Minutes for April 1, 2019

The Faculty Senate of Eastern Kentucky University met on Monday, April 1, 2019 in the South Ballroom in the Keen Johnson Building. Chair Winslow called the seventh meeting of the academic year to order at approximately 3:30 p.m.

The following members were absent:

^* Indicates prior notification of absence to the Faculty Senate Secretary
^ ALT Jennifer Hight attended for R. Causey-Upton
^ ALT Cynthia Harter attended for Z. Eser
^ ALT Judy Jenkins attended for P. Gao
^ ALT Heather Beirne attended for J. George
^ ALT Cynthia Kaeser attended for M. Ndinguri
^ ALT Fontaine Sands attended for G. Purdue

APPROVAL OF MINUTES:

Senator Ciocca moved approval of the March 4, 2019 minutes, seconded by Senator Woodruff. Motion carried. (YES = 50 votes | NO = 0 votes | ABSTAIN = 1 votes) (See Also:  Individual Votes)

REPORT FROM THE PRESIDENT:  Senator Benson

Just last week, I returned from a trip to China with Dean Tom Erekson. The EKU delegation also included Dr. Weiling Zhuang from the Department of Management, Marketing and International Business and Dr. Tom Butler from the Department of English and Theatre. While in China, our delegation participated in MOU signing ceremonies at six Chinese universities, primarily in the Hebei Province region. In addition, Dr. Butler participated as part of the delegation to assess the possibility of EKU faculty teaching English courses in China, immediately before the Chinese students transfer to EKU, to improve their English skills and help assure that their language skills will allow them to succeed at EKU.

The Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) through its POWER (Partnerships for Opportunity and Workforce and Economic Revitalization) Initiative has announced an investment of $1,463,927 in Eastern Kentucky University’s “Kentucky's Appalachia Aviation Maintenance Technician Training” project.

Pension reform has been EKU’s top legislative priority as the Commonwealth’s pension crisis continues to threaten our ability to provide opportunity to future generations of Kentuckians. Late Thursday afternoon, HB 358 was reviewed in committee, then voted on and passed by both the Senate and the House. It is now on its way to the Governor’s desk to sign into law.

Major components of HB 358 will allow us relief from sharp increases in contribution percentages to the KERS pension system. Specifics of the bill include the following:

• New hires to EKU after January 2019 will participate in a University-sponsored optional retirement plan (ORP)
• KERS employees hired after 2014 (Tier III) will be moved into the ORP 
• Employees hired before 2014 will have the option to remain in the KERS system or opt into ORP plan 

Additional details regarding this legislation and its impact on our employees are being shared with campus and resources and information will be made available to everyone to ensure the best possible decisions can be made by each individual.

The Board of Regents will meet on Tuesday, April 23rd. This meeting will be hosted by Aviation. The lunch will held at 11:30am in Case Hall. The meeting will start at 12:30pm in Walnut Hall downstairs.

In EKU’s annual Spin the Wheel Scholarship event, students enter online and then hope to beat the odds to have their names called. This year 16 of our students walked away with scholarships to a variety of locations worldwide. Read to learn more.

Barbara Kent, recently-named Director of Military and Veteran Affairs at Eastern Kentucky University, has experienced the university as a “school of opportunity” firsthand. A military veteran, Kent came to EKU in 2010 as a temporary, part-time administrative assistant without a college degree. Now, in addition to earning a director position, she is preparing to graduate in May with a master’s degree – the first in her family to do so.

Additionally, Eastern Kentucky University’s online degree programs rank among the best for military members and veterans. EKU Online earned a “gold” rating and was named fifth on Military Friendly Schools’ Top Ten list of online and vocational schools. EKU was also awarded a “bronze” ranking overall for its outstanding commitment to military students, the highest distinction awarded to any Kentucky university.

For the eighth consecutive year, U.S. News & World Report has ranked EKU Online degree programs among the best in the nation. Eastern Kentucky University ranked in the top 30 for Best Online Graduate Nursing Programs. The university also ranked in the top 100 for Best Online Bachelor’s Degree Programs and Best Online Graduate Education Programs.

The annual Scholars Week will take place April 8-12, 2019, and will feature the scholarly and creative work of faculty and students from across campus. All members of the EKU community are welcome to participate in Scholars Week activities.

On April 8th, as part of our Diversity Lecture Series, Professor Michèle Alexandre will address the topic “Embracing the Struggle: Seizing the Urgency of the Moment. Her talk will begin at 7pm in O’Donnell Auditorium.

GUEST SPEAKERS:

Legislative Session Update. David McFaddin gave a brief update on HB 358. He reminded that HB 358 affects KERS only. HB 358 is a bill about institutional choice as well as individual employee choice. Tier one and Tier two employees, that is anyone hired before January 1, 2014 in KERS, will have a choice as to whether they continue in the KERS system or choose to opt out.

EKU will be launching a working group for pensions that will have a good cross section of folks across campus from HR, University Counsel, Finance and Administration, Staff Council, and others across campus who would be impacted. In addition, there will be forums scheduled for employees to explain HB 358 and to walk them through the decision points with financial counselors on campus throughout the summer and fall so that employees have the information needed to make an informed decision about how that may impact them based on the University’s decision which must be rendered by December 30, 2019.

