ACADEMIC SENATE MINUTES
(Approved)
September 26, 2001 Volume
XXXIII, No. 3
Call
to Order
Chairperson Curt White called the meeting to order
at 7:00 p.m.
Roll Call
Senator
Crothers called the roll and declared a quorum.
Approval of Minutes of September 12, 2001
Motion XXXIII-21: by
Senator Razaki, second by Senator Bathauer, to approve the Senate minutes of
September 12, 2001. The minutes were unanimously approved.
Chairperson's
Remarks
Senator White: With the assistance of Senator Crothers, the
Council Illinois of University Senates now has a draft position paper in
relation to the issue of public monies to private universities and colleges. We
will be discussing that document among ourselves before bringing it to our
respective senates, which I hope will happen sometime this semester. On
September 27 at 7:00 p.m. in the Old Main Room, Global Review and the Senate
are presenting a forum called Civilizations and Conflict in the Middle East.
Senator Crothers will be a part of that panel. I would encourage you all to
come and to encourage your students to come.
Vice Chairperson/Student Government Association President's Remarks
Senator
Kording: I want to thank Ziggy
Kowalski, Student Government Association Vice President, for standing in for me
at the last Senate meeting. SGA has been very busy in the last two weeks. The
peace rally Looking to Tomorrow, United in Peace on September 13 went
off very well. Special thanks to the President's office, Provost's office,
Student Affairs Office, Facilities Management and a number of other campus
offices and faculty. We appreciate the unity that the campus was able to show.
Last Wednesday, the SGA adopted a plan for modification of the student fee
allocation process. It basically overhauls the way in which student fees are
given out to student organizations. We had a number of SGA members and
ex-officio members participate in the Hate Crime Symposium. The SGA Assembly
has appointed a number of students to the external committees of the Senate and
we have communicated those to the Senate office. Tomorrow, September 27, the
SGA is cosponsoring with the Center for the Advancement of Teaching a
student-faculty conversation. The topic is the active pursuit of learning and
the degree to which ISU students prepare for their course work relative to
students at other institutions. SGA is continuing negotiations with the Normal
Council regarding the "cushy chair" ordinance. We are convening a
special SGA Assembly meeting tonight regarding a proposed amendment that the
Normal Town Council will consider on October 1. It involves amending the Normal
Human Relations Code to define sexual orientation as a protected class against
discrimination.
Administrators' Remarks:
·
President Boschini: I am closely monitoring what is going is going on
with budgets in the state in general. Today, the governor issued an executive
order on budgets, except for budgets for higher education. We are not affected
by this order, but I have feeling that we will be affected in the future. On October
8, we will meet with the Illinois Board of Higher Education for our Big Picture
Meeting. The next Illinois Board of Higher Education meeting is on October
2. I have been asked to give a report
at that meeting on persistence and retention of students in Illinois at the
twelve universities. Also, they have asked us to give a report in one of their
Best Practices sessions. We are going to be talking about the Foundations of
Inquiry program and a student from ISU will speak about her experience in FOI.
·
Provost Al Goldfarb: Excused Absence.
·
Vice President of Student Affairs
Senator Mamarchev: The upcoming weekend is our Family Weekend and our
traditional Red Dog Chili Supper, which is a Division of Student Affairs'
fundraising event. We have already sold more than 900 tickets. We are looking
toward to a fun weekend with our students and their families.
·
Vice President of Finance and Planning
Senator Bragg: The governor's executive order cut budgets for code
agencies; those are agencies that report directly to the governor. The cut is
50 million dollars, which is actually less than 1% of the budget. They have
frozen out-of-state travel and equipment purchases for the time being.
Additionally, they cannot fill vacant positions in those code agencies without
the permission of the Bureau of the Budget. The important thing is that this
does not apply to education. In the last couple of weeks, the natural gas
prices have fallen dramatically. The prices are so attractive that we have gone
ahead and locked in all of our natural gas purchases for this year. Barring a
record cold winter, we should be able to get through this winter well below
budget. Please inform your constituents of another executive order from the
governor. This one guarantees the salaries of anyone called up for the military
service or the National Guard. For anyone called into service, who is an
employee of ISU, we will pay the difference between their military pay and
their ISU salary. Those individuals will also carry full benefits. The policy
is on the web site.
Senator Razaki: Is your office making some preliminary plans in the
event that we have a budget cut or we do not get the type of budget increase
that we want?
Senator Bragg: We do this as part of the budget development
process all the time. We play what if scenarios. There is a myriad of
possibilities out there, but hopefully we won't have to address any of those.
We have had six or seven very good budget years at ISU. We have made some very
good process on our priorities. Now is the time to consolidate that progress
and hold on to it.
Committee Reports
·
Academic Affairs Committee
Senator Borg: The Academic Affairs Committee met this evening at
6:00 p.m. We made it partly through the first of six items on our agenda. We
will meet again in two weeks at which time we will determine whether we will
need further time in light of the discussions that we have had.
·
Administrative Affairs and Budget Committee
Senator Wells: We met briefly this evening. Most of the discussion
dealt with the issues coming out of the Disney Corporation's hiring visit last
spring and the student protests. One issue that concerns the committee is the
means by which corporations acquire space when invited to campus by student
organizations. A number of questions were raised. How should the room be used,
particularly when the space is provided free of charge? What are the policies on campus for handling
student protests? At this point, we are in an information-collecting mode. We
will bring it to the full Senate if there is something of significance.
