Faculty Senate Minutes - 4/7/2005
Missouri Western State College
Faculty Senate Minutes
April 7, 2005
SU 208
Current Senators Present: President Andrews, Vice President Hegeman, Secretary Ottinger, Senators Caldwell, Gregory, Haney, Heider, Holian, Nandan, Tushaus, and Voelkel
Current Senators Absent: Past President Greiert, Senators Hunt, Noynaert, Tapia, and Williams
Newly Elected Senators Present: Kathleen Andrews, Shiva Nandan, and Phil Mullins
Ex-Officio Members Present: Vice President Arnold
Ex-Officio Members Absent: President Scanlon
Guests Present: Ian Roberts (Chair of Faculty Evaluation Committee), Ken Lee (Chair of CSMP Department)
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Call to Order: President Larry Andrews called the meeting to order at 4:00 p.m.
Approval of March 24th Minutes: (Gregory/Holian)
Minutes were approved by unanimous voice vote.
Approval of Agenda: (Haney/Voelkel)
Discussion with Mark Mabe will be at the April 21st meeting, not today.
Agenda was approved by unanimous voice vote.
Report from College President: none.
Report from Senate Executive Committee
President Andrews:
„h Letter from Dr. Scanlon thanking senate for resolution on his behalf.
„h Missouri House expected to return a flat budget for Higher Education.
Vice President Hegeman: Attended April 4th Strategic Planning Steering Committee. The following information was requested to be passed on to the faculty:
„h Faculty encouraged to purchase Missouri Western license plates to show Western pride.
„h Notify Diane Holtz at least two weeks in advance of any event so that appropriate public announcements can be sent out.
Report from Vice President for Academic & Student Affairs:
„h Budget: Deans and Department Chairs have been working on scenarios for a possible 5%, 10%, or 15% core cut to next year¡¦s budget.
„h Communicating Academic Quality: Unspent SPIF money will be used to promote academic departments. Three types of publications are being prepared: Recuitment, Academic Planning, and Career Oriented.
„h Travel Study Abroad: Memo from Dr. Jeanne Daffron (See Minutes Appendix A). Dr. Arnold has created the proposed taskforce. It was suggested that Senators Holian and Tushaus also serve on that taskforce. Dr. Arnold added them.
„h On April 21st a representative from Noe-Levitz will be on campus. There will be an open meeting at 3:30 pm. The representative will attend the April 21st Faculty Senate meeting at 4:00 pm.
Report from Evaluation of Faculty Committee: See Minutes Appendix B for written report. Committee Chair Ian Robert presented the report.
(Haney/Hegeman) Motion to accept the report.
Old Business:
SB-19-05 (Noynaert/Caldwell) Change the CSMP terminal degree statement on page 91 of the 2004-
2005 Policy Guide from
Computer Science, Mathematics, Physics ¡V Doctorate
to
Computer Science, Mathematics, Physics ¡V Doctorate in Mathematics and Physics. Those with appointments in Computer Science would be required to have a Master¡¦s Degree in Computer Science, Computer Information Systems, Management Information Systems, or a closely related field, and have at least three years of professional experience.
Discussion: Concerns were raised about ¡§lowering the bar¡¨ by accepting Master + experience in place of a Ph.D. Also concerns were raised about specifying ¡§3 years¡¨ instead of a more general ¡§with experience.¡¨
Motion carried by voice vote.
New Business:
SR-20-05 (Nandan/Gregory) The Missouri Western State College Faculty Senate recommends a 4% across the board salary increase for all full-time faculty members.
SR-21-05 (Hegeman/Haney) Missouri Western State College should purchase a one-year subscription for a plagiarism-detection software program.
SR-22-05 (Hegeman/Haney) That the current parking regulations be amended to allow all faculty who are full-time employees of Missouri Western State University the option of purchasing reserved parking permits.
Adjournment: (Gregory/Heider)
Senate adjourned at 5:00 pm.
Respectfully Submitted,
Michael B. Ottinger, PhD
Senate Secretary.
MINUTES APPENDIX A
Memo
To: Dr. J. David Arnold, Vice President for Academic and Student Affairs
From: Dr. Jeanne Daffron, Assistant Vice President for Academic and Student Affairs
Date: April 7, 2005
Re: Update on Travel Study Discussion
Previous Discussions/activities
February 2, 2005: Deans Johnson and Blessing called a meeting with Dean Shove and faculty who had participated in travel study at Western to discuss concerns regarding pricing and policies of the Western Institute. After an extensive discussion, all agreed that the travel study program should be self-supporting, but did not have to generate revenue.
February 10, 2005: Deans Blessing and Johnson and J. Daffron met with Allison Sauls, Susan Hennessey and Matrese Benkofske to further explore faculty concerns regarding the Travel Study program. Specific concerns raised during this discussion included the increased costs for students, concern that the faculty handbook was not accurate or was not being followed and that faculty members were unclear about changes in policies.
End of February: Jeanne Daffron met with Dr. Shove, Stacy Turner and Karla Lager of the Western Institute to discuss the concerns raised by faculty and other concerns identified by WI staff including provisions for student safety.
March 21, 2005: Travel Study was discussed at the Deans Council meeting. Dr. Arnold requested that a Task Force be formed to review and revise the Faculty Handbook and to make recommendations regarding Travel Study. The Deans and Jeanne Daffron were asked to call together a representative group to begin this process.
