May 3, 2010 Senate Minutes

University Senate

Memorandum

Date: September 16, 2010

To: The Academic Community

From: Sharon Pitcher, Secretary to the Senate

Subject: Minutes of the May 3, 2010 - Meeting of the University Senate

The eighth regular meeting of the University Senate was held on Monday, May 3, 2010, at 4:00 p.m. in Rooms 314-315 of the University Union.

CALL TO ORDER
ROLL CALL - Vice President Brasington was absent.
APROVAL OF AGENDA - – Approved unanimously
APPROVAL OF MINUTES FOR April, 2010 - – Approved unanimously
REPORTS OF EX OFFICIO SENATORS

President Caret

Nothing new on the budget – Besides the furloughs, everyone has been protective of education in comparison to what other states have done.
Where we took significant cuts was on reserve funds, which we use for collateral on bonds and cash reserve for small projects. Over $142 million has been taken out of our reserve fund, which is 20% of the funds We are now down to $530 million. The system made it clear that making more cuts to the fund balance was not wise, so hopefully this will not be done again. By using the fund balance, it does help to maintain a more solid base budget since the fund balance cut does not affect the base budget.
None of us are happy about the furloughs. After three years of furloughs, the system is going to be more aggressive about how this is not a way to fix the budget in the future. The requirements for the furloughs next year will be similar to this year. He will be getting back to Senate and AAUP about the plans before implementing them.
Also, there will be no salary increases or cola. The system has tightened loopholes. The only exception is if a faculty member gets a better offer from another campus, but this will be used rarely. Individuals, who are paid by a self-support contract from the Federal Government, may be an exception.
Debbie Nolan presented to the Consortium of Libraries today on our plans for the future and she represented us well.
Professor Vatz asked why we are the second lowest funded institution in the system. President Caret answered that research institutions are always funded at higher levels. Many of the other campuses have issues that require higher funding than we are getting. We historically end up in this position because of the amount of students that we have. We improved our status with growth projection. Seven years ago we were 70% (TU)/30% (State) funded and now we are 60/40. We are trying to change this to 40/60 (State funding). We continue to fight to change the balance. The argument is that our students are socio-economically better able to handle the tuition burden. One of the major agendas in the state and nation as a whole is to get to 55% with college education in 2018. We are able to more inexpensively do this than any other institution in the state. We are trying to show the state if they give us more of a subsidy, we could handle more students, cheaper and better.
Professor Siegel expressed concern that a plan for furloughs was going to be made and then presented to the Senate and AAUP. She requested that a representative from both organizations should be part of the decision on how these decisions are going to be made. She also shared a concerned about the post secondary education goals that incorporated expansions for some USM schools, but, in the white paper she saw, tenure track faculty were not mentioned. She is concerned that tenure track faculty will be asked to carry more of load with fewer tenure track faculty to do it. She stressed that students benefit from tenure track faculty that are involved in research. President Caret answered in a recent retreat he requested that the Provost prepare a report on how much instruction is done by the core faculty: tenured, lecturers, and adjuncts. We used to try to maintain a 70/30 ratio, but with these budget constraints, we are below this. We made a commitment when we had dollars to work on this. We are now about 30 faculty below this number. We were on track to replace 1% a year with full time faculty before the budget cuts.
Professor Ballengee, AAUP, pointed out that there needs to be a distinction between tenure-track faculty and lecturers. Lecturers with large teaching loads are not able to do research. She also asked about promotion money and President Caret responded that promotion raises are in the budget.

Provost Welsh

We have a new faculty and staff portal. This is a very effective way to communicate with each other. She encourages everyone to use it and give input. She passed out information about the portal.
The Advising Center, Achievement Center, Registrar Office and Associate Provost Dennison have written new guidelines for accepting developmental courses from other two or four year colleges. These courses do not carry credit. This is just an issue to make sure our students can get courses that are convenient for them.
Professor Siegel asked if we are looking at how rigorous these courses are. Associate Provost reported that the tests and courses looked at were as rigorous as our courses and the students will be required to present a transcript with a passing or satisfactory grade. Provost Welsh commented that most of the community colleges do an excellent job with these courses.
Final exam week is approaching. Provost Welsh stressed that the final exam week is counted in teaching hours required by our accrediting body. It is not fair to students if courses do not meet during that exam week.
Provost Welsh shared that she has received many questions about the site visit team coming from Middle States and rumors that the self-study was not good. She stressed that this was not the case. We received an administrative delay so she could be more comfortable that everything was in line before they came. In the process, it was found that some paper work was not completed mostly dealing with off-campus programs. This does not reflect on the quality of programs or faculty, but the paper work was not done in a timely fashion. We just want to make sure that we have everything in place before they come. She is working with Middle States to make sure everything is in order and trying to schedule the visit for possibly the beginning of spring semester. We will have to do some updates to the self-study, but the report is in good shape.

