MINUTES_0908

Tuesday, 9 September 2008
2:00 p.m., EB 162
Meeting 2009-01

Meeting called to order at 2:08pm.

Roll call

Attendance sheets were distributed.
Absent:
- Departmental senators: Barth (Public and International Affairs), Blundo (Social Work), Evers (Accountancy and Business Law), Hall (Social Work), Huber (Elementary, Middle, and Literacy Education), Hungerford (Psychology), Hurst (Psychology), Kermani (Early Childhood and Special Education), Moallem (IT, Foundations, and Secondary Education), Noland (English), Simmons (Anthropology), White (Creative Writing).
- Committee chairs: Caropreso (Evaluation), Patterson (IT), Wilcox (Buildings and Grounds).

Approval of the April 2008 and May 2008 (electronic) minutes

April 2008 minutes were approved.
May 2008 (electronic) minutes were approved.

Special order of the day

Election of the Vice President, the Secretary, and the Steering Committee of the Senate (More information from Bylaws)

Nominations for Vice President open: Curt Stiles.
- Motion from the floor [Motion 09-01-01]: To close the nominations for Vice President and ask the Secretary to cast the ballot.
  - [Motion 09-01-01] seconded.
    - Discussion:
      - No objections to [Motion 09-01-01].
    - [Motion 09-01-01] carried.
Nominations for Secretary open: Liza Palmer.
- Motion from the floor [Motion 09-01-02]: To close nominations for Secretary and ask the Secretary to cast the ballot.
  - [Motion 09-01-02] seconded.
    - Discussion:
      - No objections to [Motion 09-01-02].
    - [Motion 09-01-02] carried.
Nominations for Steering Committee open: Andy Jackson, Steve Pullum, Gabriel Lugo, Carlos Rodriguez.
- Question: If we don’t get any more nominations, do we have to vote?
  - No we don’t have to vote.
- Nomination: Sue Cody.
- From the floor: I move that nominations be closed.
  - So moved.
  - All in favor.
- It was reported later in the meeting that, as a result of anonymous ballots, the following four people were elected to Steering Committee: Sue Cody, Andy Jackson, Gabriel Lugo, Steve Pullum.

Individual reports

Chancellor DePaolo

Welcome to the first Faculty Senate meeting.
The room was abuzz – I want you to remember this because the April and May meetings were very quiet.
I want to talk about some things that I had mentioned in the Fall Faculty Meeting, but which bear repeating.
Last year, at this time, we faced a major cut.
This year, we were given 4 million – but we might face a reversion in the middle of the year. So we are going to hang on to some funds in case this happens – we are going to spend our time working on a plan as to how to spend it in case we don’t have to give it back. The extra money is from the increase in enrollment. We were planning for 1950 – we are now at 2100. Two things happened – more students accepted our offers than our models could have predicted. In February, GA looked at our numbers of out-of-state students so we had to balance this against state appropriations – in order to have that balance, we had to take more in-state students. Our SAT scores have held steady. As you may know, there is a 3% merit pool for faculty – this should come in the September paycheck. The raises for SPA was 2.75% or $1100, whichever was higher.
I want to put this in context – we have had in the last few years, much-needed, much-deserved pay increases. I wish we could do that this year. But I keep thinking back to what is happening in Georgia – they’re not paying their faculty for certain days. They don’t have to come in but they aren’t getting paid. And Georgia is looking at a 10% cut.
If we have a 3% reversion, we can handle that without impacting core research and teaching – so there will be minimal impact to the academic side.
I want to mention UNC Tomorrow – we are now in Phase II planning. Phase II, I have always said, is at the heart of what we do. It’s going to look at reappointment, promotion, and tenure guidelines – we don’t have to redo them right now but we have to look at how we do it. It’s also going to look at the programs we offer. And then we will have to look at our mission – how not to be duplicated within the system.
Hannah Gage of Wilmington has become Chair of the UNC Board of Governors – she is the first woman to be Chair of the Board of Governors, the first person from Wilmington to be elected Chair, and the first UNCW Trustee to be elected Chair. She knows and she has stated that we are the best in the system – she has always fought for us. In talking to her, I know that some of the things she is focusing on, is that whole idea that we have got to figure out how to be affordable and accessible in some way. She will be chairing the board meeting this week --- I will report back. The topics she raises, though, are the things we need to think about. So graduation rates, distance education, etc.
At the Fall Faculty Meeting, you probably heard Mark Blackwell, SGA President. This is the first time I have ever heard an SGA president talk about how to improve the graduation rates among students – let’s help him with that.
Basic Studies is a high priority. We have been working on this for five years. I remember challenging everyone about this five years ago – dream the best experience for our students. Right now, we have a much more pragmatic pressure on our head – and that’s SACS. We all know SACS – I sometimes judge my career by how many SACS reviews I have been through. Everything you do at an institution – the only question they ask is how are you assessing it. So it’s not enough that we know we are doing the right things and doing our best. I urge you to volunteer for SACS committees – we will try to gather the most amount of money to send as many people to the meeting in December.
I want to call on Martin Posey, who has served on the SACS Commission and can comment on this.

