Pending Faculty Senate approval at January 24^th, 2005 Senate Meeting
Approved as corrected January 24^th Faculty Senate Meeting

 

   Meet and Confer Notes
  WSU Faculty Association
        Monday, December 20, 2004, 3:00 P.M.

    Agenda - Previously Scheduled:

1.         A2C2 Recommendation

2.            Committee Appointments

3.            Recommendations on WSU Regulation 4-2

4.            Online Education Committee

5.            Teacher Education Supervision Documents

6.            Interim Dean of Education

7.            Dates for PDP/PDR

8.            GLBTA Advocate

 

Pending

1.         Videotaping Services

2.         Key Policy

 

Additions:

9.         Pre-registration Issues (IFO Addition)

10.       Assistant Registrar Position (IFO Addition)

11.       Procedures for Search (IFO Addition)

12.       Information on Civility Forum (Administration Addition)

13.       NU Implementation Request (Administration Addition)

 

WSUFA Executive Committee:            Mary Kesler (MSK) (President), Bruce Svingen (Vice-President) [Roch], David Bratt (Board/Past    President), Matt Hyle (Negotiator), Sara Barbor (Past Negotiator) [Absent], Darrell Downs    
(Treasurer) [Absent], Bill Ng (Secretary), Cathy Summa (Board).

 

Administration:                                     D. Krueger (DWK), S. Richardson [Absent], K. Gorman, N. Jannik, T. Paino, T. Gasper, C.                Clements (Roch), Russ Lohmann (Roch) [Absent], C. Winbush, J. Whetstone, S. Ellinghuysen,                T. Kruger [Absent], K. Northam, Jim Schmidt.

 

Others:                                                 Carol Anderson, Larry Holstad.

  

1.         A2C2 Recommendation

 The administration was informed that Faculty Senate approved the following courses and received notifications from A2C2.

 I.            University Studies

A.         PER/THAD activities courses - A2C2 recommends that PER 151, 153, 155, 157, 253, 255, and 257 be allowed to count in either Fine & Performing Arts OR Physical Development & Wellness for students who took these courses between fall 2001 and summer 2003.

B.            Course Proposals

1.           Unity & Diversity: Science & Social Policy

GEOS 108 Geology of the Mississippi River (3 SH)

 II.            Notifications (information only)

A.            English

1.            Course number change - current: ENG 314 Non-Fiction Prose Writing.  New: ENG 309.

2.            Course title change - current: ENG 410 Advanced Creative Writing: Prose.  New: Advanced Creative Writing: Fiction.

B.            Foreign Languages - one-time course offering

1.           FLAN 103 (number to be determined) Beginner's Russian II (3 SH) - spring 2005

 The administration acknowledged having received the information.

  

2.            Committee Appointments 

The administration was informed of Faculty Senate approved appointments to committees.

 WSUFA Committees

 Graduate Council

William McBreen - Nursing

 WSUFA GLBTA Committee

Roderick Winters

 New University Implementation Work Groups

   ELI

Roderick Winters

 The administration acknowledged the information.

  

3.            Recommendations on WSU Regulation 4-2

 The administration was informed that Faculty Senate approved the following PP& G report on concerns and suggestions about draft regulation 4-2 (Student Grievance Procedure):

 Major Issues:

1)  In the Definition section, A Grievance is defined as some type of allegation of wrong ACTION.  However, a Complaint is defined as an allegation of some wrong type of TREATMENT.  Those definitions are verbatim from MnSCU board policy 3-8.  However, there is a difference between an action and treatment.  This ambiguity is troubling, since complaints can become grievances.

 2)  Step II is drastically modified so that the appropriate dean or appropriate supervisor need only respond in writing within 14 days of a grievance.  There is no longer a REQUIREMENT of a meeting with the alleged "perp" or any requirement to investigate any allegation.   There is no REQUIREMENT of notification that a complaint has been made against someone.   This is very troublesome, and provides an open invitation to abuse

 3)  Step IV - the appeal to the President is deleted.   In Step III, the decision of the VP or Chief Financial Officer is binding and final. Why remove President from this process?

 Minor Issues:

1)  Step II - Initially, a student is directed to the appropriate dean or appropriate supervisor (in the case of staff and non-teaching faculty).  However, the person responding to the complaint within 14 days is "The academic dean, appropriate supervisor, or designee..."   There is no provision of designee prior to this in the procedure.  Moreover, all participants should know beforehand who is actually making any determinations.

 2) Step II.  What decisions are made during this step?  What must the administrative response entail? 

 3)  Step III - There is some ambiguity in the statement "student(s) may appeal to the vice president or chief financial officer  (CFO) for that area."  Is the intent that the appropriate cabinet level person receive the appeal, or that a student can shop around for the most favorable venue?   Is there a specific VP in mind? 

4)  Step  III refers to a Step II meeting, but the details of such a meeting are deleted.

 Typos and Minor editorial changes:

Section 3 A, paragraph 1, line 1  "Whenever any student(s)” should read "When a student or students"

Section 3. B. Paragraph 1, line 5:  Remove the comma after "faculty".

Section 3. B. Paragraph 2, line 2:  Remove the comma after "grievance".

General Statement of Policy:  This is numbered incorrectly.  It should be 4 (not 2).  Also, the word "OF" should be capitalized.

 The administration will be sending a 2^nd draft to address PP & G comments.  DWK stated that the review process should incorporate whatever Faculty Senate deems as the most efficient process.

4.         Online Education Committee

 The administration was informed that Faculty Senate approved the following OEC charge.

1. Define online education, including the purposes of online education.

2. Recommend how administrative and department units across campus may collaborate to support online education. (registration, tuition payment, etc.).