This bill brings some much needed stability to our budgeting process and makes it sustainable to be able to pay out our obligations in full while making sure that our employees have a future retirement benefit.

The decision is yet to be made as to what we will do as an institution, but there will be communications shared with the campus community throughout the summer and fall as we move toward that decision point as an institution.

Change in Admission Requirements. Brett Morris gave a brief report on the admission changes mandated at the state level and the new Special Admit (SA) pilot program launched by Admissions which will allow for students with a 2.0 to 2.4 High School GPA to be admitted into the general studies program with a Learning Contact. The pilot will run for three years which will allow time for sufficient data collection to see how successful the program has been for those students.

Optional Retirement Plans Update. Chief Human Resources Officer Sarah Pitt and Senator Ben Woodruff were in attendance to provide an update on changes to the optional retirement plans. EKU will be moving from four vendors to two vendors. Beginning January 1, 2020, TIAA and VALIC will be the retirement plan administrators going forward. This means that:

• Employees with Fidelity and Voya will need to re-enroll.
• All existing VALIC plan participants will be required to establish new accounts through VALIC.
• Employees with TIAA will need to review their investments.

There will be informational sessions available to help walk employees through the process. Additional information will be shared with the campus community as details become available. In the meantime, review the document on the changes and contact the HR office with any immediate questions.

NEW BUSINESS:

Nominations for Senate Chair. Senator Fitch nominated Senator Ciocca for Senate chair for the 2019-20 academic year.

Nominations for Senate Vice Chair. Senator Fitch nominated Senator Crosby for Senate Vice chair for the 2019-20 academic year.

Policies for First Read. The following policies were presented for first read and action is anticipated at the May 6th meeting.

• Policy 4.4.11 – Misconduct in Science and Scholarly Activities
• Policy 4.7.8 – Faculty Emeritus 

Report from Council on Academic Affairs.  Vice Provost Robinson presented the following materials.

Senator Fitch moved approval of items 1-2 (new certificates), seconded by Senator Nachtwey. Motion carried. (YES = 48 votes | NO = 0 votes | ABSTAIN = 0 votes) (See Also:  Individual Votes)

Senator Ciocca moved approval of items 3-4 (program suspensions), seconded by Senator Fitch. Motion carried. (YES = 51 votes | NO = 0 votes | ABSTAIN = 0 votes) (See Also:  Individual Votes)

Senator Fitch moved approval of items 5-21 program revisions), seconded by Senator Ciocca. Motion carried. (YES = 50 votes | NO = 0 votes | ABSTAIN = 0 votes) (See Also:  Individual Votes)

Senator Nachtwey moved approval of item 22 (portfolio credit interim proposal), seconded by Senator Woodruff. Motion carried. (YES = 51 votes | NO = 0 votes | ABSTAIN = 0 votes) (See Also:  Individual Votes)

GENERAL & STANDING COMMITTEE REPORTS

REPORT FROM SENATE CHAIR: Senator Winslow

Personal thanks to Drs. Crosby, Marion, and Eser for stepping forward and running for Faculty Regent. Since no candidate received more than 50% of the votes in the first round of voting, a runoff was held between Dr. Richard Crosby from the School of Music, CLASS and Dr. Jason Marion, from the Department of Environmental Health, College of Health Sciences. An announcement on the runoff election will be coming from the Elections and University Nominations Committee later in the meeting.

The Executive Committee charged the AQC with “review[ing] best practices for teaching large classes (>100). Investigate the types of instructional resources and/or approaches, e.g., teaching practices, instructional resources, peer mentorship, teaching assistants, classroom layout, furniture, technology, etc., that have been found to facilitate learning. Also search for and summarize scholarship that compares the effectiveness of large and small class sizes.” The Executive Committee has received their report and will discuss the best method for its distribution at our next Executive Committee meeting on April 22 and will inform the Senate of our recommendations at the May Faculty Senate (regular) meeting. Thanks to the AQC for their hard work and excellent scholarship.

REPORT FROM PROVOST: Senator Pogatshnik

Chairs have provided a list of priorities on classroom renovations that have been reviewed by the deans. On April 24th, the requests will be reviewed and a plan developed for implementing classroom improvements on a priority basis over the summer. An update of completed projects will be shared with the Faculty Senate early in the fall semester.

Administrator evaluations began this week for Academic Deans and Division heads. Those up for three-year comprehensive review are:
 

One of the recommendations to come out of the EKU Forward meetings was to have waiting lists for registration. This was discussed at the Deans Council on March 22nd and approved to move forward. The matter has since been discussed with the Registrar, and we will begin working on a plan for implementation soon.

Going thru the P&T process for the first time, it appears that there are opportunities for streamlining the amount of materials that are provided in support of these application. Deans are in support of a streamlined process, used by some colleges, that would establish guidelines for restricting the amount of material that needs to be submitted. This will be a topic of discussion at the chairs meeting on April 19.

