Faculty Senate and Committee Chair Retreat

Faculty Senate/Committee Chair Retreat – August 20, 2013

Faculty Senate and Committee Chair Retreat

August 20, 2013

Idaho Commons – Crest room

Senate members present: Aiken (w/o vote), Baillargeon, Bird, Brandt, Cobb, Couture (Boise), Eckwright (w/o vote), Flores, Frey, Hartzell (chair), Manic (Idaho Falls), Miller, Morra, Murphy, Ostrom, Pendegraft, Perret, Pregitzer, Safaii, Smith, Stoll, Stuntzner (CDA), Awwad-Rafferty for Teal, Wolf, Ytreberg (vice-chair).

Committee Chairs present:Adams, Crowley, Dodge, Eckwright, Falk, Hartzell, Kenyon, Krogh, Nelson, Prorak, Riley, Rounds, Sigler, Stuen.

Guest: President Don Burnett

Senate Chair Trish Hartzell welcomed senators, committee chairs, President Burnett and Provost Aiken to the retreat. She provided a brief history of Faculty Senate and the responsibilities of the faculty as described in the Faculty Staff Handbook, including: setting standards for admissions as well as academic standards; defining course and curriculum requirements; deciding on scholarships, honors, awards and financial aid; determining rules for student conduct and other student roles; governance of colleges and divisions; faculty welfare; and budget. Faculty Senate oversees more than 30 senate committees that attend to specialized work on behalf of senate. Faculty also provide advice and assistance regarding the entire university to the president and provost. Today’s retreat will enable senators and committee chairs to get to know one another and to begin to focus on senate concerns for this year. Senators, committee chairs and all others present then introduced themselves and in accordance with Chair Hartzell’s instructions, each provided a sentence of interesting or memorable information about her-or him-self.

Chair Hartzell then introduced President Don Burnett and Provost Katherine Aiken.

President Burnett thanked all present for this opportunity to speak with them and he expressed his deep appreciation for shared governance. He noted that he was imprinted as a Vandal from his earliest years when he was rocked in a cradle to the tune of the Vandal fight song by parents who were both University of Idaho alumni. Those were the difficult times of the depression years but students, staff and faculty at that time recognized that they were “all in it together” and all these years later we are still “all in it together.” President Burnett observed that the University of Idaho is a gateway to the world and it is the land-grant university in Idaho, the constitutionally recognized University of Idaho and its peers are the most esteemed public universities in the nation. This means “flagship,” and a flagship goes out with a fleet:the University of Idaho collaborates with sister institutions and in private/public partnerships. President Burnett wants to ensure that administrative processes within the university are also collaborative and in consultation with the previous provost he is changing some administrative structures. Provost’s council will continue with participation by deans. The former cabinet board group has been reconfigured into those administrative offices that report to the president. President Burnett is in the process of creating a round table that will include all of the College Deansand Directorsto ensure that we do not hatch ideas too narrowly and that we are as inclusive as possible before moving forward.

President Burnett’s goals are to work with faculty to make sure students feel safe, welcome and valued. The University of Idaho has taken a leadership role in working with other universities in the state to promote a new look at alcohol and substance abuse. University of Idaho changes will expand the student code of conduct including an administrative streamlining and an expansion of geographical relationships. The university will work with law enforcement and urgent care facilities to intercept or alleviate bad choices by students and to identify at risk students so that they will not be injured while in our care. This means reaching out to fraternities and organizations located on university property and finding mechanisms to positively affect their behavior.

Budget stability is another goal and we will continue to work to enhance private funding for the university. We are approaching the last year of our capital campaign and we currently have about $195 million of our $225 million goal.

Enrollment levelsalso affect budgets and a number of factors have affected enrollment, including the reduction in credits required for graduation from 128 to 120. This change disproportionately affects institutions that have higher graduation rates, such as the University of Idaho, as students leave the institution more quickly than in the past. President Burnett is open to ideas on how to effectively address enrollment challenges as we cannot expect different results from continuing to do things as we have done them in the past.

The University of Idaho offers the 3rd year of law school in Boise and we will continue to work towards offering the 2nd year in Boise, too. The UI law school will continue to be one law school but offered at more than one point of delivery. On a side note, applications to law schools are down throughout the nation and out of 200 accredited law schools the University of Idaho was one of only four that have registered an increase of 10% or greater.

We have taken a step back on two carryover issues in order to ensure that the process will work. Those issues are the staff classification study and the proposed changes to the president’s residence.

Provost Aiken then spoke briefly about ongoing efforts to make sure that the University of Idaho and its faculty are recognized and appreciated for their roles in the state, region and nation. The State Board of Education (SBOE) has asked the universities to look at the efficiency and productivity of all programs (not only academic programs). We have named this process “Focus for the Future” and this year-long process will involve significant work by faculty, staff and students. SBOE felt this would be an appropriate way for academic institutions to comply with the governor’s request for all state agencies to perform a zero-based budgeting exercise.

