Once approved, these minutes may be accessed electronically at:
http://fp.arizona.edu/senate/minutes.htm
Visit the faculty governance webpage at:
http://fp.arizona.edu/senate/

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 168. Presiding Officer Mitchell asked for a moment of silence in memory of long-time Senators Don Davis and Sylvan Green who recently passed away. He reminded Senators that the Senate meets again in one week, on Monday, February 2, 2009.

2. OPEN SESSION

There were no speakers for the Open Session.

3. REPORTS

3A. ASUA President Tommy Bruce

ASUA President Bruce informed the Senate that the students are actively involved in the issue of budget cuts to the Universities and thanked the Chairs of the Faculty and SPBAC for forwarding a memo about student involvement and how faculty might help with the effort. ASUA, GPSC and the Arizona Students’ Association (ASA) has planned a large student protest for noon on January 28^th at the State Capital in Phoenix with several thousand students from ASU, NAU, and UA to be in attendance. He asked for faculty leniency for students who attend this event, adding that the students will be responsible for any missed assignments. Senator Bruce also passed the hat to help defray the cost of chartering buses to transport an expected 1500 students to and from Phoenix and said that there is a website available through ASUA for faculty to donate funds for the "Support Higher Education" rally on Wednesday.

3B. GPSC President Stephen Bieda Report

GPSC President Bieda thanked the faculty for its phenomenal response and support for the planned protest on Wednesday. He expects about 500 UA graduate students to participate with their advisors’ permission, to show the state legislature the power of the student voice and the power of higher education and K12 education, which is also targeted for cuts.

3C. Faculty Officers’ Report

Presiding Officer Robert Mitchell announced that the General Faculty Elections for Chair of the Faculty, 20 Senators-at-Large, 5 seats on the Committee of Eleven, two seats on the Committee on Committees, and 2 seats on SPBAC will be held this spring. Forty signatures are needed for the Chair of the Faculty, and twenty signatures are needed for all other positions. He indicated that nominating petitions are available at the podium and he invited faculty Senators to circulate their nominating petitions during today’s Senate meeting. Petitions and biostatements are due in the Faculty Center by February 11^th. Vice Chair Mitchell reminded the Senate that Senator Green was serving a three-year term as the Senate representative to the Intercollegiate Athletic Committee. The Senate Executive Committee has nominated Senator Ralph Fregosi to run for this position and a brief bio-statement is at Senators’ desks and the election will take place later in today’s meeting. Presiding Officer Mitchell reminded Senators that the February Faculty Senate meeting will be next Monday, February 2, 2009, in Law 168. The January and February meetings are back to back because of winter closure and the MLK holiday. He also advised the Senate that at 4:30 on February 2, the Senate will go into executive session to consider honorary degree nominations. The Senate will meet in Law 168 for the rest of this term. Secretary of the Faculty J. C. Mutchler, who is serving as the President of the Arizona Faculties Council, told Senators that the AFC has been working closely with both the Arizona Students Association and the Regents this past fall and that he believes this effort is starting to pay off as the universities face the budget cuts. Presiding Officer Mitchell announced that the Faculty Constitution and Bylaws changes that were voted on by the General Faculty last fall have been accepted and approved by the Board of Regents and by President Shelton. Presiding Officer Mitchell also announced two other vacancies in the Senate: Senator Gruener, an at-Large Senator, has resigned due to his retirement in December. His position will be filled during the regular elections later this spring. Senator San Martin, a College Representative from the College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (CALA) has resigned from the UA. Presiding Officer Mitchell welcomed his substitute, Lauri Johnson, who willing to serve out the rest of his term so the Committee on Elections will be conducting a special election in CALA this spring to make her seating official.

