Faculty Senate Minutes - 10/6/2005

Missouri Western State University
Faculty Senate Minutes

October 6, 2005
Blum Union 220

Senators Present: President Mullins (presiding), Andrews, Chevalier, Fulton, de Gregorio, Gregory, Kriewitz, Holian, Noynaert, Ottinger

Senators Absent: Heider, Hunt, M. Nandan, S. Nandan, Tushaus

Non-voting and Ex-Officio Members Present: President Scanlon, Acting VPASA Jeanie Daffron, Past Senate President Larry Andrews

Ex-Officio Members Absent:

Guests: Paul Shang, Dean of Student Development


Call to Order: President Phil Mullins called the meeting to order at 4:00 p.m.

Approval of September 15, 2005 Minutes: (Holian/Gregory) Approved with corrections

Approval of Agenda: (Gregory/Andrews) Approved

Report from the University President:
• A joint House/Senate committee on capital expenditures will visit MWSU. We will be presenting the renovation of the Science and Mathematics building (Augenstein). This does not mean that there is money, but it does mean that there is movement.

Report from the Acting Vice President for Academic and Student Affairs:
• Our study away program is making very good progress.
• The Graduate Studies Committee will hold its first meeting tomorrow.

Senators expressed appreciation for the quality of this morning’s Convocation on Critical Issues.

Report from the Senate President:
• We would like to welcome Senator Kriewitz who is replacing Senator Williams.
• The Executive Committee meets on Tuesdays at 11:00 in the Education Suite on the first floor of Murphy Hall.


Informational Reports:

Dean of Student Development Report:

Dr. Paul Shang, Dean of Student Development, presented an informational report.

MWSU is been a very exciting institution. Dr. S has been here about one year. What can we do to work together to make this institution a unified .

We have some marvelous tools including freshman experiences and learning communities.

The Dean’s office has been dealing with some difficult disciplinary issues. We are not unusual in this; most campuses have these problems.

We are a safe campus with a progressive residence hall system. We need to work with the community and address concerns that are unfair or unwarranted.

We are in a period of adjustment. We are introducing new programs and ideas. One example is the two-day orientation. We are seeing a difference in the attitudes and behaviors of incoming students.

Faculty should feel comfortable coming to the Dean’s office to discuss issues and ideas. We need to work together as a campus in producing citizen-scholars. The Office of Student Development will be responsive to faculty concerns.

We have a tendency to focus on the students who cause problems, but this is a small group of students that take a lot of our time.

The floor was opened to Senators for questions. The following is a summary of the questions and answers, not a literal transcription.
• Question: How will the proposed change in the number of students living in the Residence Halls effect campus? Answer: This will bring in a greater diversity into the residence halls. This will bring in people from all parts of Missouri and out of state will add to the quality of the living experience. One of the things that we want to encourage is to bring people out and not make little cocoons around themselves.
• Question: What changes have been made to address discipline problems in the residence halls, particularly on the weekends? Answer: We are working to try to get some control on visitors to campus. This may involve things like limiting the number of access points to the residence halls on the weekends, or someone observing people who are coming and going.
• Question: What percentage of freshmen took advantage of the 2-day orientation? Answer: Approximately 75%. There is also Griffon Edge, so students have some good orientation experiences. A challenge that we have is people who show up at the last minute who want to register. Is there some way that we can make sure that these students still get some type of orientation program and support? We would like every new freshman to get a good orientation.
• Question: Is academic advisement under Student Affairs? Answer: No, but there are people in Student Support who have provided great advising support. Students have good relationships with faculty on our campus. Our advising system needs to take advantage of this.
• Question: In LAS our Dean asked our faculty to do early intervention. For students who don’t come to class, it is hard to get in contact with them. Is there a way for the residence halls to get involved in getting students to classes? Answer: This is something that we should probably look into doing. It would be good idea to look at some type of intervention system. Perhaps there could be a place faculty could send intervention requests.
• Question: Is there still conversation about using Noel-Levitz? Answer: Yes, it is given in all Freshmen Seminar classes.
• Question: What is our minority rate across campus as compared to the residence halls? Answer: We have about 11% minority students campus-wide, and about 40% minority students in the residence halls. Many of our minority students come from farther away. Even our residence hall students are very mobile. They are more mobile than we were when we were students. Many more students have part-time jobs. A problem across the nation is how should we deal with people who think of residence halls as sort of a hotel rather than a residence? Millennial generation students are much more involved with their families and visit families much more than they used to.
• Question: How can faculty be more involved in the residence halls? Answer: There are several things we could do. There are a lot of meeting spaces. There is even space we could use for short-term or long-term faculty residents. For right now, faculty can talk about being part of an academic community. Students look to faculty for guidance and structure. Millennium students respect faculty. Faculty should feel free to comment on issues, particularly about social responsibility. There was an era when faculty avoided that. This generation values the opinions of more experienced people. This is an opportunity for faculty to be role models and being someone that students can feel comfortable to talk about problems with.
• Questions: Could you talk to us about SGA funding? How much money does SGA control, and how is the money used? How much is available for student organizations? Answer: SGA uses student activity fees. This went from $15 to $50 a few years ago. This generates about $250,000. About 5% is set aside for carry over from one year to another. There is a funding oversight committee. They like to support activities that allow students to do individualized support for things like travel to conference and presentations. Things are more awkward where students want to make sure their fees are not being spent on things that should be covered by tuition. There was recently an issue about funding for career development program; students were concerned that this was the type of thing that should be covered as a university expense rather than a student expense. Fairly large amounts of the SGA money have gone into paying for capital improvements in the Student Union.

