Minutes of the
Seventh Regular Meeting of the Twenty-Fourth Senate
March 14, 2005
12:00 P.M., Kettler G46
Agenda
1. Call to order
2. Approval of the minutes of February 14, 2005
3. Acceptance of the agenda – J. Grant
4. Reports of the Speakers of the Faculties
a.
b.
5. Report of the Presiding Officer – G. Bullion
6. Committee reports requiring action
a.
Educational Policy Committee (Senate
b.
Educational Policy Committee (Senate
7. Question Time (Senate Reference No. 04-12)
8. New business
9. Committee reports “for information only”
a. Executive Committee (Senate Reference No. 04-13) – J. Grant
b. Educational Policy Committee (Senate Reference No. 04-14) – J. Tankel
c. Budgetary Affairs Subcommittee (Senate Reference No. 04-15) – B. Fife
d. Executive Committee (Senate Reference No. 04-16) – J. Grant
10. The general good and welfare of the University
11. Adjournment
Presiding Officer: G. Bullion
Parliamentarian: D. Turnipseed
Sergeant-at-Arms: G. Steffen
Secretary: J. Petersen
Senate Members Present:
B. Abbott, R. Bean, L. Beineke, E. Blakemore, S. Blythe, W. Branson, J. Brennan,
M. Codispoti, C. Erickson, B. Fife, L. Fox, R. Friedman, J. Garrett, P. Goodmann, J. Grant, S. Hannah, L. Hess, P. Iadicola, S. Isiorho, A. Karim, M. Lipman, N. McFarland, G. Moss, G. Mourad, E. Neal, M. Nusbaumer, D. Oberstar, A. Perez, D. Ross, J. Tankel, S. Tannous, J. Toole, M. Wartell, N. Younis
Senate Members Absent:
S. Davis, P. Dragnev, D. Erbach, D. Goodman, T. Grove, L. Kuznar, Z. Liang, L. Lin,
L. Meyer, M. Montesino, R. Murray, A. Mustafa, H. Samavati, M. Sharma, S. Troy,
G. Voland, L. Wark
______________________________________________________________________________
Attachments:
“Amendment to SD 85-18 [Academic Regulations and Procedures]” (SD 04-11, referred back to Educational Policy Committee)
“Proposed amendments to the Academic Calendars for 2005-2006 (SD 02-10), 2006-2007 (SD 03-16), and 2007-2008 (SD 04-6)” (SD 04-12)
“Academic Calendars for 2005-06 (SD 02-10), 2006-2007 (SD 03-16), and 2007-2008 (SD 04-06)
Faculty Members Present: J. Clausen, S. Sarratore
Visitors Present: S. Alderman, J. Dahl, S. Dooley (News-Sentinel), B. Hancock, R. Kostrubanic, P. McLaughlin, F. Paladino, K. Stockman (Journal Gazette)
Acta
1. Call to order: G. Bullion called the meeting to order at 12:00 noon.
2. Approval of the minutes of February 14, 2005: The minutes were approved as distributed.
3. Acceptance of the agenda:
J. Grant moved to approve the agenda as distributed.
The agenda was approved as distributed.
4. Reports of the Speakers of the Faculties:
a. Indiana University:
B. Fife: A Call for Action will be promulgated to the university community soon. Members of the Executive Committee have determined that study groups are needed to investigate four important matters. I would urge you to offer your talents and participate in one of these groups. The future of IPFW is not just up to officials in West Lafayette, Bloomington, and Indianapolis. We all have the power and responsibility to chart our own destiny. Thus, please be very attentive to this announcement and respond accordingly.
b. Purdue University:
E. Blakemore: I second Senator Fife’s call for involvement in the committees, and you will see that call coming out shortly.
As Purdue Speaker, today I would like to turn my time over to Frank Paladino. The Presiding Officer has agreed with this ahead of time. Just to remind you, last year we decided to change a long-standing tradition of not sending a senator to the Purdue University Senate in West Lafayette and to send a representative there. Frank Paladino was the person who was elected as our representative. He will give us a brief report today on his experience at the Purdue University Senate.
G. Bullion: We have given speaking privileges to Professor Paladino and also, further along in the agenda, to Patrick McLaughlin.
