Faculty Senate Meeting Minutes
Monday October 9, 2017
3:30 - 5:00 CH 126
Senators Present: Ahmed, Asaduzzaman, Bailey, Barut, Bolin, Brown, Bryant, Castro,
Celestin, Cramer, Decker, Dehner, Elder, English, Hull, Jameson, Jarmlan, Keene Woods,
Kreinaath, Mahapatro, Markova, Muthiachareon, Moore-Jansen, Myose, Price, Pulaski,
Rife, Rokosz, Ross, Shaw, Schwartz, Smith, Smith-Campell, Solomey, Sternfeld-Dunn,
Tamtam, Willis, Yildirim
Senators Absent: Anderson, Dowling, He, Jeffres, Taher, Weheba
Senators Excused: Close, Dusenbury, Johnson
Summary of Action
鈥� Approved appointment of Matha Smith as senator for social sciences.
鈥� Voted on various revisions to chapters 4 and 5 of policy manual.
I. Call to Order: President Shaw called the meeting to order at 3:30
II. Informal Statements and Proposals
Announcement from Roy Myose of College of Engineering:
鈥淚 have been charged by my department, Aerospace Engineering, to make the following
statement/proposal, which has also been endorsed by a majority of the College of Engineering
Senators:
1) We believe that General Education, especially the ability to communicate effectively
and to think critically, is important for our students.
2) We believe that our 42-credit hour university-wide General Education requirement
is too high, especially in light of information that the national average is 30-credit
hours.
3) Since all programs have been asked to review and reduce their total credit hours
required for a degree, we believe it is important to review the university's General
Education requirements
4) We believe a reduction in credit hours to the university General Education requirements
should be considered over this academic year.
III. Approval of the Minutes -
Monday, September, 25. 2017 - Approved
IV. President's Report
鈥� OMBUDS TRAINING: Oct 16 8:30-3:30. Spots available.
鈥� Grad Faculty voted in favor of revising By-laws 155-7. All tenure track will have
grad faculty standing immediately.
鈥� Open source textbook information available online.
V. Committee Reports
Rules: Betty Smith-Campbell, chair presented the name of Martha Smith to be Senator
representing LAS Social Sciences. - Approved unanimously. There are still openings
in engineering and LAS natural sciences.
VI. Old Business
鈥� Chapter 4 and 5 iI. n policy manual (2nd reading) as reviewed/approved by the Rules committee
o 4.04 changed language to 鈥渁 representative panel of members鈥�
o Eligible personnel changed to 鈥済rievance board鈥�
These amendments unanimously approved
鈥� Revisions to section 4.14 鈥� concerns were raised about appropriateness of language
about tenure conferred on 鈥渙bjectives and needs of the university鈥�. Vote passed unanimously
in favor of keeping old language.
鈥� Secion 4.22 should references to KBOR policy be maintained or not? This language
was unanimously voted to be removed.
鈥� Voted unanimously to approve chapters 4 and 5 as revised 鈥�
鈥� HR policies
- Internal dispute 鈥� no objections voiced about moving this forward.
- Investigative leave 鈥搈ore information is being sought regarding the status of this
policy change..
- Separation policy 鈥� still under discussion will be on next meeting's agenda.
VII. New Business
Guests:
Dean Desai discussed the new 鈥淚nstitute for the Study of Economic Growth.鈥� (ISEG)
Proposal funded by Charles Koch Foundation to establish institute that is aimed at
identifying and discussing drivers for regional economic growth. Goals are to conduct
research and engage students (UG and graduate) with priorities on accelerated research,
creativity and knowledge transfer /dissemination. Current funding is for five years
$3.64M from Charles Koch foundation. Funds will be used to staff the institute with
two institute research fellows and two graduate research assistants. ISEG will also
fund faculty grants ~$20 K growing to 200 K in year four. ISEG staffing will include:
searching for executive director to be housed in economics, two research intensive
faculty, 1 instructional faculty (area open). 1.5 FTE support stuff.
Timeline for ISEG deployment: F18 will have director and admin staff in place. Year
2: hire one research faculty, an instructor and grad assist. Year 3: 1 research faculty,
1 institute fellow, +1 gra, + 0.5 FTE event planner/communications. Year 4 鈥� 1 institute
fellow
Questions from Senate members: Q- Who will oversee grant evaluations? A 鈥� In-house
faculty who are not eligible for the grant. Q 鈥� Who are grants for? A- Mainly for
Barton school faculty, but must be in alignment with institute priorities. Q -- Will
research faculty be classified as teaching faculty? A- Yes and not funded through
G.U. After year 4 we will seek out additional funding to support the institute in
general. After 5 years we may get additional funding from third parties (no commitments
yet). This and grant funding are our plan revenue sources. Q -- Are there other institutes
like this? A- There are about 140 institutes like this across the nation with varying
degree of focus. Ours is more on the broader-focus side. KU has a similar institute
in our state and KSU does not.
Wilson Baldridge and Jean Griffith discussed LatinX cluster hire
Social science and humanities (English/MCLL/Psychology/COE) met with Dean Livesay
and received preliminary approval for presenting document to PET. The proposal is
for a cluster hire aimed at quickly increasing research capacity and increasing diversity.
