Minutes of the
First Regular Meeting of the Twenty-Sixth Senate
September 11, 2006
12:00 P.M., Kettler G46
Agenda
1. Call to order
2. Approval of the minutes of April 10 and 17, 2006
3. Acceptance of the agenda – A. Karim
4. Reports of the Speakers of the Faculties
a.
b.
5. Report of the Presiding Officer – D. Turnipseed
6. Committee reports requiring action
Executive Committee (Senate
7. a. Question Time (Senate Reference No. 06-2)
b. Question Time (Senate Reference No. 06-3)
c. Question Time (Senate Reference No. 06-4)
8. New business
Student Affairs Committee (Senate
9. Committee reports “for information only”
Curriculum Review Subcommittee (Senate Reference No. 06-5) – D. Oberstar
10. The general good and welfare of the University
11. Adjournment*
*The meeting will adjourn or recess by 1:15 p.m.
Presiding Officer: D. Turnipseed
Parliamentarian:
Sergeant-at-Arms: G. Steffen
Secretary: J. Petersen
___________________________________________________________________________
Attachments:
“Approval of replacement members of the Subcommittee on Athletics and Graduate Subcommittee” (SD 06-1)
“Mid-Continent Conference affiliation” (SD 06-2)
Senate Members Present:
B. Abbott, A. Argast, S. Blythe, J. Burg, C. Champion, P. Dragnev, B. Dupen, C. Erickson, R. Friedman, J. Garrison, L. Graham, J. Grant, T. Grove, I. Hack, S. Hannah, A. Karim, L. Kuznar, D. Lindquist, K. McDonald, K. Modesitt, D. Mueller, A. Mustafa, E. Neal, M. Nusbaumer, D. Oberstar, E. Ohlander, J. Papiernik, K. Pollock, L. Roberts, H. Samavati, R. Saunders, A. Shupe, J. Summers, R. Sutter, J. Tankel, S. Tannous, J. Toole, S. Troy, A. Ushenko, G. Voland, M. Walsh, L. Wark, M. Wartell, N. Younis, J. Zhao
Senate Members Absent:
W. Branson, J. Hersberger, C. Hill (sabbatical), M. Lipman, L. Meyer, G. Moss, G. Mourad (sabbatical), R. Murray
Faculty Members Present: S. Sarratore
Visitors Present: T. Baatz, L. Bartelheim, L. Clark, J. Dahl, D. Fife, E. Frew, M. Fritz, H. Hager, V. Hardesty, T. Heffron, J. Hemphill, K. Hormann, A. Johnson, R. Kostrubanic, C. Kuznar, K. Maciulski, P. McLaughlin, N. Moore, J. Moppert, H. Paris, A. Pasquali, R. Perrotte, M. Pope, A. Ritchey, C. Sandmaier, J. Stewart, K. Stockman (Journal Gazette), J. Thornton, N. Toles, C. Uebelhor
Acta
1. Call to order: D. Turnipseed called the meeting to order at 12:00.
2. Approval of the minutes of April 10 and 17, 2006: The minutes were approved as distributed.
3. Acceptance of the agenda:
A. Karim moved to approve the agenda as distributed.
The agenda was approved as distributed.
4. Reports of the Speakers of the Faculties:
a.
N. Younis: Good afternoon Mid-Continent Conference colleagues.
I hope this academic year is off to a great start for
you. I look forward to working with the
The major things that have happened since our last senate meeting are in the athletic arena. First, the volleyball team made it to the final four. Equally impressive is that the GPA for the team was 3.0. Now that is what I call student athletes. Please join me in congratulating the volleyball players and coaches for their outstanding achievements in the classroom and on the field.
Second is the invitation by the Mid-Continent Conference to join their conference. Make no mistake, this is a gigantic step for the athletic program’s prestige and thus for IPFW’s image. This will help in recruiting, scheduling, solid competition, establishing rivalries, selling more tickets, possible exposure of the university on television, and many good things. I would like to thank all the people who were involved to make this happen.