F. Paladino: Thank you all very much for having elected me to this position. I have a Purdue University Senate notebook which is already full of handouts and other particulars. One of the items that was on the agenda was a reapportionment of the number of senators. Just to let you know, there are only 100 elected senators to the Purdue University Senate. Calumet, IPFW, and IUPUI all get one, and that is because we have our own faculty senates; whereas North Central, which is also part of the Purdue system, gets four, which is apportioned appropriately to the number of full-time faculty that they have. That was reapportioned again as faculty changed around because they always keep the number of senators there at 100.
Some of the interesting issues that have been discussed are the following:
1) Smoking Policy. Their smoking policy is similar to ours, although maybe even a bit more stringent in that you are not even allowed to smoke within 20 feet of an entrance to any building. The big issue was “How do we enforce that and what are the penalties for actually smoking at the entryway?” There were some interesting suggestions made.
2) Associate professors will now be allowed to be on primary promotion and tenure committees at the campus. Historically, only full professors and above were on primary committees unless departments did not have enough full professors to do so, which I think was an important step forward in their direction.
3) Should there be a decrease in enrollment at West Lafayette? This was discussed in light of an Indiana state government report that said Purdue and Indiana Universities’ main campuses should restrict their enrollments, become more selective, and then distribute those enrollments to the other campuses within the state, especially at the undergraduate level; and should emphasize the fact that they are research one institutes. It was pretty much a unanimously negative to that. They want to maintain their undergraduate enrollment and they want to maintain it as high as they feel they want so that they can have the FTEs or number of students to justify positions.
Just to let you know, there was a 27-11 vote. I was one of the 11 “no” votes which basically stated that I felt that they should restrict enrollment and emphasize more of the graduate education at the Purdue campus and push more of the undergraduate enrollments to the other campuses. So, it was not totally unanimous.
The Purdue library is becoming changed. Although that does not impact us here, it does impact them. They used to have a system of distributed libraries like the veterinary library, the life sciences library, and so on. They are now going to do like the Indiana University system and have one centralized library. They have a lot of money to do that.
They also are very interested in developing a faculty club for dining and faculty collegiality. They had a very nicely done study and survey that indicated this would help bring communication and collegiality among people from different departments.
Another big issue which was transmitted here to the central administration was non-tenure research faculty and their governance. About 30 percent of the positions now at Purdue are non-tenure, faculty-type positions where they are associated and affiliated as a director of some institute; and with some department affiliation, have graduate students within their program, have supervisory responsibility over graduate students and post doctorates, but do not have a governance body that will oversee them. In other words, how do we deal with complaints of harassment, or complaints of misconduct, etc. for these types of faculty. They do not fall under the guidelines of staff nor do they fall under the true guidelines of faculty. So now they have a new document to look at that.
Other than that, I have attended
three of the five meetings this past year, and I will tell you that I think you
have a lot more governance authority here in our own Senate, and a lot more
advisory weight here than there. I think that there is a lot more
centralized
decision-making at Purdue. I do not know if we are headed more in that direction or not, but that is my general opinion. I think it is a good idea to have somebody who is keeping an eye on what is going on there. I voted for our dental plan. We did get a dental plan, not a very good one, but it is the only one they offered us. Other than that, I would say there wasn’t too much happening. Thank you very much for your kind invitation.
G. Bullion: That was a very informative report. Thank you.
S. Hannah: I would just like to point out that the proposal about the research professor position has been forwarded to Faculty Affairs for discussion.
F. Paladino: Yes, we are having those kinds of positions here, so I think they are of importance and interest.
R. Friedman: Do the representatives of the other regional campuses attend?
F. Paladino: Yes, they do. There is a representative from IUPUI that I know and one from Calumet. The one from Calumet only attended one of the meetings that I attended.
5. Report of the Presiding Officer – G. Bullion:
I echo the same sentiment that Professors Fife and Blakemore have communicated relative to the communication that will be coming to the faculty shortly with regard to the formation of study groups. Also, as a part of that, other things we would like you to consider: 1) the possibility of other topics being suggested for formation of groups and 2) we will need a good cadre of volunteers to participate in that to make it a meaningful contribution for this faculty. Professor Hannah also told me that on April 29 we are having the campus strategic planning session. We have had some discussion about the participation maybe of these study groups at some level in that session. That will remain active in discussion. I would ask you, as representing the faculty, to put that April 29 date on your calendar and choose to participate in that as we continue to shape the direction of the campus over the next several years.