Chair of Grievance Committee
Larry Andrews has been elected chair of the Grievance Committee to replace R.J. Dick.

Senator Chevaliar requested clarification of the first charge to the Evaluation of Faculty Committee. The chair of the committee is invited to the Executive Committee meeting to discuss the charge

Study Away Committee:


The Study Away Advisory Council held its first meeting on October 4, 2005. The Council is chaired by the Director of Study Away (Dr. Karen Fulton) and membership consists of the Acting Vice President for Student Affairs (Dr. Daffron), Deans Blessing, Grimes, Johnson, and Shove, faculty members Benkofske, Hennessy, M. Nandan, Trifan and Tushaus, and student Samantha Lord. Meetings are open to all interested parties; the next meeting of the Council will be at 8 am on October 18, in Eder Hall 211. The Council took three actions:

1. Academic Integrity Statement for inclusion into the Study Away handbook was passed.

It is imperative that the academic integrity of a Study Away course be upheld by ensuring that such a course has as much rigor as any traditional course. As Study Away courses carry academic credit, each course proposal must include a syllabus that includes the requirements for the course as well as the means to evaluate the students. Study Away courses on site should be engaged in directed activities designed to enrich course content, written assignments, and readings to be completed either on campus or on site or both. A course carrying 3 hours of academic credit will require 90-135 hours of teacher-student contact or off campus student experience directly related to the course content. The assigned reading materials or texts should be appropriate to the academic content of the course. If in the opinion of the Study Away Advisory Committee (see handbook), the academic content of the proposed study does not meet acceptable criteria, the proposal will be returned to the faculty member for revision.

2. The Director was instructed to pursue two curricular proposals to enable students to pursue semester study abroad.

INT 300 International Study-Study Abroad (3-15 credit hours)
Students studying abroad in a recognized program enroll in this course for the period of their stay. This maintains the students’ enrollment during the period of international study and upon return facilitates the translation of coursework taken abroad into Western credit. Course credit must be approved by the Study Away Director.

INT 200 International Study—Cultural Experience (3-15 credit hours)
Students studying abroad in a Missouri Western State University program which may not have equivalent courses at MWSU enroll in this course for the period of their stay. This maintains the students’ enrollment during the period of international study and upon return facilitates the translation of coursework taken abroad into Western credit. Course credit must be approved by the Study Away Director.

3. The Director was encouraged to enroll MWSC in the Missouri Consortium for International Study and Programs (a consortium of Missouri 4 year universities and St. Louis University) at the Consortium’s next meeting on October 13 and 14.

The Council felt this kind of affiliation befitted Western’s emergence as a university. Initially, Western will join for a 3-year period.

At the Senate meeting, President Scanlon expressed his support for this decision and indicated that he hoped that MWSU would continue membership beyond the 3 year period. In order to encourage student abilities to participate in this and other programs, that MWSC could make it in student’s interest financially to pursue study abroad. Dr. Fulton indicated she would visit with Dr. Scanlon and Dr. Daffron to explore these scholarship opportunities and to make those opportunities known to our students.

Plus/Minus Grading System:
A faculty member has requested considering going to a plus/minus grading system. Is this something that the Senate can take an interest in? Our old computer system could not manage this, but it is possible with Banner.

Faculty Advisor liability:
Senator Chevalier would like some clarification about what a faculty advisor’s liability when the faculty member is an advisor to a campus committee.

New Business

Adjourned.