Faculty Senate

Senate Steering Committee

Minutes
March 31, 2005
3:00 - 5:00 PM
226 Tigert Hall

Presentation: Chair Ramond addressed the length of term that a Chair currently serves. Stated that members of the Board of Trustees as well as past Chairs had agreed that a two year term may prove beneficial. Second year allows the incumbent to use the relationships built the first year. Believes that the chair can affect things at the level of the university rather than at the level of the trustees. Several suggestions were made. Important to determine best approach to maintaining continuity. Suggestion of developing an Ad Hoc Committee to address this issue and to look at other AAU schools and their policies.

Chair Ramond inquired on the procedures of the election process for the Chair-Elect position to be held at the next Senate meeting on April 14, 2005. The election process was moved to the top of the agenda for the next Senate meeting. This will include a 5 minute presentation from each candidate. Each candidate will also provide a one page CV to be posted on the Senate website.

Chair Ramond addressed the issue of parking. Had a meeting with VP Poppell to discuss this. Believes that there is not enough communication between faculty and the Committees designated to address these issues.

Chair Ramond presented an invitation card for Gator Day in Tallahassee. Dr. Ramond expressed his concern that UF has hired and spent a great deal of money on Branding and the picture that was used on the front of the invitation represents "Mr. Two Bits" which emphasizes athletics. Dr. Ramond is very concerned about the image we put forth especially after all the branding discussions that have been had.

Dr. Ramond spoke about FL House Bill 837 - Student and Faculty Academic Freedom in Postsecondary Education. Other faculty senates are developing position statements. Dr. Ramond asked the opinions of the other Steering members about developing a position statement on this bill. Interim Provost Glover suggested that there should be a statement from all FL senates together rather than 11 different statements. This bill allows students that believe their rights have been violated the prerogative to sue a faculty member. Dr. Glover suggested that the Senate might want to discuss with Jane Adams how this can be best addressed. Past chair Brennan said that this is a fundamental attack on academic freedom and thinks that the AAUP should be involved. Dr. Glover says that with academic freedom comes academic responsibility. UF already has procedures in place that require that faculty respect students.

Jack Mecholsky, Council on Academic Policy, Curriculum & Structure:

1. Dr. Mecholsky informed the Steering Committee that the upcoming Action Item to be voted on at the Senate meeting regarding UF calendars has been strongly opposed by the members of his Council. Does not believe that one day should be removed from the academic calendar. Steve Pritz identified the problems that were present including conflict with final exams and commencement, Housing, confirmed travel arrangements, etc. Jack Mecholsky will meet with his Council before the Senate meeting and adopt a recommendation that he will present to the Senate along with Dr. Dickison's recommendation for the Senate to vote on.
2. Dr. Mecholsky stated that his Council was addressing +/- grades and Grade Inflation. Will research that and come back to Steering Committee with a recommendation to be discussed.

Frank Bova, Council on Academic Planning, Budgeting & Resource Allocation:

1. Dr. Bova informed the Steering Committee that at the last meeting Mike Katovich and Scott Nygren, Chairs of two other Policy Councils were present and discussed the Strategic Plan. Inquired as to the status and when President Machen will represent this to the Councils. Chair Ramond stated that this has been addressed with President Machen and agreed that before it is published it will be presented to the Councils and Steering Committee.
2. Dr. Bova also inquired about bringing ad hoc members onto a Council. It was agreed that notifying the Chairs was important and depending on the role it may need to be formally presented and voted upon but with the infancy of the Councils it is important to be determining this.

Margaret Carr, Council on Academic Infrastructure & Support
Professor Carr presented the motion that the Council will recommend at the next Senate meeting. "The Faculty Senate recognizes that library resources and services are crucial to our academic mission. However, our libraries have been documented as deficient when compared to top ten universities with which the University of Florida aims to compete. Therefore, the Faculty Senate asks the Administration and the Board of Trustees to formulate a policy to improve university libraries to meet the diverse and complex needs of 21st century teaching and research, and to report back within one year regarding resources and strategies to enable the libraries to achieve this goal."

Saeed Khan, Council on Research & Scholarship

1. Dr. Khan stated that Council is looking at the appointed committees currently on campus. Stated that there in no regular input from faculty. Important that a system is put in place that involves the faculty. Will continue to research this issue and bring forth a recommendation to the Steering Committee to be approved for presentation to the Senate.

Presentation: Kim Tanzer handed out continuing initiatives which she will focus on during her term as Chair. Includes:

1. Develop the policy councils (Delegate issues to only one council, Determine how to discuss the policy council issues at the Steering Committee meeting since President is not at the full meeting, incorporate the language in the constitution by April of 2006,
2. Graduate education (Improving the quality of graduate students and how they pay tuition, Facilitating the research of graduate students)
3. Effective and appropriate involvement of students(most issues are undergraduate issues, graduate student body has grown, student government to put more resources towards graduate students, Grad students are 1/5 of the population but have a very small representation in the student senate)
4. Refinement current Senate Practices (Steering meetings to be 2X/month, one for council reports and one for agenda approval, a half day session on Roberts Rules of Order and sessions with each Policy Council for orientation.)

New initiatives

1. Interdisciplinary focus on arts and the humanities (Form an ad hoc committee to benchmark research done across the country.)
2. Shared governance at the college level (create an ad hoc committee to look at how the senate message can get out and how to get shared governance working at the college level)
3. How sustainability can become part of the university operation
4. Chair-Elect Tanzer has scheduled extra Steering Committee meetings during the summer.

Chair Ramond addressed the issue of Collective Bargaining which is currently being decided. Dr. Ramond says the collective bargaining issue may have changed because the Court of Appeals has refused to hear the appeal of FSU and UWF. They can still take it to the Supreme Court. It is quite possible that we will be dealing with a faculty that are on collective bargaining and some that are not. Chair-Elect Tanzer indicated that the union is a subset of the faculty and the senate represents all faculty. It was suggested that this be included on the agenda for discussion at the Special Steering Committee being held on April 21st. Ramond says the Senate has done good things so we should not let these external issues affect the good work of the Senate.

Meeting was Adjourned at 5:08pm.