3C. Provost Meredith Hay

Provost Hay thanked everyone for showing up at the Regents’ meeting on Thursday. This was the largest ABOR meeting in the history of the University and she and President Shelton were most gratified to see the turnout of students, faculty and the community. She thanked ASUA President Bruce, Secretary of the Faculty Mutchler and UA Regents’ Professor Lynn Nadel for speaking on behalf of the UA and higher education in Arizona. This strong public showing and the subsequent flood of communications which jammed the legislators’ email boxes on Friday made a huge impact. Today the three university presidents along with ABOR President Fred Boice met with Arizona’s Speaker of the House Kirk Adams in Phoenix to deliver a number of what the system would be willing to carry in terms of a state budget cut. Regent Boice asked for no more than a $100M cut to the system for this year, which would be $40M for the UA. The discussion also included a request to allow the Regents to manage distribution of the cuts, and a request for the Joint Committee on Capital Review to allow the SPEED packages to proceed, as well as the new dorm construction. There will be a press conference and a rally in Phoenix at 11:00 a.m. on Wednesday. Provost Hay said she is calling this semester "the semester of implementation." She indicated that Vice Provost Burd will update the Senate about the transformation progress, and that her office will need the cooperation of the faculty leadership and the Faculty Senate to help propel the proposals that will strategically position the UA to be stronger than ever. The Provost’s office is conducting a review of the undergraduate curriculum as well as engaging in the budget discussions. The UA needs to be more nimble in how it offers classes. The Provost’s office is working with the deans and the department heads to hold all faculty accountable and perhaps to teach more classes next year in light of the budget cuts.

4. QUESTION AND ANSWER PERIOD FOR AGENDA ITEM 3

Senator Howell asked Provost Hay why the most recent update from Greg Fahey about the legislature’s proposed budget cuts targeted the UA for a greater cut than ASU or NAU. The conversations have to do with an "equalization bill" that has been discussed in the legislature which involves funding the universities equally regardless of actual costs. The cost to produce a degree at the UA is greater than at our sister institutions because the costs of UA programs and degrees are more expensive due to the high research mission. It is hoped that the Regents will prevail with their request to manage and distribute the cuts.

Senator Silverman asked whether the UA has taken any position about the FY10 budget cut. Provost Hay said that neither the governor’s office nor the legislature is addressing that question until they finish with the FY09 budget, which she expects to become final in mid-February.

Senator A. Davis asked about the language in the Arizona Constitution that specifies that university instruction shall be ... "as nearly free as possible." Provost Hay explained that the UA has been committed to providing access to all eligible students, but that as state support declines, the UA’s revenue streams will change and more of the burden of the cost of education will be passed on to students and parents.

Senator Sterling asked whether the legislature is considering eliminating ABOR and establishing university governing boards for each of the three institutions. Provost Hay said two bills to disestablish the Board of Regents are being introduced but she doesn’t expect either of them to pass. J. Mok added that this is not the first time such legislation has been introduced.

The minutes of December 1, 2008 were approved.

Election of Senate Representative to Intercollegiate Athletic Committee (attachment)

Presiding Officer Robert Mitchell returned to the issue of the elected Faculty Senate representative to the Intercollegiate Athletics Committee (ICAC). The Senate Executive Committee has nominated Senator Ralph Fregosi, and he has accepted the nomination. Dr. Fregosi has provided a biostatement which is at Senators’ desks. This nomination comes as a seconded motion [Motion 2008/09-15]. Presiding Officer Mitchell asked if there were any nominations from the floor. Hearing none, the motion passed by acclamation to elect Senator Fregosi to complete the unexpired term on ICAC which ends this May 2009, and to continue for a three-year term ending in May 2012.

