Minutes of the
Second Regular Meeting of the Twenty-Eighth Senate
Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne
October 20, 2008
12:00 P.M., Kettler G46
Agenda
1. Call to order
2. Approval of the minutes of September 8, 2008
3. Acceptance of the agenda – B. Abbott
4. Reports of the Speakers of the Faculties
a. Purdue University – N. Younis
b. Indiana University – M. Nusbaumer
5. Report of the Presiding Officer – S. Davis
6. Committee reports requiring action
Executive Committee (Senate Document SD 08-1) – B. Abbott
7. Question Time (Senate Reference No. 08-3)
8. New business
(Senate Document SD 08-2) – P. Iadicola
9. Committee reports “for information only”
Graduate Subcommittee (Senate Reference No. 08-4) – J. Garrison
10. The general good and welfare of the University
11. Adjournment*
*The meeting will adjourn or recess by 1:15 p.m.
Presiding Officer: S. Davis
Parliamentarian: A. Downs
Sergeant-at-Arms: G. Steffen
Secretary: J. Petersen (absent)
______________________________________________________________________________
Attachments:
Senate Members Present:
B. Abbott, N. Adilov, A. Argast, S. Ashur, S. Blythe, W. Branson, J. Burg, J. Dalby,
S. Dhawale, B. Dupen, C. Erickson, E. Foley, R. Friedman, J. Garrison, J. Grant, T. Grove, I. Hack, P. Iadicola, J. Jackson, M. Lipman, D. Liu, J. Lutz, K. McDonald, W. McKinney, L. Meyer, D. Moore, G. Moss, G. Mourad, K. Moustafa, D. Mueller, M. Nusbaumer,
T. Parker, K. Pollock, T. Prickett, D. Redett, L. Roberts, J. Summers, J. Tankel,
C. Thompson, A. Ushenko, W. Utesch, G. Voland, M. Walsh, G. Wang, M. Wartell,
M. Wolf, N. Younis
Senate Members Absent:
S. Beckman, P. Dragnev, R. Elaver, G. McClellan, M. Ridgeway, R. Sutter
Faculty Members Present: O. Chang, J. Khamalah, D. Townsend
Visitors Present: B. Blauvelt, J. Dahl, M. Franke, R. Kostrubanic, J. Van Patten
Acta
1. Call to order: S. Davis called the meeting to order at 12:01.
2. Approval of the minutes of September 8, 2008: J. Burg was present at the September 8, 2008 meeting. The minutes were approved as corrected.
3. Acceptance of the agenda:
B. Abbott moved to approve the agenda as distributed.
The agenda was approved as distributed.
4. Reports of the Speakers of the Faculties:
a. Purdue University:
N. Younis: Good afternoon, Colleagues!
I attended the Board of Trustees meeting September 26, which was held on this campus. Usually, at the board meeting, the reports are regarding four campuses: Purdue University-West Lafayette, IPFW, Purdue-North Central, and Purdue-Calumet. During the presentation of the financial report, I was a little bit stressed to find out, (and I stand to be corrected), that faculty salary increments for this campus are the lowest of the four campuses. My simple analysis showed that we are the lowest of the four campuses, and I am hoping next year that we are the highest.
Thank you.
b. Indiana University:
M. Nusbaumer:
1) I would like to welcome back, temporarily, an old, valued face to the Senate. Barb Blauvelt is standing in as our Senate secretary while Jacqui Petersen takes a well-deserved family vacation, so thank you, Barb. We appreciate you doing this.
2) According to Senate Document SD 06-9, at the November Senate meeting the Faculty Affairs Committee is supposed to present to the administration questions regarding the administration of last-year’s salary increments for the administration to respond to. Back in September, input was to be solicited from anybody on the faculty in terms of the types of questions or issues that we may want raised. We missed that one. If you have any suggestions or recommendations, please e-mail those to Senator Kim McDonald, who is the chair of the Faculty Affairs Committee.
3) I did want to take a moment and respond with regards to the last meeting. Senator Iadicola raised a variety of concerns that I share with him, and I am glad to see that the Senate has the opportunity to weigh in on this series of issues.
5. Report of the Presiding Officer – S. Davis:
Go get your flu shots. Tell your students they do not have to come to class if they are coughing and hacking.
