Minutes
Called Meeting of the Full Faculty
4/10/2012
President Steinberg called the meeting to order at 3:15 p.m.The January minutes were corrected to include the election of Gavin Townsend and Jim Tucker as full professor faculty senators-at-large and approved. (Potts/Hiestand)
Doctor of Occupational Therapy
Mary Tanner explained that the DOT degree proposal passed with a large majority on first vote. She noted that occupational therapy was originally an undergraduate degree that was eliminated as a program of study in a previous financial crisis.
The community reacted negatively to the elimination of the program, so UTC subsequently entered into a partnership with the UT Health Sciences Center to offer a masters degree in the subject. This partnership was discontinued several years ago. Now there is evidence thatnationally occupational therapy is moving to a clinical doctorate. There is one other doctorate in occupational therapy in the state, at Belmont University; ours will be the first at a public university.
Q: Does Academic Affairs support the program as we built it?
A: Yes, part of the approval process involves THEC and we have gotten assurances from them in writing that they support it. Everything is in place; all we need is the vote.
The faculty voted unanimously to approve the Occupational Therapy doctorate.
Handbook Changes
President Steinberg said that some of these change have been in effect for quite some time but the paperwork to update the Faculty Handbook never made it through the process; other changes have been recommended by committee chairs.
Q: I wasn’t sure if the department headsfrom Health and Human Performance are on the Athletic Committee.
A: They will be included in a friendly amendment.
Q: What about the mission statement?
A: The mission statement changes from time to time and the one in the current Handbook has no relation to the mission statement we have now. The new provision makes it possible for the change to be made automatically to the Faculty Handbook and all relevant publications if the mission statement is changed or updated. This language was borrowed from the Handbook language at UTK. This change has been made mostly to comply with SACS.
The faculty voted unanimously to adopt the Handbook changes; they will go to the Board in June.
Calendar
Jocelyn Sanders explained the three options for the academic calendar and the final exam schedule.
Q: Do any of these calendar options address the compression of the final exam schedule (continuous exams for one week).
A: We will discuss that after we deal with the calendar.
Q:For the 2013 fall semester, as the calendar as now constituted, will the last day of class be the Tuesday before Thanksgiving with the University closed for the next four days of Thanksgiving Week and then final exams starting on the Monday after Thanksgiving.
A: Yes. We have to plan ahead but we can always change the calendar
C: Several people in the Business College teach on Monday nights and are concerned about grades being due the next day.
Q: I have a concern about all three options, particularly about A and B. There is no Reading Day for A and B. Under our old model we had Reading Day and a weekend and we didn’t have five days of exams in a row and I worry about students being under too much pressure. How will we address this problem?
A: That’s a good point. The committee has to balance competing interests and priorities. We looked at ways to divide final exam week into two parts; this didn’t work.
C:My committee started last October and came up with three possible calendars that are not on this ballot. We presented these three options to the administration and they were not accepted, although our options addressed many of the concerns expressed here today. So the ad hoc calendar committee does not endorse any of the three options currently under consideration.
Q: If grades are no longer processed by hand, why does Records now need an extra day to process grades?
A: It is not true that things are no longer done manually, i.e. if a student is con- currently enrolled in a course and its prerequisite but does not complete the prerequisite, we have to drop him from the second course.
Q: What time are grades due?
A: At noon for all three options
Q: Can we reject all three options?
A: Yes, we can reject all three options and go with what is currently in place..
Q: If we moved Commencement back to Sunday, would this change alleviate some of these problems?
A: The change to Saturday Commencement was driven by students and parents who have to travel to Chattanooga for Commencement. Over 60% of our students come from outside Chattanooga.
Q: Students hate that they don’t have Reading Day and they really hate having five continuous days of exams. Moreover Lost Monday isa huge problem.
A: We can’t have grades due after Commencement, as was the case in two of the options that the ad hoc Calendar Committee proposed.
C:That statement is not accurate. One of the ad hoc Calendar Committee proposals gave us a full week off for fall break and allowed for three days off between theend of classes and the beginning of finals, but all of our proposals were rejected by the Administration.
