University Senate Agenda

March 3, 2008 Meeting

Memorandum

Date:                   April 3, 2008

To:                       The Academic Community

From:                   Jennifer Ballengee, Secretary

Subject:             March 3, 2008—Meeting of the University Senate

The sixth regular meeting of the University Senate was held on Monday, March 3, 2008, at 4:00 p.m. in Rooms 314-315 of the University Union.

• CALL TO ORDER

• ROLL CALL

Absent were Senators Bergman, Webster, and Porter, as well as President Caret, Vice President Moriarty, Vice President Sheehan, and Vice President Rubin.

• APPROVAL OF AGENDA

The Senate unanimously approved the Agenda.

• APPROVAL OF MINUTES from February 4, 2008 meeting

The Senate unanimously approved the Minutes (Prof. Siegel will send minor changes).

• REPORTS OF EX OFFICIO SENATORS

Provost’s report:

School of Business accreditation: COBE got the best ranking it possibly could, came out with flying colors.  Accounting also got a continuation of their accreditation.  COE:  Tom Proffitt in COE received awards for outstanding contributions to teacher education as part of continuing education outreach. 

Admissions and Enrollment numbers for Fall:  Total applications for 2008: over 17,500, up 13%. Minority applications up 20%. African-American students up 20%.  Profile of applicants is excellent. Projected growth next year is about 500 FTE. TU gets 1/3 of the growth in the System. 

Budget request for FY 2009: all of the requests are for increases to our existing base budget.

Merit and compensation task force:

That task force has officially been formed. All ranks, colleges, represented.  The Provost is requesting a report by April. 

Trimester: 

A taskforce is looking at this as well; they’ve been meeting once a week. They’ll identify courses for this summer by next week and publish those. They’ll continue meeting over the next year or so as the issues connected with this emerge.

Faculty Forum:

This used to come out about once a month, highlighting achievements of faculty.  E-TU seems to have taken its place, but this has a different focus. TU is having discussions about how to bring this back.

Provost’s Lecture Series:

Once a semester, or once a year, we’ll bring in a well-known person to speak. 

Prof. Vatz speculated that at least the merit and compensation committee might make recommendations about specific problems that should be addressed, with a fuller report to follow later.  Prof. Sullivan pointed out that there are several components to this conversation: merit policy, how to address compression, how merit raises are determined, etc.  Prof. Siegel indicated that she felt it would be best to come up with a whole policy, rather than piecemeal recommendations.  Prof. Rosecky pointed out that his department is having a problem hiring people with the low salaries they can offer.  Prof. Zimmerman raised the possibility of reconsidering the levels of merit.  Prof. Siegel recommended that we approve Chap. 3 of the Faculty Handbook before changing it.  The Provost suggested that the task force focus on Merit money determination and salary compression for this particular report.  Prof.. McLucas noted that the situation that Prof. Rosecky mentioned about lack of competitive salary offers is true across the university.  Senator Porter asked how the committee would address the problem; from the current budget request? The Provost said yes.  Prof. Sullivan asked if there is a target for TT faculty; we currently have 545. Is there a target for the next academic year? Net gain for next year is 45 TT faculty; as long as we increase enrollment, we should go up 25-40 per year, with quality faculty, the Provost answered.

• REPORTS OF OFFICERS OF THE SENATE

CUSF Report:  Prof. Siegel

Prof. Siegel announced that she had nothing to report.

AAUP Report:  Prof. McLucas:

Prof. McLucas noted that there is a problem with reviewing promotion and tenure questions until Chap. 3 is approved, so he urged that process to be finalized.

He announced the Second Friday Event for March:  Friday, March 14, Burkshire:  Prof. Sullivan will be leading discussion, an economic reading of The Wizard of Oz.

SGA Report, Senator Haley:

SGA was vocal on the Free Speech Policy; they now have student representation on the committee.  Isaac’s been working hard in Annapolis.  Tiger Pride day last Wednesday went well.  Isaac reported on three bills in Annapolis addressing textbooks:  Placing ISBN numbers for books; disclosure of sales of textbooks: requiring publishers to inform faculty of prices available for textbooks; opposing larger bill which requires a “slew” of things. Parts of it are really unenforceable.  He’s trying to put together a task force to remedy textbook situation without so many laws from Annapolis.  Senator Haley is looking at reserving a section of the library for textbooks; SGA has heard much faculty opposition to that. 