I want to applaud Purdue for the Board of Trustees meeting. I thought especially notable was the family leave policy that they passed, giving six weeks and three weeks for childbirth and/or adoption. I thought that was very forward looking compared to other universities in the nation. I applaud them on the new family leave policy.
I, too, was at the meeting and shared some of Speaker Younis’s concerns. There were some positive elements that I brought back from meeting with some of the Purdue trustees: they are very happy with what we are doing here. I am sure everyone knows that things could be better, but there seems to be a very positive mood about IPFW and their approach to student housing, Division I, etc. These are not things that everyone agrees upon but, at least as far as the trustees are concerned, we are moving in the right direction.
6. Committee reports requiring action:
Executive Committee (SD 08-1) – B. Abbott:
B. Abbott moved to approve SD 08-1 (Approval of replacement members of the Calendar, Library, and Professional Development Subcommittees, Honors Program Council, and Faculty Affairs Committee). Seconded.
Motion to approve passed on a voice vote.
7. Question Time (Senate Reference No. 08-3)
Question: Over the past year the Physical Plant has been substantially reorganized and policies affecting faculty and the academic mission have been changed.
The University Resources Policy Committee (URPC), a committee of the Senate, is charged: "To be concerned with, but not limited to, consideration of such matters as planning and optimal utilization of the physical facilities of the University, including buildings, the library, scientific and other equipment, and educational aids; staff needs, utilization and planning; interdepartmental and interinstitutional cooperation for improved facilities and staff utilization; and nonacademic planning, including architecture, landscaping, parking, and traffic."
1. Should URPC be consulted about changes in physical plant policies affecting faculty and the academic mission?
2. In what ways over the past year has the URPC been asked to make substantive input about changes in physical plant policies affecting faculty and the academic mission?
Anne Argast
Geosciences
A. Argast: I am picking on Physical Plant, but I think it is a little illustrative of a larger symptom. I think it is a symptom of administration and faculty together. There used to be a time, in the case of Physical Plant, one could pick up the phone, call the head of Physical Plant, and work cooperatively. It seems to have gotten away from that to the place now where the Physical Plant seems to work in a vacuum where decisions are made without any kind of faculty input. We have mechanisms for faculty input, but hopefully also through departments directly so that decisions that are made somewhere across the road do not necessarily negatively affect the academic mission, which is the case now. I am sure I could have gotten a group of people who say the Science Building faculty have these issues. It used to be that faculty committees had direct input into some of the nuts and bolts operations. It does not seem to work that way anymore, and I think that is in part because the committees do not get asked. I think it is in part because faculty do not respond when they do ask in appropriate ways. The question here is to bring up that general point and also to shoot the first shot over the bow of Physical Plant, because we are getting tired of not being able to sign out keys, vans cannot be gotten for trips, etc.
W. Branson: We have not traditionally taken issues like that to the University Resources Policy Committee that I am aware of. However, we have always responded to URPC when they have asked questions about anything, no matter what the subject. Given their mission, I think that is probably why past practice has been the way it is, because the mission seems to deal more with use of university resources, not Physical Plant policies. However, that is not to say that it could not change in the future.
When you look at URPC over the last year, it has been very, very involved in the campus master plan project, where they provided a tremendous amount of input and feedback regarding the master plan of the campus in the future. I do understand that this seems to be about the key distribution and rental cars and vans, and where we have taken them. We are working on a plan with regard to those specific issues to move the distribution of both keys and the cars out of Walb Union operations. We needed to move Physical Plant quickly in order to keep our remodeling projects going and, as such, we took those services over there with them. We are looking at bringing them back right now, and we are very close to having a finalized plan that would do that.
A. Argast: A lot of changes are happening, but not a lot of faculty input. We need more faculty input, be it through faculty Senate or from departments. When departments see you fundamentally changing what we do, you cannot just sit with no response for months on end from Physical Plant or other operations around us. As far as the history of URPC, I disagree. I remember back in the old days we did things like figure out where the edge of the parking should be for A decals. I am not saying I want to go back to that, but there really was, 15 years ago, involvement by faculty in details. We need to listen to departments, the chairs, URPC, and other committees charged with these responsibilities, and I appreciate your time.
W. Branson: We are happy to do that. The feedback I have gotten from URPC over the past few years is that they were tired of talking about some of those details that kept coming up. I remember 15 years ago talking about parking lots.