I also wanted to call to your attention a document in today’s agenda which is a communication from Professor Hannah that originated at the different schools that are affected by name changes. It was the Executive Committee’s recommendation that this come forth for information purposes only, and that is exactly what you have. You are advised that it is there, and has been communicated with the blessing of the Executive Committee.
6. Committee reports requiring action:
a. Educational Policy Committee (SD 04-11) – J. Tankel:
J. Tankel moved to approve SD 04-11 (Amendment to SD 85-18 [Academic Regulations and Procedures]). Seconded.
M. Nusbaumer moved to amend the second paragraph of SD 04-11 as follows:
Such assignments shall may be due during examination week …
Seconded.
E. Blakemore moved a friendly amendment to eliminate the second sentence:
Such assignments shall be due during examination week, …
No action was taken on the motion.
E. Blakemore moved to refer SD 04-11 back to the Educational Policy Committee. Seconded.
Motion to refer SD 04-11 back to the Educational Policy Committee passed on a voice vote.
b. Educational
Policy Committee (Senate
J. Tankel moved to approve SD 04-12 (Proposed amendments to the Academic Calendars for 2005-2006, 2006-2007, and 2007-2008). Seconded.
Motion to approve SD 04-12 passed on a voice vote.
7. Question Time:
In attempting to schedule classes it has become increasingly difficult to find available classrooms. The problem is more severe in popular times. Some units are apparently being allowed to schedule outside standard hours (T 1-2:50; T 5:30-8:15; MW 8-9:15; MW 9-10:15; MW 10:30-11:45, MW 12:00-1:15 [the free hour when no classes are to be scheduled]; and MW 1:30-2:45).
These examples (and there are multiple instances of courses being taught in these irregular time slots) are taken from the Spring 2005 schedule of classes, but they are appearing in Fall 2005 as well. This kind of scheduling cuts into classroom availability. It seems to me there are two options: (1) force all units to use the regular times so maximum utilization of classrooms can occur for all units or (2) let all units use whatever time slots they want. Since option 2 would be complete chaos, I would like to know why we no longer honor the long tradition of option 1 for all units.
James M. Lutz, Chair
Political Science
P. McLaughlin: I began reviewing the issues surrounding classroom scheduling in September 2003 at the request of the Space Allocation committee. This review concluded with the analysis of classroom use during the Fall 2003 and Fall 2004 semesters which encompassed reviewing class scheduling patterns, number of hours per week scheduled in department “priority” rooms, and number of hours per week scheduled in high capacity rooms.
Scheduling classroom space is one
of the main functions of the Registrar’s Office and we partner with the School
of Arts & Sciences and the Division of Continuing Studies to complete the Spring,
Summer and Fall schedules each year. In the past, these offices have permitted
departments to stray from the class scheduling patterns to accommodate the
desires of a department. The class times identified by Professor Lutz, as he
stated, do not fall in the approved class scheduling patterns. I have a report
of all off-pattern classes
offered during the Fall 2004, Spring 2005, and Fall 2005. The schools or divisions using these off pattern class times include the Schools of Arts & Sciences, Business, Education, Engineering, Technology & Computer Science, Health Sciences and Visual & Performing Arts.
Today, I have distributed to you a draft copy of the classroom usage policy which I provided to the space allocation committee in December of 2004 along with a copy of the Class Scheduling Patterns document and the utilization of general academic rooms by time periods report for Fall and Spring semesters compiled by the institutional research office.
The draft of the policy was a collaborative effort between the registrar’s office and the School of Arts & Sciences. Please note that pedagogy is a priority when scheduling rooms during class schedule production; however, in the future, the number of hours per week that a department’s priority room is in use will be carefully reviewed. If a department wants to retain priority on a room, the number of hours the room is in use must be increased if it falls below the minimum. The way to accomplish this increase in utilization is to follow the class scheduling patterns.
