WSU FACULTY SENATE MEETING

January 14, 2002

Senators Present: Matt Bosworth, David Bratt, Marianna Byman, Narayan Debnath, Darrell Downs, Mark Engen, Matthew Hyle, Colette Hyman, Mary Kesler, Cindy Killion, Daniel Lintin, Christa Matter, Peter Miene, Bill Ng, Christine Pilon-Kacir (in Rochester), Frances Ragsdale, Susanne Smith, Jo Stejskal, Cathy Summa, Bruce Svingen, Paul Vance, Kerry Williams.

Senators Absent: Sara Barbor, Danning Bloom, Pat Ferden (spring sabbatical), Joe Jackson, Alex Yard.

Others Present: Sharon Tucker (Roch), Mary Proksch (Roch), Christine Clements (Roch), Dean Nancy Jannik, Linda Seppanen, Pauline Christensen.

David Bratt called the meeting to order at 3:03 p.m.

II. Approval of minutes of December 10, 2001 Senate Meeting

D. Lintin/B. Svingen moved to approve minutes of Dec. 10^th as written.

III. Agenda Additions/Revisions and Approval:

Additions:

Com-G: Social

Com-H: Negotiator

NB-C: LINK initiative (3:45)

M. Kesler/C. Killion moved to approve agenda items.

IV. President's Report

D. Bratt reported:

1. Southwest State plans to reopen around the end of January, following a fire in the food service building.

2. I have received a thank-you card from Dean Gaspar for the FA memorial, sent on the occasion of his father's death.

3. Matt Hyle and I held a couple of meetings with faculty to answer questions about the status of negotiations. (The meetings were also attended by students assigned to cover the meeting as part of their News-writing class) I will also notify chairs that Matt and I are available to discuss this or other subjects with departments.

4. Approximately 10 faculty have expressed interest in attending the Delegate Assembly (WSU is authorized to have about 25). Deadline is February 1. Senators are encouraged to attend. Date is March 22-23 (11 am Fri - 3 p.m. Sat).

5. IFO President Jim Pehler plans to visit WSU 2/18.

6. The first meeting of the All-University Budget Task Force was held today at noon. Not much was done. General info on university budget pictures was given. These are open meetings.

7. The Student Affairs (Student Appeals) Committee could use more members; I have placed this item on the agenda.

8. The Governor's Capital Budget was released today: $746M total, $135M to MnSCU ($35M of which for HEAPR), $30M for WSU new Science Building (#6 in MnSCU priority), $19M for Moorhead new Science Building (#7 in MnSCU priority), and $1.9M for system-wide laboratory renovations.

9. Info on Accredited programs in MnSCU needs to be checked/verified.

 

Revision: Thursday instead of Monday in title.

Meet and Confer Notes received by Senate.

A. A2C2

No report

B. Graduate Council

Credit by Portfolio proposal re-visited:

The Graduate Council, at their 11/27/01 meeting, approved the proposal by the College of Nursing Master's degree program to provide graduate credit by portfolio.

Summary of Proposal: The nursing department will allow students to earn graduate credits if they can show by portfolio that they have met or exceeded the requirements for any M.S. level Nursing course in their program. The student must first, register for the course, then present their portfolio. If upon review the portfolio is not accepted, the student continues to take the course as registered.

This proposal was postponed till this Senate meeting (until info/clarification on how credits/requirements can be met by students in the program can be answered). Senate also requested that a knowledgeable member of the proposal be present at this Senate meeting.

The full documentation for this proposal was attached in the Senate packet.

Pauline Christensen, Sharon Tucker (Roch), Mary Proksch (Roch), and Linda Seppanen were present to answer questions.

Comments/Questions:

1. Is it possible to satisfy every course by portfolio? No. Max 15% of total credits.

2. What are common practice with other programs at other univ's? Yes, there are others.

3. Does this duplicate "credit by exam" policy at WSU? Credit by portfolio would provide a broader and better details, certainly could provide more info than just one exam.

