FACULTY CAUCUS MINUTES
August 27, 2003
(Approved)
Call to Order
Senator Crothers called the Faculty Caucus meeting to order.
Selection of Executive
Committee Faculty Member
The Faculty Caucus nominated Senator Eileen Fowles to the Senate Executive Committee by ballot. The Senate will elect Senator Fowles at its next meeting.
Election of Campus
Communication Committee Faculty Replacement
The Faculty Caucus elected Senator Paul Borg to the Campus Communications Committee by ballot. His term of service is 2003-2004.
External Committee
Elections
Motion: By Senator Wylie, seconded by Senator Fowles, to approve the slate of nominees for the external committees of the Senate. The motion was unanimously approved and the following faculty members were elected. Jim Coliz of the Academic Senate was elected to the Academic Planning Committee to fill the position left vacant by Dr. Eric Thomas, former Associate Vice President of Undergraduate Studies.
ACADEMIC FREEDOM ETHICS AND
GRIEVANCE COMMITTEE
Virginia Gill, CAS, 2003-2004
Dale Fitzgibbons, COB, 2003-2004
Rex Morrow, COE, 2003-2004
Matt Hesson-McInnis, CAS, 2003-2004
Steve Meckstroth, Milner, 2003-2005
ACADEMIC PLANNING COMMITTEE
Jim Coliz, CAST, 2003-2005
ACADEMIC STANDARDS COMMITTEE
Silvanna Siddali,
CAS, 2003-2005
Ken Smiciklas, CAST, 2003-2006
LaShondra Peebles, COB, 2003-2006
Doug Hardwick, CAS, 2003-2006
ATHLETIC COUNCIL
Jeri Beggs, COB, 2003-2004
S.J. Chang, COB, 2003-2005
Bob Bradley, CAS, 2003-2005
Chad McEvoy, CAST, 2003-2006
Paul Walker, CAST, 2003-2006
CAMPUS COMMUNICATIONS COMMITTEE
(Ratification of Civil Service Council
Election)
Marcia Strum, Civil Service Representative
2003-2005
COUNCIL FOR TEACHER EDUCATION
(Confirmation of
Appointments)
Dianne Ashby, Chairperson of CTE, 2003-2005
Beth Schlemper, CAS, 2003-2004
Chris Kraft, Laboratory Schools, 2003-2006
Marilyn Moore, COE, 2003-2006
COUNCIL ON GENERAL EDUCATION
Annette Lermack, CFA, 2003-2004
Jennifer Hootman, Milner, 2003-2006
Sharon Pate, CAST, 2003-2006
Askar Choudhury, COB, 2003-2006
ENTERTAINMENT COMMITTEE
Mardell Wilson, CAST, 2003-2006
Deb Alley, CFA, 2003-2006
HONORS COUNCIL
Maureen Brunsdale, Milner, 2003-2006
LIBRARY COMMITTEE
Jean Memken, CAST, 2003-2005
Willard Bohn, CAS, 2003-2006
Patrick O'Rourke, CAST, 2003-2006
REINSTATEMENT COMMITTEE
James Alstrum, CAS, 2003-2005
Rob Rhykerd, CAST, 2003-2006
Lynn Kennell, Mennonite, 2003-2006
SCERB
Deb Garrahy, CAST, 2003-2006
SCERB
GRIEVANCE COMMITTEE
Janet Wilson, CFA, 2003-2006
SCERB
UNIVERSITY HEARNING PANEL
Doug Hatch, COE, 2003-2006
Eros DeSouza, CAS, 2003-2006
Jack McLaughlin-Gray, CFA, 2003-2006
Julie Johnson, CFA, 2003-2006
UNIVERSITY CURRICULUM COMMITTEE
Adel
Al-Bataineh, COE, 2003-2006
Joe Trefzger, COB, 2003-2006
Cynthia Brown, CFA, 2003-2006
UNIVERSITY
FORUM COMMITTEE
Laurie Merriman, CFA, 2003-2006
Laura Vogel, CAS, 2003-2006
UNIVERSITY SERVICE AWARD COMMITTEE
Billy Lim, CAST, 2003-2005
College and Faculty
Caucus Communication
Senator Crothers: As you may recall, at the last meeting last semester, you empowered me to have meetings to discuss the question of ways to facilitate communication between the colleges and the Faculty Caucus, in light of the President Search Committee formation last year. A number of ideas came out in that discussion. One notion is to include the college councils on the e-mail list of caucus minutes. It’s a little complicated because six of our colleges have councils and one does not. The College of Business does not have a college council, nor does it have an equivalent body. They have four teams that have subdivided the various functions.