This cluster hire will be aimed at serving existing Latinx students and increasing
this group's enrollment. There is a need for Latin faculty to connect with those students.
Some faculty has expressed need for 鈥淪panish for health care鈥� etc. We are looking
for more feedback.
Q 鈥� Is there no existing WSU talent that can fill these demands? A- No, not currently.
We lost our only full time Spanish professor last year. The direction we are looking
at is outreach to Latin communities. We want faculty who can deliver Spanish to business,
health care, law enforcement etc. Q -- How open are you to adding new departments
to your cluster? A- We are open and want to be inclusive. Q -- Will you add degrees/certificates/badges?
A- We hope to. That is a long range goal that will depend on who we hire. Q-- Is this
to facilitate instruction of Spanish speaking students or professionals who interact
with that community? A- Both. Also, we'd like to have course in LatinX lit. Want to
offer both Language instruction and heritage instruction. Q -- Is there a possibility
to find one or few who are capable of interdisciplinary research? A- The needs here
are greater than what we could give to just one or two faculty members. We want to
utilize a full faculty member. Q Timeline? A- Trying to complete proposal by end of
October 2017. Five new faculty may be hired and housed together in, for instance,
a space in Lindquist and not in their home departments.
Alicia Sanchez and Danielle Johnson 鈥� Office of Diversity and Inclusion update 鈥�
Located in RSC suite 208. Introduced Brad Thompson who is new LGBTQ coordinator. His
office is an open student lounge for students to come and hang out and it is also
open to faculty as well. The office is focused on bringing more LGBTQ programs to
campus. Speakers have been scheduled to come to campus and will be in CAC theater.
Brad is available as resource for classes and can come work directly in classrooms.
鈥渃ome and visit or contact us鈥� Pronouns 鈥� Brad is contact expert for that. Announced
upcoming event with interfaith ministries 鈥淏uilding a Better Community 鈥渨hich will
be free and located at Metroplex. Holding diversity camp over fall break to talk about
diversities and identities. Q 鈥� Can you mention 鈥渕umbletech conference?鈥� A 鈥� Yes.
This is a national event with 2000 students planning to come to 麻豆传媒映画出品 in Feb 2019.
It has not been officially announced yet.
Natasha Stephens - Title IX update. Office is located in HR 116 鈥� open door policy for issues regarding reporting. Complaints
involving students are handled by Mandy Hambleton. Matt Johnston handles complaints
about employees or visitors. Policies covered in 3.06 and 8.16 are for students. We
want to make sure we eliminate discrimination based on gender. We aren't able to mandate
training but need your help getting word out to students that training is available.
Q- Regarding student training is there something they get to show they have been through
the training? A - Yes. Also, I can tell you who in your class has completed and who
hasn't. Q -- For responsible employee e training, how do we know when we need to take
it again? A- We are working on that now. We want you to be able to take it as changes
happen so you are aware of new things that are being done.
Title IX covers sexual harassment, sexual exploitation, misconduct, pregnancy and
parenting (currently working on this policy and will bring to senate. We want to establish
accommodations for students so that they know that faculty members and staff will
be sure they are accommodated), inequities based on sex and/or gender, retaliation
(any person involved in a complaint cannot retaliate against person submitting the
complaint. We will follow up on this and hold parties accountable. Retaliation could
be e-mail, text etc.)
Reporting 鈥� campus community includes employees, students, and faculty. Responsible
employees are required to report 鈥� let the reporting student (complainant) know ahead
of time that you are a reporting employee so they know you are mandated to report.
If they want to have a confidential conversation, direct them to counselling and testing
or student health.
If you hear about something, say something and pass burden to Title IX Office. Complainants
can also report to police and Title IX office can help them do that. Title IX can
also help faculty or staff with off-campus issues such as domestic violence by helping
them access the appropriate outside resources.
Discussed steps of investigation from initial complaint to final report and encouraged
members to take a look at 3.06, 816 policies.
Title IX Student Alliance 鈥� meets monthly to talk policies and programmatic changes
they wish to see. They held Title IX Empowerment Summit in April. They are having
a free event on October 25th featuring Tiffany Hill, Esq. On October 26 鈥� 9 they will
hold afternoon seminars and panels featuring local and regional speakers. RSVP 鈥� this
event is free with lunch.
Q 鈥� What about allegations that WSU covers things up last year? Can this be made
more transparent by offering anonymized statistics? A 鈥� Thinking about a Title IX
FAQ to help us be more transparent, as much as possible. I think it is important to
let community know what is going on broadly and what we are doing. We will work on
that for future.
United Way campaign Ann Collins and Pat Hanrahan 鈥� Talked about new strategic activities,
education, income and health. New initiative 鈥渂e there鈥� to work on chronic absentee
in primary school. Most problems are with K and first grade. The United Way is funding
staff for each school to identify chronic absentee cases and provide help. We are
working on distributing books to kids. Emphasize importance of reading. Please consider
what we do and our new initiatives and donate to our efforts. Call for more information
鈥� ask for Pat. Materials were distributed
As May Arise: None.
Adjourn 4:53
Respectfully submited
Doug English, Secretary