FACULTY SENATE
FULL MINUTES OF SEPTEMBER 15, 2009
The first
regular meeting of the 2009-2010
Agenda Item I. Call to Order
Marianna Walker, Chair of the Faculty called the meeting to
order at 2:10 p.m.
Agenda Item II. Approval of Minutes
The minutes of April
21, 2009 and April
28, 2009,
were approved as distributed.
Agenda Item III. Special Order of the Day
A. Roll Call
Senators absent were: Professors Zoller (Art and Design) and
Talente (Medicine).
Alternates present were: Professors Kros for Seeman
(Business), Grubb for Gibson (Business), Ballard for Dosser (Child Development
and Family Relations), Griffith for Grobe (Education), Schmidt for Jeffs
(Education), Simpson for Russell (Health Sciences Library), and Morris for Francia (Political Science).
B. Announcements
Thank you was
extended to each of the 10 academic deans who graciously agreed to equally fund
a 20 hour graduate assistantship for the Faculty Senate office during the
academic year.
The Chancellor has
approved the following resolutions from the March 31, 2009,
meeting:
09-17 Removal
of Foundation Credit “FC” designation from ALL BUT the following School of
Theatre and Dance courses: THEA 1000, -1010, -2001, -4066; DNCE 1001, -1002,
-1003, - 1011, -1012, -1013, -3014, -3703, -4044, -4045.
09-18 Summer 2010 –
Spring 2011
University Calendars.
09-22 Curriculum matters
contained in the minutes of the February
26, 2009, meeting.
The Chancellor has approved the following resolutions from the April 21, 2009,
09-23
ENGL
3290 Asian American Literatures as a Foundation Curriculum Course for
Humanities.
09-24 Revisions to the ECU Faculty Manual, Part V.I.K. Office Hours.
09-25 Discontinuation
of EdS in Counselor and Adult Education, College of
Education; CAS
in Library Science, College of Education; BSBE
in Marketing Education, College of Education; Master
of Music Therapy, School of Music.
09-26 Elimination
of BS in Accounting, College of Business
09-27
Renaming of the following
programs: Bachelor
of Fine Arts in Dance to Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance Performance, School
of Theatre and Dance; Certificate
in Distance Instruction to Certificate in Distance Learning and Administration,
College of Education; BSBA
in Management Accounting to BSBA in Accounting, College of Business.
09-28 Mechanical
Engineering Concentration,
09-29
Certificate
in Computer-based Instruction,
09-31 Curriculum matters contained in the
minutes of the March
26, 2009 and April
9, 2009, committee meetings.
Faculty interested in periodically
receiving issues of The Chronicle of
Higher Education are asked to call the Faculty Senate office at 328-6537
and place their name on a list for distribution.
We have openings on
the following University Committees and ask anyone interested in serving on
these committees to please contact Marianna Walker, Chair of the Faculty, at walkerm@ecu.edu. Brief committee descriptions are available
online at: http://www.ecu.edu/cs-acad/fsonline/customcf/committee/briefdescriptionsallcmtes.htm
·
Admissions and Retention Policies Committee, 3 year
full committee term
·
Biological Safety Committee, 1 year term as Chair
of the Faculty representative
·
Calendar Committee, 1 year term as
·
Faculty Information Technology Review Committee, 1
year term as
·
Family Weekend Committee, 1 year term as Chair of
the Faculty representative
·
Faculty Welfare Committee, 3 year full committee term
·
Homecoming Steering Committee, 1 year term as Chair
of the Faculty representative
·
Infection Control Committee, 1 year term as Chair
of the Faculty representative
·
Libraries Committee, 2 year full term and 1 year
term as
·
Radiation Safety (Basic Science) Committee, 1 year
term as Chair of the Faculty rep.
·
Resident Status Appeals Committee, 1 year term as
Chair of the Faculty representative
·
Unit Code Screening Committee, 3 year full
committee term
·
University Curriculum Committee, 1 year term as
·
University Special Collections Committee, 1 year
term as Chair of the Faculty representative
Additional
faculty representatives on needed on both the Academic Integrity Board and
Honor Integrity Board. Currently,
according to Part IV. of the ECU Faculty
Manual, each Spring the
All Faculty
Senate materials
(agendas, minutes, announcements) will continue to be distributed via a Faculty Listserv that has been
established and used in conjunction with the Microsoft Exchange mail system.
