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FACULTY SENATE
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MINUTES
FACULTY SENATE
THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA®
Once approved, these
minutes may be accessed electronically at:
http://fp.arizona.edu/senate/minutes.htm
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at:
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1. CALL TO ORDER
The meeting was called to order by Vice Chair of the Faculty Robert P. Mitchell at 3:05 p.m. in the College of Law, Room 140.
Present: Senators Aleamoni, Bruce, Christenson, Conway, Cusanovich, Dahlgran, D. Davis, O. Davis, Effken, Estrada, Garcia, Green, Gruener, Howell, Mitchell, Mosher, Mutchler, Neish, Nolan, Pintozzi, Sander, San Martin, Schlager, Shelton, Silverman, Smith, Songer, Spece, Strittmatter, Ulreich, Willerton and Witte. Robert Sankey served as Parliamentarian.
Absent: Senators Bergsma, Burd, Cromwell, Cuello, DeSorda, Engel, Foley, Hildebrand, Jenkins, Joens, Jones, Knutson, McKee, Mitchneck, Mountford, Pavao-Zuckerman, Ruiz, Sarid, Slugocki, St. John, Sterling and Weinand.
2. OPEN SESSION
Senator Ulreich invited everyone to attend the 10th annual “Milton Marathon” which will be going on all day in the Library’s Special Collections Conference Room on Friday, November 16th. Commemorative T-shirts are available for the event.
3. REPORTS
3A. ASUA President Tommy Bruce
ASUA President Tommy Bruce reported that ASUA is conducting an Academic Advising Program Review as a follow-up to the advising task force of several years ago. He expects to have a final template to Provost Sander later this week. ASUA is bringing the “Jimmy Kimmel Live Tour” to the Student Union ballroom tomorrow.
GPSC President Catherine Neish reported that the Student Showcase on Homecoming Weekend was a very successful event. ASUA and GPSC conducted a joint survey of students about tuition increases and students voted overwhelmingly for a 0% tuition increase, whereas a similar recent survey on student affairs fees showed wide student support. The survey also asked students about how they believe tuition money is spent, and the majority said they do not know how tuition dollars are spent, so she and ASUA President Bruce will work with President Shelton to help educate the students. The Arizona Students Association (ASA) released its statewide tuition proposal today which calls for a 0% tuition increase; ASA plans to lobby for a 5% increase in legislative support for the universities. The students would also like to see a long-term solution for a more transparent, sustainable and consistent tuition-setting process that takes into account accessibility, affordability and predictability. President Neish told the Senate that she has been working on the issue of campus child care and she will be asking for Senate support later in the meeting for a letter requesting the Provost to put out a Request for Proposals. GPSC will sponsor a blood drive on November 7-8 from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. in the North Ballroom.
Vice Chair of the Faculty Robert Mitchell announced that the College of Law has made Room 140 available for the December 3rd Faculty Senate meeting. President Shelton’s State of the University speech will be delivered at about 12:30 tomorrow in the Student Union ballroom. The speech will also be carried live on KUAT and open seating for about 100 persons will be available shortly before the speech begins. The Faculty Senate’s Task Force for Student Retention and Advancement had its first meeting last Monday. The Arizona Faculties Council’s co-sponsored Conference on Climate Change hosted at ASU on November 26 in Tempe will not be simulcast, but a video of the conference will be available.
Provost Eugene Sander announced that the position of Vice Provost for Enrollment Management has been offered to and accepted by Paul Kohn. The Search for the Vice President for Instruction and Dean of University College is going well and the Search Committee will be announcing open forums for the candidates very soon. Provost Sander also announced a new policy that deals with the accountability and availability relative to the teaching mission of the University. SPBAC Chair Miranda Joseph, Wanda Howell, and Jerry Hogle worked together on this document which attempts to create a picture of accountability for each College from the bottom-up beginning with individual faculty members to Department Heads and finally the Deans. Provost Sander expressed some frustration with the “ping-pong” effect of faculty committees, such as the Senate’s Task Force on General Education that will produce recommendations for the Administration to implement, which are then returned to the committee for revisions or clarifications, and so on. He would prefer to work with Chair of the Faculty Howell to put together faculty-administrative teams to cut down the number of versions of a document, to move things ahead more rapidly, and to involve key administrators who will ultimately be involved in the implementation. Provost Sander is distressed by the lack of nimbleness for addressing issues of importance to the academic mission of the University.
