Faculty Senate 2010-11
Indiana University East
Faculty Senate 2010/2011
August 26, 2010
Whitewater Hall Room 132
10:00 AM
Presiding: Laverne Nishihara, Faculty Senate President
Present: Baldwin, L; Barbre, J; Baumann, P; Blakefield, M; Bow, C; Braxton-Brown, G; Breymier, Tonya; Buckner, B; Bullock, D; Cheung, O; Clapp-Itnyre, A; Clark, K; Cooksey, A; Curry, M; Dempsey, K; DeSantis, K; Doerger, D; Dulemba, L; Felton, K; Folkerth, M; Frantz, D; Gabston, M; Greer, K; Heffron Williamson, M; Helton, E; Henderson, T; Huffman, E; Humphries, P; Jance, M; Jayasuriya, K; Joyner, F; Kathuria, H; Kriese, P; Kunshek, R; Lafuze, J; Ludlum Foos, C; Lundy, D; Ma, H; Mahaffey, J; McFadden, B; McFadden, S; McKinley, E; Mohamed, W; Morgan, A; Morse, M; Olson, D; Passet, J; Paydar, N; Peacock, F; Pomper, M; Ramsey, R; Rankin, S; Richards, L; Rivard; T; Roswell, R; Rybas, N; Sabine, Neil; Scales, T; Scane, M; Scott, W; Simon, J; Slattery, E; Stager, J; Stanforth, D; Stolle, C; Thomas Evans, M; Thornburg, Ed; Watkins, M; Weber, G; Whitehead, S; Whitt, P; Wilde, J; Wilson, E
Absent: Armstead, S; Baker, D; Battraw, J; Fell, M (on leave); Fitzgerald, E; Harper, J (on leave); Samborsky, E; Seddighin, M; Shapiro, S; Tolley, R; Yates, F
Purdue Faculty: Alder, B; Alenskis, B
IUPUI Faculty: Steiner, L
Guests: Applegate, L; Dilworth, L; Dimick Eastman, B; Eberly, Keith; Hicks, D; Itnyre, Ron; Kim, A; Libert, J; Messer, Carla; Roberts, A; Williams, D; Knight, M
Faculty Senate Secretary: Kristie Marcum
Call to Order
Quorum was reached and the meeting was called to order at 10:00 a.m. by Laverne Nishihara, Faculty Senate President.
- Approval of August 2010 Graduates (Cir. E03-11)--Confidential
The tentative list of August 2010 Graduates was approved.
- Approval of minutes-Faculty Senate meeting of May 4, 2010
The Meeting minutes of May 4, 2010 were approved.
President Nishihara welcomed back student government representative Miranda Knight, who will be here all year.
- Voting Items: Meeting dates for 2010-11 ( Cir. E04-11)
Meetings are scheduled to meet at 11:00 a.m. on each of these dates.
The meeting dates for 2010-11 were approved by Senate for this academic year.
- Nominating Committee--Mattie S. Gabston
Information Item: Online election to fill vacancy on the AAA committee.
Over the summer there was an online senate vote to fill the vacancy on the AAA committee. The results of that online vote was that Lora Baldwin was approved to serve on AAA.
Voting Items:
- State Selection for Faculty Board of Review
The slate selection for the Faculty Board of Review was conducted. Senate voting members were instructed to vote for two faculty members, at least one not from the School of HSS.
- Review Board for Misconduct and Grievances
Review Board for Misconduct and Grievances. Senate voted for a list of people. The instructions were to vote for three people, at least one tenured, selected from at least two different Schools. The list would be forwarded to the Chancellor, who would select three faculty members to serve on this Board. Prior to the vote, the following faculty members removed their names from the ballot: Neil Sabine, Ed Thornburg, Greg Weber, Paula Baumann, and Stephanie Whitehead.
- Annual Reports 2009-2010
Chancellor Paydar would be giving a lunchtime address later in the day; therefore, he decided to forgo the Chancellor’s Report during this meeting.
