Minutes for April 6, 2009

The Faculty Senate of Eastern Kentucky University met on Monday, April 6, 2009, in the South Room of the Keen Johnson Building. Senator Ware called the eighth meeting of the academic year to order at approximately 3:30 p.m.

The following members of the Senate were absent:

^*Indicates prior notification of absence to the Faculty Senate Secretary
^ ALT Marh Whitaker attending for B. Bentley
^ ALT John Bowes attending for T. Hartch

Visitors to the Senate: Tina Davis, Registrar; Deborah Newsom, Financial Affairs; Jerry Pogatshnik, Graduate School; Jaleh Rezaie, Graduate School; Sherry Robinson, Provost Office; and Janna Vice, Academic Affairs

APPROVAL OF MINUTES:
The March 2, 2009 minutes were approved as written.

REPORT FROM THE PRESIDENT: Senator Whitlock

Senator Whitlock announced that he and the advancement team will be leaving tomorrow for California. While there they will be meeting with major donor prospects and will hold alumni meetings in San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego. There are about 500 or more EKU graduates in each of those cities.

Last Thursday, Senator Whitlock met with the new formed Strategic Planning Council, chaired by Dr. Jo Ann Ewalt. The SPC and the FPC plan to conduct their work in a collegial, shared governance mode in order to align responsibility and accountability.

In last August's convocation remarks, Senator Whitlock committed to visiting with each college faculty sometime during the year. He and Provost Piercey have met with four colleges and will meet with the remaining college soon. In addition, he has also participated in the Fireside Chats in the Faculty Club in the Keen Johnson Building and in the professional learning community discussion of Derek Bok's recent book on American colleges and universities.

Official notice has been received from the Governor's budget office that the current year appropriation has been reduced by two percent, as expected. As noted earlier, EKU implemented a four percent reduction in anticipation of additional cuts in 2009-10. In addition, the Financial Planning Council will be recommending further economies to prepare for the coming year. This includes about $800,000 in savings from administrative positions that have been cut through attrition and further reductions in certain institutional pool accounts. Hopefully this will minimize any future cuts to departments and other units.

It is unknown at this time how the budget stabilization funds from President Obama's stimulus package will affect EKU. One scenario (the best one) would be that there would not be a further reduction to the appropriation base. In this event, the campus community would work together to reallocate the funds previously set aside for additional cuts and would be able to spend the stimulus package funds on one-time allocations to better position the institution. The other scenario would be that there would be another base reduction and the stimulus funds would be used for "backfill." In either event the Strategic Planning Council and the Financial Planning Council would work together to provide recommendations.

There are a variety of opportunities in the stimulus package through which EKU can compete for grant and contract funding. The state is working to coordinate some of those efforts to maximize the benefits that might accrue to Kentucky. EKU is a significant actor in this regard.

An exciting announcement will probably be released later this month regarding an opportunity to receive congressional earmark funds.

Senate Bill 1, in the recently concluded session of the General Assembly, has some significant and exciting implications for higher education. It requires the Kentucky Department of Education, the Council on Postsecondary Education, and the state's higher education institutions to collaborate specifically in the setting of standards in reading, math, and the alignment of curricula. This will be a process that will require significant faculty involvement.

Discussions with Morehead State University, the community/technical colleges, and private institutions in EKU's and Morehead's service regions continue to make progress. The University Center of the Mountains at Hazard, and the Center for Rural Development at Somerset are also partners in this collaborative effort aimed at effective regional stewardship through collaboration.

Next month, Senator Whitlock and his wife plan to visit China. The trip will be financed by a combination of Chinese support and personal funds. While there, Senator Whitlock will make a presentation on "Globalization and the Stewardship of Place" at an international conference. While there he will also renew EKU's partnership agreement with Liaoning University of Technology. He also plans to visit Daegu Haany University, EKU's partner institution in South Korea, before returning.

Senator Whitlock's long-term commitment is to return this institution to the point it was 10 years earlier. At that time faculty was compensated at more than 100 percent of the benchmark and staff was at 100 percent. There is still some work to be done before a recommendation can be presented to the Board of Regents in the way of salary and benefit improvements.

UNFINISHED BUSINESS:

Graduate Faculty Criteria. The Graduate Faculty Criteria policy was presented at the March Senate meeting and deferred for a vote to the April meeting. Senator Robles moved approval of the Graduate Faculty Criteria policy, seconded by Senator Taylor. The majority was in agreement and the motion carried. (supporting doc)

NEW BUSINESS:

Report on Cooperative Education. Senator Ware announced that the cooperative education report will be given at the May meeting.

Report on QEP Progress. Senator Noblitt announced that the QEP Progress report will be given at the May meeting.

