Peabody Room 206
I. Call to order
Dr.
II. Roll call
The following persons were present: Ed Acevedo, Alice Cooper, Conrad Cunningham, Walter Davis, Garey Fox, Jamie Harker, Greg Johnson, Diane Marting, Christopher McCurdy, KB Melear, Milorad Novicevic, Daniel O’Sullivan, Scott Owens, Michael Repka, Sidney Rowland, Laura Sheppardson, William Shughart, Elizabeth Stephan, Dan Subramanian, Joe Sumrall, Mary Thurlkill, Joe Urgo, Randy Wadkins, Nancy Wicker, Kristie Willett, Alexander Yakovlev, and Fan Yang.
The following persons were not present: Tony Ammeter, Janice Bounds, Judith Cassidy, Laurie Cozad, Donna Davis, Tristan Denley, Rick Elam, Ray Fulton, Matthew Hall, Ivo Kamps, Neil Manson, Jennifer Mizenko, Elizabeth Payne, Bill Scott, Paul Secunda, Warren Steel, Bonnie Van Ness, Michael Waterstone, Kathleen Wickham, and John Winkle.
III. Open issues
¨ Dr. Sumrall began the meeting by showing PowerPoint slides of pictures of the new faculty senate offices.
¨ Dr. Sumrall stated that back in January when we had faculty senate chair elections we had a difficult time with that process. He also stated that he believes the administration is making a conscious effort to make the position a more desirable position and has requested release time for the faculty senate chair in the future. Therefore, in the fall it will not be as difficulty to elect a new chair.
¨ Dr. Sumrall stated that he has also put in a request for a laptop for the faculty senate chair, but has not received a response.
¨ Dr. Sumrall requested a motion to except last month’s minutes. Dr. O’Sullivan motioned to accept and Dr. Urgo seconded. Senator Marting stated that in the last month’s minutes her name was stated as Chair Marting and should be changed to Senator Marting.
¨ Dr. Novicevic stated that on last month’s minutes the section Merit Pay for Research- shouldn’t discuss unless money is there should be revised to say “shouldn’t discuss unless money is there or permitted to raise money.”
¨ Dr. Novicevic motioned to accept the minutes with the changes and Dr. O’Sullivan seconded. Minutes were accepted unanimously with change.
¨ Dr. Sumrall stated the next item on the agenda is the discussion of the administrative review process. This discussion began last February when it was sent to Dr. Bouts committee a letter requesting some form of administrative review. The faculty senate received a motion from her committee that was unanimously approved and took that motion to the Academic Council Administrators and they liked it. As a hole the council liked the motion, but thought it needed some clarification. It needed to identify which administrators would be reviewed, etc. and wanted more detail. So we brought the review back before the faculty senate and made another motioned and was voted on unanimously by the faculty senate. Took the new motion back to the Academic Council Administrators and one particular member of the council had made a problem with that motion. So the idea was hatched that the Executive Council of the Faculty Senate and the Council of Academic Administrators would meet and try to get on the same page and as a group on October 6, 2005.
¨ Dr. Sumrall stated that at the Executive Council of the Faculty Senate and the Council of Academic Administrators meeting they had almost 100% attendance…including their sub-group of Drs. Sullivan-Gonzalez, Hopkins, and Chetwood. We had a lengthy discussion and out of that discussion the following was statements were agreed on.
¨ He stated that the Executive Council is in favor of the review policy and revised the policy as follows:
The following policy applies to the quadrennial review of academic administrators at the level of Deans or Directors and above with 50% or greater of their time devoted to administration.
No later than two weeks before the review deadline, academic administrators are encouraged to submit a summary of accomplishments and challenges as related to the goals and mission of their unit. The document should be composed with the goal of providing information to faculty who have been asked to comment on the administrator’s reappointment. The document should be placed on a password protected website for exclusive review by faculty in the Dean or Director’s unit.
The purpose of this policy is to inform faculty about their Dean or Director in a unit and not to change the current evaluative process.
¨ Dr. Sumrall stated that there is one possible edit with the motion which includes the wording “No later than two weeks before the review deadline, academic administrators are encouraged to submit a summary of accomplishments and challenges as related to the goals and mission of their unit.” It was suggested that another word be used. He stated that he is very flexible with the wording and hoped that upon leaving tonight’s meeting will be approved by the Council of Academic Administrators.
¨ Dr. Stephan stated that she was the one that suggested that the word “encouraged” be changed, but she doesn’t really care one way or the other. She also stated that if this policy is going to stated that this is something they are going to have to do then the word should be “asked” because the word encouraged seems to mean that you really don’t have to do it.
¨ The entire Faculty Senate discussed on the wording of the policy “encouraged” vs. “asked”.
¨ Dr. Urgo stated he would like to have the wording revised in the second paragraph, second sentence which currently states “The document should be composed with the goal of providing information to faculty who have been asked to comment on the administrator’s reappointment.” Should be revised to say “That document…”
¨ Dr. Sumrall stated that at the October 6th meeting the Executive Council decided to have a discussion after the Deans left and state that this is not really a motion to change the evaluation process. The Council said that they are just asking for a formal list to be posted somewhere for faculty to review which will give the faculty a background of what administrators in certain levels do. The Council is trying to separate this issue out from the evaluation process and where we might have another motion, separate from this one, to look at the process of the evaluation. During the discussion a comment was made that right now it is an informal process where the Provost sends out an email asking for feedback about an administrator and that’s the process.