Posey: A high percentage of institutions going through accreditation -- about 40% -- are going through some sort of remediation for assessment.

Any questions?
I am going to turn things over now to Provost Brian Chapman to say more.

Provost Brian Chapman:
- I want to express gratitude to be able to serve as Provost here. It’s been a long dream of mine to be here. You have got a lot to be proud of here at this school. Coming here as an interviewee, I was struck by how committed everyone is here to UNCW. We have some outstanding academic programs. When colleagues at my old institution heard I interviewed here, they came up to me to talk about a lot of our programs here that they knew about. Outstanding grantwork and publications come out of this place. You have a beautiful campus, inside and out. Basically, I am just excited to be here.

I wish I hadn’t come at a time of a budget cut. It’s a little difficult to come here under these circumstances—it’s been a rough time for me.
When I interviewed for this position, it was made clear to me that you wanted a Provost who would make decisions and move the university forward. I took that decision seriously – perhaps too seriously. It’s taken me a few months to learn that we do have a different campus culture – we do move more slowly here. You want decisions to be made but you don’t want them to be made too fast or if they will affect you.
I have been hearing rumors – I want to address them.
- Rumor 1: I don’t agree with shared governance. That’s not true. I worked extensively at my other institution with the Faculty Senate. I do believe in shared governance – and that it’s important that we work together.
- Rumor 2: I don’t believe the faculty owns the curriculum. That’s not true either. Now there are some situations where I would have to step in, if you wanted 80 Basic Studies hours, for instance. But with shared governance, there has to be a give and take.
- Rumor 3: I dissolved the Basic Studies Committee. I sent a letter to thank the committee so that they know that I know the work they have done. I was under the impression that a new committee would be appointed this year, so I wanted to acknowledge the previous committee’s work. A few weeks ago, I met with Kim Sawrey, Ken Spackman, David Cordle, and Steve McFarland to talk about how Basic Studies will move forward. We are in the first cohort for SACS that have to submit a five-year progress report. There is a line for Basic Studies assessment. They assume that all universities started assessing their Basic Studies curriculum in 2002. They will assume that we will have 2-3 years of assessment data when we submit our report in March. We don’t have that. We are going to be in compliance with 13 of the 14 requirements for the report. The Chancellor will have to sign a report about number 14, the Basic Studies line, that we are not in compliance. The one escape clause is that we can come back and say: But we have a new curriculum and a new assessment plan. To make sure we have this in place, I have asked three different groups to do three different things. We need an assessment protocol for Basic Studies, headed by Ken Spackman (who has had more SACS experience than anyone, probably). The Faculty Senate Basic Studies Committee will take the existing Basic Studies curriculum and make sure that it works across the board. To identify the courses for each of the categories. Linda Siefert is going to be working on the syllabi themselves to make sure they have all the common learning outcomes carried through. We are going to be not in compliance and the Chancellor and I will take some heat on this. We have a need for speed because that report is due to SACS by the end of March. So we need to be done by December.
I am going to try to visit all of the departments over the next coming months – I want to tour your facilities and find out what we can do to make the lives of the chairs and the faculty easier. Bruce McKinney, as Faculty Senate President (or a Steering Committee representative) will accompany me on these tours.
I am going to have some open forums so people can come and talk to me, ask questions, get to know me.
- October 1st, 12-1:30pm in the Clock Tower Lounge.
- October 16th, 12:30 -2pm in the Clock Tower Lounge.
- Because of the budget cuts, we will only have lemonade and cookies.
That’s my plan – I want to have plenty of opportunities to have open communication with everyone.
We need to work on distance education – we are way behind some of the other universities. Especially since GA just sent an email a few weeks ago, stating that a UNCW student can take a distance education course at any of the other system schools and those credits will transfer -- and the other institution will get the money.
Any questions?

This may be a rumor, but I have heard that all the instructors on this campus will be forced to attend a sexual harassment session. Why?

Why don’t you ask GA? This is handed down from them.
- Is this true for every UNC campus? Every faculty member?
Yes.

