FACULTY SENATE

     Minutes of May 14, 2012

Call to Order

Karen Stout, Faculty Senate President, called the 2011-2012 Senate to order at 4:02 pm.   Stout welcomed

twenty-six (26) Senators along with twelve (12) others for a total of thirty-eight (38).  (See Roster).

Items from the Faculty Senate President:

Approval of Senate Minutes:

Senators accepted the Senate minutes of April 30, 2012 and Standing Committee minutes. Senators accepted Graduate Council minutes which included approval of a self-sustaining CCE program that plans to enroll students this year.

President Stout announced: 

Ø  The May 16 Library presentation will be with a representative from the Orbis Cascade Alliance;

Ø  The May 31^st Provost and Faculty Senate Awards Ceremony will be held in the Gallery from 4-6p and Senators and faculty are invited to celebrate with colleagues who are receiving teaching and other awards;

Ø  Senators are asked to remind colleagues not to penalize or drop students who may miss class during Yom Kippur which coincides with the first day of classes Fall Quarter 2012;

Ø  ACC will review catalog language regarding graduation with two majors or two degrees;

Ø  Data on the success of past outreach efforts to attract students with high GPAs has not been collected;

Ø  Western doesn’t charge for interlibrary loans at present, nor is there current discussion about plans to do so.

Reports

Provost Riordan reported: 

·      Meetings are continuing with candidates for Dean of  Huxley College of the Environment;

·      UW and community colleges in the state are discussing the consideration of a move to a semester system;

·      New Western initiatives may include an “Institute for Energy Studies”;

·      Planning is continuing for the RN to BSN program;

·      Four programs will continue faculty searches next year so that they can achieve top choices;

·      Please let Provost Riordan know if you are interested in attending liberal arts conversations hosted by the Evergreen State College this summer.

Steve Garfinkle, UFWW President, suggested the need for formalized evaluation procedures for tenure and promotion when faculty have joint appointments.  Garfinkle reminded Senators that the capital campaign would optimally increase only 4% of our budget and cannot replace budgetary losses of the past few years.

Dan Boxberger, Faculty Legislative Representative, confirmed that next year could be a critical one in Olympia, with continued budget issues and the push toward open courseware.  Sara Singleton, Political Science, is the nominee for Deputy FLR when the Senate votes on June 4^th.

Fabiola Arvizu, ASVP-Academics sent a message that the Student Senate, AS Board, local union members and student employees are discussing the extent of AS support for Aramark unionizing on campus.

DISCUSSION:

Progress on Program Review Guidelines:  Spencer Anthony-Cahill, Senate Vice President

Spencer Anthony-Cahill, Senate Vice President, led the discussion on development of the Elimination and Merger Policy in which Senators emphasized a focus on the quality of programs and alignment with Western’s mission.  Senators pointed out the impact of resource allocation on faculty and staff employment, and the challenge of attempting to create a consistent policy across colleges within specific disciplines.  Anthony-Cahill looks forward to a significant change in the culture of WWU, with more frank discussions, using specified data/criteria to drive decision-making.

In the discussion that followed Senators mentioned the need for:

·         An alignment of effort across colleges to make the policy understandable; a way to address issues clearly with qualitative and quantitative measures.

·         A Graduate Council member to be involved in the discussion since Grad Council does periodic reviews of programs;

·         Attention to programs that would benefit from help to strengthen them and lead to finding new resources;

·         Alignment of a department/program with mission should carry great weight;

·         An awareness on the part of faculty that certain new management motivational theories can alienate people from their work or threaten the internal drivers  that make teaching at a university different from other work in society;

·         A focus on the “Quality” of the program which should carry the greatest weight since alignment with mission can be somewhat hard to define;

·         Answers as to how this process works with self-supporting programs, or those where employment is a marker of quality such as certification programs.  (Colleges should monitor on-campus and off-campus components together).  Consistency at all three levels:  with the data, with participation, and with programs both on and off-campus.   

·         Ways to adjust for the impact that this has on employment decisions.  May relate to how we choose new people, and how to make this work in a positive scenario.  Concern with how this might affect the elimination of peoples’ jobs.  Specificity of resource allocation related to disciplines  -- can’t be strictly about the numbers.

·         A middle ground when it comes to legislators viewing our programs and our need to maintain quality.

·         Processes for new programs

APPOINTMENTS AND ELECTIONS – Jackie Caplan Auerbach, Officer  

ACTION:  The Senate moved to rescind a motion (moved by Jackie Caplan-Auerbach, seconded by Deb Currier) on how to allocate three positions to the UPRC.  The motion was rescinded because it was considered out of order as it violated Bylaw 7.4.1.b. which states:  [Membership of the UPRC shall be...] “Two at-large faculty apportioned by the Faculty Senate and appointed by the respective college or library faculty governance body annually (2); one faculty elected by and from the ACC annually (1); one faculty elected by and from the Faculty Senate annually.”

The motion to rescind passed.   

The Senate then proposed a new motion (moved by Kathleen Saunders, seconded by Penny Hutchinson) which allocated the three positions to CFPA, CST and the Humanities, and one of the three will be filled by a Senator, as allowed in the Bylaws.  The remaining two positions will be filled following recommendations of the appropriate College Governance bodies, which are asked to select faculty with insights to serve the broader needs of those colleges as plans for space and capital plans are being formulated.  The motion, which passed, applies only to AY2012-2013.

Senators confirmed the following Standing Committees’ faculty appointments:

5:30        CONSTITUENT CONCERNS

ADJOURNMENT

Senators adjourned at 5:37 pm.

                                                                                                __________________________________

Kathleen Saunders, Secretary 2011-2012

FACULTY SENATE – ROSTER 2011-2012