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MINUTES OF FACULTY SENATE
April 12, 2005
302 Education Building
12:30 PM

Senate President Allen Colebank called the meeting to order at 12:30 p.m. in Room 303 in the Education, Health Careers, and Family and Consumer Sciences Building. The following members were present:

M. Bond, Kisner, Schaupp, Patterson, Bradley, Burger, Wilson, Harvey, Elliot (for Cable), Hill (for Kiefer), Berryhill, O’Connor (for Kirk), Poland, S. Bond, Kelly, Savage, Baur, Riesen, White, Sprowls, Allen, Richardson, Mazure, Fox.

The March 8, 2005 Faculty Senate Minutes were approved.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Connie Moore announced that the Annual Increment Pay for Higher Ed Faculty members did not pass the Legislature because the governor said that all compensation issues will be dealt with in a special session. The PEIA increases scheduled for July 1, 2005 were delayed until January 1, 2006. Connie brought a message from Mary Stewart: There will be a reception at Fairmont State for our legislators and she has asked for as many faculty as possible to attend. This will probably occur in June. Connie forwarded the director of faculty resources to the legislature and they have been posted on the Web. The ACF wrote a letter of support for Northern Community and Technical College’s grievance which is in the “third stage.” (The president of Northern required ALL faculty to report to campus on January 3, 2005, even though the semester didn’t start until January 18. Many faculty members had already made arrangements for travel and had planned to be out of the office.) Senate Bill 603 granting Marshall and WVU flexibility in the running of their institutions passed, but with a number of changes from the original bill.

Allen Colebank announced that electronic voting for the remaining constitutional changes will begin at 1:30 today and will be open for one week. Also, we still need members for the Academic Advising Council.

 

 

OLD BUSINESS

Motion by Sue Kelly to approve Curriculum Proposal 04-05-04, Fine Arts, for second reading, seconded by Connie Moore. Motion carried. The proposal requests that a one hour credit course is added to the music/music ed. major.

Motion by Andreas Baur to approve the recommendation from the Faculty Welfare Committee to change the Senate meeting times, seconded by Tia Richardson. After discussion,  the meeting time was amended to be on Tuesday from 3-5pm. Motion carried. Implementation will not take place until Spring 2006 to allow senators to adjust their teaching schedule.

Motion by Sharon Bond to approve appointment of the Senate/Assembly Web-Based Committee Directory/Webmaster Position for second reading, seconded by Rick Harvey. Motion carried. This proposal institutes and maintains a web-presence to provide information regarding meeting, schedules, minutes, committee members, and committee accomplishments. Discussion revolved on how this will be implemented. WebCT was mentioned as one possibility. The proposal also mentions that the person who maintains this website will be a member of the Executive Committee. The question was raised as to whether this would be changing the membership of the Executive Committee and therefore be a change in the Senate Constitution. This would have to pass by a 2/3 majority and then be passed by a 2/3 majority of the faculty, if we were changing the Constitution. It was decided that we passed the “spirit” of the proposal and that it would be more closely examined at a later time concerning actual implementation.

Motion by Tia Richardson to approve the procedures for Faculty Appointments to Committees for second reading, seconded by Connie Moore. This proposal requires that all faculty assignments to committees at the University level be approved by the Senate. There was a great deal of discussion on this issue. Would the Committee on Committees do some of this work? Would Committee on Committees become an all-year committee? Would faculty members use the current form for choosing the committees they would like to serve on? (Those distributed by the Committee on Committees.) Should we have more of the committees listed, especially those that are not standing committees of the senate? Would all faculty appointments be made with help from the Committee on Committees? The administration had two concerns: The timeliness of the choices may be an important consideration. The administration would like to have some choice in the personnel that are on some of the committees. Further discussion—The proposal may have to be “reworded” or “adjusted”. How do we get the committees populated? Having a process for choosing members of committees would be helpful. We probably should turn this into legislation for the Faculty Constitution (Senate?). Issues for the legislation: 1. How to choose members, 2. Who they are 3. The process of choosing members for committees.

It was decided that “the Senate should have the ability to assign people to any committee.” Secret ballot waived (Baur/S. Bond)
The proposal with the following amendment passed unanimously: (M. Bond/Kisner) “This proposal will be returned to the Faculty Welfare Committee to develop the procedures of the proposal. They will work with the President Bradley, Provost Patterson, and the Committee on Committees.”

Motion by Sharon Bond and seconded by Baur to approve the Policy Review Committee for second reading. Discussion ensued as to whether this requires a change in the constitution. Should an independent committee be formed to carry out these duties? The proposal passed with two dissenting votes.

Motion by Riesen and seconded by Baur to table the Campus Printing and Computer Use Committee. Discussion revolved around the fact that we have a Computer Advisory Committee and we are not sure what we should do concerning this proposal. It was recommended that we invite the new CIO for Technology to the next meeting to discuss this proposal and the current Computer Advisory Committee. Motion to table passed unanimously.

NEW BUSINESS

Three curriculum proposals were introduced for first reading. 04-05-06 (Science and Technology) changes the number of Intermediate Algebra from Math 1111 to Math 1100. 04-05-07 (Fine Arts) proposes to reduce the music minor requirements from four to two semesters of Functional Piano classes. 04-05-08 (Science and Technology) creates a new course, SCIE 1103 Science That Matters I, 4 credits. The course has been offered as SCIE 1199 for three semesters. Motion by Poland and seconded by Bond to combine the three curriculum proposals into a single vote to accept for first reading. The motion passed unanimously.

A motion by Riesen and seconded by M. Bond to suspend the rules in order to consider 04-05-06 for second reading. Rationale was given as this is only a change in the number to better reflect the status of the course as not counting for liberal studies credit. It was further noted that beginning Fall 2005-06, the course would belong to the C & TC. Motion passed. Motion by Moore and seconded by Richardson to accept 04-05-06 for second reading. Motion to waive secret ballot was passed. The motion passed unanimously.

The reports of the Student Hearing Board, Financial Aid, International Education and the Library Committees were accepted as presented.

The Institutional Testing Committee asked to have its name changed to “Internal Review Board” within its report. It was decided that this would require two readings to accept the committee report. Motion by M. Bond and seconded by Schaupp to accept the committee report for first reading. The motion passed unanimously.

The Athletic Committee report contained the recommendation that “Athletes be given preference in scheduling courses equivalent to the preference given to seniors, Post-Grads, Honors, and Disabled students.”  This report was deemed to require two readings to be accepted as presented. Motion by Berryhill and seconded by Harvey to accept the report for first reading. The rationale for the proposal included: there are limited facilities for our sports teams, we have three different teams trying to use the same field and this requires difficulty in scheduling practices AND schedules. There are approximately 280 athletes that would be affected. The motion to accept the report for first reading passed unanimously.

Motion by M. Bond and seconded by Moore to accept the following as members of the Nominating Committee for Faculty Senate Officers: Harvey (chair), Kiefer, Kirk, Allen, Kelley.

Meeting adjourned at 1:35.

Respectfully submitted,

Joe Riesen
for Kristi Kiefer
Faculty Senate Secretary