Minutes for November 30, 2009
The Faculty Senate of Eastern Kentucky University met on Monday, November 30, 2009, in the South Room of the Keen Johnson Building. Senator Ware called the fourth meeting of the academic year to order at approximately 3:30 p.m.
The following members of the Senate were absent:
| A. Back | R. Biggin* | M. Hesse* |
| J. Lowry*^ | M. Martin | M. McAdam |
| K. Minor | A. Poffenberger*^ | G. Purdue |
| T. Randles* |
*Indicates prior notification of absence to the Faculty Senate Secretary
^ ALT John Bowes attended for J. Lowry
^ ALT Socorro Zaragoza attended for A. Poffenberger
Visitors to the Senate: Linda Frost, Honors Program; Shannon Means, EVP; Robert Mitchell, Psychology; Debbie Newsom, Financial Affairs; Jerry Pogatshnik, Graduate Education & Research; and Sherry Robinson, Provost Office
APPROVAL OF MINUTES:
The November 2, 2009 were approved as written.
REPORT FROM THE PRESIDENT: Senator Whitlock
The Provost Search Committee has been selected. Senator Taylor has agreed to serve as chair of the committee. Millie Leach, a retired administrative assistant, has agreed to serve as administrative support, and a temporary office has been established in the Student Services Building. The committee will meet for the first time on December 4th.
The state has requested that all state agencies, with the exception of colleges, universities, and the public school systems, prepare a report to show the impact of a 6% current year budget cut which may be requested to address the $166 million shortfall for the current fiscal year. While the institutions have been spared, some of the areas included in the cut may still have an impact on education, such as transportation and the Council on Postsecondary Education's operation budget.
The Doctor of Nursing Practice will professionally replace the Family Nurse Practitioner masters level across the country by sometime in 2015. In order for the comprehensive institutions in Kentucky to offer that, some modifications must be made to the current statute. In answer to this, CPE has prepared a draft which attempts to 1) write the amendment in a way to allow for future modifications without a major overall and 2) include language which clearly states that medicine, law, and dentistry are not included. However, CPE has also included the term "engineering" into the proposed language. So the proposed amendment has become extremely complex and may prove problematic. What may happen is that an amendment may be fashioned to address only the Doctor of Nursing Practice and then a broader amendment may be written for the 2011 session.
Provost Vice and President Whitlock are scheduled to meet next Monday with the Vice President of the SACS Commission on Colleges to learn of the Commission's action on EKU's substantive change visit and evaluation. That's the final step to receive SACS level V status which will make it possible for EKU to offer up to three doctoral programs.
Senator Vice will provide more indepth details in the Provost report, but there is much legislative frustration over transfer issues. The legislature thought they fixed the issue ten years ago; and if every institution had taken the previous legislative mandate as seriously as this institution did, the problem remaining would be very small. This issue is of great concern to COSFL and so it's incumbent on us to get this in the most reasonable form that it can be.
Another piece of legislation that definitely has the attention of the university presidents is the time to degree. The proposed legislation is pushing toward having 120-semester-credit-hour baccalaureate programs which will hopefully result in more people graduating in four years. However, there are a number of issues that can affect time to degree. Some of those include:
- Number of students requiring remediation
- Allowing students to drop classes through the mid-point of the semester
- Public policy changes made to Pell Grants in recent years which has forced students to work more hours or borrow more money in order to pursue their education.
One additional note, this piece of legislation also states that by 2014 the Boards of Regents of the Trustees are supposed to include student success toward time to degree in the evaluation of the university president.
Senator Whitlock recently attended the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) meeting where he had the opportunity to see three excellent presentations.
- Arne Duncan - conversation about administration priorities as they relate to public higher education including an idea for tracking teachers who are having the most impact on their students and then tracking those teachers back to their respective colleges of education to see which colleges are having the greatest impact.