Senator Mohammadi: Is it possible to have one of the senators periodically attend their meetings?
Senator Crothers: That is an excellent point. It belays the fact that you are in the College of Arts and Sciences. Many other colleges already have effective quality communication between their faculty senators and the college councils. Our college does not. We have tried on a number of occasions, but communication has always broken down. We can certainly try again. A procedural idea that we would need to refer to Rules, for example, would be to ask the college councils and the Business teams to designate a council representative to this caucus. It could either be an ad hoc member, an ex-officio member or a full member of the caucus.
Senator Fowles: Could there be a rotation of representatives as with the deans?
Senator Crothers: The mechanism by which they chose to go about that I would leave to them. The chairs are in the process of going to the mechanism to allow some rotation.
Senator Boser: I don’t know what the communication would be between the councils. Having served on the CAST council, I don’t remember ever talking to any other council. If you had one representative, I don’t know if it would help the communication get down the pipeline.
Senator Reid: Are we talking about one representative of each council or team coming to the Faculty Caucus?
Senator Crothers: I was thinking of one representative for all of the councils. If we had one from each council or team, that would be ten new members of this body.
Senator Reid: If we want any effective communication, we are going to need a representative from each council. Otherwise, it would be meaningless as there is no lateral communication.
Senator Fazel: In the College of Business, the leaders of the teams and the college dean form our “council”. When communications came to us, we had four leaders on what we call the Coordinating Team, plus the dean. So the question was, who is going to respond to this communication and who is going to participate in the discussions that other councils have. But prior to having the Coordinating Team, we did have senators showing up in our council meetings and they would brief us on what is going on in the Senate. Can’t we just continue that procedure?
Senator O’Donnell: Isn’t what we are talking about covered by the definition of College Liaison?
Senator Crothers: It turned out that that did not work very well last spring. So the question is are there structural changes that we need to make to facilitate communication.
Senator Fowles: I think the issue of the Presidential Search Committee involved such a short turn around time that I don’t know if we could have done any better. Do we need to make a structural change because of that one time? These meetings are open meetings. Anyone can attend. The chairs of the college councils can attend.
Senator Hampton: I would suggest that rather than leave it as an option that they can come that the chairs of the college councils be invited, even urged, to attend Senate and Faculty Caucus meetings.
Senator Crothers: I think we are in agreement that we should add these people to e-mail lists for approved minutes. What I am also hearing is that right now there is no reason for us to refer any question of structural changes to the Rules Committee. We can later talk about working on some other ways to encourage better communication, whether its between the liaisons and the councils, or the council chairs and the caucus.
Senator Borg: Do we now send the agenda for both the Senate and Faculty Caucus to those bodies? I suggest that we add them to the list so they can chose which meetings they will attend.
Senator Reid: Can the senators of the College Arts and Sciences meet and come up with some plan of action to try again this year? At the very least, we could ask for specific times to go into council meetings and at least make a communication to them regularly.
Senator Pereira: Are not college councils advisory to the deans and the deans represented here? Since the deans are in rotation, how does that work?
Senator Crothers: It been has one of my great frustrations in the last year that communications get choked somewhere between here and the chairs and faculty. We are trying to think of some additional avenues to make sure that the communication is open and free. I will go forward with those ideas. I will send an e-mail soon to the CAS faculty. If other faculty need help facilitating their communication, please let me know.
Adjournment