Faculty choosing to opt out of the Faculty Listserv will continue to be able to
access the materials via the Faculty Senate website. Paper copies of documents will always be
available in the Faculty Senate office (140 Rawl
Annex).
This year’s freshman reading is Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s
integrated into
English 1100 classes and COAD 1000 classes. The author will be on campus March 1,
2010 as the inaugural keynote speaker for the Lessons in Leadership Speakers
Series beginning at 7:00 p.m. in Wright Auditorium and all faculty are invited
to attend. There is also a variety of events centered around the book and
listed online at:
http://www.ecu.edu/studentlife/ecureads/.
A call for
nominations for the Board of Governors Award for Excellence in Teaching, Board
of Governors Distinguished Professor for Teaching Award, Alumni Award for Outstanding Teaching, and
University Award for Outstanding
Teaching was recently distributed. Nomination materials were due
September 15, 2009, and portfolios due November 1, 2009. If individuals
making nominations or faculty members who have been nominated have any
questions about one or more of the award categories, please contact Dorothy
Muller in the Center for Faculty Excellence (328-2367 or 328-1426 or mullerd@ecu.edu).
The Center would provide a session for nominees on September 16, 2009, at 3:30
in the Old Cafeteria to review portfolio contents and videotaping requirements
where applicable. Additional information on the different award nominating
procedures is available online at:
http://www.ecu.edu/cs-acad/fsonline/aa/academicawards.cfm.
In an
effort to keep faculty members informed of campus activities, Board of Trustees’ meeting agendas and schedules are
distributed electronically to all faculty.
Faculty are welcome to attend these open meetings.
C. Steve
Ballard, Chancellor
Chancellor Ballard distributed draft budget
information and began his remarks by discussing risk management. It is very important to be concerned about
the mandates that are coming from not just our trustees but the Board of
Governors as well as Erskine Bowles as well as the state auditor. There is an
environment of accountability at all levels ; the state auditors ,legislators
and attorneys general do not trust the university. An example would be how the
The Chancellor listed the Eagle program and UNC Fit as
current programs for evaluating how business is done at the various universities.
The PACE initiative, required ECU to
document efficiency indicators and the problems with the changes in registrar’s
office have been areas where ECU has made progress in accountability. The
Chancellor reported that members of the Board of Governors discuss the reportable findings from the state
auditor and asks the question “why do
you have a reportable finding”. This is a “catch 22” since you have to describe
the issues involved with the what is found in the university’s constant
auditing and if there is no finding the assumption is that the University is
not auditing carefully enough. Administrative accountability is more important
than it has ever been before. Chancellors are being evaluated based on the
performance indicators that result from on going audits and what the real
standards are for how we manage the university. President Bowles believes in
the individual accountability of the Chancellor as well as the institutional
responsibility to use the money provided by the state wisely. He has instituted
three auditing procedures that identify key performance indicators so far and
he has made it clear that the University’s desire to “get what it wants” will
be directly related to accountability.
This includes anticipating issue and solving the problems
that are identified in addition to responding to issues that are observed
publically. It is largely because of this environment that two years ago a
University Policy Manual was mandated by the Board of Trustees. There will be
two committees that will help us with the improvements that our Board of
Trustees expect.
The draft budget , prepared by Kevin Seitz was distributed
and discussed. This draft indicated that over a three year period ECU has lost
over $82 million in recurring and non recurring funding. This has reduced all
the flexibility that we have as an institution. This year will be around $34
million; the governor has already taken back almost $15 million. The next year will be tough and there is no
rational way to predict when the worst of these economic times will be over.
Only 2% of the reductions from this year’s ,academic year 2009-2010, are to be
taken from the academic core. The Board of Governors definition of academic
core has now been widened and thus the March 17th definition of the
ECU Board of Trustees is no longer the best definition and may be overturned by
the UNC General Administration. The Chancellor warned that we need to be
extremely conservative because we can not foresee what might be happening in
the early Spring of 2010 ; this would be the second year the biannual budget
. Every unit of the university has been
impacted by the cuts and the University has issued guidelines that limit the
amount of money that is being spent; although cuts in academic areas like
teaching, mentoring and counseling have been limited. There have been no budget
driven reductions in force (
The Chancellor reported that a comparison by President
Bowles showed ECU is one of only two universities where there has been
acceptable administrative growth when compared to student credit hours and
ratios. For example, UNC-Ch reported one
administrator for every two faculty members and ECU reported an administrator
for every nine faculty members. Thus, ECU is at the top of the list in terms of
academic efficiency along with Appalachian State.
