Faculty Senate Minutes of January 14, 2014

Faculty Senate Minutes of January 14, 2014

The meeting was called to order by the Chair Delano Gray with the following Senators and visitors present:

College of Architecture & The Arts
Steven Schoen
Kathleen Wilson
Cathy Benedict-Alternate
Absent
Jaime Canaves
Patrick Schmidt
College of Arts & Sciences
Gerardo Aladro
Astrid Arraras
Laurel Collins
Piero Gardinali
Alan Gummerson
Krish Jayachandran
FenfeiLeng
John Makemson
Oren Maxwell
AssefaMelesse
Marifeli Perez-Stable
Rene Price
Jean Rahier
Joerg Reinhold
Laurie Shrage
Renee Silverman
Louis Tebou
Victor Uribe
Enrique Villamor
Hassan Zahedi
Ping Zhu
Absent
Maria Gomez
MisakSargsian
Ronn Silverstein / College of Business Administration
Krishnan Dandapani
Delano Gray
Shahid Hamid
Cliff Perry
Clark Wheatley
College of Education
Leonard Bliss
Martha Pelaez
Absent
Teresa Lucas
College of Engineering
Malek Adjouadi
Arindam Chowdhury
Osama Mohammed
Ibrahim Tansel
Absent
Albert Gan
Anthony McGoron
Gang Quang
School of Hospitality
Pablo Simon
David Talty
School of Journalism
Absent
Neil Reisner
Maria Elena Villar
College of Law
Jan Oseitutu
David Walter
Library
Lauren Christos
Patricia Pereira-Pujol / College of Medicine
Juan Lozano
Alan Wells
Absent
Sheldon Cherry
Dietrich Lorke
College of Nursing & Health Sciences
Lucie Dlugasch
Jennifer Doherty-Restrepo
Florence Keane
College of Public Health & Social Work
Marianna Baum
Fatma (Rose) Huffman
Ray Thomlison
Guest:
Marissa Ball
Elizabeth Bejar
Stephanie Brenenson
Adam Drisin
Juneisy Hawkins
Lissette Hernandez
FauziaNausheen
Brian Peterson
DiwaldoRabre
Douglas Robertson
Douglas Wartzok

Faculty Senate Meeting Minutes
Tuesday january 14, 2014 – 1:00 PM
Wertheim Conservatory 130 – Modesto Maidique Campus
Marine Science 362 – Biscayne Bay Campus

1. Approval of the Agenda. Moved and approved.
2. Approval of the Minutes of the December 3rd, 2013 meeting. Moved and approved.
3. Chairperson’s Report.

Happy New Year everyone. I hope you had an enjoyable holiday and look forward to a productive spring semester.

The Faculty Awards Committee has issued a reminder that the nominations for awards are due on January 31, 2014, and that completed applications are due February 14, 2014. Each award carries a $5,000.00 stipend. You may find the link to the awards information at facultysenate.fiu.edu/awards/awards.html. Please encourage your colleagues to apply.

Thanks for your participation in the Fall Commencements. A total of 3225 students walked across the stage of the 4140 graduating this fall. I am sure the students appreciated your presence.

The Provost and representative of C-Suites Analytics met with the Faculty of the College of Business on January 9, 2014 in CBC 155, to discuss the results of the climate survey conducted in the fall last year.

The College score was a 3.24 — meaning negative responses outnumbered positive ones. Roughly 59 percent of employees characterized the general mood as either “fair” (28 percent), “poor” (20 percent), or “very poor” (11 percent). There was a Q & A session after the presentation.

The Provost indicated that a series of actions will be taken to correct the communication gap and that the Dean will work more closely with the College Faculty Assembly and a to be created “Staff Assembly”. The survey will be repeated in a year to determine what progress had been made.

You may have heard that some students and an alumnus were arrested at the University for stealing exams from a professor’s office. Security of University and personal property is very important.

We will be inviting the CIO to give us a presentation on data security.

The Online Review Committee will be working with The Faculty Fellow, Kathleen Wilson to explore possible methods and procedures for awarding credit for MOOCs. This will include input from the Associate Dean, University College, Susan Clemmons. This process is in response to HB 7029, which require the Board of Governors to have policies in place for accepting these courses by 2015-2016.

The Board of Trustees at its meeting on January 9, 2014 approved the President’s Management Report, the FIU 2012-2013 Annual Accountability Report to the Board of Governors and awarded the President a performance rating of “Superior” for the academic year just ended.

Thanks for your kind cooperation.

