FACULTY SENATE

August 31, 2016

346 LEON JOHNSON

4:10 PM – 5:00 PM

MONTANA STATE UNIVERSITY-BOZEMAN, MONTANA

Minutes

 

Members Present: Anderson (Film & Photo), Anderson (ChBE), Arnold (Ag Ed), Austin (Poli Sci), Babbitt (Chair/Past Chair), Babcock (Chair-elect), Belasco (Ag Econ), Berry (CE), Bolte (Music), Brown (JJCBE), Burrows (Ext), Creel (Ecology), Eggert (Emeritus), Ewing (LRES), Greenwood (Math), Herman (NAS), Lu (PSPP), Kevane (Mod Lang), Martin (Mod Lang), Mosley (ARS), Reidy (Hist & Phil), Repasky  (ECE), Running (Nursing), Scott (Psych), Sterman (Library), Wilmer (Chair-elect), Yamaguchi (Soc/Anthro), Young (Library)

 

Others Present: Waded Cruzado, Doralyn Rossmann, Chris Fastnow, Ron Larsen, David Singel, Kellie Peterson, Tracy Ellig, Jeff Bader, Chris Kearns, Kenning Arlitsch, Susan Kollin, Terry Leist, Karlene Hoo, Nicol Rae, Eric Lopez, Charles Boyer, Ken Silvestri, Bob Mokwa

 

Chair Babbitt called the meeting to order at 4:10 pm, and a quorum was present. The April 27, 2016 Faculty Senate minutes were approved.

Updates – Chair Babbitt

  • Prioritization Plan has been updated and is posted on the Faculty Senate web
  • Update from the Provost’s Office:
    • 31 hires in the last year; numbers of departures is not currently
    • Numbers of student/faculty ratio for this year will not be known until

 Passing of the “Bottle” – Chair Babbitt

  • Newly elected Chair Babcock thanked Past-Chair Babbitt for his thoughtful leadership and hard work throughout his tenure as Chair of Faculty

Senate Charge– Chair Babcock

  • Thanked continuing senators and welcomed new
  • Chair Babcock and Chair-elect Wilmer are committed to making senators’ service on senate meaningful and
  • Duties of senators are to:
    • Frame policies, procedures, standards for Faculty Handbook;
    • Oversee curriculum;
    • Evaluate new programs; and ,
    • Serve to enhance communication amongst administration, faculty and students.
  • A challenge is finding senate’s role in shared governance. What power does Faculty Senate have?
  • All legal authority at any university originates from its governing board. In Montana’s instance they are:
    • Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education and Board of Regents, who delegates authority to others such as President Cruzado, who may delegate to deans/provosts,
  • Senators have a powerful voice and influence that the president and BoR values. and
  • Faculty bring knowledge and expertise to MSU and may not agree with the final decisions made by OCHE, BoR, president, provost,
    • Decisions-making entities are inevitably held responsible for what our institution
  • Shared governance attempts to balance maximum participation and decision- making with clear
  • Faculty has much to be proud of such as:
    • Quality of students coming to MSU continues to rise
    • MSU continues to hire talented faculty and staff
  • Future senate meetings issues will include:
    • Faculty Handbook
    • Task Force recommendations
    • P&T policies
  • Chair Babcock’s vision for the coming year:
    • Senators are representing their units. Babcock would like senators to engage their faculty in topics important to
    • Leave personal agendas
    • Participation is
    • Chair plans to talk very little at meetings and engage a more participatory
    • Change culture around
    • Improve communications.
    • Change the length and venue of FS meetings and offer more opportunities for faculty to interact with

Welcome Faculty – President Cruzado

  • President Cruzado welcomed faculty back to the 2016-2017 AY and recapped MSU’s purpose:
    • MSU is a land grant university for the state of Montana and charged with the responsibility of educating and transforming the lives of its
    • The Hatch Act charged MSU to conduct research and apply that knowledge to make it accessible to
    • The Smith-Lever Act allows MSU to have an office in every state of Montana through
  • Recent data about MSU:
    • First university in the history of Montana to have 16,000
    • Students at MSU have higher ACT’s than any other university in the
    • MSU has more international students than any other students in the state of
    • MSU has more grad students than any other university in
    • MSU has 619 Native American
  • A detailed report will be forthcoming from the VPR’s
    • MSU has $118M in research expenditures. Research expenditures are not the only metric that should be used to gauge how well MSU’s research is progressing, however. The impact that the research is having is more important.
    • For 2018, it was originally proposed that MSU should attain $125M in research expenditures. Our rapid progress now makes this goal
  • Our momentum has improved MSU’s teaching and learning but in research and creativity and the impact of
  • Extension has communicated the importance of outreach and
  • Diversity
    • MSU will engage in a year-long effort toward implementing a diversity strategy. President Cruzado has hired Nancy “Rusty” Barceló to help implement such
      • Barceló was an activist during her college years and implemented, as Associate Vice President for Multicultural and Academic Affairs at the University of Minnesota, a strategic diversity
    • Prior to her policy implementation, commitment and crafting the first diversity plan for MSU Cruzado would like to have year-long lectures, seminars, workshops, spaces for confrontation and conflict,
  • Task Force Reports
    • A consolidated draft will be released soon for senators to view. The three areas the task forces examined were:
      • Strengthening graduate education
      • Research and scholarship
      • Workload analysis
        • Data continues to be refined by Panning & Analysis
        • Some overlap between the new P&T guidelines
      • President Cruzado thanked FS for the review she received and reported on to senate last
      • At the behest of Past-chair Michael Reidy and subsequent senate leadership, Cruzado will host a monthly gathering with senators and administrators the first meeting of every month.
      • Discussions ensued:
        • What do you see as the top three (3) priorities for this year? Cruzado stated that there are five (5) priorities. Every month the strategic plan is monitored and the Planning Council reviews and makes recommendations. The priorities will be brought to senate at the next meeting.