Having said that, I hate to burst your bubble. The Mid-Continent Conference does not have a football competition. People have told me that the majority of the IPFW community is against having a football program. Well, I am promoting having a football program because of my son who is a senior at a high school and who has played football. I thought if we start talking about it now, his grandchildren might have a chance of playing football when they attend IPFW.
Next, I will talk about shared governance. Last year I said shared governance must be improved to ensure a better IPFW. I believe we have made good progress in this area as evident by the VCAA consulting with the Faculty Affairs Committee on, for example:
· Letter of the nominations for bonuses opportunity
· The Proposal for a Uniform IPFW Sabbatical Policy
· Merit/Equity Process
However, there is still big room for improvement, and I hope we will improve.
Finally, this is a great university, but not a perfect one, and we can use some improvements. After having spoken with many faculty last year, it is my opinion that the main issue in the academic arena is the low faculty morale. I come from the school of thought that problems do not solve themselves. First, it is important to recognize there is a problem. Then we have to analyze it. After that, we implement changes and then re-evaluate the changes for effectiveness. This takes straightforward and effective leaders to solve the problems. We must work on the faculty morale.
Thank you.
b.
M. Nusbaumer: I appreciate the opportunity to return to this position. This hallmarks my 40th year with an official relationship with IPFW. I began here as a chemical engineering major. It gives me the opportunity at this time in my career to give back to this university which I have watched grow from one building. To that end, my ability to function is dependent upon faculty’s communication with me. I need to know your concerns – your questions. A couple of weeks ago I e-mailed a few questions. Some folks have responded, some folks have not yet responded. Feel free to do that at any time. My door will always be open to concerned faculty, so feel free to contact me.
As I enter this position again, I am most concerned with both accountability and credibility on the part of the administration. To that end, I have two comments: 1) you will notice the questions I asked here in Question Time, and 2) in the leaders’ meeting with Vice Chancellor Hannah and Chancellor Wartell, I raised the issue of the November bonuses and a lack of accountability for why people receive those. I have now been informed that the reasons and the categories people were awarded will be made available shortly from last year and will be made available in the upcoming November bonuses this year. So I appreciate working with the administration in getting that level of accountability. [Per Vice Chancellor Hannah, the 2005 bonus awards to faculty, with justifications, can be found at http://www.lib.ipfw.edu/1805.0.html. The 2006 Bonus Awards will be available in December.]
5. Report of the Presiding Officer (Senate Reference No. 06-1) – D. Turnipseed:
A moment of silence was observed in memory of the victims of September 11, 2001.
D. Turnipseed asked for introductions of the Senators and the ex officio members of the Senate.
6. Committee reports requiring action:
Executive Committee (SD 06-1) – A. Karim:
A. Karim moved to approve SD 06-1 (Approval of replacement members of the Subcommittee on Athletics and Graduate Subcommittee). Seconded.
Motion to approve passed on a voice vote.
7. a. Question Time (Senate Reference No. 06-2) – E. Neal:
Question: Why is it that the campus administration would not permit the posting of factual information pertaining to candidates for the student elections last spring? There is a ban on negative advertising (but such a ban violates Constitutional rights of free speech, and especially since it is left to the discretion of the student election board to decide what is negative campaigning without any guidelines whatsoever).
James M. Lutz
Department of Political Science
E. Neal: The question sent forth had to do with the students’ government election process that occurred in spring of 2006. Let me, first of all, make this important point: The student election process is put in place by student government, by students. It is not the administration that puts in place the election process. The elected student body president appoints all of the students who are members of the election board, and that is clearly specified in the student constitution. The student government then gives the authority to that appointed body of students to set and put in place the election rules and enforces them as well. As a result, the students, not administrators, make decisions on what is permissible in campaign materials. Having said all that, we are looking into the question, and it is being referred to our attorneys. That potentially could be in violation of the first amendment right, so we have referred that for legal review and advice from our attorneys. So as soon as we get a response from the attorneys I can present that information to the Senate.