April 7, 2005
The following individuals met for a discussion of the Travel Study program at Western: Stacia Bensyl, Rob Shell, Dan Trifan, Brenda Blessing, Chris Shove, Martin Johnson, Matrese Benkofske, Stacy Turner, Karla Lager, Susan Hennessy, Karen Fulton, Allison Sauls, Carol Roever, Jeanne Daffron.
The group discussed concerns related to policies and procedures, the cost of the programs for Western students and possible solutions. The following individuals are recommended as
members of a Task Force who will review and make recommendations for changes in the policies and procedures related to Travel Study
o Susan Hennessey (E/FL/J)
o Matrese Benkofske (Bus)
o Sandy Seegar (Bio)
o Karen Fulton (E/FL/J)
o Dan Trifan (HPG)
o Steve Potter (Counseling)
o Martin Johnson (LAS)
o Brenda Blessing (PS)
o Chris Shove (WI)
o Jeanne Daffron (ASA)
If this recommendation is accepted, Susie Hennessey will call the first meeting of the Task Force for the week of April 11.
MINUTES APPENDIX B
Final Report of the Evaluation of Faculty Committee
April 7, 2005
Committee Members:
Carolyn Brose (PS, NURS)
Earl Haynes (PS, ED)
Ian F. Roberts, Chair (LAS, EFLJ)
Don Vestal (LAS, CSMP)
Phil Wann (LAS, PSY)
Randye Williams, Liaison (PS, H/PE/R)
Charges:
A. Annually provide information and recommendations regarding
interpretation and comparison of current and past student evaluation
data to the Faculty Senate and the Promotion and Tenure Committee
B. Periodically review and recommend procedures for the evaluation of
faculty members by peers, department chairs, and the college
administration.
C. Conduct a continuing study of faculty evaluation at MWSC.
D. Provide information regarding interpretation of evaluation data.
E. Study the effects of Course Type (general studies, major, elective),
Student Level ( fresh, soph, jun, sen), and other factors on Student
Faculty Evaluations.
F. Review return procedures in an attempt to expedite results of
evaluations to faculty so that they can be reviewed before the start of
the following semester.
G. Review the administration procedures (possibly use students to
administer) of the Student Faculty Evaluations in order to use less
class time and make more efficient.
E, F, and G were apparently stemmed from discussion by the Faculty
Senate.
Summary of the Evaluation of Faculty Committee Discussions and Activities:
The committee extends its thanks to its Senate liaison Randye Williams for her work clarifying and contextualizing the extensive list of rather broad charges. Despite her assistance, however, the time, attention, and energy of the Evaluation of Faculty Committee was initially divided by the number and generality of the duties assigned (see recommendation B). Also, because the Senate has previously "misplaced/lost past Evaluation of Faculty reports" (as noted in the 2003 report; see recommendation A), and because the Senate has "often ignored or rejected past EF Committee recommendations" (also noted in the 2003 report), it was observed that more direction and co-agency from Senate would facilitate extended projects and research (see recommendation C).
Given its time constraints, the Evaluation of Faculty Committee chose in good faith to focus on charges F and G. After discussions with Ruby Mayes, it was determined that the administration and return procedures of evaluations could not be appreciably expedited or made more efficient except by changing the date on which evaluations are administered (which raises questions of consistency of results with past semesters), by a more organized submission of forms from departments (see recommendation F), or by administration of evaluations electronically (see body of recommendation B).
Recommendations:
A. Make a permanent Senate file of previous Evaluation of Faculty Committee Final Reports and other documents available for each succeeding year's committee. Senate should also consider increasing overlap of committee membership from year to year in order to foster greater continuity and less duplication of effort.
B. Give the Evaluation of Faculty Committee more specific and prioritized charges. (Note: This recommendation echoes the secondary recommendation of the 2003 Committee.) One such charge should be to explore the feasibility of electronically gathering student evaluation of faculty in order to expedite results of evaluations for faculty review, to reduce or eliminate the consumption of class time, to reduce or eliminate the physical handling of data, and to eliminate the need to type handwritten student comments for use in self-evaluation, promotion/tenure packets, etc. (see charge G).
C. Create an institutional committee to comprehensively evaluate the current teaching evaluation system. Ultimately, this committee should develop a comprehensive teaching evaluation system to be used by faculty, administrators, and the Promotion and Tenure Committee. This evaluation plan should encourage formative and summative evaluation, should consider each discipline's definition of teaching excellence, and should not be time-consuming to administer or interpret (see charge B). (Note: This recommendation echoes the primary recommendation of the 2003 Committee.)
D. Consider variables in student evaluation of faculty such as class size, students' motivation/preparation, general studies vs. majors courses, elective vs. required courses in students' major, department and division means for each evaluation question, relationship of evaluations to grade point averages, etc. as soon as all Banner modules are functional. Other useful data which can be provided by computer or which would require manual entry or analysis should also be identified (see charges D and E).
E. Develop and distribute guidelines to administrators, faculty, and the Promotion and Tenure Committee for accurately and meaningfully interpreting current statistical data on student evaluation of faculty (see recommendation D) or data generated by a new teaching evaluation (see recommendation C).
F. Suggest that departments check the orientation of header sheets and evaluation forms in envelopes (all facing one direction and right side up), collate course evaluations by course designation (all evaluations of each level course together and placed in order by course number), and send evaluations to the computer center as soon as all of the department's evaluations have been gathered (rather than holding them till the deadline for submission). This would aid in reducing the time necessary for processing (which currently takes 18 days). (See charge F.)
Respectfully submitted,
Ian F. Roberts, Chair
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