Announcements – Chair Babcock

  • Reminder that Convocation will take place Thursday September 1, 2016; doors open 6:30 pm, events start at 7:30 pm. Tickets are available at no cost via Bobcat Ticket Office or by contacting Chair
  • Vacancies:
    • Outgoing Budget Council (BC) member, Doralyn Rossmann, described the council and her role.
      • BC reflects what is transpiring in Planning
      • Term is 2-3 years and candidate must be a member of Faculty
  • Membership is made up of VP for admin and finance, dean of students, one faculty senate member and various other constituencies across
  • BC meets once a month for 1-1 1/2
  • Primary responsibility is guiding the larger functions of the budget at the university level; no micromanaging at the departmental/college level.
  • Candidate does not need to know about budgets as the VPFA, Terry Leist, provides extensive knowledge about
  • New member for BC would additionally serve on the Faculty Senate Steering
  • Terry Leist thanked Doralyn Rossmann for her work on the committee.
  • More information may be viewed at: http://www.montana.edu/budgetcouncil/
  • Interested candidates may contact Doralyn or Chair
  • Babcock will discuss other vacancies at another time.

Announcements – Chair Babcock

  • New Courses and Programs may be viewed on the Faculty Senate web site and include:
    • Undergraduate
      • Minor in Biomedical Engineering
    • Centers (no curriculum involved)
      • Center for Wildlife Health and Disease Ecology (existing Center, name change to reflect current faculty interests)
      • Pollinator Health Center (new Center)
      • Western Lands and Peoples Center (new Center)
    • If senators have no concerns, the minor and centers will be voted upon in the Faculty Senate Steering Committee on September 6 and be placed on the September BoR agenda. If there are serious concerns, they will be brought back to senate for discussion.

Proposed change to Bylaws (Faculty Senate meeting times) – Chair Babcock

  • Chair Babcock presented proposed changes to the Faculty Senate Bylaws Article V, Section I. to read:
    • “Faculty Senate will convene on Wednesday of the first full week of classes each academic year. Established meeting times for Faculty Senate during the academic year shall be scheduled by the Faculty Senate Chair on Wednesdays of all weeks that classes are in session, from 4:10 to 5:00 p.m. All regular Faculty Senate meeting dates will be posted on the Faculty Senate website prior to the meeting ”
    • Chair Babcock asked for a Motion to:
      • "Suspend the rule that the vote on the current proposed by-law change be taken at a subsequent meeting of the Senate (Section 6b of our bylaws).” In order for the business of changing the FS schedule by immediately
  • Reidy asked the purpose of the change. Babcock noted that:
    • Current meetings are 50 minutes long, and it is challenging to get business done;
    • Weekly meetings do not provide enough lead time for issues to be thoroughly discussed;
    • University of Montana has senate meetings once a month for two (2) hours;
    • Since the Steering Committee will continue to meet every week it will provide longer lead times for senate leadership to create more thoughtful agendas;
    • Childcare for some senators usually ends at 5:00 pm and they must leave senate
  • Motion was made to suspend the rule that the vote on the current proposed bylaw change be taken at a subsequent meeting of senateàsecondedà
  • àall in favoràunanimously
  • Motion was made to accept the proposed changes to the Faculty Senate Bylaws, Article V, Section I.àsecondedàall in favoràunanimously approved.

Status of Retention, Promotion and Tenure (RTP) Documents – Past-chair Babbitt

  • Babbitt presented a brief history of the Faculty
    • There was a Faculty Handbook 1970’s – 2011, and it was last updated in 2009;
    • April 2009 – AFMSU certified;
    • 2011‐2013 – Negotiated CBA governed RTP;
    • April 2013 – AFMSU decertified;
    • August 2013 ‐ The Interim Faculty Personnel Policies were established by OCHE. The “Interim Documents” currently govern RTP;
    • Spring 2014 –

Joint Academic Governance Steering Committee form and began reviewing the Faculty Handbook;

  • New FH policies started to be approved in April 2014 (see FS web site);
  • 2014‐2015 “P&T” group formed and developed draft RTP documents;
  • Fall 2015‐ JAGS worked on RTP documents and hopefully will be completed by this
  • The review process for handbook policies:
    • Draft documents are being reviewed by ‐Faculty Senate
      • Senators - please share and discuss with your faculty
      • Deans’ Council
    • Feedback goes back to JAGS for possible revisions
    • Repeat 1 and 2 and until approved by FS and DC
    • Approval of full FH by MSU Administration
    • Approval of full FH by COHE
  • Proposed timeline:
    • September/October discussion of policies in FS and Deans’ Council;
    • Both senate and council approve by November;
    • President reviews policies in December;
  • At this juncture, new Role and Scopes documents should be crafted to go with new
  • Policies go to OCHE in January and are returned in March;
  • A key date of June 18, or thereabouts, would need to be established so that faculty could not switch standards half-way through the

[Faculty Senate went into closed session to discuss a nomination for Honorary Degree. It was decided that this issue would be discussed at Faculty Senate Steering]

The meeting adjourned at 5:04 pm.

Michael Babcock, Chair Franke Wilmer, Chair-elect

 

A printable PDF of this information can be found here.