Vice President Sheehan

The amount that we will give back next year from furloughs will be almost the same as this year. Next year, though, we will be able to spread it over 26 weeks instead of 18 weeks.
The operating budget looks good. He hopes it will stay this way, but he does not expect that it will. Numbers will probably go from good to bad by September.
He is even more concerned about the following year because the state will not get Federal stimulus money. We will not have fund balance to give back in 2012 so then we may have more cuts to operations in the future unless the economy approves.

Vice President Moriarity

Her staff is now planning for students in the Fall. They will be moving in on August 21 and new student convocation will be August 23.
It has been an incredibly productive year with our student leaders. She congratulated the following student leaders for the excellent work they did: Jon Graf, Ben Steinberg and Sarah Elfreth. The Senate joined her in that acknowledgement.
Professor Siegel asked what was different with the academic calendar for next year. Vice President Moriarity responded that everything has been moved up since we will be moving in students two weeks before Labor Day.

Vice President Rubin

We are really doing well. We are presently at 94% of our goal for this year. We should make that goal and beyond. For the Capital Campaign, we are presently at 87% of goal, which ends June 2011.
We should also make our $50 million goal in our endowment. We now have $42 million in endowments. We have a long way to go, though, to meet the $100 million mark that we would like to have. We have received some new large gifts and are moving in the right direction. We are nurturing some young alumni that are getting involved.
The Towson Foundation now manages 673 funds with 333 of the funds endowed and 263 endowed scholarship funds. The Towson Foundation is a 501C3 governed by a Board of Directors. We are trying to increase endowed funds. This past year we are giving out close to $900,000 of scholarship funds to students. He also introduced John Mease, who is the Vice President for the Foundation. We also have an investment committee with our board that manages our foundation funds and they are doing as well or better than the system foundation.

Reports of Officers of the University Senate

Professor Ballengee, AAUP

The university/faculty elections are completed. She will announce the victors tomorrow and those appointed as soon as President Caret approves them. Professor Sullivan asked about how many voted. Professor Ballengee said we had the highest turnout ever with 279 voting.

Professor Siegel, CUSF

CUSF met to discuss collective bargaining. They wanted to see a resolution that the faculty should have the opportunity to vote on collective bargaining. They will vote on this at their next meeting.
They are working on a domestic partner health care plan.
They are recommending a more flexible plan for faculty with a way of approaching furloughs. All state workers get the day off when they are not paid, but faculty are not allowed to do that. They also are recommending that faculty have a more active role in deciding furlough decisions. They are concerned about having another offer being a way to avoid furloughs because this may cause us to loose faculty. They are also concerned about staff. We cannot get retention dollars for them so we may be loosing some of our best staff
They are also concerned about the white papers on strategic planning. They are especially concerned about giving out more degrees without tenured faculty and clear learning outcomes.
They are also concerned about the longitudinal database the state is putting together and privacy issues. She thinks, though, that the issues are being addressed. Every student will be tracked from K-college.
Professor Sullivan shared that the following Friday the Senate chairs and CUSF will meet with the Chancellor. If anyone has issues they want addressed, he suggested letting him know.

Jon Graf, SGA

He introduced his successor, the new president-elect, Nicole Cassamecki. She is still working on who the rest of SGA will be. He also shared where all of the SGA officers will be next year.
SGA unveiled the new Tiger outside the library today.
The new president shared some of her goals. The SGA will be especially working on the new Green Fund and promoting the shuttles.
President Sullivan shared appreciation from the Senate to the students and especially the Jon Graf, SGA president, and Sarah Elfreth, for her service as a student regent. He presented each of them with a gift from the Senate.

Senator Kazinski, TUSC

They just finished electing their new members and will spend the summer working on their strategic plan. She will continue to represent them on the Senate next year.