- Joshua Cooper Ramo, author of "The Age of the Unthinkable: Why the New World Disorder Constantly Surprises Us and What We Can Do About It"
- Alan November of November Learning, Inc. (Novemberlearning.com)
NEW BUSINESS:
Report on Budget. Karen Neubauer, Executive Director of Budgeting, was in attendance to give a brief presentation on Eastern's budgeting process. The full presentation can be found on their website at www.financialaffairs.eku.edu/budget.
This year to aid in the budgeting process a portal called "Go Forward" was created to outline the budgeting process. The portal can be accessed at www.financialaffairs.eku.edu/budget/goforward/.
Faculty Development Fund. Senator Johnson moved approval of the Faculty Development Fund motion listed below, seconded by Senator Taylor.
"The annual Faculty Development funds, which have been delegated to departments from Academic Affairs, should be delegated to individual full time teaching faculty members and should roll over from year to year for individual faculty members for a total of not more than three years. If none of the money has been spent by the individual faculty member by the end of the third year, or if the faculty member spends only a portion of the faculty development funds, the maximum amount left in the individual faculty member's account should not exceed a total of three consecutive years of rollover. The money which would have been delegated to the individual faculty member for faculty development would remain in the department's Faculty Development account."
Senator Johnson noted that the committee plans to develop guidelines for the use of the faculty development funds, and those should be ready to share with the Senate by the April meeting.
Senator Potter moved to amend the motion to "full time teaching and research faculty", seconded by Senator Shordike. Motion failed for lack of support.
Senator Frisbie moved to postpone discussion to the January meeting to allow the committee time to review Faculty Handbook language and address the issue of teaching and research, seconded by Senator Day. Motion carried.
Report from Council on Academic Affairs - Senator Vice
New Program
- Animal Stuides (BS)
New Certificates
- Certificate in Intelligence Studies (Undergraduate) - establish an Undergraduate, University-level certificate
- Post-Baccalaureate Health Information Management (HIM) Certificate – reduce hours required to graduate from 128 to 120
Program Revision - Reducing Hours Required to Graduate
- Computer Electronic Networking B.S. - decrease number of hours from 128 to 120 hours, revise program title and CIP code, revise courses within the program, reduce free elective hours to 5-6, reduce Major Requirement hours from 42 to 40.
Program Revisions
- Honors Program - establish required courses for the program to be included in the program description/Catalog text
- Occupational Science - revise and clarify progression and retention in the program
- Moderate to Severe Disabilities Graduate Certificate - remove NSC 700 from MSD program and provide an option for students because the content is similar in SED 718 and OTS 715. Delete SED 240.
- Minor in Computer Science - update minor with current course offerings
- Minor in Interactive Media - update minor with current course offerings
- Computer Science: Computer Security B.S. - change option title to better reflect course offerings
- Computer Science: Interactive Multimedia B.S. - change option title to better reflect course offerings
- Economics B.A. - add "or its equivalent" next to ECO 220 under Economics Core in current Catalog.
- Marketing B.B.A./PGM Option - remove MGT 320, 330, and OHO 362G as requirement
- Industrial Technology B.S. - revise program title, revise course prefixes INT to AEM within program, revise required courses within program core, drop credits from general electives, suspend the Industrial Distribution Option
- Technology A.A.S. - revise course prefixes and course requirements in the program, reduce total number of hours in the Computer Electronics option from 44 to 39-40.
Program Suspension
- Director of Special Education Alternate Certification
- Special Education Learning and Behavior Disorders MAEd Alternative Certification
Senator Vice moved approval of item #1, seconded by Senator Wade. Motion carried.
Senator Vice moved approval of items #2 & #3, seconded by Senator Collins. Motion carried.
Senator Vice moved approval of items #4 through #15, seconded by Senator Taylor. Motion carried.
Senator Vice moved approval of items #16 and #17, seconded by Senator Borowski. Motion carried.
Senator Vice noted that there are at least two doctoral programs currently in the review process: 1) the Doctorate of Education in Educational Psychology and 2) the Occupational Therapy Doctorate.
GENERAL & STANDING COMMITTEE REPORTS
FACULTY REGENT REPORT: Senator Frisbie
The Finance and Planning Committee met on Monday, November 16.