M. Nusbaumer: One of my concerns is how does students’ right to free speech in terms of the student handbook go along with this limitation on negative campaigning? Is not the university responsible to guarantee the students’ right to free speech?
E. Neal: It is the university’s responsibility to fulfill what is in the student handbook. Whether or not the election rules were in conflict with that requirement is the question that we are pursuing.
J. Toole: The question asks why did the administration not permit the posting? Is that true?
E. Neal: The election board was in charge of setting and putting in place all of the requirements during that campaign and election process.
J. Summers: What, if any, training or advisement do the students on this election board have in questions of censorship and questions of freedom of speech?
E. Neal: Good question. I think that is something we will take a look at to ensure that the appropriate training is provided to all of the students.
b. Question Time (Senate Reference No. 06-3) – S. Hannah:
In an effort to improve administrative accountability towards the faculty, I have the following questions concerning faculty increments made last spring:
1. Of the increment monies distributed by the Deans and yourself, how many faculty received increments in each of the 2 categories (compression and special merit) and what was the total dollars distributed in each category?
2. How many faculty were recommended to the Deans, by Departmental Chairs, in each category? How many faculty received funds from the Deans, and how many were recommended for consideration by the VCAA in each category? How many faculty were either rewarded and/or recommended for consideration by the VCAA who were not recommended by the Chairs in each category?
3. How many faculty were recommended to the VCAA by the Deans in each category? How many faculty received funds from the VCAA in each category? How many faculty received funds from the VCAA who were not recommended by the Deans in each category?
Michael Nusbaumer
Department of Sociology
S. Hannah: The first question asks about how many faculty received awards in each category.
133 of our faculty (35%) received a campus-level merit or equity award
125 merit awards (33%) for $128,000
18 equity awards (5%) for $59,000
The proportion of merit to equity awards has shifted over the last several years. Initially the proportions were roughly 50/50 merit/equity, but now have changed to predominantly merit as we have addressed the most egregious equity situations and responded to faculty preferences that most of the funding go to merit.
The next two questions ask about process and I would like to answer them together. You may recall that I sent out a memo to faculty last November outlining the recommendation process and reminding everyone how criteria are determined. Once a total increment amount is determined in the budget process, I hold back a fraction, allocate the rest to the deans who also hold back a fraction, and then distribute the remainder to the departments. Department chairs (and/or committees) recommend increments within their allocation based on department‑level criteria, referring some names on to the dean in keeping with school‑level criteria. Deans allocate their fraction accordingly and recommend up to 33% on to me for campus‑level consideration. In March of this year, once budget numbers were final, I sent a memo to the deans formally assigning their allocations and laying out time lines and formats for their recommendations. (I can provide a copy for the Senate minutes if that would be useful.)
The question asks how many names were recommended by the chairs to the deans, what the deans did with those recommendations, and then how many the deans recommended to me and my disposition. I cannot respond to what happened at each dean’s level because I do not have that information. And trying to tease answers out at my level on what happened to the deans’ recommendations would be difficult since it is not a neat, linear process but a conversation that goes back and forth as we adjust to meet budget requirements.
Even if I could reconstruct some semblance of the numbers, they would be virtually meaningless because of the iterative nature of the process. I began with a notion of approximately 33% of the faculty in a given school as a target (e.g. A&S gets 53; Education, 7; PEA, 2). Some deans sent me exactly the 33% in rank order that I requested; others, especially in the smaller units, sent me 50% or even 75%, hoping for more than their share. In some cases the dean and I removed a name because it turned out the person was externally‑funded, or the reason for the recommendation was more appropriate for a bonus, or they had not gotten at least an average recommendation from their department. And sometimes I went back to a dean to ask for more names because it turned out that I had not spent all of the funds available. It is a dynamic process, and amounts may be adjusted again at the last minute because some total does not add up properly (e.g. a last‑minute resignation means a reduction in the allocation available.) No names, however, are added at the campus‑level that have not been recommended by the deans.