3. Develop guidelines for assessing the quality of online courses.

4. Recommend to FA contract changes to support online teaching.

5. Develop a framework for inclusion of online education in the WSU web portal.

6. Develop guidelines for assessing the quality of online programs.

7. Review and communicate MnSCU and WSU intellectual property rights.

 The administration was also informed of the following Senate comments regarding online education:

1.         Some students are being told that they cannot take online courses if live on campus.  Lee Gray stated that all students should be allowed to take online courses for credit and will make sure that this issue is addressed within the charge of the committee.

2.         Have heard that on some campuses, some students take all their courses online and never have to leave their dorms.  Students should not be doing this.

 The administration received the information.           

 5.            Teacher Education Supervision Documents

 

The administration was informed of Faculty Senate’s confirmation that the Teacher Supervision load information is in the IFO contract and thus required for Meet and Confer information.

 Dean Gorman provided the WSUFA exec’s with an updated document for the Spring 2005 Education Student Teacher Supervision information.

  

6.            Interim Dean of Education

The administration was informed that Faculty Senate would like information on whether the interim Dean of Education position would be filled by another dean or solicitation to faculty.

 Administration responses/comments:

1.         DWK stated that none of the Deans wished to (nor should they) take the interim position for Spring.

2.         DWK stated that the position should be filled by an Education faculty member recommended from a three-faculty committee.  Prefer to have just three (for ease of work) but if the committee needs to have one faculty per department, or include Grad Ed faculty, or also include specialty studies, then committee composition could be bigger.  After WSUFA solicitation, the committee would forward two to three recommendations to the administration for final decision.

3.         Would like to have interim appointment by early January.

 Exec's stated that Faculty Senate will speed up the process via electronic votes.  After Meet and Confer, exec's agreed that electronic solicitation of faculty could begin immediately, with a reminder during the first duty days in January.

 

7.         Dates for PDP/PDR

 The administration was informed that Faculty Senate requested that PDP/PDR dates be adjusted somewhat so that they do not fall during finals or spring break.

 The administration agreed and requested that Faculty Senate can suggest different dates.

  

8.         GLBTA Advocate

 The administration was informed that Faculty Senate requested the GLBTA Committee to work on a position description for a GLBTA advocate and to present it at the 1/24/05 Senate meeting, with solicitation of an advocate to occur after that.

 The administration acknowledged the information and thanked the WSUFA.           

  

9.         Pre-registration Issues

 An All-University e-mail was sent by Athletic Director Larry Holstad explaining that the request for the experimental trial of allowing about 1/3 of student athletes the opportunity to registrar early for their spring classes was due to the tight scheduling of facility spaces/times for academic courses, for athletic teams’ practice and competition, and for student recreation times.  The e-mail also stated that experiment didn't work as well as it was intended and therefore Larry Holstad will be recommending that athletes register in the normal fashion (according to credits earned).

 

The one reason (tight scheduling) given by Larry Holstad in the e-mail was contrary to what the administration claimed.  (12/6/04 M/C notes:  Larry Holstad provided reasons for the request but the administration cannot remember what all the reasons were!)

 MSK reminded the administration that Faculty Senate would like to address further the issues of pre-registration (ie. pre-req's, class availability, etc.).   VP-Richardson could be invited to attend the Faculty Senate meeting in January to discuss the issues. 

 WSUFA comments/questions:

1.            Changes should be brought to Meet and Confer.

2.            Allowing priority registration to student athletes affected classes.  It MUST BE go through a Meet and Confer process.

3.         Can we notify MnSCU that WSU would like to apply pre-req’s in our web- registration process?

4.            WSUFA will address pre-req issue at the State-wide IFO Meet and Confer. 

 Administration comments/responses:

1.         DWK stated that he was informed of the decision by VP-Richardson.  DWK stated that VP-Richardson received the pilot run from Larry Holstad and thought it was a good idea.

2.         DWK agreed that giving student athletes priority registration status not only gave the impression of favoritism but also didn't help with scheduling.

3.         DWK agreed that it was a mistake that this issue was NOT brought to Meet and Confer.

4.         Several administrators, including VP-Whetstone, stated that there doesn't seem to be a real easy way to couple the WSU DARS/registration software with the MnSCU registration system.  Some faculty in the College of Business have laboriously attempted to apply pre-req’s using their own spreadsheets.

5.         VP-Whetstone stated that if faculty can work with Glenn Peterson and come up with pre-req suggestions, he could take it to MnSCU as an IT priority.

6.         Bigger issue is that there is a System movement in trying to homogenize the Admissions process for all institutions. [Carl Stange knows about the situation and could be asked to come to a Senate meeting to explain the situation.] 

7.         MnSCU Office would like to take control of all business practices.  Since business practices can infer either freedom of operation (or not), centralization/homogenization of MnSCU institutional business practices could mean less freedom of operation for individual campuses.

8.         MN-Online is also one of the driving forces in making everything the same.  (i.e. registration, admission, business office, etc...grading scale?!)

9.         There appears to be an initiative to homogenize the system.  MnSCU believes this could save money!  Though institutions could lose individuality. 

10.       Online courses at WSU (the largest in the System) should be referred to as Web-Assisted courses.

11.       DWK felt that the IFO is being left out of the many MnSCU policy making process.

  

10.            Assistant Registrar Position

 Donna Heyer will be retiring at the end of the Spring 2005 semester.   Disasters on department class scheduling could happen if her replacement is not properly trained or fully familiar with the system.   MSK queried the administration on their plans in replacing her position.

 Administration comments/responses:

1.         VP-Richardson is not present at this meeting to answer the question.

2.         DWK believed that there is a search.

3.         Will get back to the WSUFA ASAP.