Minutes - September 22, 2010

Professional Affairs Committee
September 22, 2010

Present:  Althaus, Christensen, Lee-DiStefano, McCollum, Olsen, Sofu, Thorne, Wang, and Faculty Senate Chairperson Sophia Scott

Minutes:  The Committee agreed to approve the previously-sent draft of minutes of the Sept. 8th meeting without modification.

Senate Chair Report:  Faculty Senate Chairperson Scott visited with the Committee about its charge regarding review of the Faculty Handbook.   Calendars were distributed that showed the sections of the Handbook assigned to the Committee, and the dates by which the recommendations are requested to be reported to the Senate.  Chair Scott also explained the charge of the Ad Hoc Committee and the timeline under which it is to complete its review of the sections of the Handbook dealing with program review, program restructuring, and retrenchment.  She explained that the Ad Hoc Committee is planning to develop separate policy statements that would require the approval of the Board of Regents, and procedural statements that would only require the approval of the President.  She also requested that the Professional Affairs Committee follow a similar plan in its review of the designated sections.  She also noted that the Ad Hoc Committee’s recommendation would be able to be reviewed by the Professional Affairs Committee and, of course, the Senate.

Compensation Committee Bill:   The Chair explained to the Committee that the Compensation Committee, in its September 8th meeting, had made some slight revisions of its draft Bill regarding the calculation and reporting of faculty salary information by the Budget Review Committee.  The essence of those revisions was the dropping of the “Whereas” clauses, leaving the substance of the Bill intact.  After receiving that information, the Professional Affairs Committee again agreed unanimously that its Spring 2010 and September 8th endorsements of the Bill should stand.

Promotion and Tenure Policy Bill:  It appears as if the Bill passed by the Senate in its final business meeting of the year had never been sent to the President, so it is not true that he withheld his approval.  The Committee will explore sending those recommendations forward this year.

Review of Handbook Sections:  Committee members volunteered to work on reviewing the sections of the Handbook about which we are to report by the end of the semester.  The distribution is as follows:
Chapter 2, Section D:  Olsen, Seidu, Thorne
Chapter 2, Section F:  Althaus, Lee-DiStefano, Wang
Chapter 4:  Christensen, McCollum, Lauder
Members will individually (or collectively) review these sections and report their findings at our next Committee meeting.

Miscellaneous Items:  The Committee briefly discussed several items of interest:

 Faculty Status of Librarians:  Several years ago, the Committee and the Senate actively worked to maintain the faculty status of library faculty.  In the past six or seven years, some non-tenure-track library faculty have been hired, though it appears as if there have been no tenure-track library faculty hired during that time.

 Intellectual Property Rights:  Two years ago, some members of the Senate served on a task force to develop some intellectual property rights statements dealing with a variety of issues.  It appears as if none of those statements were included in the Handbook, and the question arose about whether some of them should have been.

 Student Evaluation of Instruction:  The question came up about the status of the SEI task force’s recommendations that had been at least temporarily tabled in order to more clearly explain them to representatives of Student Government.  More directly to the Committee’s charge, the question was asked about the current status of last year’s attempt by the Committee to encourage academic departments to bring their Promotion criteria into compliance with existing Handbook policy.  The Chair proposed that he ask the Provost about the matter.

 Professional Travel Funding:  Some members of the Committee briefed the others on Dean Starrett’s decision to curtail University Studies funding for professional travel.  This apparently went out to Deans and Chairs in an e-mail earlier this semester.  (Subsequent to the meeting, Matt Olsen forwarded a copy of that August 23rd e-mail to the Committee members.)   In addition, a question was asked about funding for international travel. Several Committee members suggested tapping into departmental and college-level professional development funds, and others suggested asking one’s Dean for support from his/her discretionary portion of the college-level funds.

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