For the most part the process is straightforward. The chairs recommend to the deans and the deans to me and then I review the list with the Chancellor for final approval. He often asks questions, wanting to know what somebody did to get a recommendation, but the deans are well prepared to support their people. Awards are made on the basis of documented performance and accomplishment, based first on department‑level criteria, with only a fraction determined by school‑level and campus‑level recommendations.
In that November memo, I encouraged chairs and deans to be forthcoming with their faculty about criteria and to keep their faculty informed once decisions are final. The letters faculty receive at the end of the process should also provide information about what is what. And if there are any questions along the way, faculty should, and do, ask their chair, their dean, or me. We are happy to explain.
As for equity, I give each dean the list of "eligible" faculty based on rank and percent below the mean or below more junior ranks, and they sent me their nominations based on performance in rank order. This year we focused on full professors who were more than 15% below the national average for their discipline using their CUPA data. I had reviewed the criteria with the Faculty Affairs Committee and we decided to continue making professor salary adjustments the first priority, but for the first time, also identifying associate rank faculty who are making less than new faculty at assistant rank. There were more names on the eligible list than on the nominated list, but I went strictly by dean recommendations.
While I may have raised more questions than provided answers with this explanation, I am confident that the process is as fair and open as we can make it given the many factors structuring the process. With all its warts, however, I believe that the process is much more positive than the strictly across‑the‑board system I spent 20 years with at a unionized campus. At IPFW, documented accomplishment has the chance of being rewarded. There, it did not. This is better.
I would be happy to answer any questions.
N. Younis: Vice Chancellor Hannah mentioned that she holds back a small percentage. What is that small percentage?
S. Hannah: I think it was .5%. Last year it was 3% total. I held back .5%, so I sent to the deans 2.5%. They held back .5%, and the departments got 2%.
G. Voland: You sent 2% to the deans. I held back .5%.
S. Hannah: That is right, 1.5% went to the departments, and 1% percent was held at my level. So I handed out $128,000 plus $59,000 ($187,000).
N. Younis: So 1% of the total 3%? That is what I call sizeable.
S. Hannah: That number has shifted different years. It has been a different amount according to what we had to work with. Last year I handed out $187,000.
G. Voland: One-third of that 1% was for equity based on those numbers.
S. Hannah: So “small” is a relative term.
A. Karim: You say you looked at newly hired assistant professors making more than associate professors. There are situations where some newly hired assistant professors are making more than senior full professors. This issue must be addressed along with the salary compression problems of associate professors.
S. Hannah: The Faculty Affairs Committee was really looking at the associate-level compression issue. This next year, they can expand it. We still, as an institution, have to make more progress in terms of averages for the full professors. There were several people who received an equity award who are at the associate rank. Some of those folks had started low, so we wanted to give a little boost.
c. Question Time (Senate Reference No. 06-4):
1. Is there a differential value in serving on Department, School or Campus committees? Is that differential value factored into incremental salary decisions and P&T considerations at the Academic Affairs level?
2. Can service to more Campus committees compared to School/Department make a faculty member’s service to be judged inadequate or marginal?
3. Can an administrator assign a faculty member to serve in a committee against his/her expressed wishes?
Ahmad Karim
Department of Management and Marketing
S. Hannah: (1) Let’s separate salary and P&T recommendations since the criteria are not the same. If there are "differential values" associated with the level of committee service, such values would be decided at the school or department level and specified in various policy documents. The one exception would be my awareness of service in a significant campus leadership role, e.g. Senate or department chair leadership, that department chairs or deans may not necessarily know about.
No matter the level, I believe that the quality of the service – leadership, impact, significance – is seen as more important than the quantity. See the OAA Memo on "Examples for Documenting and Evaluating Service" for suggestions about the factors that could be used to evaluate service contributions. It talks about your expertise, leadership, and the impact or significance of the decisions made and your role in that. That is what I look at: impact or significance, not level. For example, if you have led a significant curriculum change as chair of the curriculum committee in your department, that deserves a lot of credit.
(2) Again, that would depend upon the department policy and practice. There is no campus policy on this issue.
