ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY Second Reading
ACADEMIC SENATE
SPRING 2006 SESSION
Senate Motion # __46__ (2005–06)
Motion Introduced by: Curriculum and Academic Programs Committee
Mary Kihl, Chair
Date of Introduction May 1, 2006
for First Reading:
Date of Second Reading: August 28, 2006 - APPROVED
Title of Motion: Request from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences for the
Establishment of an Undergraduate Certificate in Arabic Studies
1 The Curriculum and Academic Programs Committee recommends Academic Senate approval
2 of a proposal submitted by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences for the establishment of
3 an Undergraduate Certificate in Arabic Studies
Rationale:
The Certificate will provide critically needed educational and cultural diversity that will enrich the undergraduate experience for students. A certificate in Arabic Studies provides students with skills that will enable and qualify them to communicate effectively in Arabic in the four areas of language acquisition: speaking, listening, reading and writing.
Approved August 28, 2006, as a motion from Executive Committee
Shared Governance at
Arizona State University
Guidelines for Shared Governance at Arizona State University
The Universities shall have colleges, schools and departments and give courses of study and academic degrees as the Board (of Regents) approves. Subject to the responsibilities and powers of the Board and the University Presidents, the faculty members of the Universities, through their elected faculty representatives, shall share responsibility for academic and educational activities and matter related to faculty personnel. The faculty member of each University, through their elected faculty representatives, shall participate in the governance of their respective Universities and shall actively participate in the development of University policy. – Arizona Revised Statute §15-1601
Purpose
This document identifies the principles and mechanisms through which the faculty and administration of Arizona State University seek and henceforth shall seek to effect their commitment to the university’s mission. This memorandum supersedes all previous memoranda and agreements and does not assume powers not granted to Arizona State University faculty or administration by the State of Arizona or the Arizona Board of Regents.
Principles
Basis of Shared Governance
Shared governance establishes the ethos and the structures that enable divergent ideas to be placed on the table, debated for their merits, shaped for the larger good of the university community, and put to use in a timely manner. Shared governance is the keystone that sustains and advances a university’s mission, effectiveness, and reputation.
While the primary responsibility for academic administration falls to individual faculty members who have been moved into administrative positions for having demonstrated exceptional organizational skills, the faculty-of-the whole bear significant responsibility for policies and actions dealing with curriculum, promotion and tenure, budget, community outreach, service to academic and community entities, research, and organization. This is so not simply because faculty and academic professionals are the university’s intellectual core, but also because the university’s direct connection with students, alumni, the immediate community, and the academic community must travel directly through them, their actions, and their works.
Indeed, faculty and academic professionals generate significant research, create and sustain the academic stature of the university, broaden the horizons and citizenship of students and society, and establish and extend future fruitful alumni relationships. Because of these important contributions by the faculty and academic professionals, a commitment to shared governance is essential to the advancement of the university’s mission. At a minimum, shared governance leads to better decision-making, stronger collegiality, and the construction and maintenance of relationships of trust and mutual accord; it sets for all to see an extensive example of democratic governance, warrantees that decisions are based on a vast array of cutting-edge knowledge and information, and ensures that policies and actions are based on long-term values rather than short-term goals.
Collaboration by Design
Form and Variance
When administrators solicit the counsel of other administrators (who very often also hold faculty positions and therefore are members of the faculty) or individual faculty for their expertise or perceived trustworthiness, they are indeed involving “faculty” in their decision making. However, shared governance requires collaboration between elected faculty representatives and the university’s administration. More specifically, Arizona State University’s various faculty senates, the University Academic Council, and their respective committees are the official bodies with which the administration must be expected routinely to consult.
Deliberate and Careful Collaboration
The vast majority of instances of shared governance carry the burden of careful collaboration wherein appropriate faculty bodies and administration have reached general agreement. General agreement means that appropriate elected faculty representatives and administrators, through a spirit of mutual respect, have weighed matters and options and have reached consensus.
The President or designee(s) can and sometimes will announce a final decision that is not the outcome of general agreement; however, such instances would be exceptions. In such cases, the President or the President’s designee will provide the elected faculty leaders with an explanation for why actions were taken.
