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Faculty Senate
Held on: April 4, 2007,
3:00 PM
Held at: Gray Library
Faculty Senate Meeting
April 4, 2007
Gray Library
Call to Order: 3:02 p.m.
Attending: Arts and Sciences: Rick Altemose, Valentin Andreev, Nancy Blume, Christine Bridges, David Castle, Terri Davis, Kenneth Dorris, Emma Hawkins, Mary Kelley, Don Owen, Dianna Rivers, Jeremy Shelton, Sheila Smith, Randall Terry Business: Soumava Bandyopadhyay, Jai Young Choi, George Kenyon, Celia Varick Education: Kim Chalambaga, Lula Henry, Barbara Hernandez, Bill Holmes, Bernadette Moore, Mary E. Wilkinson Fine Arts and Communication: Kurt Dyrhaug, Kurt Gilman, Ann Matlock, Nicki Michalski, Zanthia Smith Library: Theresa Hefner-Babb, Jon Tritsch Developmental Studies: Umporn Tosirisuk Lamar State College-Port Arthur: Mavis Triebel
Absent: Arts and Sciences: Dale Daniel, George Irwin, Hikyoo Koh, Jim Love, Mike Matthis, Steve Zani Business: Kakoli Bandyopadhyay Engineering: Malur Srinivasan, Brian Craig, John Gossage, Bernard Maxum, Mien Jao Fine Arts and Communication: Sumalai Maroonroge
Approval of minutes was moved by Dianna Rivers and seconded by Jai Young Choi.
President’s Report:
o CIO Candidates—Michael Dobe and Hall Linholm interviewed on campus recently, and I discussed with them faculty concerns with email and computing in general.
o Regent’s Professor—Each college has been asked to submit one candidate, except Arts and Sciences, which may nominate two candidates. Guidelines for candidates have been distributed to deans.
o Graduate Dean Search—The search is being conducted as internal, and the new dean will be interim for one year.
o Strategic Plan—There have been some amendments to the plan. These may be found online at my.lamar.edu.
o Announcements—The Rec. Sports Center will open soon, and the administration is working on a parking plan involving that facility. Cardinal Village IV is on schedule to open in August 2007.
Committee Reports
Academic Issues: Terri Davis
o Please take copies of our surveys and distribute in your department. They can then be returned to Terri for tabulation. Jeremy Shelton has also created a survey for students. The information will be compiled into a resolution for fall regarding the use of on-line student evaluations.
o The Academic Council has created a draft policy about course evaluations.
o There are concerns that the statement assumes that our on-line evaluations are acceptable.
o The primary concern of faculty is that the on-line results are not statistically sound.
o Thomas Matthews, who is now in charge of on-line evaluations, has referred to another university that has increased its response rate to 83% by sharing evaluations with students. This (sharing of results) is not something we want to encourage.
o The open time for the evaluations is currently recorded at May 11. Extending the deadline beyond the last class day is not acceptable because the students will have their grades already and may be swayed in their evaluations by those grades.
o Valentin Andreev moves that a statement be made “The Senate absolutely opposes extending the student evaluations beyond the last class day.”
Terri Davis seconded the motion.
The motion is approved with one abstention.
Staff Appreciation Day: Mark Asteris
o We have settled on a final menu. It is barbeque chicken and brisket.
o General invitations will go in the mail tomorrow.
o We have collected $1410 so far.
o There will be four buffet lines set up.
o Please send your donation if you have not sent it in yet.
o Next time there will be a report from the Foundation about what we can do to set up the scholarships.
Faculty Issues: Lula Henry
o We have asked about parking plans for the new recreation center. Dr Simmons has said alumni will have to pay for parking and there are discussions about a parking garage.
o We are still looking at the department chair hiring process.
o We are looking into combining promotion and tenure, but the senate has discussed it before and rejected the idea.
Budget and Compensation: Ann Matlock
o Study of merit raises: FY07
o The FY 2007 merit raise information provided to the Faculty Senate Budget and Compensation Committee by Dr. Doblin appears to show that while each college received 3.0% of base faculty salaries for distribution as merit raises, each department within each college did not.
o Within the College of Arts and Sciences, five departments distributed less in merit raises that 3.0% of base salaries would have permitted, while seven departments awarded more than their 3.0% share. According to one of the chairs, the dean of the college gave departments 2.90% of salary base to distribute as merit raises while retaining 0.10% “for a pool to be used to award an additional merit raise increment to highly deserving faculty whose salaries are significantly less than other department members.” The only merit raises of more than $3,000 in the college were awarded to the two associate deans.
o In the College of Business, the department of Management and Marketing got more than their “fair share” of 3.0% of base salaries. The other departments received less that 3.0%. No faculty member in the College of Business received more than 3.7%. However, the largest dollar amount raise shown by the data that the committee studied was awarded to the associate dean of the College of Business.
o In the College of Fine Arts and Communication, the department of Music, Theater, and Dance got more than 3.0% of base - the difference being made up by cuts in the allocation of the three other departments in the college. Chairs in this college received an average merit raise of 3.55%.
o In the College of Education, two of four departments got more that 3.0% of base salaries to distribute as merit, while two departments got less.
o In the College of Engineering, the mean percentage of merit raises in Industrial Engineering were below 3.0%, while the departments of Chemical, Civil, Electrical, and Mechanical were above 3.0%. The largest deviation from the mean was in the department of Electrical Engineering, in which merit raises varied from 5.34% to 1.61%, and the overall merit raise deviation from the norm in the college was +1.79%.
o Some merit raises were defined by the committee as “exceptionally large”, or more than 4.5%. Of these, one was in the department of Electrical Engineering. The other 19 exceptional raises were all in the College of Arts and Sciences, in the departments of Biology, Chemistry, Physics, English, History, Mathematics, Political Science, Nursing, Psychology, and in Sociology, Social Work, and Criminal Justice.
Distinguished Faculty Lecture: Mary Kelley
o The deadline for nominations was extended to April 1, 2007 to accommodate one of the nominees.
o The committee will meet next week to review the proposals and will have a nomination at the next senate meeting.
o There were only two completed applications and the extension will provide a third.
Election of Nominating Committee members
o The senate broke into colleges to each select a nominee.
o Chris Bridges , arts and sciences
o Kim Chalambaga, education
o Engineering had no members present
o Jon Tritsch, Library
o George Kenyon, Business
o Kurt Dyrhaug, Fine Arts and Communication
Old Business
o Dr Doblin is currently assessing the deans about how the online course evaluations are being used so that he can provide feedback to the students. This is another good reason for the surveys that the Academic Issues Committee is conducting.
New Business
o When a faculty member goes on development leave, their evaluations tend to be poor because they do not have service and often do not have teaching which means they are missing at least a third of the evaluation material. This has led to poor reviews and the filing of grievances. The Senate should look into this. This will be referred to the Development Committee.
Open Discussion
o The French Film Festival will be taking place on Wednesday evenings in April. The films are very interesting and draw people from the community as well as the University.
The motion to adjourn was made by Terri Davis and seconded by Valentin Andreev at 4:28.
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A Member of The Texas State University System
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General Info: (409) 880-7011
4400 MLK Blvd., P.O. Box 10009, Beaumont, Texas 77710
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