One major order of business was to receive the yearly audit report from EKU's external auditors, Deloitte and Touche. The Committee will recommend that the full Board accept the report at its next meeting. Deloitte gave the University a clear audit. Deloitte did make some recommendations for modifications to internal procedures, as they have in prior years. Changes have already been implemented to address those recommendations.
In 2008-09, the University increased its total assets by $32.5M (to $333.2M), but liabilities increased by $35.7M. Thus, net assets decreased by $3.2M to $217.3M. In light of a mid-year reduction of $1.5M in state funding and a loss of $6.4M in investment income, the financial health of the University was remarkably stable in 2008-09. The University Foundation had assets valued at $21.3M at the end of the year.
The second major order of business for the Committee was to hear a financial update from VP Debbie Newsom and the EKU financial staff. The University appears to be on track in terms of revenue and expenditures relative to revenue and expenditures at this time last year. Last year EKU overspent by a bit more than $2M. A big chunk of the over expenditure (about $4.5M) was generated by financial aid expenditures. These included institutional employment, employee scholarships, Beacon scholarships, and merit/entitlement scholarships. The over expenditures were made up by using some carry forward monies, realizing some savings in other parts of the budget, and drawing upon uncommitted funds. This year, expenditures for financial aid are being closely monitored. The budget includes an additional $800,000 for employee scholarships and new guidelines are being developed for recruiting and retention associated with Beacon scholarships. Because recruiting has already begun for students who will begin at EKU in FY2010, these new strategies will take effect in FY2011. In addition, due to prior commitments, the financial aid over expenditure situation will not disappear this year, but the University is moving to correct the problem. Overall, EKU is on track to maintain an uncommitted fund of about $6.4M.
The Committee also heard from Academic Affairs (Provost Janna Vice, Associate Provost/VP Jim Conneely, and Associate VP/Dean for Enrollment Linda Fossen) about efforts on the recruitment/retention front. The Committee had asked to see data pertaining to recruiting yield and data concerning effectiveness of scholarship expenditures relative to retention and graduation of students. Data are available so far only for merit-based recipients. It is reassuring that merit-based scholarship recipients tend to stay in school (90-94% retention rates over the last 4 years) and graduate (79%, 5-year graduation rate; general student population graduation rate was 33%). The Committee also heard about ongoing and planned recruiting and retention efforts.
The Board will next convene for a regular quarterly meeting on January 29.
REPORT FROM SENATE CHAIR: Senator Ware
The December "Faculty First" will be at Arlington this Thursday at the new Colonel's Paddock from 5pm to 7:30 p.m. Membership at Arlington is not required; all faculty are invited to participate.
The policy originator has withdrawn the request for a university policy on personal appearance and will pursue development of a departmental and college policy. Senator Ware thanked Senator Rainey for her willingness to serve on the drafting team.
Prior to the meeting, Senator Ware distributed information on pending legislation. She has discussed the issues with the Academic Quality Committee and suggested that the committee consider developing a resolution to address faculty concerns, if the Senate is in agreement..
PROVOST REPORT: Senator Vice
Senator Vice shared copies of two pieces of pending legislation which will have a significant impact on Kentucky's public institutions: 1) transferability and 2) time to degree. CPE predicts that the two bills are almost guaranteed to pass. CPE President Bob King and Dr. Aaron Thompson plan to offer suggestions to the bills' sponsors to make the bills more feasible for the universities, but the overall mandates are not likely to change. Dr. Aaron Thompson has asked the Chief Academic Officers for a list of their concerns by the end of today, and Senator Vice has already submitted her concerns. In particular on the transferability piece, she noted concerns (listed below) about items 2H, 2I, 2K, and item 4 (which was proposed by CPE).