In the last couple of years, the CAA agenda has been streamlined with course revisions moving to a type of consent agenda format. The Board of Regents Chair is interested in considering a similar format for program revisions. As we start going that route, the Faculty Senate may want to consider a similar process for CAA materials.

Dr. Robinson reported on the issue of “banked hours” for Theses, Dissertations, and Independent Study at Executive Committee but at the last Senate meeting we were asked to follow up. There may be issues from HR and legal on deferred compensation. While this may be the case, the main reason for it not going forward is that I don’t feel it is something I can support at this time.

I say this with a full appreciation for the time and effort required to supervise these individualized study courses.

This is an example where the two priorities I offered to the Senate in February - improving the student experience and fiscal stewardship - clearly have some tension. But just to take an example, providing reassigned time for offering, say the seven Independent Studies courses referred to at one point in our conversation, would essentially mean exchanging 21 student credit hours in one semester for 40-50 SCH in a subsequent semester given a reasonable class size.

In spite of the immense benefits to students, Independent Studies courses are, from a financial perspective, a relatively inefficient use of resources. My fear is that adopting such a program, even with its merits, would incentivize inefficiencies which we can’t afford right now.

There are provisions within the workload policy that speak to the offering of individualized study courses. In the end, faculty members who wish to, or have the capacity to, go above and beyond the normal expectations are providing an extremely rich opportunity for their students and are to be commended for doing so.

While I don’t feel that I can support this particular proposal, I’m open to ideas that would provide incentives for more efficient instruction and hope that senators will give this some thought in our remaining EKU Forward sessions this year.

Review the list of important dates to add to calendars. 

STANDING COMMITTEE REPORTS:

Academic Quality Committee. Senator Koger stated that their report on best practices for large classrooms has been submitted to the Executive Committee for their review.

Elections & University Nominations Committee. Senator McCardle announced that 370 people voted in the runoff election for Faculty Regent. With a vote of 194-176, Dr. Jason Marion was elected Faculty Regent. Congratulations to Dr. Marion.

An email will be sent to those departments that have outgoing senators to request that an election be held for a new representative and a new alternate(s). Hopefully, those elections will occur in time to have the new senators on board for the May 6th organizational meeting.

Ad Hoc Committee on EKU Forward. Senator Winslow stated that one recommendation made from an earlier meeting was how to handle waiting lists for courses with full enrollment. Currently there is no University-wide functionality or procedure for handling student requests for capacity overrides, or simple waiting lists. However, Banner has functionality built into the system that allows students to add their names to a waiting list if a course is full, so that the order of names is preserved, and automatically enrolls the next student on the list whenever an enrolled student drops the course. This functionality is currently not turned on for EKU, but Interim Provost Pogatshnik is looking into turning it on.

Just a reminder that the final two EKU Forward sessions will be held on April 15 and 29 in the Faculty Center for Teaching & Learning, in the Crabbe Library. Based on the ideas received so far and the current situation at EKU (and higher education more broadly), the focus of the remaining two sessions will be on how faculty can recruit and retain students.

FOR THE GOOD OF THE ORDER:

Senator Fitch stated that faculty are the front line of this institution.

“We are the front line…and I wish that the administration would sometimes remember to thank us and to appreciate us as we see our share in this institution decline, time and time. …Parking rates are going up, ….reassigned time is going down, …and travel funds are being questioned …and what do we get from them? We get ‘don’t blame Athletics’ and … ‛be thankful for what you have’. I am thankful to be here working with this population, but for us to be told to just sit down, be quiet—that’s not a very good relationship. What we need is support from upper administration. We need more validation. ….that’s what I would like to ask for today.”

In response, Senator Pogatshnik shared the following:

“I can’t speak for what’s happened in the past. I…thank all of the faculty who participate in this process. …I think this is the first time that I know of where a Provost has actually hand written comments to every person who went through promotion and tenure, applauding them for their contributions. ...I’m sorry that you feel that way. I appreciate what faculty do. …I will take that criticism but at the same time what I hope is that folks give us the opportunity to demonstrate our commitment to faculty. …I am committed to faculty governance; know that I appreciate the work that faculty do. …I just didn’t want to leave this meeting on the note that there are folks out there in administrative positions who don’t care about the faculty. I just don’t believe that’s true. It’s certainly not true for me.”

In follow up, Senator Fitch stated:

“I’m afraid that the Provost has taken my comments too personally and I apologize for that. When I said administration, I meant …from the Chair of the Board of Regents, to all of the Regents, all the way down to the deans’ level. …I hope to see a shift in the tone that we’re getting from the Coates Building. That is my hope. This is our signal that I’m not seeing that yet. …The rhetoric that I continue to hear is that ‘you don’t want to take any responsibility for your own actions’ and ‘you just want to blame Athletics and you want to blame administration’. …If we’re talking about that kind of reductive language as we’re entering into this relationship, how can we make any progress? …I want to remind folks and I want to encourage you all in this room that we are the front line. We need to take pride and retain the pride and our mission here at the University in serving this population. We do a good job of it. We should be proud of that; and we should defend our rights whenever we can.”

ADJOURNMENT:

Senator Pogatshnik moved to adjourn at approximately 5pm.

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