Minutes for December 6, 2010

Program Revisions - Reducing Hours Required to Graduate

2. Comparative Humanities B.A.
   Delete HUM 490 from Area III requirements, change six elective hours to nine elective hours in Area III, and drop the number of free electives from the Comparative Humanities requirement from 43 to 35 hours thereby reducing the total required hours from 128 to 120 hours.
3. Marketing B.B.A. Marketing Option
   Revise the number of total hours required to obtain Marketing BBA Degree, Marketing Option from 128-130 hours to 120-130 hours by decreasing Electives by 8 credit hours. Eliminate the statement "Professional Skills Seminar" from College Requirement. Add MKT 460 as a Major Requirement of the Marketing Option and decrease 15 hours of approved marketing electives to 12. Eliminate an extra ";" listed in the PGM Option.

Program Revisions:

4. Accounting Certificate
   Revise total required hours for the certificate and revise course requirements in the program.
5. Horticulture B.S.
   Change Major core requirements from AGR 349 (Cooperative study) to OHO 349 (Cooperative study); alphabetize Core Requirements, Floriculture/Greenhouse Option and Turfgrass Management Option; correct text by eliminating an "or" in the Supporting Course Requirements. Eliminate "Professional Skills Seminar" from College Requirements.
6. Women and Gender Studies Minor
   Add WGS 445 as an elective counting toward the completion of the Minor
7. Women and Gender Studies Certificate
   Add WGS 445 as an elective counting toward the completion of the Certificate

Information Item:

The Council approved the following item in the November CAA meeting:

8. Requirements for Readmission, Revision
   
   The Council reviewed the following items as information in the November CAA meeting:
9. Declaring a Program of Study, Proposed Revisions
10. Proposed Change to Registration and Advising Process Change
11. Middle College (no written information)
    Presented to the Council on Academic Affairs by Dr. Carol Gabbard and Mr. Randy Peffer, Chief Academic Officer of Madison County Schools

Senator Wade moved approval of item 1, seconded by Senator Matthews. Motion carried.

Senator Wade moved approval of items 2-7, seconded by Senator Walz. Motion carried.

Items 8-11 were presented for information only and will come before the Senate at a later time for a vote.

Senator Rainey voiced objections to items 9-10 because she is opposed anything that encourages less interaction between students and advisors.

Senator Frazer stated that item 10 should include an option for Associate Degree students, especially in the Nursing department. Once core courses are met, those students should not be required to get RAC numbers. Elimination of RAC numbers for this group might actually encourage students to seek advise from their advisors on more substantive issues.

GENERAL & STANDING COMMITTEE REPORTS

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE REPORT: Senator Taylor

The Chronicle of Higher Education announced this month that 65% of the institutions in higher education increased graduation rates and 35% reported decreased graduation rates. In an effort to increase EKU's graduation rates, the Use It or Lose It policy and the Early Alert system were implemented as well as new admission criteria.

In the near future, the Faculty Senate will hopefully review new requirements for transfer students, an advising policy, and a policy for electronic posting of faculty member's past syllabi. These are needed to support the goal of student success.

The Financial Planning Council has been reviewing tuition models. The block model is an attempt to financially motivate students to change from taking 12-14 1/2 hours per semester to taking 15 or more hours per semester. Whereas the compact model will keep the incoming student at the same tuition rate for four years as long as the student completes 30 hours each academic year, including summer session. There will be a forum on these tuition models on Wednesday, December 8th, at 4pm in the Keen Johnson Building Walnut Room.

This week the FPC also reviewed whether to continue, edit or revoke the current drop fee and whether to add stipulations to the current faculty/staff benefit of receiving twelve hours a semester tuition remission.

EKU employees will receive a one-time supplemental payment of $500 on December 17.

In November, Senator Taylor met with the Faculty Senate's Rules Committee and the Promotion and Tenure Drafting Team. He has requested the Promotion and Tenure Committee to distribute the current policy and the proposed policy to the Senate. Please review and provide feedback.

REPORT FROM COSFL: Senator McKenney
COSFL met on Friday, November 19 at the Offices of the Council on Postsecondary Education in Frankfort.