A. Ushenko: There is kind of a fine line, though, I think between faculty having input in everything that affects their academic mission. Faculty get stuck with doing a lot of things they do not have time or patience for.
L. Meyer: I agree that not everyone wants to be on everything, and I can understand that thought. I have a concern that sort of goes with this, and I have been worried about it for the last year or so. That is the appearance of our campus. I am not too sure where this lies, but the amount of weeds just amazes me. They are growing up as tall as the bushes along the parking garages. It never used to look this way. The grass was mowed, the weeds were taken care of, and the flower beds looked good. Something seems to have happened in the last year or so.
W. Branson: I can answer that in part. The thing I noticed this year was a lot more dandelions. We missed our window to kill dandelions with the treatments that we use.
L. Meyer: I am not talking about the dandelions. I am talking about the weeds that are growing as tall as the bushes. There are a lot of them.
J. Grant: I just noticed two things: the trash overflowing in classrooms and all the recyclable material that is in the trash. If we are going to be a leader in being a green campus, we need to look at this situation. I think part of it is we had efforts over time by student groups and others to have companies pick up the materials. I am not really sure where this has fallen through, but not only is it unsightly, but that is material that really should be recycled. I do not think the canisters are accessible enough for the classrooms. I know that on other campuses they have been very visible on every floor for at least cans, glass, and newspaper.
W. Branson: Let me address the general appearance issue. One of the issues we have been faced with is the state funding that we used get to maintain our buildings. We would get money from the state to pay for the utilities and to hire custodians and maintenance people. We would actually add groundspeople as part of that funding to maintain the buildings. We got the Music Building, but we got no funding from the state for maintenance, so we have had to take resources from other areas which stretched us thinner. We got the State Developmental Center property, and the same thing happened. We did not get any money from the state to operate the facility. Our priority has always been to put the funding first in the academic areas, and we have had to do more with less. We really have to look at things like mowing schedules and cleaning schedules.
G. Voland: Our interactions at Engineering, Technology, and Computer Science with Physical Plant have been positive, but we have negotiated and compromised with Physical Plant. They are doing so much on this campus, and they have so many major projects. They really are stretched thin. Sometimes we just have a phone call with a person from Physical Plant asking if they can have another three days to do such and such, and we will say that is fine. It relieves a lot of the frustration if people just sort of chat with one another and realize what is reasonable. They have always come through when we have made those agreements. I appreciate that. We have not had any trouble with rental cars. I know they are doing a lot of major projects on this campus.
8. New business:
P. Iadicola moved to approve SD 08-2 (Proposal for defending Departmental Faculty Rights of Discussion and Recommendation for Departmental Curriculum). Seconded.
J. Grant moved to refer SD 08-2 to the Faculty Affairs Committee. Seconded.
P. Iadicola moved to amend the motion to refer to the Faculty Affairs Committee to include that the Faculty Affairs Committee report by the February Senate meeting. Seconded.
Motion to amend passed on a voice vote.
Motion to refer to the Faculty Affairs Committee, as amended, passed on a voice vote.
9. Committee reports “for information only”:
Graduate Subcommittee (Senate Reference No. 08-4) – J. Garrison:
J. Garrison presented Senate Reference No. 08-4 (Proposal for the Reinstatement of the Master of Arts for Teachers in Mathematics) for information only.
10. The general good and welfare of the University:
J. Tankel: There have been many questions floating around about the implementation of the plus/minus policy which the Educational Policy Committee has been working on. I just want to say, in anticipation of that, we have a policy which was voted on by this body. That policy is on plus/minus grading. It is very clear. The issue that we are dealing with is the consequences of the policy where you have issues of minimum grade points. We will look at that. Right now, the actual issuing of the grades on a voluntary basis as outlined in SD 98-11 is fairly clear, and those are the policies of the university which we voted on in 1999. The only impact the plus/minus grading will have on students is the final grade point average. A B is a B, a B- is a B, and a B+ is a B for all other purposes.
M. Wartell: As a point of information, the orientation committee (SOAR) folks are recommending mandatory orientation for all entering freshmen or at least some orientation experience for all entering freshmen. That is under consideration right now.
11. The meeting adjourned at 12:39 p.m.
Jacqueline J. Petersen
Secretary of the Faculty