Prof. Siegel said that CUSF looked at that textbook bill and annotated many of the problems with it.  Provost Clements announced that he attended Tiger Pride day; it’s the best he’s attended, since he’s been here.  The legislature complimented the outstanding work they did on their legislative agenda. Prof. Knutsen asked for elaboration on library/textbook plan.  The idea is that professors acquire textbooks for the library.  Prof. Knutsen asked if this would be subsidized by the library budget. The answer was no.  Prof. Knutsen suggested that the money for that should come from somewhere else: departments, colleges, etc.  Prof. Sullivan asked about cost of sending textbooks back.  Isaac said the cost is prohibitive.  A long discussion about this ensued, emphasizing the fact that the cost is mostly out of professors’ hands, but the problem is really connected to the publishers, who have a significant profit-margin on these books, and who make old editions unavailable, etc.; the bookstore also makes a profit on books. Prof. Knutsen suggested that faculty should be informed of this problem and of possible solutions; she also suggested that research should be done on which publishers are making the most profits and that information should be disseminated.  Prof. Siegel pointed out that it’s a very complex issue that should be considered carefully. Prof. Zimmerman pointed out that the Senate should move on with its agenda.

Prof. Sullivan noted that Prof. Bergman is on sabbatical leave this semester.  Someone needs to take his place on the UPTRM Committee. Prof. Knutsen volunteered.

• NEW BUSINESS

• Motion 07/08-16: 

Accept the Annual Report of the Intercollegiate Athletics Committee (attached).

              (Senate Executive Committee)

Prof. Berkeley was present to answer questions. Prof. Brown asked if the committee had anything to do with the Athletic budget.  Prof. Berkeley said they review the budget.  Prof. Brown noted that faculty salaries are low compared to other universities. He asked how athletics compares. Prof. Berkeley answered that TU salaries are significantly lower than at peer institutions.  Provost Clements pointed out that the student athletes graduated 11 percentage points higher than the rest of the student body; he recommended that we recognize that.  Provost Clements noted that the entire university budget is online; it can be found under the Administration and Finance website.

The motion carried 18-0-0.

• Motion 07/08-17:

Accept the Annual Report of the Library Advisory Committee (attached).

              (Senate Executive Committee)

Prof. Siegel noted that there’s a recommendation in the report for a change in the committee’s charge (on pg. 6).  She asked about this change and asked that the member at-large urge that this come to the Senate before the end of the year. Prof. Zimmerman said he will pass on the message.

The motion carried 18-0-0.

• Motion 07/08-18:

Accept the Annual Report of the Faculty Development and Research Committee (FDRC) (attached).

              (Senate Executive Committee)

Prof. Siegel asked whether money that goes into the Towson foundation funds come from there for faculty development and travel.  Is there any way to see whether any of the money donated to the foundation comes back to faculty? Mary-Louise Healey responded that there’s nothing that we know of that comes from the Foundation. The Provost said that this is an important question. He said that next month VP Rubin will be here to talk about the foundation and how it comes out on the Academic side of things.  He suggested we raise this question next month.  Prof. Burks asked what the average numbers of applications are, now that there’s been some decentralization of funding. She said it looks like less people are applying.  Mary-Louise noted that now applications are not for travel money, only for research and teaching innovation. She said that the number of applications is growing.  Provost Clements noted that he requested $500 additional for faculty members for travel money.  Prof. Guerrero asked if the committee looks at department proportion; Mary-Louise said that they do at end of semester, but it does not determine how awards are made.

The motion carried 18-0-0.

• Motion 07/08-19:

Accept Revisions to the Constitution of the College of Business and Economics (attached).

              (Senate Executive Committee)

Prof. Rosecky noted that the better part of a year has gone into these revisions.  There are still some problems: for example, no by-laws. Nevertheless, he added, this constitution was pretty much unanimously accepted by the CBE College Council.

The motion carried 17-0-0.

• Point of Information:

Transfer of Human Resources Development graduate program from Department of Family Studies to the Department of Psychology.