A:The primary difference between the ad hoc Calendar Committee’s proposals and the current three options now under consideration is time at the end of the semester. Records needs time to do things for students. Option C (currently under consideration) was suggested at last Thursday’s Senate Meeting by a member of the ad hoc committee; all three options currently under consideration are not Administrative options.
Q: Under the current final exam schedule we have exams at night until 9:45. This has an impact: if someone has an exam that lasts until 9:45 and grades are due the next day at noon, is this reasonable?
A: There are two central changes for the final exam schedule: 1. Schedule the time slots throughout the week so that the student does nothave more than one exam on one day, no back-to-back exams, no exams all on one day. 2. Instead of starting at 8:00 a.m. and finishing at 9:45 p.m., we can start at 8:00 or 7:30 with one half hour between exams. With spreading exams throughout the week, students will have at least three hours between exams, although some students on Tuesdays and Thursdays may have back-to-back exams.
C: I used to be able to tell students that they would have plenty of time on the final exam, but with the new proposal, that isn’t true any more. Also, the current schedule is a disadvantage to the students who have their exams administered in the Disability Center rather than in my building where I will be nearby.
C: I’m not sure that I understood the answer to the Commencement questions. If we moved Commencement back to Saturday, couldn’t we move the grades due back to Wednesday?
A: If we can come up with something the meets everybody’s needs, that’s what we’re after. The problem is, we need all of the time slots. Those courses that meet once a week are a problem because they can’t have finals at a time when another course that meets once a week is having its exam.
Q: What about students who are working and can’t come to their scheduled final exam?
C: Now you know what our committee’s been talking about for four months.
Motion: Option C plus move Commencement back to Sunday and have grades due on Wednesday. [This is now Option D](Gaudin/Noe)
C: We should vote on the three options we have in front of us and if they fail, then we should go on to something else.
Q: If we don’t make a change today are we committingourselves in 2013 to have the last day of class on the Tuesday beforeThanksgiving and finals week after Thanksgiving?
A:Yes.
Q:What is the drop dead date to changing the calendar and final exam schedule?
A: Now.
The question was called.
An amendment was offered to Option A: moving Commencement to Sunday with grades due on Wednesday. This amendment would eliminate a Saturday final.
Q: Are there five options on the floor?
A: Yes
Q: Is it really an option to move Commencement to Sunday?
A: I can’t answer that.
Q: Does an option need majority approval or plurality approval?
A: A Simple majority will win or we can do a run-off for the top two.
C: We have voted several times on the calendar in the past and it doesn’t matter what happens here todaybecause the faculty has no power.
C: We need to find out if Commencement can be moved.
A: We can’t answer that question now.
Q: If we get that questionanswered canwe vote at that time?
A: We’ve only got another week.
Q: Commencement was moved from Sunday because it used to be on Mother’s Day,
Q: I thought we moved Commencement to Saturday from Sunday because other campuses in the UT system switched. Is that not true?
A:No
The faculty voted to approve Option C and Final Exam Schedule #1:
Option A=18 votes
Option B=19 votes
Option C=26 votes
Option D (C plus Sunday Commencement/grades on Wednesday)=8 votes
Option E (A plus Sunday Commencement/grades on Wednesday)=2 votes
Option F (none of the above) 9 votes
A run-off election between the two top votegetters (B and C) resulted in 23 votes for Option B and 42 votes for Option C.
Option C restores Lost Monday and Reading Day. For the fall semester of 2013, the last day of class will be Monday, December 2. Reading Day will be Tuesday, December 3. Final exams will begin on Wednesday, December 4 and run continuously through Monday, December 9, including a Saturday final exam schedule. Grades will be due on Tuesday, December 10.
Final Exam Schedule #1= 30 votes
Final Exam Schedule #2=10 votes
Final Exam Schedule #3= 10 votes
None of the above=20 votes
Final Exam Schedule #1 is as follows;
8:00 a.m.-10:00 a.m.
10:30-12:30 a.m.
