Present: Bible, Caverly, Deduck-Evans, Ford, Glassman, Horne, Hunter,
Lyman, Middlebrook, Pascoe, Sawey, Stedman, Swinney, and Winek.
Absent: Weller
Guests: Assoc.VP Patrick Cassidy; Profs. Robert Fischer (Chair, Modern
Languages), Dona Reeves-Marquardt (Modern Languages), Lew Marquardt
(Art); Edna Aquirre Rehbein (President's Office), Margaret Vaverek
(Library liaison); Mike Moore, Sandra Akridge.
CONTENTS:
42 BUDGET CYCLE FY96 (Salary Poll)
13 DEVELOPMENTAL LEAVES--POLICY (PPS 8.02)
39 CLASS SCHEDULES (Peeler/Early Letters)
45 MINIMUM CLASS SIZE (Brister/Reeves-Marquardt
Letter)
47 HONORS PROGRAM--PROPOSED CHANGES (Prof.
Bible)
02 SENATE MINUTES OF 9/20/95
NEW ITEMS
The meeting was called to order at 4:00, Chair Swinney presiding.
42 BUDGET CYCLE FY96 (Salary Poll)
While the distribution of the 2 percent for faculty salaries will be made
by the Administration, the Senate recently polled the faculty so that it could
make recommendations to the Administration based on faculty opinion.
There were 351 respondents out of 629 eligible voters for a 55.8
percent return. After discussing the results, a motion was made and passed
[9-4] to recommend that (1) the 2 percent be distributed this year as
performance, but (2) studies to determine salary inequities be made now so
that this can be addressed in next year's 2 percent increase (or whatever
increase the departmental givebacks and new student fees generate). Note
that 78.9 percent of the respondents wanted salary inequities addressed.
There did not seem to be time to do this properly before the raises are
implemented in January, so we should be ready to do this with the next
budget cycle. An argument for performance was that inflation has put most
faculty behind and the poll indicated that faculty preferred performance
percentages to lump sum. The latter would have been more advantageous to
lower paid persons, but performance received 54.7 percent of the vote
against 36.5 percent for lump sum.
Further, the issue of how merit is determined should be studied. It is
alleged that the current system is arbitrary and contributes to salary
inequities over time. This is not going to be easy to deal with. A
suggestion was made that perhaps a portion of future available funds could
be held aside to reward real stars and these persons should receive public
acclaim, rather than the secretive awarding of merit that has been done in the
past. Such a move would make favoritism less possible. It might also put a
crimp in awarding merit across the board, which makes it a
performance increase.
These issues will be put on the agenda when the Senate meets with the
Council of Academic Deans (CAD) on October 10th, 4:00-6:00, 11th floor
JCK.
Finally, it was agreed that the entire poll be reproduced in these
minutes so that everyone could see the outcome.
[Pursuant to the Senate's motions, the Chair sent the following
memorandum to President Supple: "The Senate has evaluated the results of
our poll of the faculty regarding additional raises during FY96.
"A large majority of the voting faculty (78.9%) believe that salary inequities
may be a significant problem at SWT. Further, 67.8% of the voting faculty
think that demonstrable inequities should be addressed before general
raises, and 71.2% believe that demonstrable inequities should be addressed
before achievement raises, i.e., merit or bonuses.
"Therefore, the Senate recommends that a major salary study be initiated as
soon as possible to evaluate thoroughly the salary structure at the
University. Since this will likely take a good deal of time, we further
recommend that the 2% salary pool remaining for this year should be
allocated as an additional performance raise. Such a percentage increase
will preserve existing salary relationships until a comprehensive salary
study can be completed. Demonstrable inequities, if any, can then be
addressed with new salary dollars made available next year by the final
phase of the 5% reallocation program.
"Thank you for your consideration of these recommendations."]
13 DEVELOPMENTAL LEAVES--POLICY (PPS 8.02)
The developmental leave process seems to be working well, but in the
past reports have not been solicited on results of leaves. The latter feature
should be changed and reports should be filed with the VPAA's office.
