January 13, 2006

 

Call to Order: Michael Patton called the meeting to order at 2:05 pm.

Members Present: Misty Bennett, Jason Cooper, Charlotte Daughhetee, Sherry Ford, Brook Miller, Michael Patton, Elizabeth Thrower, Eric Vaccarella, Jill Wicknick

Approval of the December 2, 2005 Minutes: Brook Miller moved that the minutes be approved, Sherry Ford seconded and the motion passed unanimously.

President’s Report: Michael Patton reported on the following items:

• The presidential search committee will meet on January 17, 2006 to go over applications and choose a pool of approximately 10 applicants for phone interviews
• The Arts & Sciences Dean search will start over in the fall in order to avoid market fatigue
• We have spent less than half of our budget so we have plenty of funds for the trustee reception and the spring faculty assembly
• Solutions to some faculty concerns may take years to develop; therefore, it is important that the senate maintain its focus on these topics from year to year. The two year presidency and an ongoing agenda will promote the long term problem solving efforts of the senate. Potential ongoing topics include: adjunct compensation, faculty evaluation procedures and shared governance

Committee Reports:

• Bookstore - Charlotte Daughhetee reported that she has received additional complaints about the bookstore. The bookstore committee will arrange a meeting with representatives from the bookstore. Senators were asked to provide the bookstore committee with specific concerns and complaints about bookstore services. The committee will discuss these concerns with the bookstore representatives.
• Faculty Salary Administration Policy - Michael Patton will be meeting with Dr. McChesney in the coming weeks. He will ask for clarification on CUPA calculations.

Liaison Reports:

• IITC - Jason Cooper reported on the IITC meeting. Topics discussed included:
  • New limitations on mailbox storage (45 MB warning, 50MB prohibit send, 60MB prohibit send/receive) were adopted to avoid another server crash.
  • Students who forward email to a private account may experience problems due to improper configuration, UM mail may be flagged as spam.
  • IITC approved raising student email accounts from 5MB to 10MB.
  • Barracuda successfully intercepted 70% of spam and viruses in the month of December.
  • A few users take up an inordinate amount of space which makes matters difficult for the majority of users. Solutions include limiting users to 200MB on the H: drive, educating users about alternate storage media such as thumb drives and burnable CDs and reiterating that the network share exists as a temporary storage area which should be cleaned out on a regular basis

Several senators expressed concern about the problems with email storage space for both faculty and students. Prohibiting students from forwarding mail would be a mistake since some students (education graduate students for instance) cannot access outside email from their work sites. Since limitations on email storage hinders productivity for both faculty and students, the senate decided to investigate this issue and work on recommendations including a server upgrade and educating faculty on good email hygiene.

Old Business:

• Pre-tenure Sabbatical - Jill Wicknick presented the final proposal for a pre-tenure sabbatical policy. This proposal will be sent to the administration as a policy recommendation.
• Roadblocks to Faculty taking courses - Brook Miller and M.E. Spencer continue to work on a recommendation.
• Adjunct compensation - the senate discussed the problem of low adjunct pay. Given the low salaries of both faculty and staff, the faculty would probably not support taking money earmarked for faculty and staff raises to produce only a small increase in adjunct pay. Also, a small increase in adjunct compensation would not make UM more regionally competitive in adjunct hiring. Although we agree that adjunct salaries are too low, we do not think taking money from faculty and staff raises is the best solution to this problem.
• IDEA Assessment tools - the senate discussed the IDEA assessment/evaluation system. This system is in place at UAB and UAB has been satisfied with the IDEA process. The evaluation is done electronically and is processed externally. A main advantage is the ability to customize evaluation questions to reflect course objectives. Michael Patton will check on cost per student and average return rate.
• Senators were asked to bring survey questions to the next meeting.

Announcements:

• The faculty assembly will be held in February. The exact date and time will be announced.
• The next faculty senate meeting is on Friday January 27, 2006 at 2:00 pm in the Merrill room.

Adjournment:

Sherry Ford moved that the meeting be adjourned, Elizabeth Thrower seconded and the motion passed unanimously. The meeting adjourned at 3:20 pm.

Charlotte Daughhetee, Faculty Senate Secretary