¨ Dr. Ed Acevedo stated that this all started when Maurice Eftink came to a faculty senate and said that they just had a meeting with the dean and said that only four faculty members had responded to the prompt of a review. The administration, as a hole, felt that was miserably horrible and that they had really no feedback from the faculty. So Dr. Eftink came to us and said what you think we can do about it and our initial response was that we don’t have any information to review. So we began to say give us information so we can participate. Dr. Acevedo stated that this policy is a good idea and this starts the process, but I would also like to see how the other departments in the school are doing. He asked if we can get access to year-end reviews.
¨ Dr. Sumrall stated that the council and the administrators at the October 6th meeting considered that about being opened vs. closed and I think that one of the points made was that units can be really different, such as comparing apples to oranges.
¨ Dr. Acevedo stated that he would like to see the report for my departments in my school.
¨ Dr. Sumrall stated that he did not have a problem with that, but the needs to be addressed as a separate motion.
¨ After a very lengthy discussion Dr. Urgo motioned for a friendly amendment for revising the wording to say “No later than two weeks before the review deadline, academic administrators are asked to submit a summary of accomplishments and challenges as related to the goals and mission of their unit.” And “That document should be composed with the goal of providing information to faculty who have been asked to comment on the administrator’s reappointment.” Dr. Ed Acevedo seconded the motion. Motion passed unanimously.
¨ Dr. Sumrall stated that the issued brought up at the last faculty senate meeting was based on our interaction with the Chancellor being invited to the Executive Council of the Faculty Senate to lunch. We brought up faculty raises and eventually merit pay for research came up as a concept and the Chancellor was agreeable with that. Dr. Urgo’s and Dr. Wiggers’s committees were put on that task about merit pay for research and I was asked to see if any other faculty senate’s could give us any information about what they do at other places. Most of the feedback from the other faculty senate committees stated that there was not process for merit pay. They bring up tenure and promotion as a permanent increase and I don’t think the Chancellor would go for a permanent increase for merit.
¨ Dr. Sumrall read the “Merit Review” as follows:
The Faculty Senate Governance and Finance committees recommend that a system be established in each college or school to reward merit in research with private funds raised by the Chancellor.
Each college and school shall devise protocols on how merit funds will be awarded with each department describing what is worthy of research merit in its own unit, subject to the Dean’s approval.
¨ Dr. Urgo stated that this should be a once a year, one time shot.
¨ Dr. Sumrall stated that he will send the motion directly to the Chancellor.
¨ Dr. Acevedo stated that this motion needed to be send directly to the Chancellor and would ask him which body we be interacting to make sure the motion moves forward.
¨ Dr. Urgo stated that we need to let the schools decide how merits will be developed because small schools may do one a year and larger schools may do 2-3 a year.
¨ Dr. Sumrall stated that the idea is that each unit or department has its own unique qualities as far as what research is.
¨ Dr. O’Sullivan stated that merit awards should be labeled to distinguish from what we already have and should not be a competitive award.
¨ Dr. Urgo stated that the merits should depend on how much money is raised.
¨ Dr. Novicevic asked if this is a merit structure or an incentive structure.
¨ Dr. Urgo stated that the merit award should be if you do the research you get the money.
¨ Dr. Novicevic stated that the merit awards should be an incentive.
¨ Dr. Acevedo stated that the merit award is from an incentive perspective and we should stay away from using the term “merit”.
¨ Dr. Urgo stated that we may need to revise the wording to say “Each college and school shall devise protocols on how incentive funds will be awarded with each department describing what is worthy of research merit in its own unit, subject to the Dean’s approval.”
¨ Dr. Sumrall stated what happens if the work is done and the incentive does not come through.
¨ Faculty Senate discussed other changes in wording of the Merit Review process.
¨ Dr. Sumrall asked for a motion to accept the new revised wording of the merit review as follows:
The Faculty Senate recommends that an incentive system be established in each college or school to reward research and scholarly accomplishments with private funds raised by the Office of the Chancellor. Each college and school shall devise protocols on how incentive funds will be awarded.
¨ Dr. Urgo motioned to accept the revised Merit Review process. Dr. Wicker seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously.
¨ Dr. Sumrall asked for discussion of the Restructuring Plans at other Universities. Currently the plan reads:
Restructuring Plans At Other Universities
Given the decline in state funding for higher education, the Faculty Governance and Finance Committees encourage the financial officers of the university to investigate and identify alternative sources of revenue.
In particular, we suggest that resident and non-resident tuition levels be raised to the levels of our peer institutions, with discounts in place for those in need.
We also propose that surcharges be added to parking fees, parking violation fees, and athletic tickets, and that fees such as LSU’s academic excellence fee be examined.
¨ Faculty Senate discussed other changes in wording of the Merit Review process.
¨ Dr. Sumrall asked for a motion to accept the Restructuring Plans at other Universities with changes as follows.
Revenue Enhancement Plans
Given the decline in state funding for higher education, the Faculty Senate encourages the financial officers of the university to investigate and identify alternative sources of revenue from tuition, fees, and other auxiliary operations.
(NEED TO ADD STATEMENT ABOUT ENERGY CONSERVATION)
¨ Dr. Wicker motioned to accept the Restructuring Plans at other Universities with changes. Dr. K.B. Melear seconded. Motion passed unanimously.
¨ Motion to adjourn made by Dr. Greg Johnson. Dr. Novicevic seconded. Motion passed unanimously.
¨ Adjourned 6:15 p.m.
IV. Adjournment
Dr. Sumrall adjourned the meeting at 6:15 p.m.
Minutes submitted by: Ann Harrison
Minutes approved by: