The one hundred and second meeting of the Faculty Assembly for the University of North Carolina was held in the Board Room of the General Assembly Building in Chapel Hill on September 19, 1997. The meeting was called to order by Chair Laura Gasaway at 1:00 p.m., with 48 delegates in attendance. After welcoming remarks, she introduced President Molly Broad for her remarks.

President Broad’s Remarks

President Broad spoke to the Assembly on issues of the 1996 resolutions, capital budget request, salaries, and tuition. (A copy of President Broad’s remarks is attached). As a part of her remarks, she asked Kennis Grogan, Associate Vice President for Finance, to review the University of North Carolina Schedule of Priorities Request (SB 352) 1997-99.

Ken Grogan’s Remarks

The focus of Mr. Grogan’s comments centered on the 1997-98 fiscal year allocations and the 13 line items on the Schedule of Priorities Request (SB 352) 1997-99. Those items included the following:

1. Enrollment Changes.
2. Funding Equity.
3. Information Technology - Computing and Telecommunications.
4. Libraries (line items #3 and #4 can use the 1% reversion provision).
5. Rewarding Teaching Excellence.
6. University Outreach to the Public Schools.
7. New Degree Programs.
8. Graduate Education and Research.
9. Area Health Education Centers.
10. Administrative Support for New Processes.
11. Remove 2% Reversion Rate Requirement.
12. Distinguished Professors Endowment Trust Fund-State Matching Funds.
13. Interinstitutional Programs (Institute on Aging, NCSA Summer Institute, SEAA computing, & N. C. Scholastic Media Assoc. Project received funding).

Chair Gasaway welcomed the new delegates and introduced them to the Faculty Assembly. The Parliamentarian, Gilbert Smith, gave brief remarks. Paul Duvall, UNCG, demonstrated the Faculty Assembly homepage( http://www.uncg.edu/~duvallp/assembly) he created as a communications medium.

The report on Equity Funding was tabled until the November meeting.

Chair Gasaway’s first official act in April was to create the Ad Hoc Committee on Faculty Assembly Meetings. It consisted of George Wahl, chair, NCSU, Keith Howell, UNCG and Linda Nelms, UNCA. On behalf of the Ad Hoc Committee, Ms. Nelms addressed three goals: (1) to minimize time spent in the Assembly in discussion of form and organizational issues; (2) to maximize the time spent in substitive discussion and (3) to insure that the Assembly has an impact by addressing issues in a timely way so to identify issues rather than simply respond to issues. In response to chair Gasaway’s charge, the following suggestions on Faculty Assembly Meetings were recommended:

1. The Chair will make clear that committees may bring forth requests, directives, or resolutions.
2. The Committees will distinguish between urgent resolutions and those that are not time-sensitive.
   1. Resolutions that are not urgent will be written at one meeting, circulated and refined between meetings, and formally presented at the next.
   2. Urgent resolutions will be presented as soon as possible. If detailed questions of grammar or form arise during the discussion of the resolutions, the Chair of the Faculty Assembly will have a committee quickly review the wording while the rest of the Assembly discusses the content. The Resolutions and Directives Committee would then return the amended resolution to the assembly.
3. The Chair will change the format of the agenda to focus better the energy of the Assembly.
4. Committee chairs will correspond and share information with their committee by e-mail between sessions.
5. The Chair will request that issues and concerns be submitted by e-mail. The Chair will assign these concerns to committees or present them to the full Assembly.
6. The Chair will request the General Administration distribute the reading material that may require action before the day of the Assembly meeting.
7. The agenda will set a target time (9:00 p.m.) for adjournment. While this time may be ignored for cause, it will serve to structure the discussion.
8. The Chair will appoint an AD HOC Committee to review the purpose and nature of the standing committees.
9. The Chair will solicit ideas from the new President on how the Faculty Assembly might be most effective in achieving its goals.

EVENING PLENARY SESSION
Friday, September 19, 1997

The session was called to order at 7:05 with 48 delegates in attendance.

The minutes of the April 16, 1997 meeting of the Faculty Assembly were approved.

Chair’s Report

The Executive Committee held an evening session on September 18, and identified two goals that the Executive Committee and the Faculty Assembly, as a whole, should work to accomplish for this year: (1) work towards becoming pro-active instead of reactive and (2) to improve meeting sessions and better use of time when together.

