Minutes of the
Sixth Regular Meeting of the Twenty-Third Senate
February 9, 2004
Agenda*
1. Call to order
2. Approval of the minutes of January 12, 2004
3. Acceptance of the agenda – J. Grant
4. Reports of the Speakers of the Faculties
a.
b.
5. Report of the Presiding Officer (Senate Reference No. 03-18) – R. Hess
6. Special business of the day – Memorial Resolution (Senate Reference No. 03-19) – L. Kuznar
7. Committee reports requiring action
a. Nominations and Elections Committee (Senate Reference No. 03-20) – R. Friedman
b. Executive Committee (Senate
c. Executive Committee (Senate
8. New business
9. Committee reports “for information only”
10. The general good and welfare of the University
11. Adjournment
*As amended
Presiding Officer: R. Hess
Parliamentarian: D. Turnipseed
Sergeant-at-Arms: J. Njock Libii
Secretary: J. Petersen
Senate Members Present:
B. Abbott, P. Agness, L. Beineke, E. Blakemore, W. Branson, J. Brennan, G. Bullion, C. Chauhan, M. Codispoti,
C. Erickson, R. Friedman, P. Goodmann, J. Grant, L. Hess, P. Iadicola, S. Isiorho, A. Karim, J. Knight, L. Kuznar,
L. Lin, M. Lipman, L. Meyer, M. Montesino, A. Mustafa, M. Myers, E. Neal, M. Nusbaumer, D. Oberstar, A. Perez,
J. Purse-Wiedenhoeft, D. Ross, J. Tankel, J. Toole, L. Vartanian, G. Voland, M. Wartell, N. Younis
Senate Members Absent:
R. Bean, S. Blythe, C. Carlson, N. Cothern, D. Erbach, L. Fox, D. Goodman, T. Grove, S. Hannah, Z. Liang,
D. Marshall, G. Mourad, H. Samavati, G. Schmelzle
Faculty Members Present: J. Clausen, S. Sarratore
Visitors Present: S. Alderman, J. Dahl, R. Kostrubanic, P. McLaughlin, K.Stockman
Attachments:
“Resolution of
Appreciation: Patricia Hudson” (SD
03-12)
“Amendment to
the Bylaws: Promotion and Tenure
Subcommittee Faculty Membership” (SD 03-13)
“Approval of
Replacement Members of the University Resources Policy Committee” (SD
03-14)
“Information
regarding the sex offender alert” (Attachment A)
Acta
1. Call to order: R. Hess called the meeting to order at 12:00 p.m.
2. Approval of the minutes of January 12, 2004: The minutes were approved as distributed.
3. Acceptance of the agenda:
J. Grant moved to amend the agenda by revising Senate Reference No. 03-20 (Slate for the Election of the Presiding Officer) as follows:
Three faculty members have been
nominated to serve as Presiding Officer of the Faculty: George
Bullion (Economics), Ron Duchovic (Chemistry), Alan Sandstrom
(Anthropology), and Sami Tannous
(Civil and Architectural Engineering).
Seconded.
Motion to amend the agenda passed on a voice vote.
Motion to approve the agenda, as amended, passed on a voice vote.
4. Reports of the Speakers of the Faculties:
a.
E.
Blakemore’s remarks refer to the charts below:
Report
|
IU or Purdue |
How Important |
How willing to serve |
|
Purdue Mean N Std.
Deviation |
4.222 54 .9648 |
2.221 52 1.3699 |
|
IU with benefits Mean N Std.
Deviation |
4.667 9 .5000 |
1.000 3 .0000 |
|
IU Mean N Std.
Deviation |
4.250 8 1.1650 |
3.000 1 . |
|
Total Mean N Std.
Deviation |
4.282 71 .9439 |
2.170 56 1.3527 |
Statistics
|
|
How important |
How willing to serve |
|
N Valid Missing Mean Median Mode |
71 0 4.282 5.000 5.0 |
56 15 2.170 2.000 1.0 |
How
important
|
|
Frequency |
Percent |
Valid Percent |
Cumulative Percent |
|
Valid 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 5.0 Total |
1 3 9 20 38 71 |
1.4 4.2 12.7 28.2 53.5 100.0 |
1.4 4.2 12.7 28.2 53.5 100.0 |
1.4 5.6 18.3 46.5 100.0 |
How
willing to serve
|
|
Frequency |
Percent |
Valid Percent |
Cumulative Percent |
|
Valid 1.0 1.5 2.0 3.0 4.0 5.0 Total Missing System Total |
25 1 10 11 3 6 56 15 71 |
35.2 1.4 14.1 15.5 4.2 8.5 78.9 21.1 100.0 |
44.6 1.8 17.9 19.6 5.4 10.7 100.0 |
44.6 46.4 64.3 83.9 89.3 100.0 |
E. Blakemore: At the
last Senate meeting I referred to a survey that went out to faculty on campus regarding
whether or not this campus would like to fill its seat on the Purdue Faculty
Senate. I received, eventually, 71
responses to that survey. You can see in
the top chart that most of those faculty were Purdue faculty. Under the “N” where it says “How important,”
you see the number 54; “IU with benefits,” the number 9; and “IU” faculty
without Purdue benefits, the number 8.