1. Action Items:
2. Library Faculty Reviews Ad Hoc Committee Motion – George Pearson, Chair.

Motion: The Faculty Senate approves the revisions to the Promotion Manual for Librarians. Moved and approved.

1. Reports:

A. Provost’s Report—Provost Wartzok.

1. There were some arrests of students for cheating: 3 students 1 alum, related to microbiology tests. We met with 9 other students, another to meet soon, who were implicated by purchasing the stolen exams. We are working to help one girl who admitted she knew it was stolen to extricate her from criminal process. Seven informal investigations of Academic Misconduct have been completed. All those students have agreed to take F for course, pay to take an ethics course, voluntarily sit out a semester, and go to 5 of first-year experience classes to tell their story. This means 1,500 new freshmen will be exposed to this story. We are trying to get the faculty member whose test was compromised to explain to all faculty assemblies how to avoid the trap of phishing emails (which is how this all became possible). This episode raises two issues: academic integrity; and IT security.

2a. Faculty Assessment of Administrators Survey: The Provost urged the Steering Committee to put in place the final features of the FAAS. The survey will be sent out this Spring (the March 1 deadline is internal, essentially meaning before Spring Break). The Ad hoc committee established by the Faculty Senate Steering Committee recommended that in addition to the 10 questions already making up the survey, 3 would be added at beginning which would allow those responding to indicate that they do not know enough to evaluate, do not wish to evaluate, or do not have enough confidence in the survey’s security to do so. The Provost hopes that this measure will result in a high response rate.

2b. Oftenrates of response to surveysare below 20%. But in the recent Business C-Suite survey, 70% of faculty, and 60% of staff and administrators responded. The reason is that C-Suite spent a lot of time beforehand finding out about concerns (e.g., the environment for women and minorities; these questions got the highest ratings, while questions about communication and management changes received the lowest). The Dean and the Provost have discussed a 10-point sequence of items that is being implemented, but first there will be a meeting of faculty and staff in January to examine these and other items so that there is more communication.

3. Last week the BOT met on campus. Two major action items were to approve out annual accountability report and to review the President’s performance. In response to the BOG schedule, we revised our schedule. Now the June workplan that we put out aligns with the articulation of the President’s goals, which are reflected in the accountability report produced 18 months later in Jan. (which includes the evaluation of the President’s performance). This week we will go to the BOG with all of this information. (Note that the President received a superior rating.) The Accountability report ties into the BOG’s system of performance-based funding. There are 10 rubrics, 8 of which are the same for all universities; 1 is chosen by the BOG for FIU, and 1 chosen by FIU. The 1 rubric chosen by FIU looks at the number of undergraduate degrees awarded to Hispanics and African-Americans. There are 5 ways to achieve excellence, and 5 ways to achieve “improvement.” There are a maximum of 50 points. We have to go along with this performance funding, even though its demographics and goals are tailored to UF. All Presidents were recently surprised by the BOG proposal which would allocate of $100 million dollars, $50 million in performance-based funding that had been discussed and $50 million to be reallocated from the universities. It is not known what universities will receive, although it has been promised that no university will lose more than 1% of its budget. Also proposed was a multi-million-dollar incentive, which would be held back and awarded to the highest performing universities.

4. State Task force: There is a Legislative Budget Request (LBR) to provide for $250,000 to a lead university to develop at least three MOOCs for credit. The lead university will also need to recommend process for providing credit for MOOCs taken elsewhere through a competency-based evaluation. MOOCs for credit will have lower tuition (how much is TBD). There is a competition for the position of lead university on the issue of MOOCs. We at FIU have the requisite experience. For example, we have been offering MOOCs and are developing a MOOC for credit this Fall. Last year, the Legislature passed a law stipulating that by July 2015 we have to have ways of determining credit for competency-based MOOCs taken before entering the university. The issue is raised of how to do the equivalency. FIU faculty received a summer stipend to take Coursera MOOCs in Introductory Physics, Criminal Justice, 1st-year Composition, and Introductory Psychology. They will report to the Senate Online Committee on their recommendations for competency-based assessment of students who show up with a certificate of completion.