(2) The Council on Postsecondary Education in collaboration with KCTCS and the public universities shall:
- (h) Guarantee that upon admission to a public university, graduates of an associate of arts or an associate of science degree program approved by the council shall be deemed to have met all general education and program specific course prerequisites and be granted admission to related upper division degree programs of a public university on the same criteria as those students earning lower division credits at the university to which the student transferred.;
- (i) Provide that graduates of approved associate of arts and associate of sciences degree programs who transfer to a bachelors degree program shall not be required to repeat or to take any additional lower-level courses to fulfill bachelors degree requirements in the same major;
- (k) Establish a common college transcript to be used in KCTCS and all public universities;
(4) When a public university changes the learning outcomes within any course or program identified as a transfer equivalent, the state public university must communicate the change to KCTCS within a reasonable amount of time and either identify other KCTCS course equivalencies that will satisfy the new learning outcomes or collaborate with KCTCS to develop curriculum that ensures equivalent learning outcomes and thus Transferability must be resolved before the change is implemented. If disputes arise between public postsecondary institutions due to course and program revisions, the Council is empowered to appoint a committee, chaired by the Vice President of Academic Affairs at the Council, and comprised of distinguished faculty, with equal representation from KCTCS and the public universities, to resolve the dispute through evidence-based alignment of learning outcomes. [Awaiting CAO feedback]
The second piece of legislation proposes that each public college and university formulate a plan listing strategies, incentives, programs, and timelines to increase the number of students who graduate with a bachelor of arts or a bachelor of science degree within four years of their initial enrollment.
Senator Vice requested that anyone with concerns about these two bills should email her and send a copy to their dean and chair as well.
The EKU Faculty Panel held a rich discussion regarding on-line education. Over 80 people attended on November 20. Thanks to the following faculty who, in addition to sharing their own experiences, gathered input from their colleagues in order to provide a very comprehensive view of the challenges and opportunities ahead in developing an EKU model for distance learning.
- Richard Fern
- Steve Sumithran
- Mary Ann Kolloff
- Mixon Ware
- Brad Marcum
- Tom Schneid
- Rick Mott
Faculty Senators are invited to eat lunch with the Provost on Wednesday, December 2 from 11:30am-1pm in the Faculty Dining room. Please sign in at the register.
REPORT FROM COSFL: Senator McKenney
COSFL met at the Frankfort offices of the Council on Postsecondary Education (CPE) on Saturday, November 21.
CPE Faculty Representative Nancy McKenney shared a copy of the Executive Summery from the recently completed "Final Report of the Governor's Higher Education Work Group" and also COSFL's recommendations which are in Appendix B of that report.
At the November 6th meeting of the CPE, the "2010-2012 Operating and Capital Budget Recommendation" was approved. This is a bare bones budget request. The news has reported that the request is for an increase of 4.6% for the first year of the biennium and 2.7% for the second year. However, this assumes that money will be provided for "strategic initiatives" of each campus. In the present economic climate it seems unlikely that the strategic initiatives will be funded. In that case, the budget increase would only be 2.2% for the first year and 0.4% for the second. The main concern is to replace $70 million worth of federal stimulus money which will run out after the current biennium.
Ed Conner, KSU Senate President, brought an urgent concern to the attention of COSFL members. It had been brought to his attention that legislation is being drafted by Senate Representative Carl Rollins, with input from State Senator Tim Shaughnessy, that would mandate transfer policy for students moving from KCTCS to any of Kentucky's 4-year public institutions. The proposed bill states that all bachelor degree programs must require only 120 hours, with exception only for programs whose accrediting agencies require them to have more hours. Because of concerns on the part of Senator Shaughnessy that there be some common course numbers and common learning outcomes, no changes in the 30-hour general education core courses could be made by 4-year institutions without their consulting KCTCS first.
Aaron Thompson and Jerry Warmouth at the CPE have proposed modifications to the Transfer Bill in an attempt to make it consistent with the CPE's Chief Academic Officers Transfer Action.
COSFL has been given a charge by CPE President Robert King to make recommendations for helping students to save money on textbook purchases.
COSFL plans to meet jointly with CPE in January. The date is yet to be determined.
REPORT FROM FINANCIAL PLANNING COUNCIL: Senator Johnson reported for Senator Ware
The Council met on Monday, November 23rd. The members were assured that information would be timely shared with both the FPC and the SPC during the budget approval process.