Proposed Faculty-Governance Structure for ASU and Its Campuses
Campus Senates
Each campus will maintain its own faculty senate. To achieve this goal the following need to occur:
Ø ASU at the West campus will retain the current version of its senate.
Ø ASU at the Tempe campus will revise its senate, which currently includes academic personnel from the Polytechnic campus, so that it includes only Tempe campus personnel.
Ø ASU at the Polytechnic campus established a senate in March 2006.
Ø ASU at the Downtown Phoenix campus, which currently has no mechanism for faculty governance, will establish a senate as soon as feasible. In the meantime, the faculty may deem it practical to operate with an academic assembly.
Each ASU campus that may emerge in the future will also establish an academic senate as soon as feasible. Each campus senate will focus on governance matters that are specific to that campus.
Senate Committees
Campus Committees
Although each campus senate may wish to establish additional committees, the following committees should exist on each ASU campus:
Ø Personnel: Considers and forms policy and provides advice on matters related to faculty employment, including hiring, salary, and all other personnel matters as deemed appropriate by the Senate membership.
Ø Curriculum: Considers and forms policy and provides advice on all matters concerning additions, deletions, or modifications to the curriculum.
Ø Committee on Committees: Nominates faculty and academic professionals for service on campus committees.
University Academic Council
Functions of the University Academic Council
The University Academic Council shall have the following functions and responsibilities:
Ø Facilitate articulation among all the campus senates;
Ø Meet regularly with the President—or the President’s designee—to represent the interests of each senate and the faculty;
Ø Advise the President on issues related to faculty governance;
Ø Help harmonize and synchronize university-wide curricular issues;
Ø Appoint and oversee university-wide governance committees;
Ø The senate presidents serve as members of the President’s University Council.
Ø Members of the UAC and three members of university administration, as appointed by the President of the University shall be responsible for monitoring and reporting on the status of shared governance processes.
Composition of the University Academic Council
The University Academic Council (UAC) will consist of the following representatives from each campus senate:
Ø President
Ø President-Elect
Ø Immediate Past-President
Initial Formation
At the inaugural meeting of the UAC, a lottery will determine the permanent rotation pattern for UAC Chairs. That is, the lottery will determine the campus from which the chair will come in the first year, the second year, and the third year. Because ASU at the downtown campus does not yet have a faculty governance structure, one of its officers will serve as chair in the fourth year. From the initial year forward, rotation of UAS Chairs will sustain this pattern.
Three committees serve the university-wide community and report directly to the University Academic Council:
Ø Academic Freedom and Tenure Committee: Considers alleged infringements of academic freedom or tenure of faculty members and report all findings to the campus senate, the campus provost, the university provost, and the university president.
Ø Faculty Grievance Committee: Considers alleged grievances other than those handled by the committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure.
Ø Strategic Planning and Budget Committee: Considers and forms policy and offers advice on all matters related to campus planning and budget allocations. The SPBC will consist of one half faculty and one half administration.
Structure and Processes for Shared Governance
University-wide committees will consist of faculty, administrators, and members of other sectors of the University community, as appropriate. Faculty and administration shall make every effort to accommodate one another’s needs, to achieve balance between faculty and administration perspectives, and to achieve fair representation of gender, race, and ethnicity in committee composition.
Faculty shall advise in selection and review of academic unit chairs and directors, deans, vice provosts, and academic vice presidents, although selection of administrators is ultimately an administrative decision. Search and hiring committees and meetings will involve both faculty and university administration input and collaboration.
Professionalizing Faculty Governance
Mechanisms
Campus and University administrators should give careful and due consideration to senate leaders who are serving the university and campus communities in highly valuable roles. In recognition of the responsibilities of the campus senate officers, who will also have responsibilities in the University Academic Council, we propose the following mechanisms for professionalizing their work:
Ø Reassigned Time:
o Each campus senate president will be relieved of their teaching responsibilities for the academic year, with this time reassigned to governance responsibilities.
o When possible, each campus president-elect will be reassigned from one-fourth to one-half of their teaching responsibilities for the academic year.
o Evaluation of Senate leadership shall be conducted by that person’s respective Senate Executive Committee, and the results of that evaluation shall be conveyed to the University President.