I can provide a copy of the Fall 2004 room analysis that I compiled. The analysis shows room type, room departmental priority, room capacity, number of class sections assigned to a room, the sections total enrollment, average occupancy, and number of hours per week a room is scheduled. I can also provide a report of all off-pattern classes offered during the Fall 2004, Spring 2005, and Fall 2005.
In closing, I would like to thank Professor Lutz for bringing this issue to the attention of the faculty senate. I would also like to ask for the support of the faculty senate that beginning in the Spring 2006, departments change off-pattern class times to one of the existing approved class scheduling patterns.
M. Nusbaumer: What are some of the explanations given by departments to request off-schedule times?
P. McLaughlin: Sometimes it may be faculty availability to teach a class. I would have to dig deeper to give you more reasons.
G. Moss: I am not sure I totally understand what he addressed in this document. Are we just talking about regularly scheduled classes within each department, or does it have anything to do with special summer classes, workshops, etc.?
P. McLaughlin: I did not look at summer. The analysis and data I compiled did not take summer into consideration. Summer is different. We do have flexibility, and getting a room is not a problem in the summer. Fall semester is where the problems arise - during a regular semester. As far as the number of sections, I pulled a report of those exact times that Professor Lutz referred to in his question, and compiled a report, and I have the exact number of sections. I can tell you they are lecture courses that are scheduled in a room, so these are not courses that are labs. These are specific lecture courses that are being offered in an off-pattern class time.
E. Blakemore: Do you have a sense of how many classes are scheduled in the free period? That was one of the things Professor Lutz asked about: Monday, noon – 1:30 p.m. There are supposed to be no classes on campus, yet there are.
P. McLaughlin: In the 2005 fall semester there are five classes scheduled at noon on Mondays.
E. Blakemore: Why is this?
P. McLaughlin: All I can say is when these requests come in from those who are scheduling, I believe these folks need to be empowered to say, “No, sorry, not acceptable, find another time.” That is what I am asking for support on.
8. New business: There was no new business.
9. Committee reports “for information only”:
a. Executive Committee (Senate Reference No. 04-13) – J. Grant:
Senate Reference No. 04-13 (Items under Consideration by Senate Committees and Subcommittees) was presented for information only.
b. Educational Policy Committee (Senate Reference No. 04-14) – J. Tankel:
Senate Reference No. 04-14 (Updates to Senate Reference No. 00-11 [IPFW Academic Calendar Formula]) was presented for information only.
c. Budgetary Affairs Subcommittee (Senate Reference No. 04-15) – B. Fife:
Senate Reference No. 04-15 (Budgetary Affairs Subcommittee Biennial Report to the Senate) was presented for information only.
d. Executive Committee (Senate Reference No. 04-16) – J. Grant:
Senate Reference No. 04-16 (School-to-College Name Changes) was presented for information only.
10. The general good and welfare of the University:
M. Codispoti: As chair of
the Nominations and Elections Committee, I am making a plea to my fellow senators.
You all have received a call to run for various committees. The general
faculty has responded very well for the subcommittees that are available to
everyone, but senators have been very lax in responding to volunteer for the
Senate committees. We need more nominees for just about every Senate
committee. I will remind you that, as a legislative body, the main work
happens in the committees. It is where the work is really done, so please
consider volunteering to serve on the following committees: Educational
Policy Committee, Executive Committee, Faculty Affairs Committee, Nominations
and Elections Committee, Student Affairs Committee, and the Purdue University
Committee on Institutional Affairs. They all need nominees in order for us
to conduct any kind of election
at our April Senate meeting. For those whose Senate term is ending, please talk to the people who have been elected from your department or school to represent your department and encourage them to submit their names to run for at least one of these committees. You can have them contact either Jacqui or me, and we will take your name and put it down for the election.
J. Tankel: I just want to remind people that EPC is in the process of doing our goals and objectives survey, and we are asking for two different sets of input: departments’ responses as a department and individual responses. If you have not already received your e-mail, there is a nice website that you can access, and it should take you approximately five minutes for you to answer what your priorities are regarding learning objectives. I encourage you to tell fellow faculty members as well.
11. The meeting adjourned at 12:55 p.m.
Jacqueline J. Petersen
Secretary of the Faculty