The vast majority of
The second question was “How willing would you be to serve?” Again, fewer people answered that because it applied only to Purdue faculty. You can see down in the bottom corner of that chart the number 56. That was the number of people who responded to that item, which was slightly higher than the number of Purdue faculty. You can see that people were much less willing to serve than they thought that it was important to do so. The most people in responding to that chose that they would not at all be willing to serve. However, there were a small number of people who chose 3, 4, or 5 on that scale, so it is not the case that no one is willing to serve.
Tomorrow, the Purdue Committee on Institutional Affairs is meeting, and we will be addressing this issue again.
R. Friedman: Were those returned anonymously or might we know who the people willing to serve are?
E. Blakemore: There was an option at the bottom of the questionnaire for people putting their names. I cannot tell you how many people did, but certainly a number of people did sign their names, including people who said they were interested in serving.
b.
M. Nusbaumer: The Indiana University University Faculty
Council – that is the highest faculty governing body in the
I raised this issue originally on the evaluation of the chancellor. Now that there is a process underway to evaluate the vice chancellor for academic affairs, I have had numerous faculty come to me and express concern about not having anonymous responses. What I would suggest to those folks who are troubled by that is if you receive an evaluation for Vice Chancellor Hannah, as a concern of yours, express that on your response of that issue.
E. Blakemore: Because I was a member of the committee evaluating the Chancellor I just want to comment that that committee had available five years’ worth of upward feedback anonymous responses from the campus. I am also aware that the committee evaluating the Vice Chancellor also has available the results of upward feedback that are also anonymous.
L. Kuznar: I am currently serving on that committee, and the full intention is that while we want people to say who they are, everything they say is going to be kept in strict confidence, so names will not be getting back to the vice chancellor, if that assurance means something.
5. Report of the Presiding Officer (Senate Reference No. 03-18) – R. Hess:
R. Hess: My report is contained in Senate Reference No. 03-18. You may read it at your leisure.
6. Special business of the day – Memorial Resolution (Senate Reference No. 03-19)
L. Kuznar: Before I read this, I just have an announcement: There is a tentative date of April 23 to have a bit of a memorial service in recognition of Paul so that his family could be here. You will all be invited to that, and anyone who wants to come and participate in that is very welcome. It will be something on campus, and we think there might be a reception downtown as well.
L. Kuznar read the memorial resolution for Paul Jean Provost. A moment of silence was observed.
7. Committee reports requiring action:
a. Nominations and Elections Committee (Senate Reference No. 03-20) – R. Friedman:
R. Friedman announced that there was one nominee for Speaker of the Indiana University Faculty and, therefore, Brian Fife has been elected Speaker of the Indiana University Faculty. He then proceeded to conduct the election for the Presiding Officer of the Faculty. (G. Bullion was elected.)
b. Executive Committee (SD 03-12) – J. Grant:
J. Grant moved to approve SD 03-12 (Resolution of Appreciation: Patricia Hudson).
Motion to approve SD 03-12 passed on a voice vote.
c. Executive Committee (SD 03-13) – J. Grant:
J. Grant moved to approve SD 03-13 (Amendment to the Bylaws: Promotion and Tenure Subcommittee Faculty Membership).
Motion to approve SD 03-13 passed on a voice vote.
8. New business:
Senate
G. Bullion moved to approve SD 03-14 (Approval of replacement members of the University Resources Policy Committee).
Motion to approve SD 03-14 passed on a voice vote.
9. Committee reports “for information only”: There were no committee reports.
10. The general good and welfare of the University:
B. Abbott: The Educational Policy Committee sent out an e-mail about two weeks ago outlining our proposal for a diversity requirement for the curriculum, which is not specifically a general education requirement, but rather looks at having diversity represented throughout the curriculum within the major or outside of it if necessary. We are asking feedback from the faculty. We have not heard from very many people yet, and we would appreciate it, if you do have some opinions about it one way or the other, that you would e-mail the address that is given in the e-mail and give us, who are on the committee, a chance to look at your replies and be able to incorporate them into our plan.
M. Nusbaumer: I have four concerns that are all related:
1) First I am concerned about the good and welfare of the university when contractors on the student housing project are fined over $100,000 for safety and training violations.
2) I am concerned about the good and welfare of the workers on the project and the good and welfare of students who are scheduled to be housed therein.
3) I am concerned that these and other construction-related concerns have been identified by outside parties rather than by Purdue West Lafayette, who is responsible for oversight of the project.
