FACULTY SENATE

March 30, 2016

346 LEON JOHNSON

4:10 PM – 5:00 PM

MONTANA STATE UNIVERSITY-BOZEMAN, MONTANA

Minutes

 

Members Present: Adams (Art), Anderson (Film & Photo), Babbitt (Chair), Babcock (Chair- elect), Berry (CE), Bolte (Music), Brown (JJCBE), Downs (English), Engel for Zabinski (LRES), Gannon (ChBE), Greenwood (Math), Hendrikx (Earth Sci), Herbeck (Ed), Hostetler (GC), Lawrence (BioChem), McMahon (Ecology), Larson (MIE), Meyer (Hist & Phil), Repasky (ECE), Rossmann (Library), Scott (Psych), Smith (HHD), Swinford (Soc/Anthro), Sterman (Library), Vorontsov (Physics), Weidenheft (MBI), Wilmer (PoliSci)

 

Others Present: Chris Fastnow, Terry Leist, Ilse-Mari Lee, Levi Birky, Kenneth Silvestri, David Singel, Renee Reijo-Pera, Marilyn Lockhart, Karlene Hoo, Ron Larsen, James Burrows

 

Chair Babbitt called the meeting to order at 4:10 pm, and a quorum was present. The March 23, 2016 Faculty Senate minutes were approved.

New Courses and Programs – Chair-elect Babcock

  • Steering Committee voted unanimously to approve the following:
    • AGSC 356: Plant Nutrition and Soil Fertility Management
    • Deactivation of courses:
      • WILD 575 : Professional Paper and Project
      • BIOE 575: Professional Paper and Project

Announcements – Chair Babbitt

  • FS Meetings
    • Four remaining meetings, following this meeting, in April
    • The May meeting during finals week is to approve graduating students and any honorary degree recipients. 
  • Funding for S&C for the Past Four (4) Years
    • S&C Grants were funded by the VPR in 2014; the Provost funded S&C Grants after 2014. S&C funding did drop after the research budget crunch in 2014.
    • In 2017, there will be the typical S&C funding of $150,000 and H(umanities) A(rts) and S(ocial) S(ciences) grants of $194,667.00
    • Faculty Excellence Grants, Instructional Innovation, and Research Expansion were provided revenue in the past and 2017 funding amounts are still to be determined. 
    • Status of our research funding in the future?
      • MSU is doing very well lately in both grant proposal submissions and awards;
      • We do not have a large cushion from a large reserve or pool that was non- committed;
      • MSU is bullish on supporting larger HASS programs, which will help HASS faculty be more successful when submitting grants for external support. The intent is to have such programs be self-supporting.
      • The HASS funding is expected to continue at the $190K level for at least three (3) years. It is dependent on progress in year one. 
    • How much money might go towards importing PhDs into the humanities and social sciences, as that was a major point with Carnegie?
  • The PhD programs in HASS proposal was a significant justification for being awarded grants; half the money is for PhD
  • One-time Only Strategic and Results Pool
    • These are funds received from the increased enrollment and are not committed. This is one-time only (OTO) money (not recurring). This year, the OTO funds total $1.5M.
    • Budget Council recommended using the money to invest in activities that more closely follow the Strategic Plan. This resulted in two pools of money: a Strategic Pool and a Results Pool. 
      • $1.2M will go towards the Strategic Pool, which would be for initiatives that enhance the goals of the Strategic Plan. Emphasis for funding is on Planning Council priorities; graduate education and performance funding initiatives, as examples.
      • $300,000 will go to the Results Pool. This is money awarded to each executive and they determine the results. If a unit did something exceptionally well (academic performance, advising, use of technology in learning), they receive money to continue to improve on those activities into the future. 
      • VP’s have received a memo from Cruzado; Deans will receive their memos for Potvin tomorrow. Recommendations for use of the money will go back to the VP legal group on April 22. VP’s will have their own process in their own division and ask for ideas from faculty. 
    • Nominations for Chair-elect of Faculty Senate
      • Franke Wilmer has volunteered to become the Chair-elect of Faculty Senate next year; Michael Babcock, who is currently Chair-elect, will become the Chair, which will be confirmed through a voting process taking place in Faculty Senate next week. 
    • Faculty Handbook Status
      • JAGS will meet twice next week and senate leadership is hopeful that some P&T documents will be ready for senators’ review next Tuesday and to begin discussions in senate next Wednesday. 
    • Administrative Reviews
      • Deans’ reviews were sent out, but many went into “Junk” folders due to the new spam 365 software ITC installed on the MSU servers.
        • ITC reviewed 600+ emails and “unjunked” all Survey Monkey emails. 
      • A Deans’ survey reminder will go out in a few days with a personal code and survey link. Hopefully, it will not end up in “Junk” folders. 
      • Dept Head’s surveys will go out next week. 
      • President, VP’s, Provost and other Deans (Graduate School, Honors College and Extension) will go out in 2-3 weeks and all reviews should hopefully be completed by the end of April. 

Courses/Programs for Vote – Chair-elect Babcock

  • Faculty Senate does not approve centers; they endorse centers. 
  • Center for American Indian and Rural Health Equity (CAIRHE)
    • CAIRHE is a new center on campus concentrating on health disparities research across the state particularly in tribal and non-tribal rural communities. 
    • There are many such communities in Montana and MSU is in a unique position to research rural health and is supported by an NIH C(enters) O(f) B(iomedical) R(esearch) E(xcellence) Grant; MSU is the only COBRE of its kind, nationwide among the 23 states who also have COBRE grants. 
    • In its earliest stages the grant operated under a temporary name, the “Center for Health Equity in Rural Montana (CHERM).” Following its first year of successful interdisciplinary research across eight projects, as well as the recent hire of Director and Principal Investigator Alexandra Adams, M.D., Ph.D., a nationally recognized and highly respected health disparities researcher, CAIRHE is now well-positioned for formal designation as a research center. CAIRHE’s leaders and scientific investigators look forward to a prosperous, sustainable future in service to the people of Montana.
    • The long-term goal of CAIRHE is to reduce significant health disparities in Montana’s tribal and rural communities through community-based participatory research that is considerate of and consistent with their cultural beliefs. 
    • Motion to endorse CAIRHE>seconded>all in favor>unanimously endorsed. 
  • Masters in Public Administration Moratorium Proposal – Collaborative program between Billings and Bozeman.
    • Requesting a moratorium because of declining enrollment. 
    • Bozeman currently administers the collaborative MPA program. 
    • Currently seven students are in the program. 
    • There is a MSU-Bozeman MPA program, which is viable and has many students and is not the program being proposed for moratorium. That program will continue. 
  • Motion to place the Masters in Public Administration (Joint Bozeman-Billings program) in Moratorium>seconded>all in favor>unanimously approved. 

 

The meeting adjourned at 4:36 pm.

 

Randy Babbitt, Chair

Michael Babcock, Chair-elect

 

A printable PDF of this information can be found here.