Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate

FACULTY SENATE MEETING #554
January 8, 2015
12:45 P.M. in BAB 114

Present:	Wai Mok, Charles Hickman, Tim Landry, Eric Fong, Jill Johnson, Pavica Sheldon, Joe Conway, Joe Taylor, Linda Maier, Carolyn Sanders, Anne Marie Choup, R. Michael Banish, Richard Fork, James Swain, Kader Frendi, Ken Zuo, Mark Lin, Azita Amiri, Monica Beck, Cheryl Emich, Lenora Smith, Luciano Matzkin, Debra Moriarity, Jeff Weimer, Peter Slater, Letha Etzkorn, Grant Zhang, Seyed Sadeghi, Nikolai Pogorelov

Absent with proxy: 	Xiaotong Li, Babak Shotorban, Ellise Adams

Absent without proxy:	Jack Schnell, Derrick Smith, John Kvach, Nick Jones, Eric Seemann, Kyle Knight, Ying-Cheng Lin, B. Earl Wells, Junpeng Guo, Kristen Herrin, Marlena Primeau, Larry Carey, Udaysankar Nair, Carmen Scholz, Lingze Duan

Guests:	President Robert Altenkirch, Provost Christine Curtis 

•	Faculty Senate President Wai Mok called the meeting to order at 12:46 pm. 

•	Administration Reports
•	President Altenkirch
UNIVERSITY PARK
The city owns the park and it was going to move all of the athletic teams that played there to a different park. There aren’t many kids who live in that neighborhood so it isn’t really used. There are also bad things happening in the park. We worked with the city to purchase the park to keep these bad things out. So we own the park now. The neighborhood residents were upset that the city didn’t tell them they were selling the park. The park is 10 acres, with softball and baseball fields. We will use it for intramurals and gatherings, like picnics. The main entrance will be closed so people can’t get into the park through the neighborhood. It will cut down on the traffic into the park and keep the bad things out. People will have to come through campus to get to the park now. We are doing maintenance on the park. Come spring it will be in good shape to use. We will keep it as a park. Vehicular traffic is blocked, but you can walk to it and bicycle to it. There will be a couple of foot/bicycle paths to/from campus. There will be parking control just like any other UAH parking lot. UAH Police will patrol it. We will install cameras. We will leave the playgrounds (there’s no liability with that) and the picnic areas. We will also keep the names of the playing fields. We do have to keep the noise level down, but that shouldn’t be a problem. There’s probably more parking than is needed, so we will probably tear that up and make it green space. 
o	Jeff Weimer: Are there public restrooms? 
o	President Altenkirch: Yes. There is a central building that is a concession stand also. No issues with it, though. 

SMOKING POLICY
A number of faculty asked me to amend this policy to prohibit electronic cigarettes. We amended it. It was announced in the newsletter.

POSTDOCS
We compared our way to Tuscaloosa and UAB; they treat postdocs as students—not employees. Employees pay into the retirement system. It takes 10 years to be vested. Most postdocs aren’t here that long. After a few years, postdocs leave and get their money back but we don’t. Ray Vaughn worked with the Research Centers and came up with a policy that treats them as students, not employees. They can still opt in to the 403B and 457B plans, but it’s their choice.

ID BADGES
The Staff Senate proposed that we have an ID Badge system. The reasoning is for safety—to identify the people who work here. We surveyed institutions and most of them don’t require the badges, but they are encouraged. They proposed this towards the end of last semester. We haven’t done anything with it, though. I gave the proposal to Wai Mok.
o	Peter Slater: How does that enhance safety? Most people on campus won’t have badges.
o	President Altenkirch: True. I think the point is that when we have visitors on campus, they can approach the people with the badges for help. There are a number of institutions that do this. We are putting in a number of these electronic entry pads, so this is convenient for that, too. 

4-DAY-WEEK WORKWEEK SUMMER
The Staff Senate looked at this again and want to do it now. I’ve given the resolution to Wai Mok. Some departments need a 5-day schedule, like Kramer Hall with NASA personnel. It will be 40 hours/week, four 10-hour days including lunch. We have the flexibility of deciding what the workweek is. It comes out to about 37 hours. Vacation and sick leave is based on a 10-hour day. We will change the observance of July 4 (Saturday) to July 2 (Thursday) rather than July 3 (Friday). 
Some buildings can shut down 3 days in a row instead of 2. Employees save on commuting costs, as well. 
o	Deb Moriarity: I brought this up with my faculty. Classes aren’t going on on Fridays, but faculty still do a lot, like work on proposals and such. 
o	President Altenkirch: If I need to come in when the university is closed, I have my assistant call facilities and ask them to turn the power on in the building that I need to use.
o	Deb Moriarity: Can we do that at the individual faculty level?
o	President Altenkirch: Yes, if that’s what you want