Report on Campus Copyright Issues. Senator Noblitt reported that the Campus Copyright Issues Work group was formed to address copyright questions on campus. The work group plans to:

1. Gather presently existing EKU sources involving U.S. Copyright Law in a central easily accessible location;
2. Gather information from other sources to post in this central easily accessible location to answer general questions about copyright issues;
3. Gather anonymous requests from faculty, staff, and students to answer questions about copyright law;
4. Develop educational opportunities to assist faculty, staff, and students in understanding copyright law; and
5. Identify means to assist faculty, staff, and students in addressing copyright concerns.

Report on New Scheduling Software. Tina Davis announced that the report on the new scheduling software will be given at the May meeting.

Report on Stimulus Funding Available to Faculty. Dr. Jerry Pogatshnik was in attendance to inform faculty about programs available through the stimulus package (the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act [ARRA]) and how his office can assist those faculty interested in pursuing any of those programs. The list of programs is available through the Sponsored Programs website. The list will continue to be updated through May 1st, so be sure to check often.

Posthumous Degree for Megan Myers. Senator Taylor moved approval to award a posthumous degree for Megan Myers, seconded by Senator Noblitt. Motion carried.

Report from Council on Academic Affairs - Dr. Janna Vice

Elections Committee. Senator Randles shared a list of committee vacancies that will need to be filled at the May organizational meeting.

Senator Resor asked for nominations for Senate Chair and Vice Chair for the next academic year.

Senator Ware was nominated to serve as Senate Chair for the 2009-2010 academic year. Senator Phillips moved to close nominations, seconded by Senator Ciocca. Motion carried.

Senator Taylor was nominated to serve as Senate Vice-Chair for the 2009-2010 academic year. Senator Robles moved to close nominations, seconded by Senator Schmelzer. Motion carried.

Elections for all vacant positions will be held at the organizational meeting in May immediately following the regularly scheduled Senate meeting. New senators are encouraged to attend the regularly scheduled meeting in May as guests, and then take their official seats at the organizational meeting.

Senator Robles requested that all committee reports that were not originally included in the Senate packet be distributed electronically.

Budget Committee. Senator Johnson reported that the Budget Committee met March 6, 2009 and expressed its concerns that the Strategic Planning Council had not met while the Financial Planning Council continued to build the budget for the 2009-2010 fiscal year.

The committee will press for reallocation of some administrative positions back into faculty lines with a concurrent reduction of compensation levels. The committee will also continue to focus on generating new faculty lines and reducing the number of upper level administration positions.

In this time of cutting budgets, the Senate Budget Committee is looking at any possibility of funds that could help with these cuts. One place to review is travel money used by administrators versus travel money allocated to faculty. It seems that few faculty are allocated enough travel funds to travel to even a single conference while at least some administrators receive travel funding to attend two conferences per year.

CPE has approved the following tuition parameters: KCTCS 3%; Regional Comprehensives 4%; and Research Universities 5%.

Rules Committee. In her written report to the Senate, Senator McKenney shared the following information.

The Rules Committee met March 3, 17, 24, and 31 to discuss and drafted a motion to create a new Senate standing committee to deal with academic concerns.

In the course of deliberations the question of whether this committee should deal with the issues of academic freedom and shared governance was raised. One idea proposed was that a separate committee should be established to deal solely with academic freedom. Another idea suggested was that academic freedom and shared governance would logically come under the purview of the Rights and Responsibilities Committee. With this latter idea in mind, Senator Lynette Noblitt, Chair of Rights and Responsibilities Committee, was invited to attend a couple of meetings to share her insights.

Committee on Committees. Senator Butler reported that the self-nomination survey for university committee vacancies has been distributed.

Senator Butler stated that the committee plans to solicit nominations for the General Education Committee earlier next year, since that committee begins work sooner than most committees.

Welfare Committee. Senator Foote reported that the committee met in conjunction with the Benefits Committee on March 24th to discuss information about Express Scripts.

Ad Hoc Committee Report on EKU Community College. Senator Taylor reported that the sub committee met recently. Senators Taylor and Shordike have continued to stay in contact with the Associate Provost, Dr. Janna Vice, on this issue.

Strategic Planning Council. Senator Taylor reported that the Council met and reviewed the charge.

University Financial Planning Council. Senator Ware reported that the Financial Planning Council has been discussing tuition.

Work Group on Upper Division Electives. Senator May reported that the committee has met twice and their recommendation of 42 upper division hours has been presented to the Council on Academic Affairs. Liz Throop, chair of the work group, was asked to check with the Associate Deans to see how this recommendation might impact students.

ADJOURNMENT: