FACULTY SENATE

March 23, 2016

346 LEON JOHNSON

4:10 PM – 5:00 PM

MONTANA STATE UNIVERSITY-BOZEMAN, MONTANA

Minutes

 

Members Present: Adams (Art), Arnold (Ag Ed), Austin for Wilmer (Poli Sci), Babbitt (Chair), Babcock (Chair-elect), Berry (CE), Bolte (Music), Brown (JJCBE), Downs (English), Gannon (ChBE), Greenwood (Math), Hendrikx (Earth Sci), Hostetler (GC), McMahon (Ecology), Meyer (Hist & Phil), Mosley (ARS), O’Neill (Arch), Repasky (ECE), Rossmann (Library), Running (Nursing), Scott (Psych), Schure (HHD), Smith (HHD), Swinford (Soc/Anthro),Vorontsov (Physics)

 

Others Present: Chris Fastnow, David Singel, Renee Reijo-Pera, Maureen McCarthy, Karlene Hoo, Chris Kearns, Kenning Arlitsch

 

Chair Babbitt called the meeting to order at 4:10 pm, and a quorum was present. The March 9, 2016 Faculty Senate minutes were approved.

New Courses and Programs – Chair-elect Babcock

  • SC voted unanimously to approve the following:
    • Undergraduate courses:
  • ARTZ 210: Professional Practices: Careers in Art
  • HORT 435: Landscape Planning
  • Graduate courses:
    • EDLD 643: Leading Social Justice
    • EDLD 630: Supervision and Instruct Leadership
    • EDLD 620: The School Superintendent
    • EDLD 610: Leadership and Organizational Theory
  • The following undergraduate and graduate programs are posted on the FS web site for senator review:
    • AGSC 356: Plant Nutrition and Soil Fertility Management
    • Request to Place the Collaborative Masters in Public Administration in Moratorium – Specifically for the MSU-Billings program. Students already in the program will be able to finish and receive support, but no more students will be admitted into the program. 
    • Deactivation of courses:
      • WILD 575 : Professional Paper and Project
      • BIOE 575: Professional Paper and Project

Announcements – Chair Babbitt

  • Administrative Reviews
    • Senate leadership, deans and provost have agreed upon questions for the Deans
    • Dept head reviews will use those questions from the last survey which took place in 2012.
      • Target date to send both reviews is Monday, March 28.
    • The president, provost, dean of graduate school, student success and honors college reviews will go out later in the spring.
  • Hiring plans
    • The three to five year projections for hiring should have been submitted by dept heads to provost mid-February.
  • Chair Babbitt commended provost for initiating the plan, however, many faculty were not involved in their departmental hiring plans.
  • Senator noted that his departmental faculty were given short notice to review their plan. Additionally, senator is not sure what happens after the plan has been approved by faculty and moves onto the Provost.
    • Babbitt will discuss with provost during the next senate leadership meeting. 
  • Prioritization Items
    • Steering Committee members suggested displaying a dashboard of the progress of the six priorities on the FS website. 
    • Senator suggested having action plans that accompany each of the priorities. 
    • Priorities don’t line up exactly with Strategic Plan; work with Fastnow to align – overlap of the two documents and would welcome action items and how to move things forward. 
  • Faculty Handbook Status
    • Two weeks away from presenting the P&T documents to senate. 
    • Faculty Affairs and Faculty Senate will be reviewing documents at the same time; the last 5 meetings of Faculty Senate. 
    • Standards will be implemented by April 15 of next year; policies and procedures could occur as soon as new documents are approved. A timeline of when different parts take effect will be built into the document.
    • Both old and new Role and Scope documents will be used under the new P&T policy documents. A faculty member who is going up for P&T may use the standards in the R&S document that were in place during their last review/time of hire, but the procedures for all reviews will be governed by the new P&T policy. 
  • Chair Babbitt reminded senators that the compensated positions of Chair and Chair-elect of Faculty Senate are open for
    • Chair-elect receives 35% of their AY salary plus one month of summer salary.
    • Chair – you get 60% of their AY salary plus one month of summer salary. 