The Presiding Officer Mitchell announced the next order of business as discussion and possible action on a seconded motion [Motion 2008/09-16] from the Senate Executive Committee motion to endorse the Report and Recommendations from Senate Task Force on Student Retention and Advancement. Vice Chair Mitchell showed the seconded motion from the Senate Executive Committee to read: "The University of Arizona Faculty Senate endorses the report from the ‘Senate Task Force on Retention and Advancement of Undergraduate Students’ and recommends that the Faculty Officers work with the Provost’s Office to implement the recommendations as soon as is feasible." Senator Strittmatter reviewed the history and highlights of the Senate’s Task Force on Student Retention and Advancement final report and summarized the group’s recommendations about how to fund and accommodate increasing enrollments and enormous range of student preparedness, ensure student access, enable higher Academic Index students to advance more rapidly and further, how to address minority students’ needs, and how to provide the state with an educated workforce. Senator Strittmatter provided the Senate with a one-page summary of the report and recommendations which include: 1) offering a range of three degree paths: a) Regular, b) Multidisciplinary, which is an effort to address the question of how many freshmen are not retained because the regular degree path does not mesh with their goals or realities, and c) Honors, which will allow high-functioning students to progress farther and faster; 2) adopting strategies to increase the fraction of incoming freshmen with academic indices greater than 150; 3) increasing on-campus enrollment by 10-20%; 4) substantially increasing off-campus enrollment and providing more effective coordination of these efforts; 5) improving graduation rates by changing the way the UA teaches, reviewing the use of graduate teaching assistants and perhaps establishing a "Master Teacher" rank in some areas, 6) addressing stability of employment conditions for quality instructors, and 7) incentivizing teaching in the same way that indirect costs incentivize research; 8) adopting a more flexible and supportive approach for students, in particular, those who must earn their way through college. Senators’ questions and comments included: 1) What is meant by off-campus enrollment? Senator Strittmatter indicated that this term includes students enrolled in e-degrees, correspondence courses, and courses taught at other locations. It appears that there is revenue-positive potential in such enrollments. 2) How do these recommendations relate to UA South? UA South was not addressed in detail as it is viewed as intermediate between main campus and "learning centers, such as Casa Grande, Nogales, or Safford. 3) Did the Task Force discuss colleges’ and departments’ practice of limit access to programs or majors? Senator Strittmatter said that the information the Task Force had indicated that a large number of non-retained freshmen are discouraged by the offerings that have within the regular program which frequently do not address the kind of employment they expect to get after graduation. The multidisciplinary degree will combine courses and programs in specific combinations that will be relevant to employment.

Senator Silverman moved [Motion 2008/09-17] to amend Motion 2008/09-16 to add "and that the Faculty Officers report back to the Senate by December 2009 concerning progress that has been made on implementation of the recommendations." Motion was seconded and passed with one opposed. Members discussed that this amendment does not preclude any interim reports from being presented at least by December. Discussion continued: 4) What is the biggest obstacle to implementation? Senator Strittmatter responded that inertia is an obstacle, and that a structure needs to be put in place to allow this to happen. Deans and department heads need to work cooperatively to determine how to offer which courses, majors and degrees. 5) How does this fit into the UA Transformation Plan?" Senator Strittmatter responded that this is a direction, rather than a prescription. Presiding Officer Mitchell added that the Task Force on Retention and Advancement began its work long before the Transformation was announced. Provost Hay stated that this curriculum review process has some traction and she hopes to have some of the ideas implemented by fall 2009 and she anticipates that the majority of the recommendations can be implemented by fall 2010. 6) With respect to off-campus enrollment, the resolution should stipulate that it is less possible to teach some disciplines and courses via distance learning, as in foreign language instruction. 7) Conversely, the University should be cautioned not to limit online instruction. Two College of Nursing Senators responded that the online curriculum for Master’s and PhD’s in nursing is working very well and that the PhD in Nursing has proven to be successful in a global market. 8) An evaluation plan should be implemented, in addition to an implementation plan for the recommendations. 9) How does this honors degree differ from the current honors degree? Senator Strittmatter clarified that the new honors degree would allow well-prepared students to advance faster and farther in their classes, whereas a regular degree with honors indicates superior work in regular college-level classes. 10) How does the multidisciplinary degree differ from the interdisciplinary degree? They would not be studying to the same level of depth. This degree has an emphasis on breadth and usefulness. 11) Does any evidence exist to show that underprepared students do better with multi-disciplinary degrees? Many students simply don’t see the relevance of a specialist degree. The program may begin with about six degrees. 12) The online curriculum for Master’s and PhD’s in nursing is working very well. 13) While the rationale for creating a multidisciplinary degree is to retain more students and make their coursework more relevant, isn’t it also possible that many students are not retained because they aren’t able to pass their courses? Is the multidisciplinary degree an easier degree, so we can graduate more students? Senator Strittmatter responded that the degree isn’t easier, but rather more appropriate for some students. 14) If the plan’s intent is to match degree programs to incoming students interests, what about students’ changing interest and how will the range of interests be established? Senator Strittmatter said the plan doesn’t intend to be overly restrictive. A number of students are interested in what job they may get. Some will be specialists, which is what the UA is currently geared to, but others will get jobs because they have a good general education and can think clearly over a broad range, which is the purpose of the multidisciplinary degree. The usual market research studies ought to be conducted. 15) Why not just strengthen the interdisciplinary degree program? The multidisciplinary degree programs will use courses at the 100-, 200-, and some 300-levels. 16) A number of faculty have concerns with multidisciplinary degrees, and many students have lofty goals. We need to be certain that we have ways to guide students and not disappoint them. Senator Strittmatter clarified that many students will select the path themselves, and there are many who would never make it in the honors path, but can still get an honest degree that would still be of interest to a number of the state’s employers. ASUA Senator Nystedt added that she believes no amount of testing can help students determine what to major in, whereas allowing students to self-select study paths and offering them more flexibility and options should help. 18) We will need to do a lot more mentoring to help students exercise these options as long as blocking students out of particular paths is not an option.