4. Graduate courses are different than UG courses, not easily compared/judged by just one exam.

C. Government Relations (statewide and local)

Darrell Downs briefly reported:

Good news is the large Capital Bonding bill proposed by the Governor, but operating budget is still a big problem.

The Governor's "Big Fix" proposes a $32 million reduction in MnSCU funding for FY 2003 (5%), followed by the same cuts in FY 2004 and FY 2005. The Governor stated that he would exercise his un-allotment powers to make cuts in appropriated funds unless the legislature comes up with a balanced budget proposal by the end of the first week of February. If a stalemate over taxes emerges in the legislature, the Governor may be in a position where he would have to un-allot much more that what he proposed in the "Big Fix." The details of the Governor's proposal can be found at:

http://morefinance.state.mn.us/budget/operating/2003/recommendations.pdf

No report.

E. Committee on Committees

Committee on Committees recommends that the following members be appointed to the Student Affairs Committee:

Don Wistrcill - PER

Troy Paino - History

Carole Madland - Social Work

Carol Galbus - English

Matt Hyle - Econ/Finance

Maggie McDermott - AIS

F. Treasurer

Darrell Downs presented WSU FA expenditures for Fall 2002.

B. Ng/B. Svingen moved to accept Treasurer's Report for Fall (1^st and 2^nd Quarters) FY2002.

G. Social

Cindy Killion reported:

Tickets are still available for the Feb. 2^nd Dinner and Dance (cash bar before) at the Quality Inn. Oh yah, there will be great door prizes! Get your tickets now! Encourage your colleagues! NO...you don't have to (or know how to) dance!

H. Negotiator

Matt Hyle reported:

1. Scheduled Feb. 1st, and 21st meetings at our request.

2. Inform your colleagues that the best time to voice your input on negotiation items is by going to the Delegate Assembly. Resolutions are made at the Delegate Assembly and are put into the next negotiation sessions.

 

VII. Old Business

A. USS/A2C2 recommendation re. substitution of courses in USP

Senate approved the following A2C2 recommendations at the last Senate meeting:

USS recommendation (a): Under the USP, no substitution of WSU courses will be allowed. Courses not approved for the USP cannot be substituted for USP credit, nor can USP courses approved in one USP category be substituted for credit in another USP category.

USS recommendation (b): Student appeals of WSU Transfer Coordinator decisions regarding USP credit or course substitution will be forwarded to the USS for review and subsequent recommendation to A2C2.

At the Dec. 13 Meet and Confer, the administration expressed their concern for the absolute nature of recommendation (a). They commented that Rec. (a) could be acceptable if understanding is that there might be exceptions (since old Gen Ed system allowed it). They suggested Faculty Senate re-consider Rec. (a), perhaps put in language to remove "no" from Rec. (a) or add "Generally" in front of "no substitution..."

M. Hyle/B. Svingen moved to refer Rec. (a) back to A2C2 for its re-consideration.

VIII. New Business

A. Science Building presentation (Dean Jannik--3:30)

Dean Jannik gave a presentation to Faculty Senate detailing the present status of WSU"s proposal for a new Science Building. The presentation included posters on schematics, 3D renderings, and floor plans.

1. Faculty spent last 18 months on design schematics.

2. Different WSU constituencies have been or will be updated.

3. New facility will have an atrium/lobby area with bluff rock interiors. This area will be a feature meeting space for the university community.

4. New science building contains all wet labs, Remodeled Pasteur will be dry labs (including innovative elementary science labs) and offices. Even with new and remodeled Pasteur, Natural Science will still be under space according to National Standards.

5. Natural Science faculty made the difficult choice of keeping offices in Pasteur. A sacrifice that will provide maximum benefit of new Science Building for student use, a very good selling point for legislators.

Comments/Questions:

1. Entrances should be designed with grand views.

2. New Science Building is Phase 1 at $30M, Phase 2 is Renovated Pasteur at ~$10M.

3. Lighting in new science building will not be excessive.

4. New Science building will be connected to Stark and Pasteur. There are slight height differences between floors of the three buildings.