Many factors come into play: a faculty member’s interest, stage of career, tasks to be done, leadership role, etc. It would be difficult to develop a hard and fast rule.
Collegiality, however, I believe would require that if a faculty member had a particular interest in a campus project and wanted to devote time there rather than at a department or school level, they should have a conversation with their department chair and help assure that the work, at every level, gets done.
(3) Probably not, although there are some responsibilities at your department level that are ex officio in the sense that all tenured members are to serve on something. I do not know if it is your will to do that or not, but it is your responsibility.
A. Karim: Given that the bulk of most faculty members’ time is spent on teaching and research, maybe 20% service, one has to budget accordingly. They need to choose where to allocate their time. Suppose that somebody says, “Well, I’ll serve in some department level, but I am going to spend most of my time at the campus level” or vise versa, “I’m going to spend most of my activities at the department level and school and less at the campus level”?
S. Hannah: I just think that most of that conversation should happen with your chair, in light of what needs to be done at the department level or at a school level. I cannot answer that question. Can someone announce, “I refuse to do this because I am going to do that”? I suppose you can. When I was a department chair and a faculty member, I never would have had the courage to do that, but I am out of my depth here. I am going to turn this whole thing back over to you and to your department and department chair to work out. It is really not my business to make those decisions.
A. Ushenko: I assume then that there is value in service on national professional committees.
S. Hannah: Again, the quality of that service is what matters to me. If you are recognized or honored serving on it, certainly it has greater value. Serving as a national officer – most people do look at that as having great value.
N. Younis: When we hire new faculty, the letter says basically that 75% is teaching, 25% is research. Where is service in this equation?
S.
Hannah: Actually, with our
N. Younis: Going back to the issue of tenure, you said that junior faculty, and also the tenured faculty, have Option 1 and Option 2, with option 1 as teaching the equivalent of 3 courses, which is 75%, plus 25% for research. Again, that is 100%. That would be 0% for service. So, if they are teaching four courses, which is 100%, then again it would be 0% for service. Do you not think, as a vice chancellor, we should look at this issue, and at the campus level, not the department level?
S. Hannah: If you intend to have that kind of discussion in the Faculty Affairs Committee, I would be happy to be part of it.
D. Oberstar: I would like to shed a little bit of light from a personal experience. A number of years ago, being the chair and dealing with these issues, that question of 75% plus 25% and then service arose. In looking at those documents for hiring and for reappointment and so forth, over time I asked the question because 75% says teaching and it also throws in the word administration. When I inquired years ago about that, the people that were in the higher administrative ranks indicated that that is where the whole idea of service was folded in because being a chair is part of that 75%. If you are chair of the department, you fall into that 75%. So administration in a real sense is service, serving your department; and so the question was, does that include other service and I was told yes. So when we looked at reappointment and promotion and tenure we were looking at that 75% including service. It was not an extra floating category.
S. Hannah: I cannot call up the exact wording of the letter of offer. Generally, it is an understanding that it is part of the job. [Note: Susan Hannah has provided the actual wording in the letter of offer: “Your initial duties will consist of 75% teaching and 25% research/creative endeavor, along with normally expected university and professional service.”] So, from the beginning, faculty are told that service is indeed part of their responsibility. Coming up with an exact percentage to assign to it is practically impossible, but it has been a long-standing tradition and understanding that it is part of the whole thing.
A. Ushenko: The recommendation today is that all faculty members have administrative duties. So all service is essentially administrative. . .
8. New business:
T. Grove moved to approve SD 06-2 (Mid-Continent Conference Affiliation). Seconded.
Motion to approve passed on a voice vote.
9. Committee reports “for information only”:
Curriculum Review Subcommittee (Senate Reference No. 06-5) – D. Oberstar:
Senate Reference No. 06-5 (Proposal for Certificate in Civic Education and Public Advocacy) was presented for information only.