HR has worked this out and we are working on making a decision by the end of January/early February so there’s enough time. I’m thinking about doing it for only 10 weeks, so not the entire summer. We will start after the Spring semester ends and before the Fall semester begins. 
o	Charles Hickman: Is cost of utilities the principle savings?
o	President Altenkirch: Correct. Electricity. 

o	Luciano Matzkin: Have you thought about productivity loss? Staff is used to being here 8 hours day; now they’ll be here 10, but they will only work 8 hours because that’s what they’re used to. 
o	President Altenkirch: I think that’s an issue. Based on personal experience when I’ve done this before, it didn’t seem to be an issue in general overall. 
o	Kader Frendi: You mentioned moving 4 July holiday to Thursday, but there will be summer classes. So will we shut down the campus on Thursday? 
o	President Altenkirch: We could say it’s just Friday and forget about giving Thursday, but this is the HR proposal at the moment. 

We thought about giving 80 hours in 2 weeks with one Friday off. That’s another possibility.

POLICY ON POLICIES
The way policies have been developed, someone comes up with an idea, the Vice President brings it to the other Vice Presidents, and then we check with the attorneys to see if it’s okay. If it looks like a good idea, I sign it and it becomes a policy. The Policy on Policies codifies this and puts them in a consistent format and helps with SACS accreditation. There were several drafts of this. The original draft was July 28. Faculty Senate provided input and adjusted it to make a revised draft on August 22. It split the constituent groups and made Faculty Senate their own entity. On August 26 I fixed a mistake. On December 15 I made another draft. This is modeled after the policy at Tuscaloosa. I think we need to put one of these in place and move on. I’m fine with either one. Once we get this back, we will compile all of the policies into one format. We will give them to you and have you review them. Then we will put them on a policy website. There are certain policies that we don’t want public that will go on myuah. 
o	Charles Hickman: We’ve been expecting a big group. Is that what you’re talking about?
o	President Altenkirch: Yes. 

This also keeps people from self-generating a policy.

QUESTIONS
o	Peter Slater: With the parking lot that has been shut down—I think we need a few more handicap spots in Shelby Center, for short-term. 
o	Deb Moriarity: When I asked Mike Fennigan about it, he thought there would be some put in the garage, but I haven’t seen them.

•	Provost Curtis
We had a week of assessment with our consultant, Mary Herrington. We had a final review session today before noon. She gave us a compliment that she hasn’t been to a place where people have come so prepared. We need to show 2 cycles. We are developing outcomes right now. We are gathering data and assessing it in May. Many of you have been doing this all along so you can use the data from the Fall or before if you have it. The visit by the review team is in March. We hope that all of the information we have from the past, all accreditation that our colleges and departments go through, we will make the case that we have rejuvenated our assessment process and we will continue to do that. Mary made a good point: the overall goal we are trying to do is to improve ourselves and this is a very clear way to do it. She’s provided us with a lot of information, so if you need it, let us know. 

We are working with the QEP Committee. We are currently planning to have them present at the leadership workshop on January 26. Student Success Collaborative will be at workshop as well. The workshop is centered on retention, student success, and student learning. 

Mary strongly recommended that we set up an assessment committee university-wide to review assessment plans. Wai, if you would be able to give me some recommendations from the academic side. 
o	Wai Mok: How many names?
o	Provost Curtis: She recommended 7-10 people. So 4-5 names. 

The First Year Learning Experience course is currently being reviewed. We hope to have the results soon. I made the decision to put the FYE into the colleges. There will be a number of topics that will be the same throughout, by federal requirement, as well as for student success, such as time management. Students will be in their college and communicating with their faculty who are in the college. For many of our students, though, there is a lapse between the first year and later on in their majors when they see their professors. This gives us the opportunity to get our students engaged with us. I’ve asked Carolyn Sanders to direct this project. She’s studied this and is very knowledgeable about it. She will lead and direct the General Studies, as well. 

President Altenkirch: We really picked up on the recruiting this cycle. Applications are up 50% over what they were at this time last year. Admissions are up over 50%. The question now is how many we will capture. We are doing everything we can to get them here and then keep them here.

o	Jill Johnson: In our department, we know our students, and I’ve always thought it would be useful if we could get a list from the registrar’s office and follow up with the students who were enrolled the previous semester but haven’t registered for the current semester. 
o	Provost Curtis: We’ve had several requests for that and I think we are working on it. 
o	Carolyn Sanders: This idea of having faculty or staff who already have a relationship with the student is critical, instead of Student Success following up. 
o	Jill Johnson: I think it’s a good idea to just know the reason why the student can’t register and encourage them to come back.

President Altenkirch said they’ve been tracking block tuition and the hours of enrollment have gone up, so we should see the graduation rate go up.