19) It is not clear what the specific recommendations of this report are, and it might be easier to vote on them individually. Senator Strittmatter and Presiding Officer Mitchell view this report as setting some directions. Chair of the Faculty Howell explained that Motion 2008/09-16 is asking the Senate to endorse conceptually an implementation plan to look at multiple study paths, a master teacher rank, multidisciplinary degrees, two types of honors degrees. Senator Burd noted that the resolution does read, "to implement." Senator Mutchler moved [Motion 2008/09-18] a friendly amendment to substitute the word "on" for the words "to implement," to read, ". . . work with the Provost’s Office to implement on the recommendations as soon as feasible." Motion was seconded and carried with several opposed and one abstention. Presiding Officers Mitchell called for the vote on Motion 2008/09-16 as amended. Motion passed 37-0-1.

Committee of Eleven Chair Michael Cusanovich told the Senate that the Committee of Eleven and a number of faculties are concerned that departments may not be fully utilizing annual performance evaluations or ensuring that all faculty members’ workload assignments assure a 100% effort in this era of budget restraints and downsizing. He referred Senators to former Provost Sanders’ memorandum of November 2, 2007 to the deans on Instructional Accountability and Responsibility Process (IARP), and a January 20, 2009 memorandum to Provost Hay from the Committee of Eleven endorsing this process and recommending that the deans and the Provost work together to ensure the IARP is fully implemented in every department. Chair of the Faculty Howell reminded Senators that the first step of this process involves each college defining a 100% teaching effort (i.e. 4/4). The second step is to define course equivalents within each department relative to the distribution of effort. The imperative third step is for the faculty in each unit to look at its overall teaching responsibility and to decide as a group, on the assigned workloads. The faculty owns the curriculum relative to content, she said, and the faculty should also own the curriculum relative to delivery. Teaching assignments will change from year to year as faculty become eligible for sabbaticals, fellowships, buyouts and grant support. The redistribution of effort should take place with the department head at the annual performance review. Senator Cusanovich presented a seconded motion [Motion 2008/09-19] from the Committee of Eleven: "The Faculty Senate endorses the Instruction Responsibility Process per the Committee of Eleven and Provost Sander documents." Senators’ questions and comments included: 1) Does this memorandum represent a change to the process? Senator Cusanovich clarified that it is not a change, but that the process is not yet fully implemented in all departments across campus. 2) What percentage of faculty is not fully engaged? Senator Cusanovich estimated that perhaps 10% of the faculty is not fully engaged. 3) If this process isn’t in effect yet, how will this endorsement help? Senator Howell affirmed that an official endorsement from the Faculty Senate will be presented as a mandate to the Provost’s Office to hold the deans and department heads accountable. Presiding Officer Mitchell called for a vote. Motion passed unanimously.