Professor Novick (Medicine) stated that there were budget
reductions in faculty lines and now that less budget cuts were handed
down; he asked whether the funding would
be restored for faculty hires. The Chancellor stated that the academic council
is reviewing this and Professor Novick needed to refer his question to Vice
Chancellor Phyllis Horns. Administration is still concerned about future budget
reductions and positions are being reinstated very carefully.
Professor Bauer (Foreign Languages and Literatures) first thanked the chancellor for his
support of faculty governance, then asked why a new committee was being formed
to oversee the review of the ECU Faculty
Manual. She stated that the Faculty Senate should
remain the governing body for curriculum, program development, and tenure and
promotion and asked if a statement like this be included in the policy on
policies being drafted by administrative bodies. The Chancellor responded that
the Faculty Senate had to be involved in all academic issues. The primary
effort with the procedures manual, at
this time, was to identify
portions of the faculty manual that are issues of administrative
accountability.
Professor Rigsby (Geology) stated that the 2007 letter from
the University Auditor asked for a University policy manual and questioned Chancellor
Ballard as to why the 2nd part of the auditor’s letter about
management oversight and recommendations for formal training for levels deans
and department chairs had not be followed up on. Professor Rigsby stated that she was aware of
current problems with annual reports that had not been filled and meetings with
tenured and tenure track faculty and unit administrators not taking place . She
questioned why the training recommended by auditor had not been started. Chancellor Ballard
agreed and stated that the Vice
Chancellors will be handling this aspect of the auditor’s letter as soon as
possible.
Professor Gabbard (Education) remarked that after looking at
the faculty/student ratio numbers on the budget handout, that ECU was rated 2nd
from the bottom, stating that the
Professor Bauer (Foreign Languages and Literatures) reminded
the Faculty Senators that the membership of the Faculty Governance Committee
included the three academic Vice Chancellors as voting members. She then asked Chancellor Ballard about the
Faculty Manual Steering Committee and the Faculty Advisory Committee and if
these committees would report to the
Professor Rigsby (Geology) stated in relation to the budget,
she understood that there may be more cuts necessary and that this was
mishandled over the summer making it very difficult for the fixed term faculty
members to understand what was happening and being unsure if they even had
contracts at the start of the school year.
Some were even teaching without employment contracts approved ; she
suggest that this puts ECU at risk.
Professor Rigsby stated that the
miscommunication with fixed term faculty members was wrong , and she asked the
Chancellor if he had identified where the problems occurred and if the training
been provided so that the miscommunication did not happen again. Chancellor Ballard stated that the State budget
was not approved until the 2nd week in August and that as of the
Senate meeting, the University still did not have a General Administration
budget. Deans were not given authority
to sign contracts until late August. The Chancellor reaffirmed that he
understood the contribution of fixed term faculty and remarked that next year
should be easier and that the University would go back to previous practices
with ECU budgets determined earlier in the fiscal year. He was hoping that the
Deans could make the hiring decisions in June and the fixed term faculty hiring
was the only budget flexibility that the University had. The Deans did not know
what hiring flexibility that they would have until August. He also noted that
General Administration had still not approved the University budget even today. Chancellor Ballard stated that not knowing
what the cuts would be this year but that last year was a perfect storm that
made it almost impossible to predict how best to handle with a 14% budget cut
scenario.
Professor Wilson (Sociology) stated that during the summer,
administrators reassigned classroom seats, taking seats out of the classrooms
but not changing the total number of seats available in the registration system
(Banner). So more students enrolled in the various classes than there were seats
for and in some instances professors had 60 students show up for classes in
rooms that were deemed to only hold 40 students based on fire safety
recommendations. He stated that this was
unfair to both faculty and students and reflected poorly on the University. Chancellor Ballard stated that he would speak
with Associate Vice Chancellor Bill Koch about this issue and ask that Mr. Koch
contact Professor Wilson directly to discuss this further.