Courses/Programs for Vote – Chair-elect Babcock

  • Minor in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
    • Existing minor with two changes:
      • Change the name of the minor to align more with national trends. 
      • Would like to remove one course from the minor that no longer exists. 
    • Motion to accept the name change of this minor>seconded>all in favor>unanimously approved
  • Individual Interdisciplinary PhD Program
    • CPC and APWG examined the proposal and both accepted it;
    • Intended to prepare students for global approach, problem solving, career advancement; new opportunities for interdisciplinary collaborations;
    • Open to students coming in with a Masters Degree or 20 credits of graded graduate course work;
    • Curriculum exists as it is developed;
    • There is a process:
      • Prospective student will provide a written description of the program concepts and
      • Two or more heads of the relevant academic units would have to offer a PhD;
      • Curriculum is individualized and developed by the student within one year of submitting their
      • Requirements for existing PhD programs will be attached to the program
      • The Graduate School will oversee and manage the program. An Advisory Committee, consist of 4 to 6 faculty members from established doctoral programs, will be appointed by the Graduate Dean in consultation with the UGC. The Advisory Committee advises the Dean on admission decisions and conducts an annual review of student progress.
  • Resources:
    • The Graduate School plans to offer 12 credits of tuition waiver in the first year of study and a Meritorious Fellowship ($5K/AY) to each applicant that is fully admitted based on the admissions process and requirements. Thus, departments will be expected to provide a stipend during the first year (if applicable), and develop strategies to support students during the remaining time in the interdisciplinary program. 
  • Demand and Support
    • According to the proposal, the MSU Graduate School receives 5 to 10 inquires each year requesting information about interdisciplinary graduate programs. The University of Montana, which currently offers an interdisciplinary Ph.D., reports an average enrollment of 4 students/year.
    • Evidence that interdisciplinary Ph.D. programs are valuable is presented. The National Science Foundation (NSF) is cited as an organization that is promoting these types of programs. The APWG considered an article (Millar, 2013) that examined data from the 2008 Survey of Doctorate Recipients to explore the relationship between interdisciplinary dissertation research and career-related indicators. The author concluded that conducting interdisciplinary dissertation research increases the likelihood of obtaining a position within academia. 
  • Discussions ensued:
    • Senator believes new faculty coming out of new interdisciplinary PhD programs will help to fill in specific
    • Is someone tenurable after receiving an interdisciplinary degree and coming to another university? Yes. An example was given of a PhD who had an interdisciplinary degree in psychology and business, from Michigan, and who was working and tenured at MSU’s
    • Will a student still have a home department or is it through the Grad School?
      • Student would have a home department
    • What kind of interdisciplinary inquiries is MSU receiving?
      • Social Science - But we don’t have a doctoral program in that
      • Environmental Studies with a goal of policy-making – Maybe combining with an MBA
      • Health Sciences with a design component in engineering – MSU does not have a home for that?
    • Departments do not need to have existing PhD programs?
    • If a student is in the interdisciplinary program and in a department that doesn’t have a PhD program, what happens?
      • That will be determined by the curriculum and it will be customized. Students will have simultaneous depth and breadth of intellectual experiences.
      • Students will participate more in research lab experience; field experience. The Grad School is discovering that students want more hands-on experience that a classroom might not afford. The departments will determine, however, the right balance of course work and research. 
    • History/Philosophy has two PhD program and with an interdisciplinary PhD program, this would create workload issues. 
  • If that becomes an issue then the student cannot come into this program. We are not expecting to take students or resources away from the departments. 
  • Departments will be encouraged to have other interdisciplinary programs. 
  • How would the interdisciplinary degree be gauged with respect to our PhD Carnegie status?
    • It depends on the student’s home department. 
  • Motion to adopt interdisciplinary PhD program>seconded>all in favor>unanimously approved.

 

The meeting adjourned at 4:56 pm.

 

Randy Babbitt, Chair

Michael Babcock, Chair-elect

 

A printable PDF of this information can be found here.