Academic Senate Summary

Monday, November 13, 2006

SCOB 210

3:15 -5:00 p.m.

Present: Acereda, Allen, Allison, Alpers, Anderson, Arredondo, Blasingame, Broman, Bruhn, Burg, Burstein, Bush, H. Campbell, Capaldi, Cobas, Comfort, Croft, deLusè, Duerden, Espinosa, Farmer, Feldman, Garcia-Fernandez, Gelb, Gonzalez-Santin, Gopalan, Guleserian, Gustavsson, Hajicek, Harlan, Johnson, Keim, Kihl, Kingston, Kirkman-Liff, Komnenich, Konomos, Koshinsky, LaFaro, Maris, McPhee, Meyer (Waters and Simonhoff for), Moorhead, Rez, Roen, Shaeffer, Shaw, Simon, Smas, Stewart, Strom, Sullivan, Sushka, Swadener, Trotta, Tsakalis, Vandermeer, Verdini, Vernon, Witt, Zatz

1. CALL TO ORDER

The meeting was called to order by Senate President Duane Roen at 3:09 p.m.

2. APPROVAL OF PREVIOU MINUTES

The minutes of October 23, 2006 were posted today. Without objection they were approved as posted. If there are corrections please email them to and cc: .

3. Announcements and Communications

A. Senate President's Report (Duane Roen)

1. Faculty/Staff Family Day

Everyone was asked to pick up the flyer at the back of the room after the meeting. If you decide to attend on November 18, at 2:00 p.m. bring the flyer filled out, and you can receive up to four (4) free tickets for the Men's basketball game (Arizona State vs Portland state). The Athletic Department is eager to strengthen their relationships with the faculty and they are doing a marvelous job with that. We will be inviting the new basketball coach at ASU to speak to us in the spring as he cannot do it before then. I think you will be please with his commitment to academic excellence and putting academics first.

2. Featured Faculty Nomination Form

A form was emailed to senators last week in hopes that you will share that with the students in your department, to nominate faculty for that recognition.

3. Policy on Excused Absences

The Executive Committee asked the Student Faculty Policy Committee to develop some recommendations on ASU's policy for excused absences from class. You may have some input that you wish to give Rojann Alpers on this when she does her report.

4. Memorial Union Advisory Board request for faculty

I received an email message this morning that they have filled the position, but if you are interested, or know of someone who is interested in serving in the future, please let them know. Just email Zac

5. Academic Assembly Membership

This announcement was retracted because there was a question from a faculty member about the voting rights of lecturers in departments. In talking with Provost Zatz, we have decided that there is no need for the ACD Manual to include anything on this because it is up to the individual departments.

6. New Courses

During today's open forum there are two items I would like to discuss informally. We are asking to do it in an open forum to decide whether some resolution should be forthcoming from this body. We have one question about new courses--whether the current policy on developing new courses should be changed. The current policy is that if a department wishes to develop a new course there needs to be two omnibus course number offerings of that course, before the new course can be proposed for a permanent course.

7. Faculty Awards.

The second thing has to do with brainstorming ideas for additional awards for faculty. The Provost's Office is trying to develop more faculty awards to give adequate recognition to all the faculty who do so many wonderful things through their teaching, service, research, creative activities.

Now we will hear from our Provost.

B. University Provost’s Reportand Forum (Betty Capaldi)

Today I want to show you a recruiting for the university and it comes in different sections, which you could use for different purposes. I want you to see the whole video and that will take 15 minutes. The link on the web for this file is provided for those who could not be here today.

will answer any question you may have after we see the video. The video opened "With more than 60,000 undergraduate and graduate students on four campuses…..regardless of the location, ASU's mission is the same, outstanding education…"

We hope to eventually have this on dvd for all faculty members to use.

C. Senate President-Elect’s Report (Bill Verdini) No report. I am taking attendance today.

D. USG President’s Report (Liz Simonhoff for Ross Meyer)

I want to give you an update on what the undergraduate student government is up to. We are definitely staying busy--in fact that seems to be our theme this year--we are constantly busy. There are not enough hours in the day to do all the that we want to do. First, I want to give you an update on the Bike Co-op and Safety Escort Service. Everything is going great and for the first time they are pretty much self-sustained. We are happy with both these services.

Second, we have been working with the Student-Faculty Policy Committee on issues such as drop/add and plus/minus, but I know that is something we will discuss later on today.

Third, these past couple weeks we have been working with a Voter Drive and getting students to get out and actually vote. We are physically taking students to their polling place this time because it is very important to encourage students to get out the vote and to care.

