April 11, 2016

Faculty Senate Meeting
Minutes
April 11, 2016
3:15pm
Rudder 601
http://facultysenate.tamu.edu
 
Call to Order
The meeting was called to order at 3:20 PM.
 
Guest Speaker
                                                                                                                                                           
Speaker Comments
Reminder of Stadlemann Award
Reminder of Aggie Spirit Award- took up donations
Reminder about Election Ballots & EC Nominations (must be present to vote)
Reminder of Faculty Jazz Night on 4/29 for all faculty & guests
Note about Stand In Step Up campaign; t-shirts available for faculty
 
Comments on Post-Tenure Review
Members of task force were invited to create a panel for discussion during the meeting; copies were provided of the report and the proposed revised version of the rule. Speaker Strawser emphasized that everyone should understand that this is something open for discussion and has not been settled yet.  Speaker Strawser, Senator Rick Carlson, and Dr. Lupiani were members of the committee present for the panel. Speaker Strawser said that they were not coming to convince the senators of this proposal and were not taking a position on this. The purpose of the panel session was to allow senators to provide feedback and identify concerns.  The senate will be sending out an email about Faculty Forums for all faculty to come and discuss/offer recommendations.
 
NOTE: The following is a close account of the discussion from the recordings of the meeting.  Some comments may have been lost if persons were not using the microphone.
 
Comment from the task force- Senator Carlson – We believe that pretty clearly this needs to go back to the drawing board, but we need to develop some clear directions and need input to do that.
 
Comments from Senators: Could you tell us what you perceive to be broken that is intended to be fixed? Response: Speaking only to the task force- met numerous times and all had input. The final recommendations represented a compromise. Strawser’s perception of what went on is that it was clear that the procedures dealing with all of these issues, specifically faculty evaluation, post-tenure review, were not uniform across the university. Different colleges have different rules, even within colleges departments had different rules. Equity is a big issue here. Transparency is also a big issue here, as is the evaluation, not just of faculty, but the evaluation of administrators. All faculty evaluate administrators every four years, but we want to make sure that those evaluations are on par. State law says that all faculty need to be reviewed by a committee of their peers once every six years. An example- Strawser has been here 43 years and never been peer reviewed for this purpose, nor has he been asked to peer review anyone. It’s clear that there is a lack of uniformity and lack of compliance with state law. The committee met and came up with the recommendations, they were given to VP Benedik who apologizes for not being there, and the document came out from the Office of the Provost (from VP Benedik). There is concern that this should have been distributed to all faculty immediately; it wasn’t. It was given to the EC of Senate, CPI, and Council of Deans. Some of the traffic on the listserv was misinformation; some was valid points. We want to come up with recommendations for this issue. As a minimum, we feel a reconstitution of the task force might be an appropriate avenue (suggestion of Strawser & Carlson). We need your input and a frank discussion.
 
Senator Carlson – there were two kinds of concerns; particulars of the document/recommendations and a second level of concern with who appoints peer review groups and who conducts that. Also there was a concern about who appoints the comprehensive review people and what the criteria are. There are missing bits and pieces. Those things were never specified in previous policy, but this is opportunity to clean it up from top to bottom. If people don’t trust the process, it won’t be effective. We have to develop a clear process that people are comfortable with. That’s our purpose- get some clear feedback, and the Senate is a good place to do that since it’s a group that represents the faculty. The draft that is out there does not have that many changes, despite the red text. The main thing that changed is what determines if someone is going to be subject to post-tenure review. There were departments that said you had to have three unsatisfactories in each of the three areas while others only required it only in one area to be subject to post-tenure review.  It has to be unified across all colleges/departments.
 
Comment from Senator: Was the draft rule was put together by the task force? Where did it come from? Response: The Provost Office, they believe through Dr. Benedik; Dr. Lupiani reviewed it as well. Senator: I was given a copy of the policy; seems really reasonable as far as I can tell. Most of the red changes are making things more clear that weren’t clear before. It doesn’t specify every six years or five years. Seems it leaves it up to the administrator to decide how often that is invoked. He would prefer to have that be more uniform; with tenure you hope you’re given more time to explore things and maybe make some failures. Reponses: State law specifies at least every six years. Task force wants a review more frequently. If you wait to review at six years, you’re already in a deep hole. Part of the objective is to help people get back on their feet. A lot of us would prefer to have a three year cycle; that might not fit all departments so we tried to give departments as much flexibility as possible which is why it wasn’t specified directly. It should take as at least as long to lose tenure as it does to earn tenure. There needs to be mechanisms to help people be successful if they are not meeting expectations. The idea was not to make it punitive.  Some departments don’t count books until it appears in print, which could count against a faculty member. Because of that faculty members engage in less than meaningful research just to check off that block, which is counterproductive. There was disagreement on the committee on this point. They proposed it as three years to give a three year window to correct things. Comment from Senator who went through same process at another university, that process made it clear that the administration wanted to use post-tenure review as a way of getting rid of people; seems that the changes represent restraint on the part of the administration.
 