D. Marilyn
Sheerer, Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic and Student Affairs
Provost Sheerer stated that she was given the following
topics to discuss: admissions and retention, overview of the Division of
Academic and Student Affairs, and proposed Faculty Workload policy. She began
her comments that she was very aware of the situation with the number of chairs
in the classroom. Employees of the Life Safety Department removed chairs to
comply with the fire code regulations; however, when Colleges overenrolled
their classes the outcome was that there were more students than there were
seats in the classrooms.
Provost Sheerer, in response to an earlier question to
Chancellor Ballard, stated that fixed term faculty within the
Provost Sheerer
indicated that the total enrollment this semester was 27,703. That is 27 students fewer than last year;
this indicates that the office of admissions had met the criteria set by the
Board of Trustees to limit enrollment and
increase the academic caliber of
students coming to ECU. The first time full time freshmen starting at ECU this fall numbered 3,953 , a goal had
been set of no more than 4,000 incoming freshmen. The standards for new
students has been raised and the projected GPA and SAT scores for freshmen were
also higher. And the preliminary data for retention rate for freshmen who
became sophomores was 79%; the figure from last year was 75%. The graduation
rate has not changed. Credit hour production
was up by 4,876 even through student head count was down this semester. This
means that some of your classes might be larger and that low enrollment classes
have been cancelled.
The news from Student Affairs is that this division is being
reanalyzed and will be reorganized. We are reassessing after the departure of Kamal Atkins, Sue Martin and other leaders from this unit.
Provost Sheerer stated that the reason for forming an
administrative committee to draft a Faculty Workload Policy was because Deans
had told her that there were inequitable loading across the University. The faculty workload document has been
revised twelve times so far with the academic deans. .How faculty were given
reassigned time and how many student credits hours were generated all involved
the General Administration’s funding for departments. The Faculty Governance
Committee will also be involved in refining the next drafts The Provost
indicated that she had evidence that the faculty workload was not equitable.
Academic Deans had questioned if the University was producing what they were
receiving and asked why there were so many 2-2 loads. Provost Sheerer stated that she and others
wanted to better utilize the University resources so the drafted policy was to
be used as guidance for Deans and Department Chairs. To date noting had changed
from the workload requirements in the faculty manual.
Professor Tovey (English) stated that in reference to the
overview of the Division of Academic and Student Affairs, faculty were aware that
staff had been moved from the Student Affairs area to Academic Affairs and vice
versa and faculty wanted to know what was going on. She had also heard that Student Life staff
did not feel that they were given a lot of input into what was going on within
the Division of Student Affairs.
Professor Roberts (Philosophy) stated that he was not happy
with the management of classrooms over the summer was handled and that the
situation over populating the classrooms should be solved now. He also stated that his class of 130
students, was currently meeting in the Hendrix Theatre. This space was a poor
classroom due to problems in lighting, acoustics, etc. and that he needed to
have this class moved to a location that was better suited for students. Provost Sheerer replied that administration
had not considered the poor lighting in the Hendrix Theatre and that she would
ask Nancy Mize , who oversees Mendenhall , to try to find a resolution to his
problem.
Professor Howard (Communication) stated that since the cap
for all classes has now been decreased due to fire and safety recommendations,
would someone please update the Banner system so that over -crowded classrooms
would not happen again in the Spring. He
stated that students were angered by the mishandling of this within academic
affairs and that he personally had to drop the last 5 students from his class
rosters, preventing some from finding alternative courses to fill the time
slot. He reiterated that something should
be done to prevent this from happening again.
Provost Sheerer stated that she would make every attempt to work with
Registrar Angela Anderson to rectify this problem as quickly as possible.
Professor Novick (Medicine) inquired whether the calculation
of ECU semester hours , and in light of the budget, if ECU receive money for
new faculty positions this year? Provost
Sheerer replied yes, there were currently 47 positions allocated to ECU and
that some of those would be allocated between the Colleges of Allied Health
Sciences and Nursing and the Schools of Medicine and Dentistry.