The CPE's Faculty Representative, Nancy McKenney, reported on business of the Council from the November 5th meeting held at Eastern Kentucky University. Two action items were approved: 1) awarding of grants to 9 projects under the "Improving Educator Quality State Grant Program" and 2) approval of the University of Louisville's proposal for a new post-master's certificate in Family Practice Nurse/Nursing.

Two items in the Faculty Representative's report engendered considerable concern and discussion on the part of COSFL members. The first was the fact that the Kentucky Department of Education had announced that it can no longer support financially the access of K12 libraries to the electronic databases provided by the Kentucky Virtual Library. The other item of concern was the update on the CPE's tuition setting process for 2011-2012. The CPE has proposed in discussions with campus chief budget officers that a "limited amount of increased tuition setting flexibility" be given in return for universities' meeting performance goals. Some COSFL members were concerned that institutions with the greatest needs are not getting adequate tuition increases. Peg Pittman Munke proposed that COSFL draft a resolution concerning tuition increases to address this concern.

Several schools including EKU have had questions or problems related to the election of a faculty regent. Murray has "lecturers" that probably should be able to vote for regent but cannot because that rank is not in the state statute. Other concerns raised included administrators such as assistant and associate deans thinking they should vote for faculty regent, faculty senate chairs who lack tenure, and the proliferation of adjunct faculty.

Currently most state institutions of higher education in Kentucky do not include "collegiality" as part of their P & T requirements. Several COSFL members indicated that trying to evaluate collegiality is problematic at best and unfortunately can easily lead to abuses.

Peg Pittman Munke reported that faculty from across the state are coming together to fine-tune transfer requirements. No school will be forced to accept courses, but there is a goal of creating pathways and agreeing on competencies for the various majors, such as nursing, elementary education, social work, business, and biology.

PROVOST REPORT: Senator Vice

Senator Vice is in Louisville at the annual SACS meeting. In her written report to the Senate, she shared the following.

At the SACS meeting on Sunday, Kati Haycock presented "Faculty on the Front Line of Student Retention". That presentation can be viewed at http://www.edtrust.org.

According to Education Trust, about 70 percent of an institution's student success can be explained by the IPEDS-type data (e.g., academic preparation of students, poverty level, etc.). However, schools that are achieving higher success rates than the data would predict are getting results by:

1. Mandating the important things (attendance, lab time, etc).
2. Coordinating the curriculum, especially across multi sections.
3. Paying attention to D/F grades and "W"ithdrawal rates.
4. Redesigning courses (Center for Academic Transformation).
5. Coordinating Academic Affairs' and Student Affairs' services and support.
6. Reaching out to students who have "stopped out" with 90 + credit hours. (Project Graduate)

Thanks to faculty and staff, EKU is making progress in each of these areas.

As a result of EKU's Project Graduate and the efforts of the Student Outreach and Transition Office (SOTO), EKU has graduated almost 100 students who have returned to EKU and completed their degrees.

Last month Dr. E. J. Keeley and Senator Vice met with the deans and the chairs. The chairs were asked to lead their respective departments in a discussion,"Where does this department aspire to be in the next five years?" To help with that discussion, Institutional Research provided the deans and chairs with the student success data for each program and the department profile information.

Dr. Keeley shared the guidelines for the Planning Units' (college) and Reporting Units' (department) new strategic plans, which begin July 1, 2011. The future Institutional Effectiveness Reports, based on the new EKU Strategic Plan have been streamlined. The Academic Reporting and Planning Units will be asked to provide only the information needed to meet SACS' requirements. The IE reports due in October 2012 will include the following:

• Program Objectives will include (a) teaching effectiveness and (b) advising.
• Student Learning Outcomes will include (a) critical and creative thinking skills and (b) communication skills.

STUDENT GOVERNMENT ASSOCIATION: Caleb Armbrust

Student Senate meets tomorrow at 5pm. Meetings are open to everyone and faculty are encouraged to attend.

The IT Department met with Student Senate recently to discuss the changes being made to student email. Students seem really excited abut the change.

The Student Activities Council is sponsoring a lecture from Dr. John Corvino on Tuesday at 7pm in Brock Auditorium. Admission is free.

Planning is underway for this year's Rally for Higher Education. Details will be shared later. Mr. Armbrust urged faculty to encourage student participation.