OLD BUSINESS

Motion 09/10-32: Adding the following to Senate Bylaws for the General Education Reporting Committee – “The General Education Reporting Committee will have an additional voting representative from the Honors College.” Second vote (Senate’s General Education Reporting Committee) Professor Ballengee asked about the language of the amendment being more explicit about how the person would appear. Will they be appointed or elected? Professor Zimmerman answered that the Dean of the Honors College will appoint the person. Professor Ballengee asked about whether we should add this. Professor Vatz suggested that we could add this after our vote. Professor Siegel asked about who the other members of the committee were. Professor Zimmerman answered that they are faculty and earlier in the year we clarified that the committee would be elected through AAUP elections. Professor Ballengee emphasized then that if this position is appointed, that it would be different than other members. Professor Zimmerman suggested that since the Honors College does not have dedicated faculty, having the Dean appoint the representative is necessary. There are other non-voting appointed members, but this one would vote. First a vote was taken on the bylaw amendment. The motion carried 20-1-2. Professor Ballengee proposed that the general education reporting committee have an ex-officio voting representative appointed by the Dean of the Honors College. This became motion 09/10-33. Motion carries 21-0-1.
Motion 09/10-34: Approval of Online Student Course Feedback Survey (Senate Executive Committee) – Professor Ballengee felt a good job was done on this, but under learner support that different people have different ideas of what is appropriate cost for materials. She asked what students thought. Senator Puglisi responded that students do think differently about this. Professor Ballengee commented that how they felt about the course also affects this. Senator Elfreith shared that the students’ concerns are whether the book is used and whether they can sell it back. Senator Graf shared that students were more concerned about use. Professor Ballengee explained that maybe this question was too broad. Provost Welsh explained that it was very difficult to come up with the wording of these questions. She assured that these questions would not be used against the faculty member. If we do not get valuable information, then we will change the questions in the future. Professor Siegel explained that she was very much against this survey because it was not clear how this would be used for faculty evaluation. She was not sure which of these questions would be used to evaluate faculty performance. Provost Welsh responded that she has discussed this with many faculty members. It t is a faculty decision what is used to evaluate teaching and why faculty deem it appropriate to pick one question to evaluate faculty careers in the classroom is beyond her. She suggests a more expansive approach of a faculty portfolio, which includes items such as courses developed, teaching materials, peer review, student feedback, etc. Having a one-question methodology to evaluate a faculty member is new to her. She hopes down the road that the faculty will change this. Professor Maronic suggested that any faculty member who does not get merit or promotion and tenure using this document could contest it in court suggesting that the way it is now, will not work. He asked his students what they thought of this and the students responded that this would be too much for all of their classes. He shared that he tried a short, six question survey with his classes and he received 85% response. He suggested that we only do the faculty evaluation in a short survey and then do a sample of the students for the other information. Provost Welsh disagreed strongly. In the tenure/promotion files she receives she gets only numbers with no explanation. She also pointed out that representatives of the Senate were on the committee that revised this. Associate Provost Dennison was there when the committee met and the Provost asked her to talk about the meeting. Associate Provost Dennison explained that we are trying to get away from a number evaluating teaching. In the new Chapter 3, Section 4 talks about evaluation of teaching being more of a portfolio. The committee took the advice of the Senate and trimmed the survey to 30% less than the last one. The purpose of this is to get a snapshot of what is going on in the classroom. Also, this will be disaggregated electronically so we can look at the course, the faculty member, and the textbooks. This way we can consider what the faculty member can control. Often the department controls the course and textbook. The technology questions will help us understanding how that is working. The plan is to do a trial run in the summer trimester and then do a statistical evaluation. The data will be shared with the PTR&M committee to look at what worked and what did not. Professor Manessee, who was on the committee, explained that they had one meeting and they tried to decrease the amount of questions, which they did. They were told in the committee meeting that the faculty member would only be responsible for the evaluation questions. Professor Knutzon asked whether it was possible to triangulate data about how students did in the class to produce other valuable data. Associate Provost Dennison explained that studies have shown there is not a correlation between grades and evaluations and there is not a way to correlate that data. Professor Bergman shared that he was a Senate representative at the meeting where they were able to reduce the questions and re-write others. He explained that no survey would be perfect, he wanted a shorter survey, but was convinced that when we run the pilot that we will better understand the data. Professor Siegel pointed out that the motion does not mention a pilot study. Professor Sullivan clarified that the motion before the Senate was to approve the survey and does not talk about the pilot. Professor Bergman also shared that he voted for the survey because he was told that only the ten traditional questions would be used to evaluate the faculty. Professor Pitcher asked those that represented the Senate why concerns of the Senate were not represented in the changes. She further stressed that although we keep saying that we do not want to put down a number to evaluate one’s teaching, included on this survey are two questions, which ask the students to rate the course and instructor. She then asked how is this different than “Rate Your Professor” and shared that a large amount of faculty in the College of Education were concerned about these two questions. She suggested that the other questions speak more to the quality of the course and would be a more effective