Professor Rigsby (Geology) stated that the Board of
Governor’s Workload Study that was completed every 6-8 years stated that ECU
met all of its requirements for student credit hours. She stated that if there were issues relating
to specific academic units and that it was important to acknowledge that since
ECU is meeting the standards set forward by the Board of Governors. When compared to the University Auditor’s
2007 report, perhaps changes are not needed to the current workload policy, but
changes in training for middle
management to better utilize academic units was needed. Professor Rigsby stated that the proposed top
down policy on faculty workloads could cause too much change within academic
units causing some units to lose their distinct specificity within the various
disciplines.
Professor Glascoff (Health and Human
Performance) stated that, in relation to Policy for the Cumulative Review of Permanently Tenured Faculty of ECU,
the policy refers to rewards and it is very specific that faculty will
be judged as exemplary, satisfactory, or deficient. Regarding those who come out as exemplary,
the policy states that those faculty members shall be rewarded and the policy even
includes suggestions as to how to reward their dedication. Professor Glascoff inquired as to what type
of recognition of dedicated faculty members was available ,Specifically what
type of recognition was available for such dedicated faculty during these times
of scarce resources. Will they just be
expected to “suck it up” and continue to work harder without any form of
recognition or does the Academic Council have resources set aside to reward
those within their Divisions who have exemplary faculty. Provost Sheerer
replied that Professor Glascoff was right in that the Policy did include some
form of recognition but that ECU does not recognize their exemplary faculty
members at this time.
E. Marianna
Walker, Chair of the Faculty
Professor
Walker stated that in preparing her remarks for this first
Professor
Walker stated that she stood before you now, as the Chair of the Faculty, and
part of a great faculty leadership team composed of Professor Mark Sprague,
Vice Chair of the Faculty; Professor Hunt McKinnon, Secretary of the Faculty;
and Professor Brenda Killingsworth, Parliamentarian. Each of these individuals have a strong
commitment to shared governance and offer unique and complementary talents to
assist the faculty of East Carolina University and the
Professor
Walker noted that, as stated in Fall Faculty Convocation, a thorough review and
emendation of the faculty manual will be a priority during this academic year.
The faculty officers received this directive from the Chancellor at the end of
July. Many of the policies and
procedures contained within the faculty manual are and have been the
responsibilities of other divisions on campus. It is time to review such policies
and to relinquish the maintenance of such administrative policies to other
divisions, and ultimately to the University Policy Manual. In addition, the
Chancellor has asked that the faculty manual be streamlined, which will rectify
inconsistencies, eliminate redundancies, and clarify any ambiguities.
She noted
that the Chancellor had announced a Steering Committee, jointly appointed by
the Chancellor and herself to oversee the emendation of the faculty manual. In
addition, a Faculty Advisory Group was announced whose members will assist the
Chair of the Faculty and the standing University Academic Committees in the
initial review and reworking of the faculty manual. Through this multi-step vetting process, (involving
specific appropriate University Academic Committees, the Faculty Advisor Group,
the Faculty Manual Steering Committee, and the
Professor
Walker reminded faculty that this was not the only significant endeavor that
we, as a faculty, have to undertake during this academic year, in collaboration
with the administration. Now, more than ever, faculty must renew their
responsibilities and sense of involvement, increase communication, and
productively collaborate on such important issues as the University Policy
Manual, Faculty Workload, University Master Planning, and the Scholarship of
Engagement. She noted that historically, the
Professor
Walker reminded Senators that communication and collaboration must increase if
we are to accomplish our goals during this year and called on each of the
Faculty Senators, to increase communication with their units, ensuring that
their faculty constituents understand the current issues facing us this year.
In turn, this valuable communication will allow the Senators to represent the
faculty of their unit and to vote accordingly on issues brought before the
Professor
Walker reminded the Faculty Senators that together they could solve any problem
and collectively accomplish their charges.
She stated that we are the faculty of this great university and that
together we can assure that the voice of the faculty was well represented in
shared governance while addressing the many challenges and opportunities that
ECU will face this coming year. Now, let’s get to work!
There were
no questions following Chair Walker’s remarks.