              (Senate Executive Committee)

• Motion 07/08-20:

Advise that the Towson Administration table implementation of proposed Free Speech Policy until reviewed by University Counsel, followed by a report to the University Senate and Senate approval of the document.

(Text of proposed policy is available at the following URL:  http://www.thetowerlight.com/media/paper957/documents/u12ud1zs.pdf)

              (Senate Executive Committee)

Senator Haley passed out revision passed on 2/25/08.  Prof. Sullivan noted that the “Time, Place, and Manner.”  Prof. Sullivan introduced Prof. Michael Downs, non-fiction professor for the English department. Prof. Downs pointed out that his concern with the document was with Constitutional First Amendment rights and conflicts with the document presented here.  Time, Place, and Manner is reviewed in courts in terms of specific criteria, specifically content: there can’t be anything that says specific content is inappropriate.  But the problem here is in terms of the specificity of the regulations.  According to the courts, regulations cannot be overly broad or vague.  In other court cases, number of feet and yards are indicated; in the TU document, the limitations on place are overly vague and might not stand up to court scrutiny.  In addition, there needs to be more than one person overseeing the policy. In previous cases, cases have been thrown out because only one person overseeing public safety is not enough.  In TUs policy “maintenance of order” is the term used (rather than public safety), but this term is vague; and only two people are overseeing it.  As a free speech proponent, the requirement that literature must not be anonymous seems of concern—for example, the Federalist Papers were anonymous.  He expressed the hope that whoever is promoting this policy will take careful legal consideration of this in this policy. 

Senator Haley provided a brief background; SGA was concerned that the document was created without any student involvement until the working draft was in place.  She also pointed out that the initial draft was confusing; it seemed as if protests could only happen at Democracy Plaza.  SGA also had a problem with the fact that only one person was in charge of approval or disapproval of protests and demonstrations. 

Prof. Zimmerman noted that there are still major troubling problems in the new documents.  He noted that University Counsel would have issues with even the new document.  Prof. McLucas noted that there are obvious procedural problems in the document; he expressed support for the Senate motion.  He suggested that we amend the motion to correspond with the title of the new draft:  “Time, Place, and Manner” Policy.  Senator Castillo noted that we should also consider the possibility of enforcing such policies.  Prof. Knutsen applauded the SGA for tackling this issue.  Prof. Siegel suggested that the Senate take an active role in this, perhaps forming an ad hoc committee and consulting with the national AAUP.

Prof. Siegel asked to amend the motion to include Senate. Prof. Zimmerman state that the motion should then state that members of Senate be included in the creation of that document. 

New motion: 

Advise that the Towson Administration table implementation of proposed “Time, Place, and Manner” Policy, that Senate members should be included in the revision of the document, that the final draft should be reviewed by University Counsel, and that then the policy should be placed before the Senate before final approval by the University. 

The motion carried 19-0-0.

• Motion 07/08-21:

Recommend that the standardized testing portion of the Voluntary Student Assessment program (pg. 5 in the sample document of the VSA distributed at 02/04/08 Senate meeting) not be implemented at the present time.

              (Senate Executive Committee)

Provost Clements clarified that the VSA document has three sections: the first is information already publicized, the second is on student engagement; the third section is the one up for discussion.  The third section is optional; the choice of what data to report is at the institution’s discretion, and might include reports on program assessment, etc.  He clarified that the motion indicates that we are not ready to decide upon including the third section, or what aspects of the third section should be included.  Prof. Siegel noted that there is now a large FIPC grant that will look at these standardized tests to show what they show and what they don’t show.  Prof. Siegel asked if we’re committed to being part of the system-wide sampling, or is there going to be some participation of TU in the FIPC program.  Provost Clements said that he hasn’t heard anything about TU being asked to participate in the FIPC grant.  Prof. Sullivan said that our participation in the program needs to wait until we understand more clearly exactly what the third part entails.  Prof. Siegel suggested adding that “We are not opposed to participating in the first two sections of the VSA; we are simply opposed to the third section, at least until what it entails is more clear.”

New Motion:

Recommend supporting the first two sections of the VSA, but recommend that the standardized testing section of the Voluntary Student Assessment program (section 3) not be implemented at the present time.

The motion carried 19-0-0.