·
Faculty Affairs Committee
Senator Deutsch: The committee has been meeting weekly to consider a
pair of important policy documents. One of these concerns a document about
integrity and research. The other concerns the policy for employment in excess
of full time. The latter makes a public statement that a twelve-hour teaching
load is the norm at ISU; we anticipate that there will be a lively discussion
when this comes before the Senate. About a year ago, the University Research
Council (URC) formed a subcommittee to create a document detailing procedures
and issues having to do with integrity and research, issues ranging from
student plagiarism to falsifying data in professional research. The
subcommittee came up with a document and it was sent prematurely to the
Executive Committee. It was then forwarded to us; because the URC itself hasn't
yet passed this document, we sent it back to them.
·
Planning and Finance Committee
Senator Kurtz: The Planning and Finance Committee met for two
hours last week and for approximately one and a half hours this evening. We are
continuing to discuss collegiate restructuring--creating intellectual
committees. At this point, we have received approximately 200 replies in regard
to the email survey that was sent out to all campus constituencies. Steve Bragg
and Institutional Research are doing a wonderful job of trying to put the data
together in a form in which the committee can examine. The focus groups run by
the Provost's office will be starting Monday. We spent a portion of this
evening's meeting discussing what will take place at those focus groups and we
came up with a general strategy. We have a draft definition of intellectual
communities. We have a draft set of evaluation criteria to be used for
rationalizing any potential reorganization. We have a listing of the collegiate
structures at all 64 public Carnegie doctoral research-intensive institutions
in the U.S. All of those materials are going to be made available to the focus
groups for discussion. We will pose the following question to the focus groups:
If Illinois State University does reorganize its collegiate structure, what
decision implementation processes would you like to see us follow? All of these
materials are going to be placed on the Academic Senate web site at the
Planning and Finance Committee page of the site. We are going to invite
everyone on campus to take a look at that material and respond to the committee
either via the web board or by email to the committee. Starting next week, we
are going to do a SWOT analysis of the current collegiate structures. SWOT
analysis means an analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
·
Rules Committee
Senator Reid: The Rules Committee met this evening at 6:00 p.m.
We discussed one issue and that was to propose a method of electing a
non-tenure track faculty member to the Academic Senate. We will be bringing
this proposal as an information item most likely at the next meeting. We are
asking for open nominations and self-nominations by all non-tenure track
faculty and then a closed ballot afterwards. The non-tenure track faculty as a
constituency would nominate and elect the non-tenure track Senate member. Full
and part-time non-tenure track faculty will be eligible.
National Collegiate Athletic Association
Certification Process
Professor Jeff Wood: Thank
for allowing me to be on your agenda this evening for the purpose of providing
you with information relative to the certification of the Athletic Department
by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). I serve this
institution as faculty representative to the NCAA. As such, I serve as advisor
to the President on athletic matters before the NCAA as well as the
intercollegiate program at ISU. I am also a member of the steering committee
appointed by President Boschini that serves to guide the self-study process as
outlined by the NCAA. Jude Boyer, Vice President Emeritus, chairs the
committee.
The
self-study concept was designed for certification; it was pilot tested and
subsequently endorsed by the Knight Foundation Commission on Intercollegiate
Athletics. ISU participated in the first cycle of the certification program in
1995. We are currently in the second cycle of the process. The program's
primary purpose is to ensure the NCAA's fundamental commitment to integrity in
intercollegiate athletics. That goal is met in three fundamental ways: 1)
opening the affairs of the Athletic Department to the entire university
community and the public; 2) setting standards for operation of Division I
athletic programs; 3) putting stringent sanctions in place for institutions
that fail to conduct the comprehensive self-study or to correctly identify the
problems.
The
self-study process as outlined by the NCAA mandates that we demonstrate
compliance within four standards. These standards are 1) governance and
commitment to rules compliance; 2) academic integrity; 3) fiscal integrity; 4)
equity, welfare and sportsmanship. Each of the standards mentioned are
identifiable subcommittees within the steering committee, which have
memberships representing a wide variety of university and off-campus
participants. We will also be required to show our strengths and concerns
identified in the 1995 NCAA self-study. Further, we will identify the degree of
congruence between the University's strategic plan, Educating Illinois, and the Athletic
Department's strategic plan.
The
most critical element of the self-study process is that of campus-wide
participation. Without this input, the exercise would simply lack credibility.
The steering committee and the NCAA are genuinely interested in opinions from
every entity on the campus. To that end, we have developed a web site that will
soon be operational, which will include a web board as a means of
communication, minutes from all committees and active links to the Athletic
Department and the NCAA. I encourage you to use the web site frequently as the
campus proceeds through the self-study process. The steering committee has also
planned a series of campus forums for the purpose of explaining the
certification process in such venues as college council meetings. These will
occur at the beginning of the second semester.
The
subcommittees will be submitting draft reports to the steering committee with
the goal of disseminating rewrites to the campus via meetings and the web page.
The steering committee will complete final rewrites in February 2002. This
process culminates in a site visit by an external review team selected by the
NCAA from June 4 through 7, 2002. The results will be disseminated to the
campus community via the University
Report, the Birds Eye View and on the University web page. I would like to
return to the Senate and provide a detailed report in the fall of 2002.
Adjournment
Motion XXXIII-22: To adjourn by Senator
Bathauer, second by Senator Borg. The motion was unanimously approved by
standing vote.