Faculty Senate Meeting Minutes for April 5th, 2004 Call to Order Kevin Kesler called the meeting to order at 3:02 pm. Minutes Bruce Miller made a motion to accept the minutes of the March 1st meeting. The motion, seconded by Vicki Simonsmeier was passed. Information Items Honorary Degrees and Awards Tyler Bowles presented the selected recipients of the Honorary Degrees and Awards Screening Committee. Receiving the awards for this commencement are Merlin Olson, Ruth Novak and Booth Wallentine. The Commencement Speaker is Jane Clayson. Domestic Partner Benefits Pat Lambert explained the issue of domestic partner benefits. This proposed policy is currently being refined and will be presented to the Budget and Faculty Welfare Committee, and then to the Faculty Senate in the Fall. Evaluations on the Internet Craig Simper reviewed a letter of explanation that there is no privacy law currently in place which would keep the University from posting teacher and course evaluations on the internet if they choose to. Since there is no formal law restricting the posting of what is essentially a "customer satisfaction" survey, the University chooses to use the internet for its convenience of disclosing this information. Committee on Committees Business Marv Halling announced the Senate election results for committee assignments, and new senators and alternates. He then explained the Committee Selection Survey. Senators are to fill out the committee selection survey and indicate which committees they would be willing to serve on, representing the Faculty Senate. The survey will be sent out to members of the senate later this week. Now that the elections are finalized, college caucuses need to take place to determine new members of the Executive Committee replacing those whose term is expiring. He then asked for nominations for President-Elect for the next school year. Pat Lambert was nominated but declined to accept the nomination. No other nominations were offered in the meeting. Further nominations will be accepted until Friday, April 9th. Consent Agenda Carol Kochan moved to accept the Consent Agenda. The motion, seconded by Darwin Sorensen, passed. Key Issues and Action Items Syllabus Addition Karla Petty and Stephanie Kukic presented a request from the ASUSU to place a link on all course syllabi which would send students to the grievance process of the Student Code. This would not only educate students of their rights, but also to further promote the ideals of academic freedom at Utah State University. The motion to accept the request to place this link on all syllabi was made by Stephanie Kukic. The motion, seconded by Karla Petty, passed with one dissenting vote. University Business Stan Albrecht presented the latest in University Business. He had Joyce Kinkead explain the need to implement a tuition surcharge to students who exceed 135% credit hours necessary for graduation, which is set at 170 credits. The surcharge is set to the out of state student tuition, and will apply the semester after students reach the 170 credit limit. At 150 credits students will receive a warning message. Students may appeal the surcharge. She then announced two student winners of the Barry M. Goldwater scholarships, Stephanie Chambers, and David Robert Hatch. Stan announced the discovery of 5 USU Rhodes Scholars from the 1920's and 30's which brings the total from an assumed 2 to 7. Stan explained the effects of the legislative sessions pertaining to USU. There have been drafted ten top initiatives by the selective investment committee. The top initiative is to get money into graduate stipends. Second was media enhanced classrooms. Third was women in the science and engineering programs. Fourth was helping build the sponsored programs office. Fifth was to find additional dollars for bottleneck courses. Sixth was increasing enrollment in Native American programs. Seventh was supplemental instruction. Eighth was the graduate school initiative on recruitment and program evaluation. Ninth was to provide additional dollars to continue research in genomics and bioinformatics in the College of Science. Tenth was to create a doctoral program in the College of Business. He then announced the completion of the second year of the faculty gender and equity study. The next study will also concentrate more on faculty gender equity, as well as step is to look at classified professional staff and female tenure track faculty. The Tuition Task Force report has been completed. One of the highlights of the report is getting more money into operating budgets. The Advising Task Force has also completed their recommendations. One of which is the establishment of a centralized advising office. Adjourn Kevin Kesler called for adjournment. The meeting adjourned at 4:14 pm.