1:00 p.m.-3:00 p.m.
3:30-5:30 p.m.
6:00-8:00 p.m.
Report from the Vice-Chancellor for Operations and Finance
General Financial Status of the University
Vice-Chancellor Brown thanked the faculty for what we do every day. We have come through five years of the most turbulent times we have every seen but we have weathered the storm very nicely through strategic planning, We decided five years ago not to cut faculty because it would send the wrong signal; we protected instruction. The financial health of the University is strong right now; we are rebalancing the institution and have set our priorities on rebalancing instructional lines. We lost a number of existing faculty lines and reduced staff lines and operating budgets across the institution.The good news is that we are today a stronger and more efficient university; we are working harder. Our challenge going forward is to rebalance instructional lines that we lostin the last five years. We are now working on a three-year phased plan. The allocations to Academic Affairs have exceeded 5 million dollars.
Library
The Faculty Senate passed a resolution regarding support for the library that we support; we supported a new library fee last year that generated $567,000 in recurring funding for the library and this will help to seed the new library. Much of the resolution addressed an annual adjustment in the budget for library support, and we support that.
Stimulus Savings
We got through the bad financial times with 26 plus million dollars worth of stimulus funds: new computers microscopes, autoclaves, grand pianos. We also made capital improvements to classrooms and in sustainable energy management. We have saved 35 plus million dollars in energy costs because we used stimulus funds to investin sustainable energy.
State Funding
The governor has put together a budget projection that has some consensus from the legislature behind it. Higher education funding in Tennessee is discretionary; the state is not required to fund it, soit lines up behind some other state priorities, such as prisons, roads, elementary schools. This governor sees the value in public higher education and this budget that he is recommending isone of the most optimistic budgets in ten years. The budget comes with a 2.2% base budget reduction for higher education,but no one will be laid off at UTC. However, he recommends a 2.5 raise pool for public higher education. The legislature should confirm this budget in June. We hope we can find themoney for a 3% raise. There is a new funding formula called the TennesseeComplete College Act: we used to fund universities based on 14-day head count; now we are funded on thenumber of students that we graduate. However, we need to make sure that we still have academic rigorin our programs; we don’t want to simply push students through. We need to make sure that there is enough funding in Academic Affairs so that the courses that student need to move through the university seamlessly are in place. There will be 1 million dollars there in new faculty lines. The governor’s budget also allocates almost $800,000 forthis campus in operating funds. With that budget comes a new building: generallyit has taken almost 20 years to get a building through the pipeline. This governor will give us 3 million dollars in planning money to build a new life sciences building; this process will start this year. There is also some capital improvement money for improved lights, locks, cameras, security, fire alarms, so that at the end of next year we will haveone of the most secure campuses in the state.
Tuition and Fees
Tuition and fees will be part of the conversation that wewill be having with the President of the UT System; nationally we are talking about keeping tuition low, and this is going on in Tennessee as well. Tuition increases will be modest. We are recommending what allows us to do the essential things that keep the university moving forward. Our budget is balanced and the emergency fund is now at $5.5 million dollars. Our bondeddebt isvery low and there is dedicated revenue to pay off the bonded debt. We are not at risk financially anywhere. All of the auxiliary services are managed well and are delivering funds back to the bottom line,
.
Compensation Issues
One of our top priorities is compensation for faculty and staff. We recently engaged an outside consulting group to study faculty compensation. The group reported that there are gaps in faculty compensation at every rank and in every discipline. We will be transparent as we work to address these gaps. Every mid-year we have added money for compensation as enrollment growth goes up. We have compression issues at the full professor level. At the UTC website you can see how the University money is spent if you go to BUDGETCHAT, and you can also input your comments.
Q: Is the governor’s 3 million dollars a done deal (new building)?
A: Yes, but weneed to match it. We are talking about putting in a facilities fee to raise the match money over the next three years.
General Education Committee Report
Barbara Norwood reported that the General Education Committee will continue working over the summer and make a report in the fall.
The meeting was adjourned at 4:45