I was interested in the implied link in your presentation between the Basic Studies curriculum and the UNCW’s inability to get started on assessment? They don’t seem related to me.

Basic Studies is not ready and not ready to be assessed.

We could have an assessment plan in place for the existing curriculum – the Basic Studies revision has not held that up surely?

Yes and I am not sure why that is.

You could leave the Basic Studies curriculum as it is and redraw the boxes?
- Chancellor: Tim, yes we could. But the complication is that Erskine is asking the campuses when the last time Basic Studies was revised.
But it may be premature to revise the curriculum before assessing the curriculum? Maybe not.
My department– our Basic Studies classes are maxed out: 40-50 students. But our distance education courses are limited to 25 – if we have to teach more distance education courses, we won’t have enough faculty to cover our classes.

Twenty-five is not necessarily an essential number for distance education. It kind of depends on the faculty member's ability to manage and innovate. There are a lot of options you have – you will have to work that out on your own. I don’t want to dictate that.

If we ask the Basic Studies Committee to stop the revision and do something else, this will be the second time that they have been taken off their task. They were stopped last semester to address the UNC Tomorrow report.

I think we have to concentrate on learning outcomes and hold off on the revision until we have some assessment data so we will have some basis to make these revisions.

I am just pointing out that they can’t be doing two things at the same time and wonder why people wonder why the committee doesn’t progress more.

I’ll try not to respond to that.

I’m not sure that is a helpful approach.

Some of the other campuses have done this in two years. We are the outlier here. Five years is an extraordinary amount of time when others have done it in two.

I think it needs to be said that we are academics – we are building the dreamscape. And now at the same time, I am understanding that this Basic Studies curriculum is needing to satisfy other requirements. I was not aware of that – we didn’t understand what the political imperatives were. So to hold us responsible, to spank us, so to speak, when we were not aware of these pressures is not productive.

You are right – I don’t think the two committees were given the proper charge. This is one of the reasons I want to open up communication so that we are all aware of these issues.

We need to understand what the real criteria and requirements are – not just the committees – so that we can fulfill all of the mandates. The administration needs to be sensitive to the fact that we need to be able to be informed enough to help in this process.
I am on the Basic Studies Committee – do I take my orders from you or from the Faculty Senate?

No – you answer to Faculty Senate.

So I can expect a charge coming from the Steering Committee?

I gave the directive to Kim Sawrey.

Yes, but that came from you and not Steering Committee.

I will work with Faculty Senate in future.

Just an observation – given the need for speed here. When they bring their report to us, there won’t be much room for debate.

We have until December.

Can I ask Kim what the timeline is?

Sawrey: Fast.
Chancellor: Steve, you bring a good point – there needs to be debate about this.

To be clear about this, we are not going to debate the revised curriculum – but the learning outcomes.
If I can just get back to this problem of ownership, we own the curriculum and we own the learning outcomes, too. We own the curriculum in the sense that you tell us what you need and we implement it – a constrained ownership?

Chancellor: Maybe if you make a distinction bet the curriculum and the process to develop the curriculum.

Whatever you all decide, we [the administration] are responsible for it.
Thank you.

President of the Senate McKinney

UNC Tomorrow Phase I is online – there is no way that I could cover it in less than 45 minutes. I encourage all of you to go to the homepage and type in UNC Tomorrow – it will bring you to the entire report and the executive summary, which is 25 pages (Phase I reports).
Phase II involves:
- Review of existing degree programs.
- Review of proposed new degrees.
- RPT guidelines.
- Faculty and staff recruitment and retention.
- Mission review.
I encourage you to get in touch with me if you want to be involved in any way in the UNC Tomorrow process – I am happy to make you ex officio on committees.
The Chancellor covered the budget – I won’t go into that.
We are searching now for the “founding dean” of the new Health College.
- To see the position description, please visit: http://www.uncw.edu/hr/dean.html

Cathy Barlow: We have to revisit the timeline – the person will start on July 1st.