10. The general good and welfare of the University:
J. Tankel: I want to welcome everybody back. I am speaking as chair of the Educational Policy Committee and to inform you that, although we did indeed pass a Pedagogical Framework at our last meeting in April, it is not going to get forgotten and put away somewhere. In fact, the Educational Policy Committee is now working on a form to be sent to departments to fill out. Our first year is simply an accounting of where departments are now in terms of their various mission statements and goals and objectives and how they refer back to the new pedagogical framework. The form will be coming forward from the Educational Policy Committee fairly soon. The actual process of individual departments or programs responding to the new pedagogical framework will be contained, at least as of this point, within whenever your next program review comes around. For this year, we are information gathering in every department, and that document should be to everybody pretty quickly so we can get started on this process. I wish you all good luck in this new academic year.
C. Erickson: I wanted to give you an update on the Child Care Taskforce. We had a survey late last year which was very successful. We had a great response. We presented the findings to the chancellor and the vice chancellor, and they were receptive and suggested that we put together a business plan. As part of that plan, we are conducting another survey. A lot of the questions are the same, but the first survey did not include any questions about money; i.e., how much you would be willing to pay for your two-year-old for full time, etc. So we added those questions, and we hope to finish up with the survey this fall and present our findings again to the chancellor before the end of the semester. I encourage all students, faculty, and staff to fill this out, even if you do not have children. We are interested in knowing your opinions about this. For students, it is easily accessible. You just go to my.ipfw.edu, and it is right there. I believe there are some other surveys there as well. For faculty and staff, it is a bit more problematic. Apparently, for some reason, we cannot quite get it on the my.ipfw.edu page. IT Services is working on it, so the easiest way right now is to e-mail Edna Neal or me or anybody else on the Child Care Taskforce, and we can give you the rather lengthy URL, and you can go right to the link and fill out the survey. It does not take long, and we really value your responses.
S. Hannah: There has been a hardy group of folks meeting on Friday mornings at 8:00. You are all welcome to join us in discussions about how academic affairs can contribute to the campus effort for emergency planning should there be a public health emergency. We have looked at a lot of different ideas and alternatives. At the present time, we are pretty comfortable with where we are, and I will be sending a memo out to faculty about it. Roughly, it says that should there be an emergency so severe that the chancellor will close the campus, all classes would be suspended on and off campus for a period of time until that time when the emergency is over. At that time the university would work with faculty to offer a number of different options and support for faculty to help students complete that course in as timely a manner as possible. The whole secret to this is planning and thinking ahead a bit on how it might work. You will be hearing more about it and all ideas will be put on sort of a Wikipedia site for people to contribute their own thoughts about how we should finish up a class that has been suspended for a period of time. Already there are a lot of creative ideas.
D. Turnipseed: We would like to thank Mark Pope and SALT: Student Athlete Leader Team who have come to join us, and we certainly appreciate all the students who have come to join us. We have made history today. For the first time in the history of IPFW, we have gone into a conference. So let’s have a round of applause.
M. Wartell: I really appreciate the student athletes coming out, along with their coaches. Thanks, also, to Mark Pope for being here today. Everybody worked very hard to get into this conference. It has been a frustration for several years. Now we are over that frustration and we will have to compete. In any event, it is great to be in a conference.
I will be reporting our progress on the Strategic Plan to the Purdue Board of Trustees in November. I plan to bring that report to the Senate in October. There will be a lot of good news to report there. We are going to be making an announcement of another major gift soon. That will also lead to another improvement to the campus.
I will also be providing the report on athletics sometime in December.
We have gotten off to a great start this year. We have record enrollments. Although we have a few fewer students, full-time enrollment is up and part-time enrollment is down. I think we are going in the direction that we want to.
In looking at a statistical report provided by Jack Dahl, it shows that our out-of-state students have approximately doubled in five years. The students from outside of our nine-county service area are also increasing our enrollment.
The university is changing, and we all have to realize that that is happening, and it is changing for the better. We will become a more diverse institution, in the fullest sense of diversity, as a result. Thank you for your service on Senate, and I will be communicating further with you as the year progresses.
11. The meeting adjourned at 12:55 p.m.
Jacqueline J. Petersen
Secretary of the Faculty