THE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA IN HUNTSVILLE

JOURNAL OF THE FACULTY SENATE

VOLUME XXV

 MINUTES OF MEETING #498, 14 MAY, 2009

          APPROVED 3 SEPTEMBER, 2009

Special Meeting

 

PRESENT:    

BA:                 Burnett, Bao, Schnell for Wilhite

LBAR:            Heikes, E. Smith, Bell, Berbrier, Reeves, Seemann, M. Johnson

ENG:              Kulick, Coe, Banish, English, Gaede

LIB:                Vaughan

NUR:              Lawson, O’Keefe, Showalter, Ferguson

SCI:                Davis, Wu, Zhang, Takahashi, Scholz

 

ABSENT WITH PROXY:

BA:                 Wilhite

LBAR:            Harwell, Johnson

SCI:                Edmondson

 

ABSENT WITHOUT PROXY:

BA:                 Mok

LBAR:            Pritchard, J. Smith, Ragsdale, Gyasi

ENG:              Anderson, Gholston, Cassibry, Wessling, Lin

NUR:              Linsky

SCI:                Mecikalski, Bishop, Etzkorn, Newman, Ravindran, Miller

 

0.      The meeting was called to order at 1:20 pm by Dr. Rhonda Gaede, Faculty Senate President.  A quorum was present, as more than 21 members of the 2008/2009 faculty senate, including proxies, were present.

 

 

1.   Provost’s report: Thank you to the realignment committee, they did a thorough job that gives us a good first step.

 

2.   Dr. Gaede said, I want to clarify if the agenda is the same for special meetings or not, do we have to have committee reports?  Gail Pritchard moved and Michael Banish seconded that we skip committee reports and go directly to the business at hand. The vote was unanimous in favor.

 

3.   First item on the agenda was the proposed faculty senate bill on procedures for realignment.  Dr. Gaede asked Dr. Tim Newman to speak about the bill.  Dr. Newman said the bill ensures strong faculty input into realignment.  We investigated how other universities do this.  Thanks to Dr. Carmen Scholz for doing most of this research.  Andree Reeves said, thanks to Dr. Newman for being a great committee chair.

 

Dr. Michael Banish, there are 2 small corrections to the bill, one in section 2.2, 7th line, “this vote shall be,”  section 2.3.1, add “of” between “evaluation” and “current.”

 

Call the question.  The vote was unanimous.  Since the executive committee vote was unanimous, and the vote at second reading was unanimous, there was no need for a third reading, and the bill was passed.

 

4.  Next item on the agenda was the sense of the senate resolution relative to supporting the conclusion of the realignment committee that no realignment should take place before Fall, 2010.  The original version was read:

 

That the Faculty Senate concurs and supports this conclusion.

 then an amended version was read that further resolved:

 

That the Faculty Senate supports realignment of an academic unit prior to Fall 2010 for realignments that have already been in negotiation within their college, if and only if the majority of the faculty of the affected academic unit, by their own accord, also support and have been actively engaged in the realignment process.

 

There was a discussion about how the sense of the senate resolution might affect the already agreed to liberal arts reorganization.  Multiple people from liberal arts said they felt that this realignment should not take place, that it was better to have it stopped.  Others argued that it was inappropriate to completely bring realignments to a halt, as long as they followed the detailed realignment procedure from the previously passed realignment procedures bill.

 

Andree Reeves moved that we proceed to vote on the original resolution.  Jack Schnell seconded.  All were in favor except one opposed and one abstention.  Since the vote was not unanimous and a sense of the senate resolution requires unanimity, the resolution did not pass.

 

There was more discussion about the amended version of the resolution.  Several people expressed reservations about it, that it might result in the committee’s report being weakened rather than supported, as some stated was the primary intent of the original resolution.  There was a discussion about how there was a need to slow realignment down so that it does not happen before the board of trustees meeting in June.  There was a discussion as to whether the revised sense of the senate resolution might give a loophole such that the liberal arts realignment could proceed immediately.  Some people said that this resolution is just extra in any case, and it is better not to have the resolution passed than to pass a resolution that weakens the committee report.  There was a discussion as to whether a different resolution could be passed that said, just slow down. There was a discussion as to whether the resolution could be changed to a bill.  Dr. Gaede said it would have to go back to the executive committee for this.  Someone asked to have a resolution that just endorses the report.  Some responded that the committee report is controversial in some areas, it is likely that many people do not agree with all parts of the report.  There was a discussion that sense of the senate resolutions should not be controversial and no one should be coerced into voting for one.  There was a discussion that no one felt that they were being coerced.

 

5.   There was a move to adjourn.  All were in favor except 3 opposed, so the move to adjourn passed at approx. 1:55pm.

Meeting was adjourned at 1:42 p.m.