- Presidents Report-Laverne Nishihara (Cir. E05-11)
Standing committees from last year did a tremendous amount of work. Senate ended up with 91 circulars, each representing an action taken by Senate. Faculty were commended for producing valuable work, especially faculty serving on all of the committees. Another instance of faculty’s cooperation and extra work was that faculty members showed up for the extra April 27, 2010 meeting to address a large number of degree programs as well as course requests. The faculty was urged to continue with this level of participation and attendance, and thanked.
All University Faculty Council, known as UFC: Laverne Nishihara participated along with UFC Representative Hitesh Kathuria. Laverne Nishihara highlighted two UFC items. First, the campuses were all taking action on some promotion and tenure principles were approved and recommended by UFC. One of the promotion and tenure principles that got recommended by UFC was that external reviewers of the P & T dossiers could not have a significant relationship with the candidate. That principle was implemented across the campuses and it became explicitly stated in our P&T principles. Another principle that the campuses addressed was that only faculty holding at least the rank applied for can vote on P&T cases. The outcome was that three campuses in IU fully implemented that principle. The other campuses implemented the principle to the extent feasible. IU East made a decision to require a minimum of two full professors serving on the P&T committee at all times. There was some correlation between the size of each campus’s faculty and the ability to implement that principle. Finally for P&T, there is something called executive review that was outlined in a memo by President Michael McRobbie. Executive review is the last step in the approval process for P&T candidates before the cases go up for a vote from the Board of Trustees. UFC, having heard from all the campuses, concluded that the practice of executive review remains controversial across the campuses and the conclusion in the UFC report was that executive review remains an “unresolved matter.” There will be more about executive review in future.
The second item is that UFC voted in favor of permitting an extended tenure clock. This permits a campus to decide to develop policies that would allow a School on that campus to apply for an extended tenure clock. For example, the IU School of Medicine may want to apply for an extended tenure clock so that p & t candidates can take nine years instead of the usual seven years to get tenure. The campus can approve policies that would allow such an application. If East decided we wanted to approve a policy to permit a school to apply for that, there would be a very elaborate approval process. This process through shared governance would include approval by Senate, the School, the Executive Vice Chancellor, and Chancellor. It would then go off campus and would have to be approved by the President of IU, and ultimately go to the Board of Trustees. The Board of Trustees might approve such an application if there is “compelling justification” for extending the tenured clock for that School. So far, only the IU School of Medicine has drafted such a proposal to extend the tenure clock for that School. Laverne Nishihara has asked the Faculty Affairs Committee just to take a brief look at whether we should consider drafting such a policy permitting such an application on campus.
Regional campus initiatives: In March, President McRobbie announced the creation of an office to develop a shared vision for the regional campuses. Vice President John Applegate is heading this office and Chancellor Paydar is heading the regional campus Expenditures Review Committee. The creation of this regional campus office, headed by Vice President John Applegate, was partly to address the extremely close scrutiny that the regional campuses are getting from the state government and others due to the current economic situation. Right now six priority action teams across IU are being assembled to address student attainment with the goal of dramatically improving and increasing student attainment on all the campuses. There will be a faculty member and an administrator from IU East on each of the teams.
Priorities for 2010-2011: We spent a lot of time and actually part of today’s meeting dealing with IU East’s comparatively small number of faculty, especially tenured faculty outside the disciplines of the arts and sciences. It has been challenging to meet tenure and school representation requirements on key committees, such as the Faculty Board of Review, when we have a handful of tenured faculty from outside the arts and sciences. The Faculty Affairs Committee is charged with examining the requirements for some committees and if possible propose revisions to make memberships on the committees a little easier while maintaining the integrity of those committees. Secondly, it has been brought up that we need more School representation on committees like the Curriculum Committee. We will see if policies can be drafted to require School representation whenever feasible.
