Faculty Assembly Minutes    

Thursday, November 8, 2007

 

 

C. Shoemaker called the meeting to order. 

 

C. Shoemaker called for accepting the minutes.  R. Anderson moved to accept them, R. Mitchell seconded.

 

M. Hustedde spoke on the AAUP meeting regarding “the Ambrose way.”  The meeting will be held Wednesday, November 14th, 2008 at 8am in the Rogalski Center.

 

R. Grant spoke on the General Education committee and asked for a motion to approve the proposal.  A. Swift moved to adopt the proposal, W. Parsons seconded.  Grant then took questions to clarify the proposal as well as objections and concerns.  A. Swift questioned why the committee would report to EPC rather than directly to Faculty Assembly.  C. Stevens asked about equal representative distribution on the committee.  Swift responded that the unequal distribution is the result of the size of these colleges.  T. Burns said a change regarding this would require a change to the faculty handbook.  A. Preston suggested that this would be a good issue to stand as a turning point on this policy.  Grant pointed out that all voting would ultimately be done by Faculty Assembly so the representation distribution on the committee might be insignificant.  Overall, he added, the purpose of this proposal is just to solidify the General Education committee as a part of the Faculty Assembly.  A. Swift moved to strike a passage from section TWO so that what read, “The General Education Committee shall report to the Faculty Assembly through the Educational Policies Committee” would now read, “The General Education Committee shall report to the Faculty Assembly.”  A. Preston seconded this.  A. Ambrose noted that eliminating EPC makes this a policy-making committee.  D. Wellman pointed out that no other committees have appointed members and P. Koch said there were several such committees.  W. Parsons said this cannot be a sub-committee of EPC because the members do not come exclusively from EPC.  J. Trapp said this is an issue of curriculum all of which goes through EPC, so it is not appropriate for the General Education committee to report directly to Faculty Assembly, bypassing EPC.  C. Herzig said there are committees which have to return to EPC after reporting to Faculty Assembly and that General Education could operate this way as well.  M. Adams called the question and the vote was 28 yes to 17 no.

 

L. Rodrigues-Fisher relayed that President Lescinski would like a committee formed to create a job description for faculty and adjunct professors.  There is a description for the president, vice-president of Academic Affairs, etc. but nothing exists for faculty.  This description should be completed by March, before new contracts go out.  M. Adams noted that the ad hoc faculty handbook committee could do this.  A. Ambrose said she did not think that this committee still existed.  T. Burns said the committee was dissolved upon presenting the final handbook.  M. Adams said this was a time-sensitive issue and so there was reason to proceed as expeditiously as possible.  S. Marquard said third party contractors already have a description, which should be taken into consideration when this job description is formed.  A. Swift moved to form a new ad hoc faculty handbook committee.  W. Parson seconded this motion.  J. Corea-Kaiser clarified that this would be purely for this job description issue.  A. Lensing asked if this was just a generic job description.  M. Adams said yes.  M. Adams called the question.  The “ayes” carried the vote.

 

R. Anderson spoke about the smoke free implementation committee.  She said that there are serious problems with implementing this policy.  A. Swift asked if we could just not implement the policy and Anderson replied that this was not a question of if but how, the decision has already been made.  K. Hickerson asked her to clarify what R. Anderson was looking for in talking with Faculty Assembly. R. Anderson responded that maybe we should slow down the process.  M. Kennedy asked if President Lescinski wanted this policy carried out.  He said that it seemed President Lescinski should not be restricted by past president’s decisions.  J. DeFrancisco pointed out that the university has a lot of civic connections (through the Rogalski Center and Galvin) that would require consideration.  A. Axup said this was a board decision.  R. Anderson read the decision to clarify and L. Rodrigues-Fisher said this was not discussed by the board.  R. Anderson said that a survey will be coming and she urged the faculty to be aware of this and to please respond.  R. Grant asked if there were any smokers on the committee.  He added that he thought this was a mistake and that the policy should be put to a stop.  M. Kennedy said this was a small number of people saving a large number and that this was a problem.  A. Swift suggested going back to President Lescinski and re-raising the issue with her.  C. Herzig said focus should be on how to do it well. It is not a democratic issue.  L. Rodriguez-Fisher  suggested SAU hire a Director of Wellness.  M. Kennedy suggested considering the possibility of a place for smokers to smoke.  R. Anderson mentioned the email address to voice concerns smokefree@sau.edu for people to send comments.

 

W. Parsons said he plans to bring forth a proposal to begin discussing faculty governance and the concerns about faculty governance. He said he prefers to do that at a later meeting.

 

Motion to adjourn 4:15 by A. Swift, second by A. Lensing