3E. President Robert N. Shelton
President Shelton announced that he will deliver his State of the University speech beginning at 12:45 p.m. tomorrow following the 11:30 a.m. luncheon in the Grand Ballroom. His speech will be Webcast live, the text of his speech will be posted online, and the speech will also be replayed at later dates and times on COX and KUAT. He will discuss themes that are consistent with the University’s priorities and the work of SPBAC. He thanked the Alumni Association for its sponsorship of the Homecoming Event and for implementing a reduced alcohol policy. There was some pushback on that revised alcohol policy, but there were far fewer citations this year and families and the community at large were pleased although a few tents weren’t staffed as a protest. President Shelton has been speaking with senior members of the state legislature and the governor’s staff, and the state budget is looking like a serious shortfall for perhaps $600M or higher for this fiscal year. The other concern is how long it will take the state to recover from this shortfall; estimates are a possible three or four years. Fortunately the governor and her staff and some of the legislators understand the importance of education and investing in our youth for the future of the state. President Shelton thanked the student leaders for their superb communication about the tuition setting process and he hopes to help dispel some of the misinformation and folklore about how tuition dollars are spent. While he is sensitive to the students’ concerns, he does expect that his proposal for a tuition increase will be higher than 5%.
4. QUESTION AND ANSWER PERIOD FOR AGENDA ITEM 3
Senator Silverman asked President Shelton whether the governor will exempt higher education from the budget shortfall, as has been reported in the newspaper. President Shelton affirmed that this is the position of the governor’s office, and that he will work to help the governor to convey the message, but added that her effort to protect higher education depends largely on her ability to work with the legislature and to cover the shortfall in other ways, such as delaying some projects. The heads of the senate and house budget committees have asked the universities to demonstrate how they are conserving and responding to a budget shortfall. So far, no one has suggested rescissions and President Shelton said he always emphasizes the harm and difference between a one-time cut and a cut to the base budget.
5. APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES OF OCTOBER 1, 2007
The minutes of October 1, 2007 were approved with one correction.
6. APPROVAL OF CONSENT AGENDA ITEM FORWARDED AS A SECONDED MOTION BY THE INSTRUCTION AND CURRICULUM POLICY COMMITTEE (attachment)
The consent agenda item forwarded by the ICPC and detailed at the end of these minutes [Motion 2007/08-11] was approved unanimously.
7. APPROVAL OF ICPC NON-CONSENT AGENDA ITEMS (attachment)
Presiding Officer Mitchell reminded the Senate that the non-consent agenda items still come as seconded motions from the ICPC, but because they are dealing with policy, they are not offered as Consent Agenda items. ICPC Chair Conway informed the Senate that the first item, proposed changes to the Grade Appeal Policy, [Motion 2007/08-12] will set more rigorous standards for grade appeals and will give the Deans guidance for setting up grade appeal committees. Motion passed unanimously.
ICPC Chair Conway explained that the second item is a seconded motion [Motion 2007/08-13] requesting that “the Faculty Senate reaffirms the Incomplete Policy as articulated in the University Catalogs.” policy for incomplete grades. He explained that this action was requested by Graduate College Dean Comrie because of a culture that has grown there in which incompletes for graduate students are approved in excess and the policy is not enforced. Senator Conway noted that the graduate and undergraduate incomplete policies are worded slightly differently in their catalogs. The form that is included in Senators’ packets is a contract that has been used at the undergraduate level since 2004 and is being proposed for the graduate level with slightly amended language on the form to accommodate both graduate and undergraduate students. Senators’ questions and comments included: 1) Will the form reside in the department or the graduate college? Senator Conway replied that the form will remain in the department. 2) Is the form required? Senator Conway responded that the form creates a contract between an instructor and a student, but there isn’t really any way to require or enforce that it be used. Senator Aleamoni moved [Motion 2007/08-14] to amend the wording in the second sentence of the first major paragraph of the form/contract to read “Specific information for any exams to be taken and for grading . . .” Motion was seconded and passed. Motion 2007/08-13 passed unanimously.
