Faculty Senate Meeting Minutes

3 October 2005

 

Derek Mason called the meeting to order at 3:02 pm.

 

Moment of Silence for the ASTE professor and students involved with the accident on Monday, 26 September 2005.

 

Minutes

John Kras moved to accept the 29 August 2005 minutes as written.  The motion seconded by Rob Morrison, passed unanimously.

 

University Business

Stan Albrecht presented University Business

 

ASTE Accident

Although this has been very hard, Stan has never been so proud of the outpouring of love and support from the University, the community and other universities across the country. 

 

Robert Peterson is going quite well.  He has been up doing some physical therapy.  He has a number of broken bones, including both legs, a foot, several vertebrae in his back. 

 

Jared Nelson experienced brain damage.  He is still in an induced coma.  He has contracted an infection most likely caused from the surgery where they put a titanium rod in his thigh and is running a fever. 

 

Two funds have been set up, one it to fund a memorial scholarship in the names of the young men you where killed.  The other is a memorial fund that will go to the families. 

 

Please do not come to any premature conclusions on what happened on Monday.  The data is still out on both the speed issue and the wearing of seatbelts before the investigation is closed.

 

Inauguration

The inauguration events have been canceled.

 

Homecoming

The homecoming events this weekend, October 7-8 are still scheduled.  However, some events have been changed to be sensitive to what has happened this past week. 

 

Road Scholar Tour

Tomorrow, 4 October 2005, the University will move forward with the Roads Scholar Tour and will meet with students, faculty, advisors, alumni and others to have a positive progressive effects on enrollment from the Idaho communities.

 

Enrollment and Revenue
The biggest challenge right now as an institution is to stabilize both enrollment and revenue.  Much of our attention over the next couple of months will on these issues.  The University will see a financial impact due to the fact that enrollment on the Logan campus is down 600 student this Fall, in addition to 400 students from last Fall; a total of 100 students FTE.  This is not just Utah State University issue; other universities in the state also are seeing a decrease in FTE.  This is a system issue probably from a combination of decrease in numbers coming out of high schools and an increase in the economy leading to students seeking employment.  We need to turn this around.  Until we stabilize enrollment numbers, there are other things the University would like to work on which we simply can not address.

 

Legislative Session

The bill is filed that will address the out of state tuition waiver issue.  The House has agreed to work on that bill on the front end.  If we get it through early, we do not anticipate any issues in Senate. 

 

They recognize that our most important priorities are compensation, retention, faculty salaries, and staff salaries.  The University is leading again with these issues and is getting a pretty good response. 

 

Information Items

 Wellness at USU

Lindsey Lovell presented Wellness Center at Utah State University.  This is a faculty service and is located on campus in the HPER building.  For and employee it costs $130/year, and Human Resources pays $65 dollars of this.  Stephen Bialkowski will be talking with the Employee Benefit Committee about payroll deduction. 

 

Honorary Degrees and Commencement Speaker

Gary Straquadine presented Honorary Degrees and Commencement Speaker.  Gary is the Provost Office representative.  Kim Openshaw is the chair.  The committee will select Honorary Degree recipients for Spring 2006 Commencement and a Commencement Speaker for Spring 2007 Commencement.  Solicitation is open to all individuals; please nominate individuals.  Names stay on the lists for three years.

 

Consent Agenda

Stephen Bialkowski moved to accept the consent agenda, seconded by Rob Morrison, passed unanimously. 

 

Note: EPC Business had two action items.  One is a new major in International Business in Business Administration and secondly, a proposal to offer an Agriculture Communications in Journalism Major in Ag System Technology and Education for a BS. 

 

Key Issues and Action Items
Resolution
Derek Mason presented the resolution, but to remove the language regarding the inauguration and leave the remaining language congratulating President Albrecht on becoming the 15th president of Utah State University.  Lynn Dudley moved to accept the motion, seconded by Stephen Bialkowski, passed unanimously.  Derek Mason will update the resolution. 

 

New Business

ARRC

Lynn Dudley updated senate on the progress of the Academic Rights and Responsibility Committee (ARRC).  Currently the ARRC is going over the University of Utah and Utah State University policies to understand what the University of Utah did, why they used the language they used to determine what type of language we want to use in Utah State University Faculty Code. 

 

Letter to all Senate

John Kras wanted to thank Derek for the letter he sent to all faculty senate members encouraging attendance at the meetings and stress the importance that we could have in the operations of this University.

 

University Policy on Curriculum

Derek Mason updated senate on curriculum issue and Continuing Education.  Faculty Senate Executive Committee (FSEC) passed a motion to charge Educational Policies Committee (EPC) with reviewing all educational policy, education policy making policies, and policy practices at the University.  It is focused on updating and reviewing current policies generally.  Thus, EPC will address issues around Continuing Education and issues on main campus.  Derek will be presenting the charge to EPC on at their October 6 meeting.  A clear timeline is laid out and will ask for a final report for Faculty Senate in February. 

 

Faculty Forum

Derek Mason addressed the question about the faculty forum scheduled for November 7.  In the past, benefits have been the dominant issue.  In light of the new Benefits Advisory Board Model, it might be nice to have and discussion with the BFW committee so they can take issues, concerns, wish lists from the faculty to the committee.  Compensation is another issue.  We could talk on retention and compression/equity.  Other issues are faculty evaluations, parking, and domestic partner benefits.

 

AFTC

Kim Openshaw updated senate on Academic Freedom and Tenure Committee (AFTC).  AFTC currently has one grievance.  Unfortunately, as the AFTC has prepared for a full hearing panel they have not had the diversity they needed on the committee.  Kim asked Derek about looking into the code to allow for a greater diversity of individuals to draw from for the panel.  Derek proposed the AFTC look at code changes to allow for an increase in diversity. Derek and FSEC will develop charge to AFTC and Professional Responsibilities and Procedures Committee (PRPC) to develop a policy to broaden the base of the AFTC.

 

Meeting adjourned at 3:28 pm.