F. Tremayne Smith, Student Government
Association Treasurer
Mr Smith
began with a brief introductory history of himself including the fact that he
is the drum major for the ECU band. Mr. Smith stated that the student
government leaders have been in office for five month and during that time they
have met with the City Council, worked
with the safety task force, helped with the Sigma Epsilon on their volunteer
efforts, worked with the Athletic Department including helping with Pirate Palooza, welcomed new students to their dormitories and
helped with the selection of scholarships, attended convocation, and with the
Faculty Senate officers on two occasions. Changes have also been made with
their offices.
Mr. Smith
also reviewed the commitment to ECU’s motto and concluded his remarks by
reminding that if it was not for the students ECU would just be a lot of brick
buildings and people with Masters and Ph D degrees. There were no questions posed to Mr. Smith.
G. Larry Boyer, Dean, Academic Library
Services
Dean Boyer
provided information on the Library Budget, including a Budget
Reduction Plan and 17.9%
budget cut breakdown and referred to the narrative and budget cut spread
sheet when reviewing the crucial cuts briefly. The overall Library budget
reduction was almost 18%. Library operating budgets have been reduced by 40%;
which will limit faculty travel, training, equipment and computer purchases. Acquisitions have been reduced by 32%, monographs
may be reduced by as much as 82%, and money for student helpers by 30%. There
has also been a 10% reduction in permanent staff which translates into ten
positions that have been lost. The reduction in library hours had been reduced
from 109 to 84 hours a week. This reduction in hours has been reversed and
additional funding has been allocated to reinstate the hours the library is
open back to 109 hours a week. There is also a possibility for one time funding
for faculty travel and book purchases.
There were
no questions posed to Dean Boyer.
H. Austin Bunch, Associate Provost
Associate Provost Bunch provided a summary of the University Policy
Manual. Below are links to several
informational documents and the administrative committee’s website.
University
Policy Development Committee,
Management
Letter-University Policies Procedures and Training (dated 11-15-07),
University
Policy Development Committee’s power point presentation (dated 9-9-09)
Dr.
Bunch reviewed the questions that had come up in the forums on the ECU Faculty Manual to date. These
questions are:
1) What happens to the faculty manual? Dr.
Bunch indicated that the Chancellor had
already spoken to this issue today and that the faculty manual will remain and
be coordinated but not replaced by the University Policy Manual procedure
manual
2) There was a question about the
relationship between the development of the procedure manual and the existing
faculty manual. Dr. Bunch repeated that two committees will be set up, with
faculty representation, to make sure that the implementation of the procedure
manual is comprehensive and that it becomes a complete repository of the rules
and procedures that will guide the university.
3) There was concern about the
Chancellor’s actions in response to Faculty Senate resolutions. The language in
the procedure manual draft indicates that the Chancellor can approve, adopt, or
adopt with revisions; this is a change from current policy and procedures in
the faculty manual.
4) There was concern that the Faculty
Senate continue to be the primary means of furnishing the advice of the faculty
to the Chancellor on faculty matters.
5) It was suggested that the proposed
language of the procedure manual include an introductory statement confirming
the commitment to shared governance and that ad hoc committees or task forces
should not have the same standing as standing committees of the Faculty Senate.
6) There was concern about the lack of
clarity of this Policy on Policies about how the procedures manual will be
implemented.
Professor Roberts (Philosophy) stated that the internal
auditor’s letter was dated 2 years ago and asked why were they just now getting
to this. Mr. Bunch stated that in
January 2008 the Board of Trustees designated how to draft a policy on
policies. He and others from
administration then took a trip to NC State to view how that University had set
up their manual and now wish to do things in deliberate speed.
Professor Rigsby (Geology) stated that there were two
faculty open forums and that the comments generated from those forums
questioned the way that the policy on policies was currently written right
now. She stated that the proposed new
policy on policies right now states that the Chancellor may take any action and
may use any advisory structure that he wants to in order to formalize
University policy. For example, the
Graduate School Administrative Board (GSAB) may decide to make a new policy on
how to define graduate faculty and, if the Chancellor’s attorney does not
approve of that, then the Chancellor can veto it and rewrite it himself. Same is true with curriculum development,
program development, tenure policies and procedures, etc. Professor Rigsby
asked if the Policy on Policies Committee was going to include the role of the
Professor Sharer (English) stated that members of the Admissions
and Retention Policies Committee had been working hard on drafting a new policy
related to committee’s charge and wanted to know if they needed to rewrite the
proposed policy using proposed terminology from the Policy on Policies or the
traditional methods of the Faculty Senate.