Comment from Senator: Want clarification on definition of “research”- is that up to the departments to say if someone is contributing to the research mission? Response: that’s the intent. The university is so diverse that there is no way to develop that into a SAP. The department is supposed to develop clear standards so that everybody knows what the standards are. Otherwise you’re shooting at a target you can’t see and that’s not productive.
 
Comment: The other issue is that the three components are really not distinct. Everything we do has some part of these. There are faculty that may be outstanding in service, but may not have published a paper in a few years. Concern about triggering this review when something goes to zero. Response: There are provisions for some flexibility. Part of our charge was to deal with the fact that we have a significant number of tenured faculty who basically stopped engaging in scholarship. The argument put forward is that it’s an equity issue. We have a lot of instructional faculty who have all the other responsibilities and don’t do research, but don’t have tenure. The argument is that it’s unfair to have two types of faculty that have the same duties. The argument is if you’re going to be tenured, over a period of years you have to make some contribution to each of the three areas. This is a real issue. Hasn’t occurred recently, but we had the practice of meeting with deans at the beginning of the semester and asking them what they’d like to see the Faculty Senate address. One of the things that was brought up was if there was a reward for active service in the FS. In some colleges there is a course reduction; in others, they ask why I should reward my faculty for being on the Senate when they are some of my worst faculty. That’s an issue- how do you evaluate what service is? We have Senators who don’t come to meetings. We have committee meetings where the number of presenters outnumber the number of attendees. We have some real problems in determining what is or how do you evaluate service. The same problems exist with teaching and research.
 
Comment:- Evaluating faculty is important and valuable exercise, but I have a couple of points to make. Points 1.2 and 1.3 seem to contradict one another and I think the language should be changed. 1.2 says assignment should not go to zero in any one category, but 1.3 says alternate work assignments made me made in one or more categories. Not clear which one has precedent. It’s important to have alternate work assignments possible. We are a Tier 1 University, and we expect that all of our faculty have an active research role, but that doesn’t always work out. It would be unfair to fire these people and damage our reputation; we’d have a hard time hiring new people if we did. Within our department we have some people who have stopped doing research, but are doing vital service activities or higher teaching loads, which is reasonable. From respect of our department, I don’t see the need to have the Dean to sign off on these. Do you think there is the need for the Dean’s oversight? Response: Concern that clearer criteria and parameters be set beforehand not after something has occurred. Example- Dr. Benedik is a professor in a department, but is solely working in an administrative capacity as Vice Provost. Probably wouldn’t be productive for him to continue his lab etc. He went into that knowing he wouldn’t be held responsible for that like another faculty in his department, but he went into it knowing this beforehand. Figured out that that’s what they do best and that’s where they should make their main contribution to the university. Some colleagues are wonderful teachers/advisors, but don’t do well with publishing or service. Everybody should make their major contributions in the areas they have the most expertise and desire in.  Difference between 1.2 and 1.3 is there is a specific sign-off. For garden variety folks, you can’t just decide to drop something, but if I have reason, I can go and get the department to reassign my job duties. Whether it should require a sign-off from the Dean is less clear.
 
Comment: Sounds like people who stop doing research might be fired. Response: The strategy is in terms of equity. If you want to stop doing teaching, you can change from Tenure-Track to Senior professor with 5 year contract. Otherwise it’s not fair to those Instructional Faculty who are doing the same job but don’t have tenure. It’s a matter of equity.
 
Comment: I agree with the equity. That’s reasonable and has to be addressed. Just be cautious about putting language in here that makes it looks like tenure doesn’t exist anymore. If you’re department head or whoever doesn’t like you, you could be out. We’d have trouble with hiring and retention. At Wisconsin, everywhere except the flagship campus, they’ve lost tenure and this looks like it’s moving in the same direction. That’s my reaction when I read this. Response: My first question is why excellent teachers can’t be tenured. Also, the difference between 1.2 refers more to when there is a change in effort for each criteria. Probably can be written better, but that’s the main point.
 
