The Faculty Senate of Murray State University met in regular session on Tuesday, November 4, 1997, in the Barkley Room of the Curris Center. Thirty-three senators were present. Dr. Tommy Stambaugh was proxy for Senator Miller from accounting. Senators Cetin, geology; Dunman, university libraries; Robinson, philosophy & religious studies; and Stuart, biology, were absent. The minutes of October 7 were approved.
REPORTS
NCAA Accreditation Study--Mr. E. W. Dennison, Athletic Director, and Dr. Judy Brookhiser, chair, HPER, updated the senate on accreditation of the athletic program. All NCAA schools are required to be visited on a 5-10 year plan. In November 1998 an accreditation team will review our self-study. The self-study was begun during the summer of 1997. Mr. Dennison emphasized that this is an institutional study. The athletic department will provide data to the study and is committed to an honest view of the program. Processes for improvements must be a part of the self-study. If these are in place, the program will be certified pending the next visit. The president appointed a steering committee chaired by Dr. Brookhiser. The committee has been divided into four sub-committees to study fiscal and academic integrity of the athletic program plus commitment of equity and scheduling rules and compliance. Part of the self-study looks at institutional mission, shared authority, and assignment of responsibilities. A web site will be on-line to help keep the campus informed and an opportunity for all faculty to provide input to the process. Mr. Dennison welcomes any assistance that the senate may wish to supply.
Senator Maxwell (economics & finance) asked why chairs of each of these sub-committees were administrators. Chairs of these committees are Vice President Denton, VP Booth, Annazette Fields, Director of Equal Opportunity, and Mr. Rahl, university attorney. Mr. Dennison responded that the president followed NCAA guidelines. Dr. Brookhiser added that the guidelines spoke toward people who would have convenient access to records and information. Senator Maxwell said that this implies that faculty have no access to the process. Dr. Brookhiser responded that the sub-committees are made up faculty, staff, and students. She is also committed to a straight-forward, open, honest process. Senator Maxwell stated this would be a good time to respond to faculty arguments that athletics depletes other resources of the university and justify that athletics offers benefits and opportunities to the university that it might not otherwise have.
Graduation rates will be part of Dr. Booth's study. Dr. Brookhiser reported that weaknesses must be addressed. These must be noted with a plan to improve, who's in charge, and a time line must be in place for improvement. If nothing has changed by the time of the next evaluation (5-10 years), then our program would not be certified for reaccreditation. Mr. Dennison noted that the NCAA liaison emphasized broad based committees conducting a well done study with athletics taking a back seat role. Each sub-committee tries to represent a cross section of the university community. He also noted that graduation rates of athletes tracked from the first day are higher than the general campus population. He also stated that he and the coaches are committed to academics. Recently Coach Gottfried signed a recruit with a 26 ACT and turned down two others partly because of academic standing. Mr. Dennison did say that he believes that athletics doesn't do enough to help athletes who are disadvantaged in terms of scheduling; but is committed to giving them every opportunity to obtain a degree. The athletic program has recently received outside funding of its new academic enhancement center. The athletic staff wants student athletes to have success in an academic environment at an affordable price. He respects some faculty opinion regarding athletic funding but will keep faculty informed.
Dr. Alexander has pledged full support to help balance the athletic budget for the first time in 26 years. Mr. Dennison believes the athletic program should make money and will address expenses to quit wasting money. He fully supports Title 9 and says that MSU hasn't spent an equitable percent of its money on women's sports. He will seek outside donations and actively fundraise to achieve this equity. State funds are split 50/50. He hopes that this self-study will help get the point across to what MSU needs to be doing in terms of athletics.
Senator Aguiar (English) asked if the academic center was being coordinated with the rest of campus. Mr. Dennison responded that Ms. Simmons is in charge of academic compliance and that athletes are required to participate. He also noted that enrollment at other institutions has increased with a better quality of applicants due to successful athletic programs which requires less money from the institutions to run their programs. He wants to work with staff, faculty, and students to make the athletic department a successful one. Dr. Jay White, proxy for Senator At-large Guin, pointed out on the other side that Southeastern Louisiana did away with their football program and became bigger. Mr. Dennison said that studies have been done that say if you eliminate football you have to eliminate faculty to ever save money due to less state money. He welcomes this study with recommended changes and asked faculty to let him know if they have complaints with individual athletes. He wants athletics to be a product that we can all be proud of.