Tuition recommendations will be presented to the Board of Regents in January, and the general perimeters of the budget will be presented to the Board in April. The full budget will be presented to the Board in June.
The FPC is looking at the restructuring of tuition. Part of the meeting included a presentation for the Morehead model which basically deals with a per-credit-hour tuition charge which EKU has already implemented for the Graduate School for this year.
Senator Johnson thanked Provost Vice for stressing the need to turn around the loss of faculty revenues for the future.
Karen Neubauer gave a report on various scenarios that deal with the budgeting process.
REPORT FROM STRATEGIC PLANNING COUNCIL: Senator Taylor
The Council is still in the process of gathering information. E.J. Keeley's area has done an excellent job providing data.
STANDING COMMITTEE REPORTS:
Academic Quality Committee. Senator Shordike reported that the committee met today to begin drafting a resolution to address concerns about pending legislation. The resolution should be ready to present at the January Senate meeting.
Budget Committee. Senator Johnson reported that the committee met on November 9 to work on the Faculty Development motion. Later, the committee plans to work on developing guidelines for the use of the Faculty Development Funds.
The committee is also continuing work on the following:
- Ways to provide input to the Financial Planning Council and the Strategic Planning Council about budget matters.
- The loss of faculty lines either cut or unfunded over the last 5-10 years.
- Gathering information about position over the last 5-10 years.
Rights & Responsibilities Committee. Senator J. Palmer reported that the committee is still in the process of reviewing the many policies and procedures that will constitute the new Faculty Handbook.
Rules Committee. Senator McKenney reported that the committee met on November 9th and 23rd to discuss the matter of term limits for faculty senators.
At the November 9th meeting, committee members shared the results of their informal survey of EKU's benchmarks and also of other Kentucky public universities. Nineteen benchmark schools and seven Kentucky schools were surveyed. Of this group of 26 institutions, it was found that at least 10 do have some type of term limit for their faculty senators.
Among Kentucky schools, UK, KSU, and WKU have term limits, and U of L, Morehead, Murray, and NKU do not have limits. In other words, with the inclusion of EKU, in Kentucky 50% of the public university senates have term limits.
The committee decided to distribute an e-mail survey to all EKU Senators asking them to poll the faculty in their departments. Because the results of the survey did not suggest any clear course of action, the Rules Committee does not plan to propose any change at this time.
Welfare Committee. Senator Ciocca reported that the committee met on November 23.
Several items were discussed, including the joint November 4th meeting with the University Benefits committee. Below are some of the main points from that meeting.
- 65% employees completed online enrollment (788 assisted and 738 self enrolled). Positive feedback was received about the new dental plan. Only 2% employees waived the dental benefit due to being covered by spouses elsewhere. Dental cards will be ordered for all participants.
- The participation on the Flex Spending Account (FSA) for health expenditures is still low at 30%. There needs to be more consumer education on the FSA plans. Besides the tax savings by the individual, the University as a whole would save on the FICA amount as well.
- Express Scripts provides EKU's prescription benefits and they will be implementing a prescription home-delivering program, using emails and letters instead of phone calls. The Benefits Office will send out educational communications to employees prior to the start of the Select Home Delivery campaign. Implementation of Select Home Delivery will begin January 1, provided the Benefits office has educated employees up front about the program.
- All 403b plans (supplemental retirement plans) must meet new compliance standards, similar to ERISA governed plans. All providers are compliant except two, American Funds and Prudential. Twenty-six employees currently participate in these plans and will be affected due to the new requirements. These employees will be notified that EKU can no longer do business with these funds, meaning they can no longer contribute new money into them, but can roll their funds over or choose a new supplemental retirement fund that is compliant.
In the Faculty Welfare meeting of November 23, the committee discussed the issue of faculty morale. Please send any ideas and suggestions on how to provide recognition and personal satisfaction to faculty with little or no cost to the Chair of the committee.
ADJOURNMENT:
Senator Vice moved to adjourn at approximately 5:15 p.m.
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