Minutes
Faculty Senate Executive Committee
Emporia State University
11 March 2004

Members present: R. Catlett, M. Harrell, R. Keith, D. Saunders, J. Schwenn, Z. Swanson, J. Yanik
Members Absent: None
Substitutions: None

  1. Call to order: At 2:07

  2. Approval of the minutes from 04 March 2004: Approved

  3. Announcements:

  4. President of the Faculty Marvin Harrell:
    Yanik and Harrell met with the President about the two bills that she had returned. They discussed a number of issues:
    • The General Education Bill-They first talked to her about the General Education bill and told her that the understanding of the executive committee was that she had said that she would sign it as it was, but wanted the Senate to consider adding some changes. She responded that she did not intend to give that impression.

    • The Summer Sick Leave Bill-On the Summer Sick Leave policy, she said that she would support on a case-by-case basis providing a faculty member with support for effort that they had made toward preparing for a course.

    • The upcoming Tuition Waiver Resolution-Harrell told her about the Tuition Waiver Resolution. She said that were the climate different she would support this. She preferred a system-wide approach. She also said that her first priority was to address the compression of salaries. Harrell also suggested that we might want to support tuition waivers for dependents of classified employees-particularly minorities. She said that she liked the idea and would look into it.

    • The dismissal policy and the chronic low performance policy - Some of the issues that were discussed were: should they be separate or parallel? She was receptive to the idea of combining the two processes to keep it simpler.

Harrell received a list of all the unclassified employees from Jackie Scott. He suggested modifying his recommendation for the re-organization of the unclassified employees for the purposes of Senate representation. He suggested moving Athletics and Public Affairs and Marketing to Fiscal Affairs. The University Advancement people would be placed under Student Affairs. This leaves Gayle Meierhof, Phyllis Wenger, and the President un-represented. The suggestion is to put all others not previously designated into Fiscal Affairs.

There was discussion about whether or not minor changes in the Constitution and Bylaws should be a bill or whether it could simply be a committee report. It was agreed that Robert's Rules of order would be consulted to make sure that these changes could be made as a committee report. If so, this would be the easiest way to do it.

  • Vice President for Academic Affairs John Schwenn:
    Schwenn said that he has the first four chapters of the HLC report and is waiting for chapter 5. Harrell suggested that it should be made accessible to the faculty through the computer network. Harrell objected that the Faculty Senate has not been fully involved in this process. They have not been kept informed of what is going on.
  • Committee Reports

    1. Academic Affairs (Saunders)
      At the last committee meeting they passed around a document indicating the grade distribution. The committee felt that there are too many A's and B's that are being assigned. They discussed ways of addressing this. One option that was discussed was to give a faculty member an option of trying to increase standards and be granted some form of "temporary immunity" from lower evaluations as they try to adjust their standards.

      Another suggestion was to have the GPA of the course reported next to the grade that is being reported. The committee supported this idea.

      There is also a concern that students' may not be willing to challenge themselves because of a concern about losing their Presidential Academic Achievement award. Saunders suggested a formula for making an adjustment the ranking that they would have in the department. It is (S^2)/M where S is the student's GPA and M is the major GPA.

      They also discussed the teaching awards. They would like to come up with some clearer criteria for the award. Catlett said that the Faculty Affairs committee felt that the awards don't really help to stimulate good teaching.

    2. Faculty Affairs Committee (Catlett)
      They worked on the Dismissal Policy. That bill is ready to be presented. They accepted the changes suggested by the President on the summer sick leave policy. They have the tuition waiver resolution ready to go.

    3. Committee on Campus Governance (Swanson)
      Swanson made some changes in the letter that would be sent to faculty asking them for committees that they would be interested in. Harrell pointed out that the committee list is inaccurate and needs to be changed. Some committees on there are elected or appointed and other committees that should be there are not listed. The committee is still discussing the bylaws and issues on the election process for second vice-president. There was discussion about who should be on the nominating committee.

  • Items for Discussion:

    1. Administrator Evaluations - President's Evaluation Plan
      Dean Mehring's evaluation has been administered. The President's plan was distributed. The plan was approved with a few suggested changes.

    2. Bills and Resolutions for March Meeting

      Tuition Waiver Proposal (03009) - There were no comments on this.

      Dismissal Policy - Catlett explained some of the changes that had been made.

      Requirement of Making Syllabi Available (03011) - There was discussion about whether or not it should include a requirement that there be a statement addressing academic dishonesty. It is not currently in the UPM. It was decided not to put anything in about it unless we have to. Harrell circulated Grover's memo indicating that he had no concern with sharing information about the grade distribution. The suggestion was to make it available on the O drive.

      Academic Misconduct (03012) - Gayle suggested that some statements be removed from the resolution.

      Omnibus Constitution Report (03013 ) - There was some discussion about some of the items.

      Omnibus Constitution Amendment (03014 ) - There was some discussion about some parts of the amendment. Some changes were suggested to clarify the intentions. It was suggested that an item be added to allow spelling and grammatical corrections to be made without requiring a full vote of the faculty.

    3. Budget Committee Enhancements This item was deferred for a later meeting.

    4. COCG Letter
      Harrell suggested that the letter be revised and sent out again. He also suggested that it be reworded to remove the word "must" and to give a proper list of committees.

    5. Grade Reports from Registrar
      This item was discussed earlier under V. A. Bills and Resolutions for March Meeting, Requirement of Making Syllabi Available(03011) .

  • For the Good of the Executive Committee: There were no items in this category.

  • Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 4:29
    Respectfully submitted by:

    Joe Yanik
    First Vice President of the Faculty

    Last updated on 6 September 2004.
    Provide comments about the format to Dwight Moore at mooredwi@emporia.edu.
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