§ All such evaluations shall be subject to the same rules of confidentiality as are applied to unit-level evaluations.
§ A copy of the Committee’s recommendation shall be provided within five business days to the person being evaluated prior to that evaluation being forwarded to the University President.
Ø Each campus provost should provide funding for the reassigned time and stipends for the officers from that campus :
o Unit compensation: Those who assume campus and university leadership roles are de facto valuable members of campus and university communities. Their absence typically will be felt strongly in the departments to which they belong. Accordingly, the campus provost should provide compensation to the units from which senate leaders are absent to enable those units to attend to necessary teaching and/or advising duties.
o Stipends: Each campus senate president will earn one month’s summer stipend (one-ninth of the faculty member’s academic-year salary).
Ø Support and Space: To facilitate the work of the campus senates and the University Academic Council, the following support structures should be provided by the campus provosts:
o Adequate, designated support staff for each campus senate;
o Designated office space for the support staff and campus senate president, including office computers for the staff and the senate president;
o Designated meeting space for each campus senate;
o Designated physical and cyber storage space for senate and UAC archives and ongoing actions and activities;
o An independent operating budget for each campus senate;
o An independent operating budget for the University Academic Council—to be provided by the Executive Vice President and Provost of the University;
o Funding for each campus senate president to travel to conferences;
o A laptop computer for the campus senate president-elect, who will continue to use the computer as president and past-president. This laptop computer is in addition to the computer in the campus senate president’s office.
o Teleconferencing software for the UAC members.
Ø Campus Memoranda of Understanding: To ensure continuity, each campus provost and the campus senate leadership will develop a written agreement detailing the support noted above. Such agreements will typically span three to five years.
Drafted by:
Richard Morris, Academic Assembly and Academic Senate President, ASU at the West campus
Susan Mattson, Academic Assembly and Academic Senate President, ASU at the Tempe campus
Paul Patterson, Academic Assembly President, ASU at the Polytechnic campus
Duane Roen, Academic Assembly and Academic Senate President-Elect, ASU at the Tempe campus
John Brock, Academic Assembly and Senate President-Elect, ASU at the Polytechnic campus
Ernest Hirata, Academic Assembly Past-President, ASU at the Polytechnic campus
Milton Glick, Executive Vice President and Provost of the University
Marjorie Zatz, Vice Provost for Academic Personnel
ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY Second Reading
ACADEMIC SENATE
Fall 2006 SESSION
Senate Resolution ___#1 (2006–07)
Resolution Introduced by: Executive Committee (Duane Roen)
Date of Introduction August 28, 2006
for First Reading:
Date of Second Reading: September 25, 2006 - APPROVED
Title of Resolution: Proposed Resolution from Executive Committee:
Sensitive Course Content
1. The Tempe campus Academic Senate endorses the following practice:
2. "If the instructor believes it is necessary, a syllabus should communicate to students
3. that some course content may be considered sensitive."
ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY Second Reading
ACADEMIC SENATE
Fall 2006 SESSION
Senate Resolution____#2 (2006–07)
Resolution Introduced by: Executive Committee (Duane Roen)
Date of Introduction August 28, 2006
for First Reading:
Date of Second Reading: September 25, 2006 - APPROVED
Title of Resolution: Proposed Resolution from Executive Committee:
CAPC Procedures
1. For the sake of efficiency, the Tempe campus Academic Senate will consider a CAPC agenda item,
2. rather than a CAPC recommendation, as a first reading of a curriculum proposal. Subsequently,
3. the second reading will consist of CAPC's recommendation on that curriculum proposal.
ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY Second Reading
ACADEMIC SENATE
Fall 2006 SESSION
Senate Motion # 3 (2006–07)
Motion Introduced by: Curriculum and Academic Programs Committee
Summer Electronic Meeting, July, 2006
Date of Introduction August 28, 2006
for First Reading:
Date of Second Reading: September 25, 2006 - APPROVED
Title of Motion: Request from the W.P. Carey School of Business for the
Establishment of an Undergraduate Certificate in Honors Business Modeling and Analysis
1 The Curriculum and Academic Programs Committee recommends Academic Senate approval