The fourth thing we have been doing is Coffee with the Times, and this is something that we wanted to do biweekly. I mentioned it briefly last month, but every two weeks we invite a professor to come and stimulate and intellectual discussion outside of the classroom and the two professors that have done this already are David Pickett and Pamela Stewart. They were absolutely wonderful, and if any of you are interested in participating in this event please let us know. We try to have it on Thursdays, biweekly. We have free coffee with the NY Times and Corporate Starbucks is donating a free cup of coffee for every single person that attends. We try to give a few free mugs out too to encourage students to come.

The fifth thing we have been doing is preparing for our Off-campus Housing Fair. This is a big event. It takes place Tuesday and Wednesday this week, and we will have a concert outside on Hayden lawn. There will be vendors from local areas and they will be promoting off-campus housing and trying to help students find off-campus housing. IKEA has donated a free gift certificate and we are going to be giving out free pizza. It should be a great time and a free lunch. You are invited.

E. GPSA President's Report (Brian McNamara) - No report.

F. University Academic Council Report (John Brock) - No report.

G. Polytechnic Senate Report (John Brock) - No report.

H. West Senate Report (Gary Anders) -No report.

I. ASU Downtown Senate Report (Susan Mattson) - No report.

J. Past Senate President’s Report (Susan Mattson) - No report.

K. Personnel Committee Report (Doug Johnson). (See 5.A Unfinished Business)

Senate President Roen reminded Senator Johnson that if there is time, we should cover the two business items that are pending a second reading today (S.M. #'s 4 and 5).

Senator Johnson: A couple of quick reminders for you today. Could anyone here use an extra $500 dollars? If so, I want to remind you to sign up for the Flexible Spending Account during the open enrollment period this month. You could easily save $500 next yearif you do. It is pre-tax savings that applies to many health items. There is a reporting requirement, so you have to save your receipts, but for $500 it might be worth considering. The maximum you can save is $5,000. If you anticipate a big major medical item that is coming up, you might be better with this.

The Personnel Committee is continuing to work towards a new RFP for health insurance for the coming year. We are in our last year of the current contract and we are hoping that the ADOA in this process intends to update and enhance our program further. If anyone has specific issues that you would like to get into that discussion, please send them to me. or to any member of the Personnel Committee.

The third area that we continue to work on is a set of proposals for legislative action to enhance retirement programs. We are getting close to the deadlines for submitting proposals for legislation in the coming year, but we still have hopes that we will have some positive action on these proposals that we have been working on for the last couple of years.

The two items of business we have before us today--Senate Motion #4 is to create an infrastructure for Academic Professionals that will provide to them a parallel promotion and tenure review as we approved for faculty last year. It begins on page three of your agenda.

Q- When you say "associate rank or higher" in point 2 on page 4--what are the academic professionals ranks?

They are assistant, associate, and full, but then there also are some that are something and then Senior designation.

There are parallel levels to those available to the faculty tenure rank. If there is no further discussion, all in favor please say Aye.

Q - Aren't members of the committee supposed to participate in all of the discussions in regard to tenure status? I think that is not quite correct or it is not the way it should be. It would better if those who already have the rank that is being considered are the ones who are responsible for the voting and the discussion. Those who do not have that rank should not participate. It is improper to vote promoting someone to a rank that they do not already have.

Your point is one that a number of departments agree with on promotion and tenure but it is also a point that a number of departments disagree with because some departments feel that everyone should have a say, on whether there should be a committee of people that represents all ranks. While a lot of people would agree with you, this is not something that has ever been determined for the university. It has always been left up to the different bylaws of the college or school. This is at the university level and it used to be that at the different campuses this was the committee tbat would look at the file after it came out the department, after it came out of the college, at the university level at each campus, and now we are doing that as a university.

The committee that came up with these guidelines did not want to trample on what might be the way that things are done in the department or college levels.

Q - So, if this applies to the university level, I think it might be possible to allow departments to do it one way or the other, but at the university level we should have a more appropriate policy.

We are going to be using the P&T documents that were passed by this body last spring. There will generally be full professors, but there could be associate professors. The committee structure approved by this body allowed for that, and the Academic Professionals used that structure as a base in creating their document.

Q - I think there is a conflict of interest in that if you are an associate professor voting to promote someone to full professor--there may be a tendency to think lowered standards for promotion, because you would want to be promoted to full professor yourself someday. That is a conflict of interest.

I just wanted you to have the history of this document. It is following the guidelines of the P&T structure that this body approved last spring.

Senator Johnson: One of the arguments in favor of this model is that we would like to have representation from around the university. If you require a higher rank, you may constrain the areas being represented.

