UNIVERSITY
OF SOUTH ALABAMA
Faculty Senate
Approved Minutes
17 October 2001
1. Call
to Order:
The
meeting was called to order at approximately 3:05 p.m.
2.
Roll Call:
Present:
Bailey, Barik, Boggs, Bowers, Bracken, Broome, Broughton, Brown, Dagenais,
Ellis, Figarola, Gifford, Gray, Guest, Hanks, Hermanson, Hill, Hsu, Kayes,
Kimball, Kwiatkowski, Longenecker, Mozur, Murray, Olsen, Perkins, Rogers, Rowe,
Slagle, Spector, Swofford, Temple, Vest, Weitzel, Wesenberg, Wheeler, Willis
Absent
(Excused): Blackwell, M. Cohen,
Garmon, Matheson, Miller, Painter, Sylvester,
Townsley
Absent
(Unexcused): Benoit, S. Cohen, Comstock,
El-Saba, Foster, McNair, Pettyjohn, Shardo, Wilson
3.
Approval of Minutes:
The
minutes from the September 19, 2001
Faculty Senate meeting were presented and approved with a minor correction.
4.
Report from the Chair:
Faculty
Senate Chair Rogers made a statement that
the Faculty Senate Executive Committee did not meet with President Moulton this
month because there were no pressing items.
The
Foundation Board met and Senator Murray tried to attend but the meeting was
closed to the public. Newspaper accounts sound as though the relationship between
the University and the Foundation are frosty.
Faculty Senate Chair Rogers reported that the settlement fees were paid
by the University out of reserve funds so that no direct impact on the budget
should be felt by departments.
The
first sounds of proration for next year are being heard.
The University has already prebudgeted proration into next year’s
budget. They hope that it will be
minimal as it is an election year but are planning for the possibility of budget
cuts.
Chairman
Rogers suggested changing the next Faculty Senate meeting date as it falls on a
date when the University closes early for Thanksgiving.
A vote was held and the next meeting will be on November 28th.
Chairman
Rogers told the Senate that President Moulton had discussed the new student
information system with the Faculty Senate Executive Committee before the
September meeting but had asked us to keep it quiet until he had had a chance to
discuss it with the committees involved. President
Moulton informed us at that time that he had decided against the system the
committee recommended (Peoplesoft) because the price was too high and had
decided to go with CST. CST is
cheaper and used by most of the schools in Alabama.
Peoplesoft would cost $9 million over 5 years while CST would cost $1
million over 2-3 years. One senator
expressed the need to keep abreast of this situation and that the Senate needs
to continue to be aware of what decisions are being made.
He said that the current system cannot preregister or do summer
orientation and that we want a new system to help with these factors.
5.
Special Report from Mike Thomason:
Chairman
Rogers asked the Senate to approve a departure from the agenda to let Dr.
Thomason speak to Faculty Senators about the Foundation.
Dr. Thomason is currently serving on the Foundation Board as the
University Faculty Representative. The
Senate approved of the change.
Dr.
Thomason handed out copies of the settlement to the Senators present.
He said that he had been asked to serve on the Foundation Board and had
agreed. He discussed his point of
view from attending the meetings so far and expressed that it was important that
the lines of communication stay as open as possible between the University and
the Foundation. He said the
Foundation web site is one good way of communicating with the Foundation and
staying up on their views. He said
that there will be a vote early next year for a faculty representative for the
Foundation Board. The faculty
member must be tenured, have been with the University 10 years or more, and be a
current faculty member. Dr.
Thomason then answered questions from senators.
One
Senator asked if the faculty representative might be an administrator as well as
non-administrative faculty member. Dr.
Thomason said that was possible if they won a popular vote of full time faculty.
Another
Senator asked about Prime Health. Dr.
Thomason said the Foundation is very aware of Prime Health and that they have
improved dramatically in the past 18 months.
He said nobody is happy with the conflict between the University, Prime
Health and the Foundation.
Lastly
a Senator commented that this was the first time he had heard information about
the Foundation from someone other than the newspapers or University
administration firsthand. This person expressed an interest in the Foundation Board
faculty representative continuing to speak to University faculty.
Dr. Thomason said he thought this was a good idea and he would certainly
be glad to help keep the lines of communication open.
6.
Reports from Standing Committees:
Policy
and Handbook Committee: Senator
Ellis reported that the committee was working on the workload policy.
He met with Dr. Covey and discussed some concerns. They discussed that many changes occurred as a result of
proration. Senator Ellis said the
standard workload is 4/4 and they would like it to be 3/3.
He said Dr. Covey said that it was 3/3 with people feeling entitled to
research time and that now it was that 4/4 was normal unless they justified
their need for research time. Senator
Ellis said his committee was concerned with online prep time.
Is the time to prepare for an online course equivalent to the time for a
traditional course? They also
expressed concern about copyright. Basically it boiled down to the fact that
many more faculty would have to be hired to allow for 3/3 workload.
Clinical
faculty expressed their concern that this doesn’t work well for them. Clinical
faculty work many more contact hours for their courses and want this reflected
in the 60/30/10 type split. The
possibility of increasing the weight for contact hours was brought up.
Another Senator brought up his opinion that there needs to be equity, not
a workload policy. He said each
college is very different and it needs to be more equitable.
We need resource re-allocation between different colleges and
departments. Some departments need
more faculty and some don’t. The
workload policy may be used to help not overwork the faculty if it is done
correctly. It is a way of defining
how not to abuse faculty so they can meet their criteria for evaluation.
One
Senator commented that we might begin with a 40 hour week as a minimum and rough
out ‘hours per week’ for fairness – so many hours for
teaching/research/service.
Another
suggested that contact hours would be more fair for their college and that we
might come up with different numbers for each college depending upon what they
did. One response to this was that
each department within each college might well be different.
Evaluation
Committee: Senator Wesenberg reported they were working on the evaluation.
Salary
and Fringe Benefits Committee: Senator Boggs said the committee was working on a
sick leave donation policy.
Planning
Committee: No report.
7.
Reports from Caucus Leaders:
Most
caucus leaders had no reports.
Senator
Brown said Senator Comstock has resigned from the Senate and Arts and Sciences
will need to find a replacement.
On
behalf of the College of Education, Senator Broughton reported that they had a
good meeting with full attendance with their dean.
They discussed workload and the learning resource center.
Senator
Kayes reported that the College of Medicine held a meeting and elected a new
Senator to replace Dr. Benoit. Dr.
Hamm will be the new Senator for College of Medicine.
The
Nursing caucus leader, Senator Weitzel, reported that the Dean of the College of
Nursing has been very publicly supportive of the faculty.
8.
Old Business:
There
was no pending business.
9.
New Business:
There
was no new business.
10.
Adjournment:
The
meeting was adjourned at approximately 4:30 p.m.
Respectfully submitted by:
S. Murray, Secretary