Mr. Bunch responded that the determination of that was the role of the
newly formed Faculty Manual steering committee.
Chair
Professor Stiller (Biology) stated that he was confused on
how the actual implementation of the Policy on Policy’s regulations would take
place with respect to those under the ECU Faculty Manual, i.e
curriculum, academic programs, academic standards, tenure policies and
procedures. He stated that the major
role of the auditor’s letter was to clarify ambiguities and that the
Professor Spurr (Mathematics) asked where was the
Professor MacGilvrary (Medicine)
stated that the
Professor Rigsby (Geology) asked if members of the Faculty
Manual steering committee had talked with faculty in leadership roles at NC
State because what happened recently at NC State was due, in part, to the fact
that administration had not followed the policies and procedures as designed.
She also noted that the NC State’s policy manual was not one listed as best
practices. Professor Rigsby then asked if Professor Puri
Martinez, a member of the Policy on Policies Committee, would please forward to
members of the
I. Question
Period
Professor Given (Foreign Languages and Literatures) asked
that in relation to the student/administrator ratio and faculty/administrator
ratio the numbers reflected a decrease in executive and administrative
positions and wondered what counted as an administrator.
Professor Niswander (Business) responded at the request of
the Provost that there were multiple definitions of what administrators are and
that it could relate to three different ways of describing administrators.
Dean Niswander continued his
comments to describe how the definition of an administrator and how this
definition affects the ratio data. There are multiple (at least three)
definitions of the work administrator. The first is the personnel data file
that is submitted by every university in the system to
The problem arises, according to Dr.
Niswander, is that when the Chancellor puts the information on the ECU website
we were using the only information that we had available to us which was the
personnel data file. Dr. Niswander went back to the personnel data for the last
five years to get the percentages of administrators related to students and
faculty members.
About four weeks ago the UNC General
Administration came out with some exhibits that were given to the Board of
Governors which defined what an administrative position was. The current
challenge is that if you look at one definition you come to one set of numbers
and if you look at another you arrive at a different conclusion based on who is
considered an administrator.
In summary, ECU has a very low
faculty to student ratio and we are highly ranked when we are compared to other
universities in the number of administrators per faculty member.
And this has been consistent over
the time period that Dr. Niswander has analyzed.
Professor Wilson (Sociology) asked what definition did the
Raleigh News and Observer newspaper use for their recent article on the State
Universities administration totals.
Professor Niswander responded that he didn’t have the slightest idea.
Professor Jenks (History) stated that in the Chronicle of
Higher Education, administrators included those working in student and computer
service areas. He then asked if ECU
would see similar growth in these administrative positions as well. Professor Niswander stated he did not know.
Agenda Item IV. Unfinished Business
There was no unfinished business to come before the body at
this time.
Agenda Item V. Report of Committees
A.
Faculty Governance Committee
Professor
Puri Martinez (Foreign Languages and Literatures),
Chair of the Committee, presented additional revisions to the ECU Faculty Manual, Appendix B. Policy
for the Cumulative Review of Permanently Tenured Faculty of ECU. She noted that
the additional revisions followed those already adopted by the
B. Academic Awards Committee, Sue Steinweg
Professor Sue Steinweg (Education), Chair of
the Committee, presented revisions to the procedures for the Lifetime and Five Year
Research Awards. There were
no questions and the proposed revisions were approved as presented. RESOLUTION #09-34
Agenda Item VI. New Business
There was no new business to come before the body at this
time. Therefore, the meeting adjourned
at 4:25 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Hunt McKinnon Lori
Lee
Secretary of the Faculty
Department of Interior Design and Merchandising
FACULTY SENATE
RESOLUTIONS APPROVED AT THE SEPTEMBER 15, 2009, MEETING
09-33 Additional
Revisions to the ECU Faculty Manual,
Appendix B. Policy for the
Cumulative Review of Permanently
Tenured Faculty of ECU
Disposition: Chancellor, Board of Trustees, General
Administration
09-34 Revisions to the Procedures for the Lifetime and Five Year Research Awards
Disposition: Chancellor