8. INFORMATION ITEM: FACULTY SENATE SUPPORT FOR LETTER REQUESTING RFP FOR ON-CAMPUS CHILD CARE FACILITY (attachment)
GPSC President Neish explained that the UA is
the only school in the PAC-10 without a campus child care facility. Senator
Neish asked for Senate support just to ask the
Provost to issue an RFP to see what kinds of options might be available, and
she felt the letter would carry more weight if it came from students and
faculty. ASUA President Bruce and Presiding Officer Mitchell have both
agreed to sign the letter. Senator Silverman moved [Motion 2007/08-15] that
the Faculty Senate supports the request to ask Provost Sander to issue an
RFP for a campus child care facility. Motion was seconded. Senators’
comments and questions included the following: 1) What about the Senate Task
Force assigned to look into this topic? Presiding Officer Mitchell affirmed
that there is a Senate Task Force which stalled last Spring after gathering
data from both graduate and undergraduate students, but now data is needed
from faculty and staff. 2) This problem has been studied to death and one of
the main issues is involving the private sector because there is a law that
the University cannot compete with them. 3) There is far more need than
there will ever be capacity. Presiding Officer Mitchell explained that the
Senate Executive Committee agreed to place this on the Senate’s agenda for
endorsement today because it will not conflict with the Senate’s Child Care
Task Force in any way. Senator Neish added that she has made contact with
the child care providers’ lobbyist in Phoenix. President Shelton commented
that this is a very important multi-dimensional and extraordinarily complex
topic. He has seen partial success in two other institutions. The fact is
that society doesn’t deal very well with child care needs. There are
multiple levels of support for on- site or subsidizing private caregivers.
The phrase, “release an RFP,” requires a great deal of work to be certain it
has enough detail. All the constituent student and employee groups including
the Senate’s Child Care Task Force should be consulted about the RFP. Motion
passed unanimously.
9. INFORMATION ITEM: INTERNATIONAL STUDENT RECRUITMENT (attachments)
Senator D. Davis advised that Senate that he wouldn’t have time to discuss all of the University’s efforts in international studies, but that he would like to discuss recruiting international students. He introduced Dr. Kirk Simmons, Executive Director, International Affairs; Dr. Dianne Horgan and Dr. Maria Theresa Velez, Associate Deans, Graduate College; Dr. Kristina Davis, Director, International Recruitment for undergraduate and graduate students. Senator Davis became involved in international studies when he and a colleague from hydrology visited China and met the Vice President of the University at Wuhan. A proposal for Agreement for Education Cooperation between University of Arizona USA and University of China University of Geosciences (WUHAN) PRC soon followed, which includes dual degrees awarded from both Universities and a request for in-state tuition. Senator Davis was initially unable to determine which was the appropriate administrative unit to take this proposal to for consideration. After many months, he was finally able to get a substantive reply off to China on October 1. Meanwhile, some national news periodicals are reporting that international student recruiting is becoming a national focus for the U.S. government and universities, including ASU. Senator Davis expressed concern that the UA is falling behind on innovative opportunities for international scholarship collaboration and recruitment.
10.
INFORMATION ITEM:
INTERNATIONAL STUDENT WEEK (attachment)
Dr. Kirk Simmons, Executive Director,
International Affairs, said his office
has been involved in a number of discussions about how better to accommodate
dual degrees and increase international student recruitment on this campus.
Associate Dean Velez said the Graduate College welcomes all the help the
Senate can offer. She indicated that the Grad College began seeking
co-sponsored scholarships for Mexican students about four years ago, and
that UA is focusing its recruitment efforts on less-sought after countries
such as Chile, Bolivia, Puerto Rico, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia. Vice
Provost for Enrollment Management P. Kohn explained that recruiting
international students at the undergraduate level is the most expensive
recruitment there is; the most effective way to recruit such students is
through personal contact with the students and families. He and Dr.
Kristina Davis
have gone to China three times in three months to recruit students. Chinese
students in particular are looking for a combined BA/MA degree. The
University is just beginning to recover from the significant decline in
international students following the terrorist attacks on 9/11/2001. Dr.
Kohn affirmed that the UA is far behind its aspirational peers and peers in
terms of agreements and offering programs and degrees in foreign lands.
Private U.S. universities are increasing financial aid for foreign students
while countries such as Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia are also
now competing heavily with American schools for these students. Relying
primarily on reputation will no longer keep the UA competitive. There is
much more to be done in marketing and branding the UA. Senator Davis turned
Senators’ attention to the New Zealand study on international recruiting,
which cited the UA as lacking a “comprehensive, university-wide recruiting
strategy or central coordination of international recruiting efforts.”
Senator Davis suggested that rather than faculty working from the bottom up,
the University needs to increase its flexibility and competitiveness by
implementing a framework, template, or policy as well as a central office
for handling innovative proposals. Senators’ questions and comments
included: 1) What percent of the student body are foreign nationals? Dr.
Simmons estimated about 5-6%. 2) Are the UA’s efforts all one-way or is the
University exploring two-way interactions and a real exchange program with
opportunities for dual degrees for students from both countries? Dr. Simmons
said the UA has partnerships with 200 universities world-wide on all the
continents. Dr. Kohn also noted that our scholarships are simply not
applicable to other schools. Presiding Officer Mitchell recognized faculty
member Ted Downing who expressed that part of the strategy for international
student recruiting is for research and positioning the UA in a global
context. He encouraged finding comparable universities that are exceedingly
strong with which the UA should seek to interact and lock in agreements to
improve our standing in science. Many U.S. students are reluctant to go
abroad for even a semester much less a year or two. There are evolving
trends such as in Shanghai where they don’t really want or need to send
students here and are resisting the brain drain.