Vice Provost Gail Burd presented a White Paper status update on the UA Transformation. She explained that the UA currently has 113 departments/schools; the WP merger proposals would reduce that number to 97. Eighteen proposals will create better teaching and research efficiencies. There appears to be 33 low degree-producing programs that may be asked to reorganize or close. Senator Burd is also examining adding flexibility to general education requirements, ways to offer general education for less money, minimizing overlapping courses in our curricula, reducing bottlenecks in particular majors, instructional accountability and faculty workload, and streamlining workloads. A program for adding one unit to some foundations English classes with an online component for writing and library research is being piloted this term. She and her team are also considering proposals to streamlining workloads, processing information through P-card purchasing, hiring processes for staff and appointed professionals, staffing needs and online faculty evaluations. J. Mok and her team is examining the required ABOR’s productivity initiatives including increasing the number of transfer students and the ease with which students are transferring, as well as increasing retention rates and graduation rates by working with advisors and offering success courses. One Senator commented that changing freshman English courses to be four units rather than three will create a problem for all the engineering majors and transfer students.

Strategic Planning and Budget Advisory Committee Chair Miranda Joseph stated that the SPBAC transformation subcommittee has now reported to the Provost’s Office on all of the administrative White Papers and the vice presidents have received feedback. The range of quality for these WPs was similar to the range for the academic WPs. Human Resources presented a progressive plan to make use of more online resources for basic services and to create a new hire center with some collaboration across the VP areas. The Alumni Association proposed ways to reorganize and do more with fewer people. The Vice President for Outreach presented very good suggestions about the Arizona Extension. Student Affairs offered a highly sensitive and thoughtful White Paper that juxtaposes impressively with the transformation efforts. Other WPs need more work and one area that clearly needs more work is to increase cross-area collaboration among the vice presidents. SPBAC recommends that the President and Provost push harder to encourage this collaboration. Some vice presidents contend that they are so severely under-resourced in some strategic ways that the smartest thing is to invest now for future savings. Senator Joseph is not clear about when the full administrative WP proposals are due, and what is the next step? Senator Burd said that five of the academic WP proposals are completed, and another twelve full proposals are expected by the end next week. Several were unsure about how to proceed following the announcement of the reorganization of the Colleges of Letters and Sciences, but they are moving ahead now. Some proposals were overlapping and need to collaborate to create a single proposal. There is no plan to place the full proposals on the Provost’s website. Provost Hay hopes to have as many proposals in full form by March 1. Provost Hay explained that she is also working within another deadline: ABOR has implemented a new academic affairs policy for approving any changes to curriculum, programs, degrees, college or school name changes. These changes will only be considered once a year, at the Academic Affairs Committee meeting in April, prior to the June ABOR meeting. Senators’ questions and comments included: 1) What are the cost savings of the proposals? Senator Burd noted that the five proposals that have already gone forward did not require funds to implement. Everyone involved in the other proposals are encouraged to be as cost-effective as possible.