Board of Regents--Regent France reported that the governor will be here this Thursday, November 6, for a planning roundtable on postsecondary education. She and President Landini will attend along with deans and chairs. The community college presidents will not attend but will meet with Dr. Alexander later to discuss. She hopes that Governor Patton will offer insight to his ideas on HB1. On Thursday, November 13, the Governor has invited all faculty regents and faculty senate presidents to a luncheon to discuss how faculty want to implement HB1. Past meetings with the Governor have been a presentation of his ideas.
Regent France has discussed the programs of distinction with President Alexander. As of last week there were no duplication of programs of those proposed. If selected, a program will require a recurring match of $1.5 million each year. She sees this as a way for the Governor to tell the universities to get rid of programs in order to come up with these funds. The case has been argued with him that if courses with low enrollment are not an overload for faculty they do not cost.
Some questions to be answered concern additional faculty to implement the programs or more money for existing faculty to teach, the value of degrees of similar programs at the other institutions, and affect of all faculty salaries. Murray submitted two programs for possible distinction and could choose not to accept the designation. Dr. Stambaugh (accounting) noted the negative affect of not offering a program if everyone else did. Senator Wattier (political science) pointed out that the statute allows for internal reallocation or external funding. He asked Regent France if the university is planning to get outside funding. Regent France said absolutely; but a contingent plan would have to be in place in case external funding was cut. Senator Beasley (history) asked if faculty salaries would be counted towards the university's match. Regent France doesn't know and doesn't know if the Council on Postsecondary Education (CPE) has specified. Nothing has been decided at this point. Senator Campbell (academic council) said that our proposed programs targeted economic development within the area that might trigger money from outside sources.
Senator Duncan (psychology) asked if there was a connection between allocating resources for these programs and frozen faculty positions in programs with large enrollments. Regent France said that it might seem that way and that question should be asked. President Landini and VP Call have already discussed this with Dr. Alexander. He said that the university would look carefully at every vacant faculty position that comes up. Regent France added that with our increased enrollment we will need more faculty and that our projected enrollment for next year is 9100. She said that some schools use adjuncts or graduate assistants to teach their general education requirement, and we have been criticized for using faculty. Senator Duncan noted that is what distinguishes us from other institutions. Senator Aguiar noted that teaching assistants and adjuncts teach 80% of the classes taught in her department and that they can't get people to fill full-time slots and that these positions are being looked at. Senators and Dr. France discussed the impact of offering classes via the internet and ITV. The next board of regents meeting will be on December 12.
Academic Policies--Chair DuFord outlined four issues that her committee will look at. 1)Review ELI policies; 2)Information on FR 099 classes being taught by residential heads; 3) University standardization of faculty release time with increased enrollment in certain classes; and 4) Web page support at departmental level.
Finance--Chair White reported that the committee is gathering information. Two priorities for this year are to examine summer pay proposals and compare the university audit to the budget.
Governmental Affairs--Chair Wattier reported that the committee met on October 16 to discuss tenure, the AAUP censure, and a post-tenure bill. Dr. Wattier explained that the AAUP sees the issue in terms of regulations. They want our tenure policy to conform to their standards providing due process for terminated lectureships and requiring a cash payment to compensate former faculty who were denied tenure which led to the censure . He believes the administration could come to some kind of settlement if it so desires. The censure is against the administration.
Handbook & Personnel--No report.
Rules, Elections, & Bylaws--Vice President Call reported that the committee had met to preliminary work on the regent's election. Senator At-large Bell asked if the committee was returning to a majority vote instead of a plurality vote in the election. VP Call said that the committee was looking at all that to develop procedures for next spring's election.
Undergraduate Studies Committee of Academic Council--Chair Campbell reported that the recommendation to begin fall classes on a Monday passed academic council. Senator White asked if it would be possible to coordinate a fall break with the public schools calendars.
Graduate Studies Committee of Academic Council--Chair Muscio announced that the committee has invited representatives from the English Language Institute. They will meet on Thursday, November 13, at 2:30 p.m. in the Conference Room of Waterfield Library. The committee will conduct regular business prior to this session.