Q - It is not a question of being on the committee, it is a question of what you can vote for, or about.

The Provost is in agreement with the senator that only full professors should vote on promotion to that rank. However, at this university they do it this way.

In Nursing, they really have a limited number of full professors and we do utilize our associate professors in these decisions of rank.

Provost understands that within the college or school this is the case, but at the university level, we should have full professors.

Full rank should be used in these situations because even when there is no bias present, if you are critical of promotion, and at a lower rank yourself, it could be viewed as bias. Therefore, I personally feel that even if they are serving, lower ranking colleagues should constrain themselves from voting.

Q - Why is it necessary on that committee to have a member from all the campuses?

This is one university-wide committee, but at the college and department levels the criteria remains as they are.

Although there are similar issues to consider, please remember that this vote is about the academic professionals. This vote is to provide for Academic Professionals what we did for faculty last year.

Q - It is just a consistency argument. I have respect for past practice, but this document is to provide for academic professionals who are not tenure eligible, a similar process that the faculty already have.

Are we ready for a vote at this time? All in favor please raise your right hand. All opposed by the same sign. (16 were against and 25 in favor). The motion passes.

Senate Motion #4 (2006-2007) (Second Reading): from the Senate Personnel Committee, to approve the Proposal for the University Promotion and Continuing Appointment Review Committee (Draft 11/06/06) was passed by a majority hand vote of those present.

Senator Johnson: Senate Motion #5 is also up for a second reading today. This is the document that will create a three level career path for Promotion of Lecturers. It adds a third category of Principal Lecturer. It is up for discussion by the floor and it begins on page 7 of the agenda. Are there comments on this proposal? Hearing none, all in favor please indicate by raising your right hand. All opposed by the same sign. The motion passes.

Senate Motion #4 (2006-2007) (Second Reading): from the Senate Personnel Committee, to approve the December 2005 draft (Dugan, Schildgen, Beggs, and Dehghanpisheh) for Promotion of Lecturers was passed by a majority hand vote of those present.

Senate President Roen: That takes us to the Consent agenda items from the Curriculum and Academic Programs Committee.

4. ADOPTION OF ALL CONSENT ACTION ITEMS, INFORMATION ITEMS, AND REPORTS

A. Curriculum and Academic Programs Committee (Mary Kihl)

You have the consent items before you in the agenda. Does anyone wish to withdraw any of these programs for further discussion? These are the ones that have gone through the traditional process and the transition process for CAPC proposals for second reading. Hearing no requests, I would recommend that these proposals all be approved as listed. CAPC proposals can be accessed at this web link before each Senate meeting ( )

(Please note that Senate Resolution #10 was assigned to the resolution from Polytechnic Senators at the October 23 Senate meeting)

Senate Motion #6 (2006-2007) (Second Reading): Establishment of a Graduate Certificatein Latino Cultural Competency, in Social Work (Attachments, Page )

Senate Motion #7 (2006-2007)(Second Reading): Name Change of a Degree Programfrom MTESL to MTESOL (Attachments, Page )

Senate Motion #8 (2006-2007)(Second Reading): Establishment of an Undergraduate Certificatein Information Sciences (Attachments, Page )

Senate Motion #9 (2006-2007)(Second Reading):Request to Implement New Graduate Degree ProgramMaster of Advanced Study in Geographic Education (MAS-GE) (Attachments, Page )

Senate Motion #11 (2006-2007)(Second Reading): Request to Implement New Graduate Degree Program - Ph.D. in Media Arts and Sciences (Attachments, Page )

Senate Motion #12 (2006-2007)(Second Reading): Request to Transfer and Rename Graduate Degree Programs , and Disestablish a Graduate Degree Program - Master of Science (M.S.) in Materials Science degree (Attachments, Pages )

Senate Motion #13 (2006-2007) (Second Reading): Request to Disestablish a Department (Languages and Literatures) and Establish a School - The School of International Letters and Cultures (Attachments, Page )

Senate President Roen: We do need a second, to accept these agenda items. All in favor please say aye. Opposed? Abstentions? There was one abstention duly noted. The motion carried. Thank you, Mary. Since we covered unfinished business under announcements, we will now go to new business. Senator Johnson before you leave, is there anything further from the Personnel Committee to report? (No.)

5. Unfinished Business.

A. Personnel Committee (Doug Johnson) (See 3.L Announcements and Communications)

6. New Business (Reports and new motions - from Senate committees)

A. Personnel Committee (Doug Johnson).

Next meeting of PC has been rescheduled to meet on December 6 at 1:40 p.m. in ADM B 365.