There are only so many faculty to handle an expanding number of undergraduate and graduate programs. The expansion is very positive for this campus and students, yet there are concerns about how can faculty teach and keep up with all of these programs. Faculty members have the legislative authority to examine and also ultimately approve academic programs and changes to the curriculum as well. It has to be approved by faculty for good reason. Faculty are encouraged to continue to ask the hard questions about whether the quality of learning and also the student’s success can continue to be sustained as we expand the number of academic programs. IU East has a proud history of achievement in teaching and learning. If the quality of learning declines, then the retention that we are working so hard to build will not happen.
Finally, the faculty does not have legislative or voting authority over facilities and budgets, but the faculty has recommending authority; we should be consulted about budgets and also about facilities use. The Budgetary Affairs Committee is charged to see if the faculty would benefit from a brief explanatory overview of Responsibility Center Management, which is being implemented. Secondly, the BAC is charged to consult a sufficiently large cross section of faculties, school Deans, and Directors to see if there are recurring questions; to see what people think is good about RCM and the budget and see if there are any concerns or suggestions. It is an informal type of poll, not comprehensive yet as RCM is being implemented. BAC will be asked to boil down any questions and suggestions to just a few and then ask the relevant campus administrative officials to address the key questions and concerns. The faculty is thanked for participation and attendance.
- AAA Committee--Michele Curry (Cir. E06-11)
The AAA Committee revised the drop-add policy and that is to come before you this fall. The academic forgiveness policy is also part of the charges and that is a work in progress. Revisions to the eligibility for serving on the Review Board for Misconduct and Grievances were approved. Also approved were revisions to the grade appeals policy, looking at the length of time allowed for appeals. Deviations from degree requirements was another policy that was revised and approved. Michele Curry submitted recommendations for this year’s AAA committee and those were submitted to the Senate president. Michele Curry was AAA chair for four years, and not being chair is a bittersweet loss. AAA is a hard-working committee. To summarize last year’s appeals, in total Michele Curry reviewed 72 appeals and students wanting to know how to appeal; out of that in total the committee saw 60 of those 72 appeals. AAA denied 25 and reinstated 35. AAA members were thanked.
- Athletics Committee--Neil Sabine (Cir. E-07-11)
Two items: last year Senate passed the academic policy presented by the Athletics Committee. The students that are not covered under NAIA are freshman and sophomores and there is the requirement that they are in good academic standing. There were two student appeals that went fairly well and there were a couple of people appeal this spring. Track and field was added.
- Budgetary Affairs Committee- Rudy Kunshek (Cir. E08-11)
We have been hearing about responsibility centered management, so it has been adopted here in our particular university. (The year-end report for the Budgetary Affairs Committee was read aloud by Rudy Kunshek; the report is in Circular E08-11.)
- Curriculum Committee--Bob Ramsey (Cir. E09-11)
The committee was able to address all five of the charges that it received last August. The first charge was to review the institutional program requirements, specifically the minimum C requirement. Senate approved a revision: students need only pass these courses and not get a C, with the exception of two running courses that are required under our general education framework. They still need the minimum C requirement. The second charge was to evaluate the second degree policy. Senate approved a revised policy. The third charge was to work with the Faculty Affairs Committee to ensure that the Curriculum Committee has a member from each of the schools. This was not accomplished but the new Committee will address that this year. Our fourth charge was to try and differentiate a set of guidelines for the different levels of courses such as 300- and 400-level courses. There are no guidelines like that in the IU system. The Committee spoke with many faculty members and was not able to come up with a consensus. The new Committee will still be working on that and it would be a nice idea if we could get that done in some way. Our last charge was the standard charge of addressing various new course requests, new program requests, and bringing courses off the master course inventory. It was a very busy year with bringing to the Senate 46 voting items, 34 new course requests, 6 new program requests, and 6 other voting requests which are outlined in the Senate packet. We also brought 25 new information items, 20 of those off the master course list, and 25 miscellaneous items. Frances Yates was thanked for sitting in on many meetings, making the Curriculum Committee aware of how important it is that the Library be kept in the loop when these new courses and new programs are being developed. Faculty tend to automatically check the box on applications that asks whether the Library has adequate resources, but there are a lot of things that have to be done in order to get the right resources in the right place. The new Committee will be pressing faculty to make sure that they have talked to the library and that these resources are in place to help because it takes time to do that. Members of the Curriculum Committee were thanked. Maureen Scane and Brenda Buckner are this year’s co-chairs. Bob Ramsey stated that he chaired the Committee for four years, and it was a pleasure to work with people on campus, including faculty and administration.