Discussion followed regarding paragraph 3 which states that it is
available only to those faculty engaged in full-time teaching who "must be
tenured." [Note: The preceding section stipulates that librarians and other
professionals who are not "faculty" are included.] It was pointed out that
there are lecturers and other non-tenure track full-time faculty, many have
been here for years, who are not eligible under this criteria but perhaps
should be. The same seems to be true for applying for FREG monies. It
appears that the criteria for tenure-track and tenure should be examined, in
that some areas do not require advanced degrees for real excellence where
other kinds of creativity and acumen are required (e.g. Theatre) and some
areas do not even have advanced degrees (e.g. some fields in Health
Professions). Those who are tenured without Ph.D.'s have usually been
here long before the current practices were adopted. A motion was
made by Prof. Bible and seconded by Prof. Pascoe to scratch the "must be
tenured" part. There were 6 ayes, 6 nays, one abstention, and the chair
broke the tie. The motion was defeated.
A motion passed to endorse the draft proposal of PPS 8.02 (mostly
minor wording changes to reflect changed names of agencies or to delete
unnecessary statements). The Senate recommends that the Council of
Academic Deans approve the draft, thereby updating the PPS.
39 CLASS SCHEDULES (Peeler/Early Letters)
Two issues emerged in discussion: (1) The scheduling of classes
during the week, and (2) The scheduling of final exams. Since chairs now
schedule classes in the rooms they have first call on, this is left up to them.
The Registrar says they work on final exams with whatever the
Departments have given them on class times. Prof. Deduck-Evans
suggested another exam day be added to allow profs. with students who
have overlapping exam times to schedule then. There seems to be good
reasons why some courses have odd hours--not to mention the MW classes
that cannot draw students if they are MWF afternoons. Some classes are
best taught in three-hour blocks during the day. This appears to be
something the Chairs, Deans, and Registrar are going to have to work out.
It was moved and passed that the issue be RTA'd until we could get
more information from the Registrar.
45 MINIMUM CLASS SIZE (Brister/Reeves-Marquardt Letter)
Prof. Reeves-Marquardt and Modern Languages Chair Fischer noted
that, although the new minimum graduate and undergraduate class sizes
were supposed to be flexible, there seems to be increased pressure to
conform. A concern was expressed that if the Coordinating Board
eventually takes a stance on this, it might kill some graduate and even
quality small undergraduate programs. Already it is causing questions
about scheduling upper-division courses in small programs. In various
disciplines internship classes and other classes with several prerequisites
are threatened.
In the discussion it was suggested that SCH might be counted for the
department as a whole, rather than just class size. The policy is being
implemented differently by various Schools, but we do not have data on
how it is being used, how many classes are being killed, what effects are
surfacing, etc.
A motion was made by Prof. Sawey and seconded by Prof. Stedman
that the issue be raised at the next PAAG and CAD meetings and to obtain
data on what classes fall into the low-size category and what flexibility
there is. The motion passed.
47 HONORS PROGRAM--PROPOSED CHANGES (Prof. Bible)
The report was RTA'd since several Senators who wanted to be
involved had to leave for class.
02 SENATE MINUTES OF 9/20/95
The minutes were approved.
NEW ITEMS
(1) The agenda for CAD on October 10, 4:00-6:00, JCK 11th floor
will include: (a) merit, (b) class size, (c) salary and equity,
(d) International Student Initiative, (e) reorganization of Health Professions.
(2) A motion was passed to nominate Profs. James Bell (CJ), Robert
Whalin (Music), and Dona Reeves-Marquardt (Modern Languages) to serve
on the Committee to select recipients of the Presidential Excellence in
Teaching Awards.
(3) A letter was received from Steve Prentice inviting faculty to
volunteer for training to be deputized to issue parking tickets. After
discussion it was moved and passed that we RTA until next week. [Many
faculty have told Senators they would volunteer to ticket as they walk
through red tag lots on their way to work. However, it was pointed out that
it might look strange in the Chronicle of Higher Ed. if the Faculty Senate
suggested faculty ticket illegal student parking.] Another motion passed that
we send a memo to Exec. VP Abbott reiterating the request we made earlier
that more students be hired to ticket at peak hours, since the fines should
more than cover new hires.
(4) Prof. Carlos Gutierrez (Physics) was appointed to replace Prof.
Koke on the FREG Committee. [Prof. Gutierrez has since declined the
appointment.]
(5) A motion was made and passed that a memo be sent to Prof.
Lemke asking the Environmental Committee to provide us with data on
Aquarena Springs operations.
The meeting was adjourned at 6:25 p.m.
Ramona Ford
Secretary