4) I am concerned about the quality of the
project and the oversight currently being provided by
L. Kuznar: It is very regrettable that I have to report this, but I bore witness to a particular violent incident in the basement of Kettler Hall on Friday afternoon. It was a fist fight between two students – a particularly violent one. Two rather large guys got into it and they came crashing down on an innocent bystander as they were fighting, at which point I started telling people to call the police (my first reaction) and then proceeded to help pull them off of her so she was not injured. Then, with the aid of a couple of other students, we got the parties apart. Obviously this is very disturbing. In my view, violence of any sort is absolutely intolerable at a university given what it is that we do here. Police eventually came and pursued to some degree what had happened. Certainly, the Office of Student Affairs is following up on other measures that I think are going to be helpful. I am just mainly reporting it to all of you so that people know that things like this happen on a campus, and I think we all need to express an opinion and participate in setting the decorum we want on this campus. If we see behaviors that are not appropriate on a campus, you have to say something, let people in the Office of Student Affairs know that this is going on and “interfering with my ability to do my work, and interfering with my students’ ability to study.” I am not arguing for a stodgy campus, but certainly there are certain limits and parameters that we all need to be involved in setting so that hopefully things like this can be avoided in the future.
M. Nusbaumer: Along these lines I would like to express my appreciation to Chief DenHartog for notifying the campus of another safety issue related to potential violence on campus. I appreciate the effort and willingness to inform the entire campus.
E. Neal: The Student Affairs staff have been in touch with both of the young men who were involved in the altercation. They are two young people whose attitudes got out of control. They have been duly dealt with in reference to the inappropriateness of their behavior. It was an altercation between two friends.
L. Kuznar: Once again I am very pleased that Student Affairs was involved, and I learned about that first thing this morning, and it is very appropriate. Still, any violence on campus is just intolerable. This is quite a high level, and I do not care how much they like each other before or after, it was a really inexcusable situation.
L. Lin: Is there an update on the sex offender?
R. Hess: Is there anyone here who can give us an update on the notification of the convicted sex offender?
W. Branson: I can just tell you there is no update. We do not know anything more than what is out there.
L. Vartanian: I would like to say that, although I agree and applaud the efforts to make us all aware of this situation, I found the notice somewhat confusing in the sense that other than saying this person is dangerous and of concern, I felt I did not have a clear sense of what we are supposed to do if we see him other than avoid him. So I would, in the future, like to see a little more clarity in the message. Are we supposed to notify campus police? I found the information to be a little ambiguous.
R. Hess: In my own instance, when I informed my students of the alert, there were many expressions of appreciation in being informed, so I think in that regard alone, it was worth the alert.
W. Branson: Just to clarify, if you see that individual acting suspiciously, you should call campus police.
L. Lin: After I saw that notice, I was worried about coming into my office. So, can we get an update about what is happening so life can get back to normal?
R. Hess: We will request an update from the Senate and ask that it be put on e-mail. (See attached response from Chief of Police and Safety, Lauren DenHartog – attachment A)
A. Perez: Are there restrictions that this person is supposed to be following?
W. Branson: We have to be very careful because a lot of
this is hearsay and, as far as the campus is concerned, he has not broken any
laws, policies, or regulations on campus.
We are aware that
M. Wartell: Let me report on a couple of things:
1) President Jischke will be here for a campus visit on March 2. There will be an open forum and reception in the afternoon, and he will meet with faculty leaders, although I have not mentioned that to them yet. He will also meet with students and tour the new housing, and have dinner with the community folks – kind of the same sort of visit that he involves himself in annually. Please come to the reception – everyone is welcome. He will talk for a while and then answer questions.
2) The mayor is giving one of his State of the
City addresses on campus (I believe on Thursday) at 6:30 p.m. This one is Focus on Quality of Life in
3) Let me talk about Senate Bill 262 because I
think, in spite of the fact that that bill was withdrawn by its proposer, it
bodes in a specific way for our future.
That was a bill which would cap tuition on all campuses. Also, it would insist that the Board of
Trustees make
their intentions known about tuition increases for the following year before the legislature meets. Both of those create difficulties for this campus, more than for a lot of campuses. That would hurt us. I am delighted that the bill was withdrawn, but I think the concern exists in the legislature that we are increasing fees too quickly. So, we will all need to be cognizant of that in the future, and be sure that we can be fiscally responsible while being prudent. There are a lot of concerns in the legislature right now.
M. Nusbaumer: When you say it was withdrawn but there is sentiment in controlling costs, are you in a sense saying it was not necessarily withdrawn because of lack of support in the legislature and that it may occur again down the pipe?
M. Wartell: I believe it will occur again down the stream in a different form. I think many legislators, especially ours in this region, made a decision not to support it because of the harm it would do to IPFW, but in general felt that fees increase too quickly.
11. The meeting adjourned at 12:36 p.m.
Jacqueline J. Petersen
Secretary of the Faculty