Laverne Nishihara stated that Lora Baldwin is now the chair of the AAA committee.
- Faculty Affairs committee- -Markus Pomper (Cir. E10-11)
The Faculty Affairs Committee had several charges and did not get to all of them. The ones that were not completed will be rolled over to next year. What we did accomplish was to create a policy for our search and screen hiring and replaced the old one that was in the books. We updated the policies and procedures for promotion and tenure. We created a review policy for the [Executive] Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs.
- Lecturer Long-Term Contract Review Committee--Margaret Thomas Evans (Cir. E11-11)
Margaret Thomas Evans thanked the Committee for their hard work. The Committee successfully reviewed the five cases that were presented.
- Promotion and Tenure Committee--Neil Sabine (Cir. E12-11)
The Committee reviewed four cases last year. Neil Sabine thanked all of the Committee members. The Committee struggled with these cases so it is a lot of work, but members were able to meet and it worked out well.
- Nominating Committee--LaDonna Hatley Dulemba
LaDonna Hatley Dulemba thanked the Committee members. The Nominating Committee conducted all regularly scheduled elections and additional by-elections.
- Charges to Committees 2010-2011 (Cir. E13-11)
Laverne Nishihara referred Senate to the committee charges in Circular E13-11. Committees might not be able to complete all of the many charges, but they are listed in rough order of priority. The Athletics Committee needs to resolve the question of whether it is the committee that has the authority to develop and propose a policy for evaluating coaches. There should be an annual report from the Athletics Committee. AAA, Budgetary Affairs, and the Curriculum Committee were already mentioned. They and Faculty Affairs will have full agendas. This year the Nominating Committee is being charged with keeping a brief record of steps taken prior to each election to function as a “cheat sheet” to help the Committee in future years. Elections involve a complicated process with policy reviews. So if the Nominating Committee can keep a simple list, it will be handed on to future Committees. All committees have the charges from Senate starting on page 36.
- Standing Committees
AAA Committee Student Appeals--Lora Baldwin
Every single person from the Committee was present on Monday for hours and there were 20 appeals. 8 were approved and 12 were not readmitted.
- Academic Affairs Report--Executive Vice Chancellor Richards
EVCAA Richards thanked Laverne Nishihara for organizing meetings, chairing the Agenda Committee and giving advice which he does not always take.
Announcements and updates: There are some new degree programs in the pipeline. The Master of Science in Management is at the Commission for Higher Education. Once these things get to the commission for higher education, there is no guessing what is going to happen or when. We just keep pushing; we push from within IU and occasionally go outside IU to the commission itself to ask what’s going on. But we do have a list of all the items that are on there and a list to consider. Math, Science and Nursing were officially approved by the Academic Leadership Council at its August meeting and it will go to the Board of Trustees at its October meeting. Also approved was the Bachelor of Science in what is now called Human Life Science? That was a change in name from Human Biology and that will come to the Senate for your approval. The only change is the name; the curriculum, the outcomes, and everything else are identical to what it was when Senate passed it. For the Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry, there were some final details being worked out. The hope is that both programs will also go to the Board of Trustees at its October meeting. We have some other proposals for off campus and online programs on the Indiana Commission’s list and hopefully those will get approved soon. The road construction and traffic will create problems for students who have note planned for it. EVCAA Richards asked faculty to be understanding if students came in late for the first few classes of the semester. The last announcement was that Patty Crawford was hired half time to work on our five-year Lily grant. The grant’s purpose is to develop partnerships with community organizations and in particular to develop a strong internship program here and she has done a great job with that. Over the last few years, Ange Cooksey was managing a grant for service learning that came to an end in June. The EVCAA thanked her for all the work she did on that. Patty Crawford is now being made a full time employee located in University College. There will be a place called the Center for Service Learning there with the internships. The office will provide administrative support for internships, service learning, and experiential learning in general. The Honors Program was thanked for work in trying to build in some service learning into the program.