Chair Gasaway noted that the Assembly will go forward on the recommendations of the Ad Hoc Committee on Faculty Assembly Meetings and will experiment with the agenda to find the optimum schedule.

STANDING COMMITTEE REPORTS

Chair Gasaway suggested that Chairs presenting lengthy agendas consider using the web site to circulate the information.

Faculty Welfare (William Siegfried, UNCC)

The committee identified three agenda items identified for the year: ( 1) benefits, (2) work-loads and (3) teaching. They will address these items at the next meeting.

Planning and Program (Dan Caton, ASU)

General Assembly reports were given by Judith Pulley, Vice President for Planning, and Myra Cain, Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs. Ms. Pulley focused on long range planning programs, changes in institutional mission statements, productivity review, review of new programs, annual enrollment projections, promoting distant learning, revising institutional assessment plans, and UNC capital equity study. Myra Cain discussed the Articulation Agreement and its progress. Mr. Caton presented a draft resolution concerning measuring quality in education in ways that are not necessarily quantitative nor based on cost factors. After some discussion, the Assembly agreed that the committee rework the resolution for presentation at a later meeting.

Mr. Caton concluded that the committee will continue to study the impact of the calendar change to 150 days.

Questions and Answers.

     Q. Henry Ferrell (ECU): Can there be a tracking system of student progress who transfer from Community Colleges to the University System.?

     A. Judith Pulley (GA): Look on the UNC Web page under Undergraduate Admissions/ or new Student information. The transfer information system will track the performance of every student from every Community College to every University.

Faculty Governance (Ken Gurganus, UNCW)

The 1997-98 goal of the Committee on Faculty Governance is to review of the Faculty Assembly Charter and By-Laws with the view of optimizing Faculty Assembly effectiveness as the overall goal. Mr. Gurganus requested that the Faculty Assembly review the Charter and By-Laws, posted on the Faculty Assembly Web page and respond with comments to the Committee prior to the November meeting.

Other agenda items included: (1) method of apportionment of Faculty Assembly delegates to the various constituent institution; (2) review Section 10 of the By-laws on Committee on Committees, to include overall responsibilities of the Faculty Assembly and to determine a need for a different Committee structure; (3) ways to support Senate operations on various campuses with special needs (space, secretarial help, etc.); and (4) getting faculty representation on the Boards of Trustees committees.

Professional Development (Mike Pearson, UNCC)

The Professional Development Committee addressed 3 items for discussion: (1) post-tenure review; (2) issue of funding reduction for the Institute for College and University Teaching (ICUT) and (3) reviewing differences between campuses with and without teaching learning centers.

Budget Committee (Bruce Larson)

During the course of the meeting, the committee was joined by Don Caughill, Associate Vice President for Finance, who discussed the revised funding model, and Ken Grogan, reported on the 1997-98 Budget Recommendations recently approved by the Board of Governors. The committee identified four items for the 1997-98 year: (1) review the 1998-99 Schedule of Priorities Request; (2) update the Faculty Participation in the Budget Process survey; (3) learn more about the implications of the Revised Funding Models for the UNC System; and (4) find an approach to participate in the graduate and professional school tuition discussions, and extending this participation to include undergraduate tuition.

Academic Freedom and Tenure (Don Sexauer, ECU)

The Academic Freedom and Tenure Committee will gather data related to the number of courses and students taught by tenured, probationary-track and fixed-term faculty within the university system. Included in this data is the amount of release time allocated to tenured, tenure-track, and fixed-term faculty. The committee hopes to identify trends in the number of tenured, probationary-track, and fixed-term faculty who teach.

Chair Gasaway stated that the Committee agendas will be compiled for the Web page to present an overall picture of the Assembly’s focus for 1997-98 before the next meeting.

Old Business

There was no old business.

New Business

There was no new business.

Chair Gasaway concluded the session by announcing that for future meetings the agendas and unapproved minutes will be available on the home page rather than mailed to delegates.

The next meeting date is November 21, 1997. The new order of agenda format will be implemented.

Meeting adjourned at 7:50 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Maceo C. Smith, Faculty Assembly

Secretary