•	Approval of Faculty Senate Meeting Minutes 553 (November 20, 2014)

Kader Frendi motions to accept Minutes 553. James Swain seconds. 
Ayes carried motion 
No oppositions
Motion to accept Faculty Senate Minutes 553 passes

•	Accept FSEC Report (November 13, 2014)
Accepted

Jill Johnson volunteered to sit on the SACS university-wide assessment committee. 

•	Committee Reports
•	Senate Officer Reports
President Wai Mok
I met with the President to talk about the Policy on Policies. And I met with Christine. She said the lecturer ladder should be coming back to us soon. Once it does, I will return it to the Faculty and Student Development Committee Chair, Linda Maier. The Provost is also working on the Parental/Maternity Leave Resolution. One thing with that is that we don’t have a uniformed policy across campus, so she’s working hard on it because we need one. She said we should have it the next time the Executive Committee meets.
President Mok asked for a volunteer for Parliamentarian since Deborah Heikes is now on sabbatical. (No response from the floor.)

•	Senate Committee Reports
Undergraduate Curriculum Committee Co-Chair, Deb Moriarity
The Undergraduate Curriculum Committee is now using the electronic course change and course approval forms, so if your department is submitting anything, please use electronic ones. It’s speeding things up.

Governance and Operations Committee Chair, James Swain
We now have a chair.

•	Smoking Policy
Wai Mok: The policy now is no smoking within 25 feet of the building. Some people want an entire campus ban. 

How many want a full campus ban? 
19 ayes
5 oppositions
5 abstentions

o	Carolyn Sanders: We know how much work the bills are, so maybe we should get a sense of the President’s thoughts and positions first. 

o	Jill Johnson: My feeling is who will enforce this. We can change the policy, but the current one isn’t even being enforced. 
o	Wai Mok: When I talked to Bob, it seemed to me that the new policy was a stepping-stone towards a full campus ban. If there are sentiments of a full campus ban, then I will communicate that to him.

o	Anne Marie Choup: Who is in charge of enforcement? Is it facilities? 
o	Charles Hickman: I would assume. 

o	Unidentified Senator: Are we going to have input from SGA on their opinion? Especially for those students who live on campus? 
o	Wai Mok: That’s a good question. I will ask. 

o	Eric Fong: What’s the penalty? 
o	Deb Moriarity: Under the code of conduct, there is a judicial section. 
o	Eric Fong: That is a huge hurdle. 
o	Letha Etkorn: Why don’t we look at Tuscaloosa’s policy? 
o	Deb Moriarity: If there’s a university-wide ban, the police could issue tickets. I think that’s what they said Tuscaloosa was doing. 

o	Unidentified Senator: How many are being affected by this? I.e., military, etc. 

o	Carolyn Sanders: Letha’s point is great—we have models.

•	Discussion of Policy on Policies
Wai Mok: July 29 is the day I received this. There was a Faculty Senate Executive Committee meeting where it generated a lot of comments. The August 26 version had very minor changes. 
o	Charles Hickman: In the first version, the objections that I made were regarding the flow chart and the time frames. He extended it to one month and explicitly in the most recent draft, it provides that they would be sent to us, SGA, and Staff Senate. They’re also posted, so once a proposed policy has been initiated, there will be a website, so it’s available to see. Then it came to the Faculty Senate, where we added a lot of language regarding shared governance. The President seemed to have some opposition to that language, but what he did do was add another committee that included us, SGA, and Staff Senate. At the end of the day, though, the President, under the BOT, has the power to accept any policies. Before this, if someone wanted a policy, then it was accepted and it was a policy. What the President wants is for policies to be codified and organized and us have a formal policy. 

Wai Mok: Back in September, we responded to the August 26 version, and then several months after that, he gave us this version. There is now a President’s Policy Advisory Council, which is the President’s Executive Council plus the Faculty Senate, Staff Senate, and SGA. 
o	Charles Hickman: At the December Faculty Senate Executive Committee meeting, we preferred the August version. 
o	Kader Frendi: If we accept this later version, then we might have faculty arguing with students over an academic policy. 

o	Jeff Weimer: I read number 9 as a discussion process, not necessarily an approval or voting process. 

Deb Moriarity calls to question. 

Carolyn Sanders asked if Wai Mok recommends either one. Wai said no. Kader Frendi said that the Executive Committee preferred the original version. 

o	Eric Fong: We are putting in a policy that will be here for all administrations. If we put forth a policy, it will stand for all future administrations as well. 

Vote:
Accept this with Item 9: 9 votes. 
Accept without Item 9: 21
Rejections: None.

•	Deb Moriarity motions to adjourn. Kader Frendi seconds the motion. 

Faculty Senate Meeting #554 adjourned
January 8, 2015, 2:03 P.M.