way to evaluate teaching. Provost Welsh replied that these questions were added by the PRTR&M Committee to have some kind of number. Professor Pitcher suggested that these questions encourage the same kind of thinking of evaluating faculty on one question except we will be using a word instead of a number. Professor Vatz suggested that this instrument was inferior to his department’s survey. He pointed out questions such as “my professor encourages me to do my best” could be taken many ways. He suggested that throughout this instrument are many misleading questions that contaminate the instrument. Provost Welsh asked what questions Professor Vatz considered misleading. He responded that the question, “Encouraged me to do my best” could be interpreted in many ways by students. He then stated that he hopes that we do not approve this instrument. Provost Welsh then pointed out questions from Professor Vatz department that were vague. Professor Vatz replied that they have never had a complaint about his department’s instrument, which they have used for five years. He reaffirmed that this survey we are voting on was a bad instrument and should not represent Towson faculty. Professor Webster further agreed that the other questions contaminate the survey. He understands why the questions are there, but it is not clear on the survey why they are there. Professor Maronic reaffirmed that the results of this survey are invalid so we may be writing out of the evaluation process a valid measure of student feedback. He also suggested that any survey could be used as an online survey and put into an Excel spreadsheet. Professor Slotkin would like to see a shorter survey and suggested that we could have two surveys. He suggested that some of the questions could only be asked once a year about how the university is doing and this would be separate from the course survey. He further suggested that we do not need students to tell us some of this information over and over for each course. He also suggested there was a typo and one of the questions was asked twice. Professor Burkes shared that the PTR&M committee did not create this. A survey like this was being used on campus. This is a vastly better survey than the one used before in 70% of courses on campus. She suggested that it should be the department’s choice whether we use this survey so she will not support this. All of our other decisions start at the department level. She also suggested that they did not have the information that some have suggested, but they did what they could with what they had. Professor Tabak shared that she was in the meeting. She shared that they had a list of concerns of the Senate. Professor Pitcher, the Secretary of the Senate, asked about where they came from, because it did not come from her. Associate Provost Dennison explained that the list of Senate concerns came from notes that some people took during the meeting. Diane Taylor, the chair of the PTR&M Committee, compiled the concerns. Professor Tabak suggested that a majority of issues were addressed and they tried to take out items or re-word them. She suggested that the “over all instructor was” is on the current evaluation. Professor Pitcher replied that the “over all” questions were not on all course evaluations. Professor Tabak responded that they were told that everything had to be done at one meeting even though they did not have all information. Professor Ballengee responded that no survey is going to be perfect. She felt that this one was better than most. She suggested that a campus wide survey is not going away and that this gives us a way to compare our work to the rest of the campus. She would like to add a friendly amendment that adds the word “pilot” to the amendment. Professor Sullivan suggested that the problem is how we use students’ evaluations for P&T and that should be a different, most important issue. Provost Welsh suggested that this needed to be a short pilot because she inherited many pilots. Associate Provost Dennison explained that the pilot would be done during the summer trimester and the data would be shared with the Senate. Professor Siegel asked if other evaluations are going to be used, too. She also asked why we were doing this survey. If parts of the survey are for different purposes, then we should clarify why we are using the different parts of the survey. She was also concerned that this will be done in the summer. She was concerned that non-tenured faculty have no rights in this. Provost Welsh responded that we need to do this to save money and that this survey will be aggregated so much quicker. She encouraged faculty to send her any other evaluations that were better than this. This will save $80,000 to $100,000. She felt the arguments were bogus, because the questions on this survey were similar to those on evaluations now being used. She emphasized that we have to get away from using this evaluation to evaluate faculty. Professor Sullivan suggested that we should call the question. Senator Steinberg objected to calling the question because the decision should not be made without student input. He explained how he got feedback from students, which he submitted last week. Students do want student evaluations for the faculty promotion and tenure process. He shared that when SGA used an online survey this year they got better feedback than ever before. When students write down statements in class, they often don’t have enough time to put down constructive feedback. Provost Welsh also pointed out that departments can add questions. A vote was taken to call the question as amended to include the words: “We approve the survey to be used in a pilot over the summer and evaluated at the end of the summer.” The amendment was “To approve the online student course survey for the Summer 2010 pilot”. The motion to call the question as amended carried 15-6-0. The motion as amended carried 12-10-0.
Motion 09/10-34: The University Senate will update its website to include university committees, dates of meetings, and contact information with overseeing responsibility to update the data delegated to the Vice Chair of the Senate. (SGA and Senate Executive Committee) Senator Steinberg after passing around information about how SGA was trying to update their committee representation suggested a friendly amendment that the updating is done by the AAUP president and a representative in the Provost office. The SGA will commit to getting student representatives for committees, but they need the Senate to updated information on the committees on the website. Senator Steinberg pointed out that the SGA has simplified information for the students about committees, which they hope will help them to fill the committees during the summer. The friendly amendment was accepted. The motion carried as amended 20-0-1.