Chair of the Faculty Wanda Howell said she has activated the "Senate Budget and Strategic Planning Committee" which consists of the six elected members of SPBAC plus two Senate-elected members and the Chair of the Faculty. She has augmented the committee with people that she’s asked to contribute specific expertise. This committee will begin an extended process beginning this Wednesday to look at resource allocation relative to quality, enrichment, maintenance and attrition, and to define different kinds of quality criteria. Chair Howell asked Senators to make her aware of any quality indices or ranking systems they might be familiar with. She acknowledged that a wide range of programs have to be offered to fulfill the University’s mission, but not everything has to be funded at the same level. She would like the faculty to be involved in making those hard decisions. Senators’ questions and comments included: 1) Is the list of underperforming programs that was published in a local newspaper available? Senator Burd responded that this list contained some inaccuracies because the deans didn’t have time to review and correct the data before publication. The data is inaccurate because majors are counted as two degrees, whereas the UA counts them as .5. Chair Howell will forward the corrected list to the Senate. 2) Which are the five proposals that have been completed and how have the affected faculties voted? Senator Burd explained that the affected faculties voted to merge Biochemistry and Chemistry. Another merger involves the Poetry Center and the Writing Center, which have voted to join together to create efficiency and collaborate. The two Southwest Institutes for Research on Women (SIROW) at Main Campus and in the Health Sciences have voted to come together. The "academic strategic plan" that ABOR wants to pre-approve in April is a list of anything the University wants to put forward in the coming year, but is not committed to implementing. 3) So if a proposal is advancing, 75% of the affected faculty members have voted in favor of it? Senator Burd explained that some of the proposals are not mergers; some are consortiums, such as the one for critical analysis and social change. The College of Science and the College of Humanities joining as a College of Letters and Science is not a merger; it’s a new administrative structure. 4) Is the faculty allowed to vote on administrative white papers? Senator Joseph admitted that there is some overlap between the white papers, but whether or not faculty need to vote will depend on the changes being proposed. 5) Can you clarify the relationship between SPBAC and the Senate Budget and Strategic Planning Committee? Senator Joseph explained that this Senate committee drafted the SPBAC criteria, called Guidelines for Academic Program Prioritization, which was then approved by SPBAC. This committee now expects to receive a list of programs proposed for closure by their deans, and apply the Guidelines for Academic Program Prioritization criteria to assess and recommend which programs should be closed. Chair of the Faculty Howell commented that closing programs won’t really save that much money because most of the money is tied up in people. This committee will also be making suggestions focusing on how to allocate resources to build programs that are truly great or have potential for greatness, and to reduce the allocations for those that are adequate and competent so that they remain capable.

There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 5:04p.m.

J.C. Mutchler, Secretary of the Faculty

Pamela S. Bridgmon, Recording Secretary

Motion 2008/09-15 Seconded motion from the Faculty Senate Executive Committee to elect Senator Ralph Fregosi to serve out the unexpired term of Senator Sylvan Green on the Intercollegiate Athletics Committee which ends in May 2009 and to continue serving a full term to expire in May 2012. Motion carried.

Motion 2008/09-16 Seconded motion from the Faculty Senate Executive Committee: The University of Arizona Faculty Senate endorses the report from the "Senate Task Force on Retention and Advancement of Undergraduate Students" and recommends that the Faculty Officers work with the Provost’s office to implement the recommendations as soon as feasible. Motion as amended in motions 2008/09-17 and 2008/09-18 carried.

Motion 2008/09-17 Seconded motion to amend Motion 2008/09-16 to read: The University of Arizona Faculty Senate endorse the report from the "Senate Task Force on Retention and Advancement of Undergraduate Students" and recommends that the Faculty Officers work with the Provost’s office to implement the recommendations as soon as feasible and that the Faculty Officers report back to the Senate at least by December 2009 concerning progress that has been made on implementation of the recommendations." Motion carried

Motion 2008/09-18 Seconded motion to amend Motion 2008/09-16 to substitute the word "on" for the words "to implement," to read, "The University of Arizona Faculty Senate endorses the report from the "Senate Task Force on Retention and Advancement of Undergraduate Students" and recommends that the Faculty Officers work with the Provost’s office to implement on the recommendations as soon as feasible and that the Faculty Officers report back to the Senate at least by December 2009 concerning progress that has been made on implementation of the recommendations." Motion carried.

Motion 2008/09-19 Seconded motion from the Committee of Eleven: "The Faculty Senate endorses the Instruction Responsibility Process per the Committee of Eleven’s and Provost Sander’s documents." Motion carried.