Gulf Coast Faculty Council

Meeting Minutes

January 23, 2015

Hardy Hall Room 214 @ 1:30 p.m.

Members in Attendance:Lin Agler, Danielle Fastring (phone),Casey MaughFunderburk, Rebecca Fillmore, Danielle Greenhow,Tom Lansford,Karen Rich, Eric Saillant, Allisa Beck, David Holt,Marie Leonard, Heidi Lyn, Maxim Van Norden

Proxies: Kenneth Zantow (David Holt proxy)

Not in attendance: Robert Griffitt, Lance Hopkins

Ex-Officio: Bob Press (not in attendance)

Guest: None

  1. Call to order – 1:38pm
  2. Minutes –movement to approve October minutes – (Danielle, Lin second) all approve
  3. Approval of the minutes – callto approve – (Marie, Heidi second) all approve
  4. Guest – Jona Burton – coordinator of student life, new to campus (Thanksgiving)
  5. Job includes career services as well as student life
  6. Because there is no center for career services, her goal is to get the students directed toward career from the beginning and have resources in place so that they can reach milestones throughout their time at USM
  7. She is planning a survey to take the temperature of the students – see what they understand about career services and what their priorities are
  8. Brought a draft of the survey – list of optional activities for career services, and what they would prefer
  9. A lot of discussion about some career classes and efforts within departments and colleges – agreed that she would like to network with departments and LEC to have a central source for career advice
  10. Also understanding that there has to be an understanding about different requirements for different programs
  11. Officer reports
  12. President:
  13. Welcome Rebecca Fillmore to take Jennifer Walker’s place as Jennifer has been appointed Associate Dean.
  14. Handbook resolution acknowledging GCFC that was approved by the council has been forwarded to the Handbook committee and should be taken up at their next meeting.
  15. Council meeting dates/times: agreement that 1:30 – 3 will remain the meeting time Feb 20, March 20, and April 17 (May 8 if required)
  16. Strategic planning is continuing – should have finalized a document in the coming weeks, may be less specific than earlier visioning documents.
  17. Student Success Implementation – new website for student success that has all go-to information that students might need. Processes, forms, services, etc. They are supporting our putting link on syllabi.
  18. Vice president
  19. Senate Executive committee –
  20. discussion about The faculty senate president elect, made public that she did not step down voluntarily, told to step down as she is an Assistant Dean. She is arguing against her removal. Issue was incorrectly placed on the Senate agenda, but has been removed as both committees that oversee the issue are in agreement that her removal is required by the bylaws. General agreement that this is not a personal decision in anyway, rather she received a promotion that was not reported to the Senate that disqualified her from service.
  21. Discussion of whether Chairs should serve on Faculty Senate, general feeling is that they should not – David will bring the issue to the Academic and Governance committee
  22. 8 institutions in Mississippi are writing a letter to IHL and Miss Senate that because there is a surplus for the first time is a long while, we are requesting a pay raise for faculty. First time the institutions have written a combined letter in a while.
  23. Dr. Vinzantreported that he has re-structured the budget and saved us $500,000 per year.
  24. Hattiesburg is working on selling off old property and purchasing new property.
  25. New creative community resolution to promote creative activities across the campuses – on the agenda for later
  26. Big push from the Senate about due process. Some situations in which people were fired without due process as a method of cutting their budgets. At least 3 examples where the faculty handbook processes were not followed. Some people told that they could not have representation, etc.
  27. UAC and CAC meetings should have public forum so that the public can understand the decisions and why they are being made. E.g. terminations, policy changes, etc.
  28. Pay equity resolution will move forward at the next meeting
  29. Secretary
  30. No report
  31. Secretary elect
  32. No report
  33. Old business
  34. Committee representation for T&P
  35. Nothing has gone forward, but the council still feels strongly that a resolution should go ahead.Argument that there should be 1 GC representative on the CAC and 2 on the UAC. Karen Rich with write up a proposal for consideration by next meeting.
  36. New business
  37. Election of council member to replace Patsy Anderson who has stepped up as interim Associate Dean.
  38. New council member will serve until the end of the semester, then will be replaced in the election
  39. Several nominations
  40. Casey will approach them and see if they are interested
  41. Karen will replace Patsy on the Evaluation of Teaching Committee until the end of the semester when she rotates off FC – general agreement
  42. Athletic Budget – Bob Press will bring up at Senate the possibility of cutting the athletic budget which is heavily subsidized. Brought up to take the temperature of the council about the issue.
  43. Discussion that the President has made his stance clear on this
  44. Other feeling is that perhaps bringing this up will protect the academic side a bit if budget cuts come up again.
  45. Campus Climate Survey
  46. Douglas Bristol – involved in the Allies group, which has been successful and tried to get the University to institute best practices indicated in the survey and materials that were distributed – e.g. reporting hate crimes as such
  47. One example brought forward – the Diversity office is currently focused only on race, suggestion is that that should be expanded to include LGBTQ issues.
  48. Should we write a letter of support for the best practices recommended in the Climate Survey.
  49. Letter of support as first step, then if we have specific recommendations we can write a resolution
  50. Casey will write, then email it to us.
  51. Promote Arts as a recruitment tool – “Creative commons Initiative” planning meeting minutes distributed
  52. Maxim reported on the meeting
  53. They requested that he investigate whether the creative community can be activated on the Gulf Coast to promote the arts and recruit students
  54. Suggestion that the committee talk to the Vice President of the Gulf Coast as Dr. Miller has expressed interest in just these kinds of initiatives and knows some of the partnerships that already exist.
  55. E.g. Mary C. Arts class – there was supposed to be an event partnership, but leadership changed and it never took off
  56. Film festival from the film program?
  57. Community film festival (Sea and Sand)
  58. Peter Anderson festival – should USM have a presence there?
  59. Gulf Coast Chorale – regular concerts with USM presence – rehearsal is on campus.
  60. Suggestion that bringing arts programs to the Gulf Coast would be beneficial
  61. Theater and vocal music would be not extremely expensive
  62. Professor of Teaching lines
  63. From the Provost – there is a discussion about non-tenurable, but promotable teaching lines. 3-5 year contracts.
  64. Argument from the provost that long term contracts might protect teachers more than tenure
  65. Another option – tenurable teaching lines
  66. Also, longer term contracts for instructors.
  67. Handbook now states that after they have been an instructor for a certain period of time, they have the same rights regarding termination that a tenured professor does.
  68. Elections Committee formation
  69. There is supposed to be a large ballot creation that has all of the information for all elections
  70. Master ballot has been formed – we need to make sure that faculty council is on that list.
  71. Contact Faculty senate election committee.
  72. Waiting to find out about the master ballot
  1. Announcements
  2. Faculty Teaching Forum workshopsMonday, and February 9
  3. Eric Salliant reported that the director of GCRL resigned on December 16, 2014. A new director will be announced.
  4. General trend because of budget issue to move classes online
  5. Only growth in student credit hours is online
  6. David suggests a resolution that states that an online program does not constitute a presence on the Gulf Coast
  7. Gulf Coast programs must have 51% face to face offerings on the coast
  8. Possibly a proportion of online seats should be reserved for Gulf Coast students, particularly when there are no live sections offered on the Coast
  1. Jorge moves to adjourn (Tom seconds)– 3:10pm