework or examinations are made up is under the purview of the faculty member.
• Senator Davidson: Believes that the notion of advanced notice is extremely important. The students should come to the professor to make arrangements to take the test early instead of having an extra week to study.
• Senator Ingene: how many students has this been a problem with? ANSWER: one student is too many.
• Senator Mark: does not believe that this is really enough of a problem to alter the current catalog.
• Ryan Kuklinski: student baseball player have the possibility of missing up to six classes due to games, which would violate the freshman English policy and cause the student athlete to fail the class.
• Senator Mark: how many classes should an student athlete be allowed to miss? Is six going to be the absolute limit?
• Senator Bruce: Sounds like there are some problem faculty and some problem student athletes that have causeed problems in the past. One issue on the table is the amount of prior notice. Another issue is that students play too many games in some sports. Philosophically we are opposed to students missing this much class-however, for the sake of the current student athletes, this must be taken up NCAA, not the student athletic office.
• Senator Alidaee: Friendly Amendment to move sentence beginning "Names of participating students and the dates…" up two sentences in the document. 2nd Friendly Amendment: "should" back to "must" and moved up two sentences.

B. Report from committees

• Academic Affairs: no chair, nothing to report
• Academic Support Services: Chair Michelle Emanuel
  • Spam survey has gone out via email. Please take it if you have not and encourage others to participate. FYI: none of business school received the survey notification. Senator Emanuel will take this up with IT.
• Faculty Governance: Chair, Joe Urgo, nothing to report
• Finance: Chair, John Bentley, nothing to report
• University Services: Chair, James Reid, nothing to report

C. University Community Forum Update, David Rock
Scheduled for Oct. 29, 2003, 6:30 p.m. at the Ford Center, Senator Urgo moderating.

• The forum task force has solicited faculty, staff, graduate and undergraduate students for questions. They will now narrow down the questions to five questions for each of the four groups. The administration will be given the general themes that emerge but not the actual questions.
• Logistically not positive how this is going to work but after each question has been asked, there will be ONE follow up question allowed by the audience. The follow up questions will probably have to be written down and read by the moderator.
• Planning on having three forums-potentially in February and April 2004. These months were chosen as they are before and after the legislative session.
• PLEASE talk the forum up to the staff and faculty.

D. Explanation of possible changes to Bylaws for the Committee on Elections, Senator Adler
Senators are asked to look over a print document handed out and to please email Senator Adler the details of any substantive changes and non-substantive change that are of issue.

Meeting adjourned at 8:30 p.m.