B. Parking and Transportation Report – Lissette Soto Hernandez, Director.

1. Last year in Jan., Parking and Transportation met with members of the Faculty Senate. Among other changes, a second-level appeal process was created and it is working really well. (Ms. Soto Hernandez called for volunteers to become Appeals Officers). 2. There have been changes in the lighting for parking garages, in particular some garages now have LED lighting, for example, the Blue Garage. The new PG6 Garage will have LED lighting as well; it will be opening on Jan.2015 with 300 spaces, some classrooms, making it similar to the existing PG5. 3. Parking and Transportation is working on arrangements with Miami-Dade County Transportation to make a bus stop at FIU and to house express buses at the university. Such measures should give parking and transportation access to students who go to the BBC campus. 4. At the BBC campus there is apartnership with CL to provide new spaces, including a block near AC2. 5. Parking and Transportation is currently working with group of seniors in Engineering on a project called the “Pick up a Panther” service. The service will pick up the disabled. The dispatch center, which will take electronic requests,will give users an EST, as well as sending a text message when the tram is about to arrive, so as to allow time for exiting the building. 6. The Office of Sustainability is working to improve the environment in PG5 and also provide storage. There is a plan to work with the SACS building with the goal of getting services in one building. A discussion followed the Parking and Transportation report, which focused on particular issues, including: problems with enforcing administrative only parking; speeding problems, especially with regard to proper enforcement and education; lack of attention to stop signs; problems produced by roping-off parking for special events; issues with carpool spaces; the timing of traffic lights; proper use of the tram shuttle (who can use the tram);and the need for bike lanes.

C. UFF Report—Florence Keane, UFF-FIU Secretary.

Bargaining

Interest-based bargaining continues. We had our first meeting last Friday and we will continue to meet every other Friday. Discussions revolve around the issues complied form the faculty survey to determine the concerns of faculty including salary, online teaching, summer assignments, workload and more.

UTD March

United Teachers of Dade (UTD) will hold a March for Public Education – “Walk a Mile in our Shoes” – this Friday, January 17, at 2:30 p.m. Marchers will convene at 1300 Biscayne Blvd., Miami Parking Lot C, at the Arscht Center. The march is part of an initiative for educators, parents and communities to take control of public education reform. As UTD President Frederick Ingram notes, teachers, parents and community groups have to come together to advocate for public spending on school programs and professional development rather than spending millions on developing assessment instruments; for reducing the 80 days that children spend being tested; for investing in public schools rather than diverting public resources to privately-run charter schools. Speaking with one voice, teachers, parents, superintendents, community groups, and HIGHER EDUCATION FACULTY can make a difference and set the agenda for providing quality and equal education for all our children. Walk a mile, change lives! This Friday, January 17, at 2:30 p.m.

FEA Legislative Priorities

Last Friday, UFF-FIU President Teresa Lucas took part in the Florida Education Association’s legislative priorities meeting for the 2014 Florida Legislative session. The priorities include a return to the use of assessment as a tool for analysis and planning, a moratorium on school grades until a verifiable system is in place, and support for local control of schools. A main Higher Education priority is the insistence on academic institutions maintaining control of academics, in the light of HB 7029 that allows private corporations to design and test credit-bearing courses for Florida university students. Also of importance is halting the attack on tenure, begun when K-12 teachers lost continuing contracts and furthered by an FDOE ruling in which contracts at colleges became more difficult to obtain. Universities are seeing an increase in hires for non-tenure-earning lines faculty and adjuncts. Advocating for state funding is also an issue.

NLRB Supreme Court Case

The U.S. Supreme Court will listen to arguments regarding a dispute between a Washington state bottling company and a local Teamsters union in which the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) sided with the union. Two of the appointees on the NLRB had been recess appointments by President Obama after the Senate failed during months to confirm the appointments. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit overturned the board's ruling. Hundreds more NLRB rulings could be voided if the Supreme Court upholds the appeals court decision.

The first open house for this semester will be Thursday, 4pm to 7pm in PC111. All are invited.

D. SGA Report— Liane Sippin, SGA-MMC President.

1. The FSA (Florida Student Association), an organization of all student government presidents, will meet this weekend. 2. In March, “Rally and Tally” will take place, as will “FIU Day.”3. The SGA is currently working with governmental relations to train student leaders to meet congressmen and women. 4. The SGA recently paid for 150 free flu shots for students.

1. Unfinished Business. 1.Work on the bylaws for all the different colleges and schools is still in progress.
2. New Business. 1. The Nominating Committee is in the process of developing a slate of officers for the March meeting of the Faculty Senate. 2. The College of Education faculty is organizing a golf tournament to take place on March 21. The tournament will raise funding for students.

Announcements

The next Faculty Senate meeting is on Tuesday January 28th, 2014 at 1:30PM in the Wertheim Conservatory 130 in MMC, and AC1 319 in BBC. Go to facultysenate.fiu.edu for regularly updated information on the Faculty Senate.