Senator Howell articulated strong concerns about the lack of coordination in efforts, which is not unlike the discussion of UA’s Intercollegiate Athletics several months ago. Dr. Simmons responded that the responsibility for international recruitment is distributed. Provost Sander indicated that one of the Vice Presidential areas for Outreach is international programs, but that international development and programs are discontinued when funding dries up. He suggested that Senator Davis ask the Provost to help move this proposal forward. Presiding Officer Mitchell recognized Interim VP for Academic Outreach M. Proctor, who said he has begun to do some asset mapping to determine the academic and administrative units such as CESL that are players in this effort. He has found that the administrative structure is widely dispersed and without any common vision or a connection to a core university mission. Leveraging multiple faculty projects, perhaps in geographic clusters, might pull some of the administrative aspects together. Interim Vice President for Instruction Hogle advised the Senate that the UA must apply to its accrediting agency to be allowed to offer joint degrees in Asia and also the UA does not have ABOR’s permission to offer in-state tuition to out-of-state students. President Shelton stated that there is no question that bringing more international students here affects our students’ educational experience in very positive ways. Many public universities are seeing more central coordination for internationalization of student bodies. He said the faculty are very much in charge of this issue, and especially need to decide if they want to offer dual degrees and apply to the accrediting agency. President Shelton disagreed with the New Zealand study’s negativity and said he’d like to know how much of the UA’s “bottom-up” recruiting efforts are working well but simply need some coordination, and he asked how much more central administration does the faculty want? He also believes that recruiting in Latin and South America is a wise strategy for the UA as these countries represent largely untapped markets that could benefit students here and there.
11. CONTINUED DISCUSSION: RECONFIGURING UNDERGRADUATE EDUCATION AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA, (attachments)
Chair of the Faculty Wanda H. Howell asked Senators to begin a core discussion about faculty roles; who we are and what we do and how we want to project our presence. She distributed a list of faculty titles for 2007 and some graphs and charts that indicated that while tenure track positions constitute the majority, the bar graph indicates a trend beginning to change over the past ten years. Tenured and tenure track positions have stayed stable over this time whereas non-tenure track positions are clearly increasing. The reason for this increase is that non-tenure track faculty are cheaper to hire; with budget cuts and rescissions, many faculty lines have remained empty or have eroded as they are used for retention or adjuncts. She asked Senators to consider the University’s missions of instruction, research and service/outreach and to consider whether alternatives to the 40-40-20 distribution of faculty time might be considered, such as hiring tenure track faculty whose primary focus is on teaching or outreach. Senators’ questions and comments included: 1) Do these numbers include continuing status people? No. The Fact Book is not factual; the statistics are created to show the University in the most positive light. 2) What does hiring adjunct faculty have to do with the changing tenure track faculty loads? 3) Maybe we need to think about allowing faculty to teach more. 4) There are not enough tenured faculty among those whose research productivity is somewhat questionable to take up all the slack in the teaching loads. 5) The question of how one values the research, teaching and service missions is not one of 40-40-20, but rather it is 80% research and 20% other. An incentive structure from the beginning at every level that emphasizes teaching is needed. 6) Each department has the discretion to assign faculty job descriptions and to assign different weights and split the load however they want. The College of Science has hired tenure track people to do 80% teaching. 7) Are those weightings “real” at annual merit evaluations? Yes, faculty are evaluated on what they do, which is primarily teaching. 6) There are two different issues being considered here: the trend in hiring, and how we evaluate what we do. A realistic evaluation for what we do is needed. There are a lot of misconceptions about the 40-40-20, but it can be distributed in a variety of ways and then evaluated fairly. 7) Does this type of evaluation carry over all the way to the University-level Promotion and Tenure committee? Vice Provost Garcia affirmed that it does. 8) It is an urban myth that the University P&T Committee doesn’t pay attention to the job description. 9) It is not a part of our culture here, to change the emphasis on research for promotion and tenure. To be able to do that involves fighting a change in perception that faculty all have to adhere to the same rigors for tenure. Are we ready to do that? 10) Teaching and research are synergistic and together they create better teaching and teachers. 