Enough has been said about Basic Studies unless anyone wants to offer any other input?
Floor ceded to Mark Spaulding, Immediate Past President of Faculty Senate.
- I genuinely regret that Ray Burt who was to give this report had to leave.
- This is regarding revisions to post-tenure review from GA.
- There was a substantial give and take at Faculty Assembly about this issue.
- Faculty Assembly, the Senate of Senates, and GA have reached a compromise. That compromise is reflected in a directive that has come from GA to the campuses. We must make these changes this fall.
- We will have a motion from Senate to authorize the Steering Committee to change the language and report back to Senate.
- Question: When will this take effect?
  - McFarland: 2009-10.
- The things that we have to modify:
  - Annual review may be considered, but additional assessment required.
  - PTR to consider only areas of work responsibility.
  - Committee selected by faculty-agreed upon process in department; faculty members do not select members of their review committee; department chair must consult with PTR committee; outcome must be reviewed at least one administrative level higher.
  - PTR may provide additional recognition; negative review must include a statement of primary responsibilities and specific deficiencies; faculty response shared with next higher administrative level.
    - Andy Jackson: This is what we have now pretty much. We just call it a plan for improvement or remediation plan. So it says basically, be specific.
  - Mentoring of peers encouraged, at least a semi-annual review with chair on progress (after a negative action); modified duties should be considered in corrective plan.
- We must alter our policies to comply with these directives.
  - Question: Who selects the members of the post-tenure review committee if not the faculty member? The chair?
- Your department will have to develop their own process that will exclude that one scenario.
- Discussion?
- [Motion 09-01-03] The Faculty Senate authorizes the Steering Committee, in consultation with the Provost's office, to draft the language of this policy to conform to the directives from GA and bring it back to Faculty Senate
  - [Motion 09-01-03] seconded.
    - Discussion:
      - Could we just make a note that we should clarify the parts that caused confusion?
      - Ray Burt is continuing at Faculty Assembly – we should be well represented there.
      - Should there be a part about the departments needing to revise their handbooks in accordance with these new guidelines?
        
        Yes – that’s right.
        
        It’s my understanding that departments have to submit their handbooks to the deans.
    - [Motion 09-01-03] carried.
President McKinney: If any departments have problems with this, please come to me.
Nominations for Delegates to the Faculty Assembly. (More information from Bylaws)
- We are short one position.
- Parliamentarian: The role of the Senate is to nominate two people and the whole of the faculty will vote.
- Nomination: Kim Cook.
- Motion from the floor [Motion 09-01-04]: That the nominations be closed.
  - [Motion 09-01-04] seconded.
  - [Motion 09-01-04] carried.
Call for Faculty Senate Committees to meet, confirm membership, and elect chairs.
- Please be patient with the transition of power.
- I will be meeting with Liza to firm this up.
- We need chairs – we will be sending an email to confirm all this information to you after the meeting. We need to get this done.
Basic Studies Report.
- Kim Sawrey, Chair of Basic Studies.

Committee reports

No committee reports.

Old business

No old business.

New business

No new business.

Announcements

Eleanor Covan, Gerontology.
- I promise to be brief – I don’t want to be flip about this. I want to thank you for this very important work – I am too impatient to serve on the Faculty Senate.
- I am here to tell you about a pilot project. It’s called SOS – Senior Outreach Service Program.
- It's administered in the division of Public Service – it falls under the umbrella of the Osher Life Long Learning Program.
- But I am here to tell you how the faculty can be involved.
- The mission of the Senior Outreach Service Program is to link senior experience and resources in partnership with UNCW students and faculty members to enhance learning and scholarship and to assist the community through outreach service projects.

SOS volunteers can become a growing resource – they can help with UNC Tomorrow goals, especially with regard to campus/community engagement. Some examples of how they can help:
- Grantwriters.
- Project leaders.
- Coordinators.
- Assessment monitors.
- Intergenerational mentors for students.
- Research assistants.
- Guest speakers.
This is a very educated group of people – these folks have expertise. They include persons who were employed as corporate executives, college administrators, accountants, teachers, and health care practitioners. With me today is Dr. Clauston Jenkins, whose credentials include a PhD in English from Chapel Hill, and who served as legal counsel at NC State for ten years and who served as College President at St. Mary's in Raleigh.
SOS volunteers have reached a stage in life where generativity, giving back to others, is most important to them.
SOS volunteers can help you do the things you don’t have time to do.
Assuming that RPT guidelines will change – this is the kind of program to help you with that.
Questions?
- Some of our departments would be very interested in this but would be looking for volunteers with very specialized skills – do we come to you?
You can contact me via email: covane AT uncw.edu. Or by telephone: x23435. You can also contact Shari Ricks in the Division of Public Service.
- Is this on the website?
There is a link off the Public Service site. (SOS website)
- What are the types of skills that your companions will be offering? Tutoring and research skills?
Those and then some. One of the guys has written twelve books on statistics.

Ken Spackman, Academic Affairs.
- You will find an email from UNCW research, regarding a mission review for UNC Tomorrow. It's one question, I promise, one text box reaction. The deadline is this Friday. There will be two open forums announced this week.

Comment from the floor: I already did it – it took less than two minutes.

Thank you!

Adjournment

Meeting adjourned at 3:48pm.