New Business

Information Item: Primary Care Policy Update (Senate Executive Committee) Provost Welsh shared that we sent the policy to university council. He informed us that the university system policy considers pregnancy an illness and then it is handled in that way. Professor Ballengee sent her another policy that they developed with this one. The provost shared that she is going to take that policy forward to the Academic Affairs Advisory Committee of the system to seek a change. We could follow a policy that College Park has, but that policy only gives the faculty members only 50% of salary for pregnancy leave, which would be a huge financial loss for a family.
Discussion Item: Consideration of Alternative of Teaching Evaluation Methodology (Senate Executive Committee) Professor Sullivan shared that as we discussed earlier, we have to seriously reconsider this issue. The Senate will charge the PTR&M Committee to give considerable consideration to this issue in the Fall.
Discussion Item: Furlough Motion Re-Affirmed (Senate Executive Committee and the AAUP) Professor Sullivan introduced that this item came to the Senate before and we voted affirmatively for it. This is to get a sense of the Senate on the feelings of the furlough motion at this time. Professor Vatz added a friendly amendment to the motion. The new amendment is as follows: Whereas state education is being significantly affected by University of Maryland System furloughs, thereby seriously affecting the State mission of providing quality education of students. Motion as amended carried 20-0-2.
Motion 09/10-34: The University Senate will appoint a nominating committee for the Executive Committee. (Senate Executive Committee). Professor Sullivan nominated Professor Cox, CHP, Professor Slotkin, CLA, and Professor Maronick., CBE. Motion carried 22-0-0.
Motion 09/10-35: To accept the AAUP resolution of a lecturer representative to the Senate. Professor Sullivan explained that this resolution came from AAUP and would be a non-voting member to the Senate. Professor Ballengee shared that AAUP passed this resolution. The motion was to accept the following resolution from AAUP: “Whereas Lecturers make up approximately 21% of full-time faculty; and Whereas the renewable status and workload expectations of Lectures differentiate them from other full-time faculty; and Whereas Lecturers share workplace commonalities that differentiate from other part-time faculty classified as contingent; and Whereas Lecturers at Towson University comprise a significant and integral aspect of fulfilling its mission as a Metropolitan university and as a growth institution for the state of Maryland; Be it resolved that the TU-AAUP/Faculty Association acknowledges the ongoing contributions of this category of faculty by supporting the addition of a Lecturer Representative on the University Senate, elected by Lecturers to a three-year term, according to standard university elections procedures for faculty.” Dean Extner came forward and suggested that last year we approved Clinical Faculty and they also need to be represented. Professor Ballengee asked for clarification of what Dean Extner was asking. Dean Extner explained that they are different than lecturers, but if non-tenure track faculty are going to be considered, this group should also be represented. Therefore, the motion was changed to say “full-time, non-tenure track faculty”. Senator Elfreth asked whether this group meets. Professor Ballengee answered that the lecturers do meet and this resolution came from those meetings. Professor Siegel pointed out that this is in line with the system requirements that non-tenure track faculty are represented in shared governance. Motion carried 20-0-0.
Professor Sullivan explained that it may be necessary for the Senate to convene during the summer. If we need to meet, the executive committee and one representative of the different colleges will be asked to attend. One at large member will also be invited.

The Senate adjourned at 6:15.