Library and Academic Support Committee of Academic Council--Chair Gulotta reported that his committee has requested that the executive committee of the academic council make a decision on what policy issues should come before this committee and/or ITAC.. He will meet with Dr. Booth to discuss conflicts.
Insurance and Benefits--Chair Jacobs reported that he, Ron Gulotta, and Shirley Reamer, staff representative, met with VP Denton on October 15 and discussed that communication needs to be improved between the committee and the vice president and also discussed concerns over the lack of appeal on decisions of the vice president. According to Provost Booth and President Alexander, no changes will be made in the process but ways to increase communication through informal channels could be developed. The committee met on October 31. The KTRS sick leave credit recommendation passed by the committee last spring has been forwarded to President Alexander with a recommendation from Mr. Denton that this change be implemented. This recommendation had been initiated by the governmental affairs committee of the senate. In the meeting Mr. Denton placed a great deal of focus on reporting of faculty sick leave.
A sub-committee is continuing to look at expansion of the tuition waiver transfer benefit. Information on the actual cost to the university is still being sought.
Mr. Denton has provided the committee with an overview of the steps that would be undertaken in the review of medical insurance alternatives. The committee will actively participate in this process. On the 31st Joyce Gordon, Assistant VP of Human Resources, explained the self-insured process. This process will be done in the review along with other benefits.
Senator Gulotta added that the committee did get an informal process. Mr. Denton verbally committed to give recommendations back that he doesn't agree with so that the committee has the opportunity to rework them. Dr. Gulotta also added that he doesn't see any changes on how faculty will report sick leave. Procedures are determined by departments allowing for variances and flexibility to account for the nature of faculty workloads.
Residential Colleges--Senator Horwood asked faculty to allow students graduating in December to attend a senior breakfast on December 2. Also, an investiture service for 525 December graduates will be reinstated on December 5. Members of the board of regents will attend and there will be a faculty processional.
In response to a request from the executive committee initiated by the academic policies committee, Dr. Horwood reported that there are no plans that residential college heads teach 099 classes. Counseling & Testing has contacted the academic deans to determine if there is an interest in CST staff teaching freshman orientation in small classes by internet or in the colleges. The colleges are preparing common rooms for classes that faculty may want to teach. These classes would be courses that are also being taught in the academic buildings. He presented several reasons for offering classes within the residential college facilities. He's not sure that faculty still understand the system and asked for input to address mutual problems. In response to some concerns of offering 099 via internet or other avenues by CST staff, Dr. Horwood said that Paul Naberezny is just trying to make 099 easier for students and the academic colleges.
Executive--President Landini reported that she and VP Call met with Dr. Alexander on October 17. They told him of the senate's salary study, and he has offered resources and data from the other state universities. They discussed that he and the board mean health insurance when they discuss fringe benefits and that fringes don't always affect everyone equally and are not uniform.
Dr. Alexander told them that two programs had been sent as proposals for "programs of distinction." At the time, the CPE had not yet established guidelines for selection. The amount and frequency of matching funds also had not been determined. They will take this back to him at their next meeting. She reported again that he says that every position will be looked at to find matching funds. At that time, there had been no discussion of these being recurring.
They discussed the post-tenure review bill filed by State Representative/Senator Philpot. MARK CLARIFY He will share any information he receives with the governmental affairs committee.
They will meet again on November 21 at 9:30 a.m. President Landini will attend the regional roundtable to be held here next Thursday. She and Regent France will travel to Frankfort on November 13 to meet with the governor.
President Landini announced that COSFL will have a teleconference on Saturday, November 15. It will originate from Eastern with sites at Western and Murray. CPE issues will be discussed from 9 - 11:30 a.m. cst. All faculty will be e-mailed when a location on campus has been determined. In closing, SGA President Earwood has asked for faculty help in establishing Murray as "Letterman's Home Office."
Salary Study--President Landini has asked for a briefing from the ad hoc committee at the December senate meeting. Chair Maxwell reported that MSU remains at the bottom of most salary rankings within the state. The committee recognizes inequities between colleges but doesn't see this committee having the ability to do anything about this except in reporting the data. President Landini emphasized the importance of getting some data analyzed before the December 12 board of regents meeting. She sees this as an important priority need for faculty that should be addressed by the board in setting budget priorities.
The meeting adjourned at 5:10 p.m.