The enrollment situation: At this point, IU East was at 31,400 credit hours. Last fall, the campus was at 28,900. It was 1,000 hours more than IU Kokomo, which already started classes this week. IU East’s head count at this point exceeded last year’s by 3 students. East was still admitting, there was another new student orientation in the upcoming Friday, and it was likely that East would enroll quite a few more new students as well as returning students who waited until this week and possibly even next week. That was the first time in IU East history that East went over 30,000 credit hours in a semester. The EVCAA thought IU East would exceed a 3,000 head count of students for the first time ever this fall. This was happening when selectivity in admissions had been ramped up significantly. As a result of that selectivity, the freshman class was about identical in size to last year; about 400 students. It might increase by a few students. Now all students being admitted had the equivalent of a college prep program. In Indiana, by next fall, that will be a core 40 or honors program in high schools. Students all have at least a 2.0 grade point average. In the past, students with below a 2.0 were admitted. The numbers for those in the top third of the class increased by a huge amount but the numbers in the middle third also increased. So few from the bottom third of the class apply that the number is almost negligible now. The bulk of the incoming class still comes from the middle third, though our yield on the top students is just better. That is not going to change with the situation we have and the kind of campus that we have and our access mission. Of those 400 students, over 90% will be directly from high school. It was high last year in the 80’s percentile. IU East must find ways to adjust to the maturity level of the students that we now have. Over the last three or four years that is a significant change in the makeup of our on campus student body. The admission of new transfer students was up about 60 students more than what it had been. For next fall, we might be able to increase our freshman class by a little and that is going to be primarily because of the image of the institution. The message about selectivity gets out, attracting more students from the top third. But most growth in enrollment will come from transfer students and online students. The conclusion was that selectivity next year would not be increased a lot from this year. There might be ways to be more selective. For the student body as a whole, there will be more and more transfer students off campus and online.
Priorities: In a sense IU East is at the forefront of those schools who have the same kind of mission and situation that we have. East’s first priority should be assessment. Over the summer months, there have been things happening extremely, extremely fast in higher education around the country and in congressional hearings that directly affect us. The Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Regional Accreditors was threatened with removing their authority to accredit. IU East’s accreditation comes up next fall and we are going to be one of the first institutions under this new pressure that our regional accreditor is feeling more than any other accreditor in the country. IU East must show them that every program has learning outcomes. Everyone has an assessment plan, but as a whole, information about those learning outcomes must be collected, including how students are doing with them. Finally, implementation must be addressed; this involves collecting systematic data, analyzing that data, and using it to improve our programs and documenting this. The second priority is retention; of the 400 hundred students who started as freshman last fall, 150 are not going to be here this fall. The Indiana Department of Higher Education created our biannual budget a couple of years ago. They used a new formula to calculate our state appropriation and one of the items in that formula is how many more students are you graduating in four years than you did the last time. The data used included the students that entered IU East in 2004 and how many of those graduated in 2008. We started with 189 full time students and in 2008, 18 of them graduated. That is less than 10%. The EVCAA’s third priority is online education and focusing on how to recruit and develop programs that are attractive and competitive not just within our region but outside of our region.
- New Business
No new business
Meeting was adjourned at 11:15 a.m.