• Discussion Item:

Common Student Evaluations. (sample documents attached separately)

              (Senate Executive Committee)

Cathy Doherty was present to speak to questions.  Prof. Pitcher asked where this came from.  Ms. Doherty explained that the first version came from CBE; the instrument that came from that college was the basis for the current evaluation. The effort in her office to produce this document, came from faculty concerns that she encountered in which faculty didn’t hear about their evaluations, and some departments gave evaluations and some did not.  These were casual conversations and not documented.  The initiative grew with extensive feedback from faculty who were participating in the study.  There is no policy, she said, that mandates that all departments use this common evaluation.  She handed out a history of this policy.  When it was administered in the Spring, it was really administered for information on the pilot itself. Statistical data reports on that pilot are posted on the assessment website.  In the second semester (fall 06), 8 departments participated.  Early in the process she was invited to meet with the PTRM Committee; her impression was that they were not in favor of a course evaluation instrument, but that they were interested in three questions. These questions are represented on the instrument as the three overall questions.  During the first two semesters of the pilot, they worked with a statistical data service to provide statistical, user-friendly instrument. The current evaluation is a reflection of that template.  The evaluations are sent to departments for each course, section, and faculty.  The form is scannable, answers are entered directly on the form (reducing possibility for error); in addition to the multiple choice section there are four written questions. Those forms are removed by the department’s administrative assistant and returned to the faculty as soon as grades are posted (they never go to the assessment office).  Once the data is compiled, it is returned to department chair.  Data includes: data for course, data for all courses in department, data by college, and overall institutional data.  In Spring 2007, they added 5 blank questions; the department has the option of adding up to 5 department-specific questions.  There is also the option of using these questions for faculty-specific questions. 

Prof. Pitcher asked whether departments voted on being included in this pilot.  Prof. Cox noted that these were not discussed by departments. 

Prof. Vatz asked what the point at issue was in this conversation.  Prof. Sullivan responded that faculty across the university have been asking about this pilot, asking about common evaluations, etc.  He noted that to provide evaluations from a central location is abrogating the right of departments. In addition, it’s not a good evaluation; for ex., “I worked hard in this course.”  Prof. Rosecky expressed disapproval of course evaluations, in general.  In addition, evaluations can be influenced by grade inflation.  He suggested that the evaluations need faculty participation.  Ms. Doherty noted that she did discuss the evaluation with faculty.  Prof. Zimmerman said that she stated the evaluations were voluntary, but they were not presented in his department as voluntary.  He then asked what the plans are for this evaluation. Will it be mandatory for everyone at the university? She said there are no such plans for that.  She said her office is doing it as a service for departments who want to participate.  Prof. Zimmerman:  Will these replace departmental evaluations? Ms. Doherty:  This is a departmental decision.  Prof. Pitcher asked to clarify Ms. Doherty’s claim that the evaluation was approved by the UPTRM.  Prof. Pitcher also raised an issue with means for judging faculty. Ms. Doherty noted that originally they had frequencies, but departments asked for means.  Prof. Cox noted that the UPTRM was asked to review the evaluations; they responded that they were opposed to the document.  The committee then recommended that if the university went to this common evaluation, they recommended that the three overall items only be included.  They hoped it would come before the Senate, because basically they were opposed. 

The Provost clarified three questions:  a.) the form was developed by participating faculty, not by her; b.) it is not being required that everyone in the university use this form; c.) her office is not suggesting that everyone in the university use this form.  He added that he is concerned that departments and faculty may be being forced to use this instrument.  If a department has voted on the issue, he is okay with it; but otherwise he has an issue.  Prof. McLucas seconded this concern; if faculty are being asked to use a form without having voted on it, the problem should be raised with the department. Prof. Siegel suggested that perhaps some of the concern would be alleviated if there were a document or form indicating how this information would be used.  Prof. Zimmerman stated that there is no plan to make this a university-wide policy, he has no objection to it. But if someone comes along and decides that it should be university-wide, this could be a problem.  Prof. Tabak suggested that future discussion should clarify how this evaluation is going to be used.  Prof. Vatz reiterated the correspondence of student evaluations and grade-inflation. 

• OLD BUSINESS

• Discussion Item:

Intellectual Property Issues.

              (Senate Executive Committee)

Prof. Sullivan adjourned the meeting a 6:20 PM.