11) This culture has devolved here; faculty used to be hired and worked together like an orchestra, with some tenured faculty strong in teaching, others were brought in who were strong in international outreach, and still others who were strong in basic research. That concept still exists in a few places, but it is an anachronism in most departments nowadays. 12) Why don’t we talk about the value of a faculty member? Is it only the amount of money one brings in, or the amount of money our students will bring in, ten, twenty and thirty years from now? 13) Mentoring isn’t even counted toward didactic hours, and yet mentoring is a far greater investment in terms of the long term return in human potential that we create in teaching and mentoring our students. 14) We don’t have good measures for mentoring, but we should at least begin to try to measure it and have long-term follow-up with alums who reflect on the skills or ideas they gained here. That is the ultimate reward, even more than the great teacher awards. 15) Approximately 40% of faculty are not tenure track or are continuing; we should extend this conversation to talk about the contributions they make and how they are valued. 16) We are really talking about defining a broad range of faculty roles that we are then going to try to value and measure in some way, rather than the myopic vision of the three roles and one is predominant. 17) In some ways, the labels of teaching, research and service/outreach are irrelevant because the students who are working with a good researcher are learning the skills to become researchers; students working with faculty doing outreach are also learning exactly what they want to do. It’s more about the quality of what we do. Ted Downing commented that this whole dialogue will shift quickly because of demographics; 60-70% of our faculty are baby boomers so this means this is going to become a buyer’s market for tenure. It’s costing upwards of $1M to recruit science faculty now. Are there incentive packages to entice graying faculty to stay? Meanwhile, ABOR is trying to put through a plan to allow more faculty to retire early. 18) The salary compression makes it impossible to replace retiring full professors on our salaries. 19) We don’t want to employ temporary faculty to teach at branch campuses that generate surplus revenue that supports the main campus’ enterprise. ASU does this and their statistics always make ASU look better than UA. 20) Do you want an idealistic statement about what things might be, or about what they are? 21) Why is tenure important, should we defend it, and for whom and why? Senator Howell asked the Senators to read the instruction and accountability document that Provost Sander will be releasing shortly, for the December meeting. Provost Sander added that he is requesting an annual accounting from departments and colleges.
12. OLD BUSINESS
Senator Conway announced that the ICPC has considered Senator Burd’s request to change the final exam schedule to accommodate college commencement ceremonies and declined to change it.
13. ADJOURNMENT
There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 5:05 p.m.
Jennifer L. Jenkins, Secretary of the Faculty
Pamela S. Bridgmon, Recording Secretary
1. Consent Agenda item forwarded from the Instruction and Curriculum Policy Committee
2. Non Consent Agenda item forwarded from the Instruction and Curriculum Policy Committee to amend the Grade Appeal Policy
3. Non Consent Agenda forwarded from the Instruction and Curriculum Policy Committee: Motion: The Faculty Senate to reaffirm the Incomplete Policy as articulated in the University Catalogs.
4. Incomplete policy as stated in the graduate catalog.
5. Incomplete policy as stated in the undergraduate catalog
6. UA Report of Incomplete Grade form
7. Letter dated October 15, 2007 to Provost Sander from GPSC, ASUA and Faculty Senate
8. Bar graph of UA International Students enrollment from 2002 to 2007
9. Excerpt of “Trends, Strategies, and Best Practices in International Student Recruiting” dated March 2007
10. Agreement for Education Cooperation between University of Arizona USA and University of China University of Geosciences (WUHAN) PRC
11. International Affairs’ “International Education Week” schedule of events
12. Student Retention Consideration: “Faculty Roles”
13. Bar graph: “Faculty 10-year trend by tenure status”
14. “The University of Arizona Profile of faculty 10-year trend by Tenure status”
15. “The University of Arizona Diversity Profile of Faculty (Regular and other)”
16. University of Arizona Faculty Titles Utilized for Fall 2007
Motion 2007/08-11 Seconded motion from the Instruction and Curriculum Policy Committee to approve the graduate certificate in statistics. Motion carried.
Motion 2007/08-12 Seconded motion from the Instruction and Curriculum Policy Committee to approve the proposed changes to the Grade Appeal Policy in the general catalog. Motion carried.
Motion 2007/08-13 Seconded motion from the Instruction and Curriculum Policy Committee for the Faculty Senate to reaffirm the Incomplete Policy as articulated in the University Catalogs. Motion carried.
Motion 2007/08-14 Seconded motion to amend the language of the incomplete form to read] to amend the wording in the second sentence of the first major paragraph to read “Specific information for any exams to be taken and for grading . . .” Motion carried.
Motion 2007/08-15 Seconded motion that the Faculty Senate supports the request to ask Provost Sander to issue an RFP for a campus child care facility. Motion carried.
The University of Arizona Faculty Center
facsen@u.arizona.edu
last updated
12/03/07