The University of Idaho also will have a regional accreditation visit next year and we will be writing the report over the course of this year.

President Burnett and Provost Aiken responded as follows to questions:

It is my understanding that currently colleges get funding from enrollment based on the number of majors in the college. [Provost Aiken]: That is untrue. The number of majors has nothing to do with it.

If we want interdisciplinary work to happen between the colleges, there has to be a funding model for it to happen as the dean will ask “Who’s going to pay for it?” [President Burnett]: There is not a lack of appreciation for interdisciplinary scholarship and teaching at the University of Idaho, but our personnel and other resources are constrained. We may need to find other ways, such as reallocation of resources and working with business, to sustain good interdisciplinary work.

Will you be undertaking a state-wide tour with the presidents from the other institutions? [President Burnett]: We would like to get it started this fall, although this may not be a priority for presidents at other institutions. President, provost and faculty leaders ought to be going out into the state in joint appearances with leaders from our sister institutions to talk about common projects – it is important for Idahoans to see us collaborating. Our friends and alumni throughout the state have very high hopes and expectations for us and for them the University of Idaho is the Beacon for Mountain and Plain [book about the University of Idaho].

Chair Hartzell then briefly outlined the responsibilities of senate committees chairs. Senate committees are an extension of faculty senate and that we act for our constituents. It is important for committee chairs to do research on matters relating to their committees and to report findings to senate. Also, if a committee chair finds that there are problems with the structure and/or function with her/his committee, these problems need to be brought to the attention of senate leadership. Committee chairs then adjourned for their workshop with Dan Eveleth, UI professor of business, while senators remained in the room for a senate working-group session.

Chair Hartzell then led senators in a brainstorming session of items for discussion at senate during this year, including:

• Need to find ways to improve communication in all areas, in particular with other UI campuses and between upper administration and faculty/staff.
• Need to look at some of these problems in a systemic way rather than only attempting to solve individual problems.
• New policy on the distribution of fees for distance/online courses. Senator Couture agreed to serve on a senate subcommittee to further study this matter.
• Review the Human Resources reclassification study as concerns have been raised.
• HR needs to inform senate about raises and increases that have been given outside of the normal raise structures to some UI employees including those that are categorized as “temporary pay increases” in Banner.
• Concerns about UI paying 2% to PERSI for those individuals who participate in ORPs.
• Institutional 5-year plans. Who determines what goes into a 5-year-plan and how does the plan affect our ability to respond to unit goals for offering new courses? Is the 5-year-plan tied to assessment?
• Proposed revisions to the Student Code of Conduct (discussions need to include GPSA and ASUI). Senator Cobb will work with the College of Graduate Studies on this item.
• Questions regarding students with inadequate GPAs. Senator Cobb offered to look into this matter.
• Plus-minus grading. This matter has previously been referred to the Teaching and Advising Committee (TAAC) and last year TAAC worked on revising teaching evaluations. TAAC may be able to address plus-minus grading this year.
• Proposed smoking/tobacco ban. Safety & Loss Committee and others are looking into this.
• Creation of a sick leave fundspecifically for individuals who are funded from grants (soft funding).
• Staff Affairs Committee would like to work more closely with senate on issues of concern to employees.
• Need for a greater effort to include UI faculty at other locations in scholarly presentations given at the Moscow campus, e.g., Malcolm Renfrew Interdisciplinary Colloquium.
• Need for discussions and training about diversity, culture/climate, microaggressions.
• Need for strong senate participation in the Focus for the Future process.
• UI administration needs to go throughappropriate senate committees and channels, e.g., Faculty Appeals Hearing Board and Dismissal Hearings Committee, when working on institutional matters.
• Strengthen academic freedom language as has been done at other academic institutions.
• Affordable Care Act changes. We need to ensure that units do not hire and pay some employees differently in order to avoid paying healthcare costs for these employees. The Benefits Advisory Group has begun looking into this issue.
• A need for college-level admission standards. There are concerns about students avoiding college requirements and the current structure of the university does not have mechanisms in place for colleges to manage this problem. The current Admissions Committee handles only university-level admissions and the University Curriculum Committee (UCC) is a curricular committee – and this matter cannot be controlled via curriculum.
• Dual career accommodation policy (also known as “spousal/partner accommodation”). Provost Aiken has suggested a “tax” on all units to create funds to pay for dual career accommodation. A senator noted that there is a Higher Education Recruitment Consortium ( that works with institutions on dual career accommodations. Chair Hartzell appointed a senate subcommittee comprised of Mark Miller, SeAnne Safaii and Marty Ytreberg, to further investigate the spousal accommodation matter.
• Provost Aiken has requestedreviews oftwo policies: FSH 1565-E, emeritus status; and FSH 3520 F-4, a policy that currently allows only those faculty hired at the rank of full professor to be hired with tenure. Provost Aiken would like faculty to consider allowing associate professors to be hired with tenure, too.

Meeting adjourned at 4:35pm.

Respectfully submitted,

Gail Z. Eckwright

Faculty Secretary