5. New auditorium can hold 192 students.

6. PA120 will be replaced by the auditorium. PA120 and some offices will need to be moved and replaced almost as soon as WSU gets the bonding money. A concern that is being addressed by the administration already.

7. Parking space problem is being studied. One remedy could involve using nearby church parking lots.

8. Neighborhood associations have been placed on VP's agenda for community contact and info gathering.

 

B. Reassigned time report

Faculty Senators received documents on Faculty Reassignments for contractual reassigned and non-contractual reassigned times. These documents have NOT been reviewed by the administrators. The three documents are:

1. Director/Coordinator Release Time

2. Chairperson Release Time

3. Other Release Time

The data on these documents came directly from faculty contracts.

Comments:

1. Total = ~35 full-time faculty.

2. ~117 different reassignments.

3. Some data are missing and some are incorrect.

Faculty Senate moved to ask at Meet and Confer for rational in which only certain departments receive certain types of reassignments; such as Accreditation, Student Research, and Informal Lab. How do/can other departments get them?

B. Ng/C. Summa requests to send Reassigned Reports to department chairs.

C. LINK Initiative and Innovation Teams (Assoc. VP Clements 3:58)

Assoc. VP Clements was present to discuss a proposal describing UCR partners (WSU-RC, RCTC, UM-Roch) working with GRAUC on a LearnIng NetworK Initative. The proposal is to support the creation of a program that would benchmark best practices and facilitate the creation of public/private partnerships that would develop new learning opportunities for in-career working adults.

To achieve the initiative goals faculty input and involvement are needed. Faculty are needed to work with discipline specific (Business/Agribusiness, Health related, Technology & Education) Innovation Teams. There will be one faculty member on each of the innovation teams. The faculty representation will be shared by the three institutions. So we would anticipate one to two faculty total from WSU.

Faculty Role: The faculty will work with continuing education representatives from one of the UCR partners and industry leaders within the Innovation Teams. Additionally, teams will have approximately 10-15 industry representatives. The faculty will serve as content experts and as a resource to innovative best practices in learning for their specific discipline. (Fixed term, probationary, and tenured faculty from both Rochester and Winona campuses are eligible to apply.)

Expectations: The faculty will need to attend Innovation team meetings which will be approximately every 4-6 weeks during the 2002 calendar year. Meetings will take place at a location identified by the team. (somewhere in SE Minnesota) Faculty will also be expected to attend the Best-Practices Conference in the Fall of 2002 (Rochester, MN) and facilitate working groups. Additionally, the faculty member will be involved in creating a collaborative partnership program for their specific industry.

Rewards: Those selected to participate in the LINK project will be paid the equivalent of ten duty days for participation in the 2002 calendar year (Spring, Summer & Fall). The faculty member will have the opportunity to participate in an industry-based learning initiative. Research and publishing options are also possible.

Assoc. VP Clements would like Faculty Senate to endorse WSU faculty participation on "innovation teams" charged with identifying best practices in the delivery of education to "in-career" and adult students in four specific discipline areas (Business, Health, Technology, Education).

Comments:

1. Assoc. VP Clements could/would send out e-mail to solicit faculty volunteers.

J. Stejskal/C. Killion moved for Faculty Senate endorsement of WSU faculty participation on "Innovation Teams" in the LINK proposal.

NB-D. Senate Package Information Items (It's only 4:15...It's way too early for Senate meeting to end...Senators don't want to leave...why not make more work for the secretary!)

1. State University Accreditation Affiliations By Institution

Several Senators pointed out that the document contains many errors, such as programs that are accredited at WSU but are missing. D. Bratt will check/verify.

2. MnSCU Educational Policy on Course Syllabi

Course outcome (s) terminology is confusing! Will there be a MnSCU Police looking at course syllabi?

C. Hyman/M. Hyle moved to send "Proposed Amendment to MnSCU Board Policy: Educational Policies - Course Syllabi" to the IFO Academic Affairs committee.

Faculty Senate adjourned at 4:25 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Bill Ng.