Comment: My biggest concern is with point 4.1. One of the three years for comprehensive professional review. Members of the task force have suggested that the objective of this revamping is to make sure that everything is transparent. I understand three of the triggers for comprehensive review. The one I don’t understand is that the department head can on its own trigger a professional review. One of the triggers is overall unsatisfactory annual review; one is one unsatisfactory peer review, one is requested by the faculty member, but I don’t understand why a department head on its own can request a professional review. The first sentence of 4.1- why does the department head get this power. Response: This is not a change to this draft. It was included in the previous version. That is in the current version of the SAP. Comment: It says that it can be triggered upon request of the department head. There is one OR at the end. If you have three satisfactory, but the department head decides they want to change the composition of the faculty, they can trigger a professional review. Maybe it’s not written correctly.
 
Comment: It’s poorly written. With one unsatisfactory review, the department head can request a professional review. That part needs to be stricken out. The point is that that’s the rule right now. That’s the scary part. We should be taking advantage of opening up the rule for revisions to take those kind of things out. We need to change this because otherwise it goes against the principle of transparency and having a fair procedure.Response: It’s inconsistent. That’s what’s there now, so proposals are being made to revise the existing rule. That brings the entire rule into question. So if we want to strike that, which I would be in favor of, that’s what we should do. We shouldn’t limit ourselves to just the changes that are being proposed, but the overall rule.
 Comment: What is the procedure to actually remove this? Response: We want to collect all of the comments from today and the forums. I encourage anyone with a specific suggestion along with change in wording or whatever to Kelly. We’ll accumulate that and those forums and add to them to try and come up with some type of consensus to try and get this rule into something that we all agree with.
 
Comment: In taking a look at Section 1, University Expectations, I find it extremely deficient and I find this to be the most important paragraph of the entire document. It’s cumbersome and at the same time deficient. Following up on special circumstances for special assignments from department head or dean: how are they going to be evaluated if one of the criteria is not going to be considered? The one of the three things that bothers me the most is the lack of definition and structure of Service. How do you define service? There is nothing here that tells us that. You mentioned the University being vast/diverse and it’s different for each college; there must be some clear definition. There needs to be information about what is considered service at this school. Response: For Mays, we’re given a specific list of criteria/things that count as service. It’s spelled out, but even so, it’s a matter of interpretation.
 
Comment: We need to collect this information from each college in a manner that it’s clear so that every single college can compare each other within the document or how we inter-compare ourselves. Those comparisons are extremely important for us to grown and learn how the University works. It gives too much power to the deans/department heads by not specifying what service is. Service by itself is very precarious.Response: That document in our college was arrived at by input from the faculty. That doesn’t mean everyone is satisfied with it, but there is at least something that helps you before you decide to get involved with something where it falls within that hierarchy. The task force was faced with a dilemma about wanting uniformity across the university but specifics have to be defined by colleges and departments. What might be service in Accounting is different from Service in Engineering.
 
Comment: Consolidating this information into a carefully worded paragraph will allow each faculty to understand what’s expected of them. As it is today, service can be misconstrued by faculty for three years, but then labeled as unsatisfactory. That is very dangerous. Faculty that have been here for years are now left in limbo asking what do you want/expect from me. Faculty are confused. They want to see transparency and that’s the most important thing we can convey to them. Response: Each college has guidelines for tenure and promotion. It’s been indicated what counts for each criteria and those are supposed to be reviewed every three years.
 
Comment: let’s think locally and act globally. The expectations need to be transmitted through the process. Response: This document cannot do that for every faculty. Comment: But this document is an umbrella document and you have another document at the college level and another at the department level. Response: That’s how it is right now. Comment: But this is the most important document. Response: This refers back to rules in the colleges and departments. Comment: Section 1 requires expansion to encompass all of the colleges. Response: The verbiage that we’ve been using has been scholarship, but the new documents say research. That needs to be corrected because research does not cover everything that our colleges do. Section 3.2, another opportunity for making changes is that if colleges/departments establish these guidelines, who is going to establish them? I don’t know that this has ever happened in my college. Who gets to decide what is acceptable? It says colleges/departments, but that could be the administrators and if the faculty don’t get input we have a problem. Response: That is not okay; the academic freedom rule says faculty should be involved in the development of the guidelines.
 
Note- a section of discussion at this point was lost because it was not picked up by the microphone
 
Comment: I worry that this allows for and encourages for this to happen on a yearly basis either by the department head or the peer review group. This could create a lot of headaches on a yearly basis and allows for variability to influence this review. Response: Referred to 3.2.5 that says it’s a 3 year review that takes the average of those evaluations so it’s actually a 3 year review. We put that in because some departments do a peer review yearly, but the formal report would be a three year average done every three years. Comment: So the motion to strike the “upon the request of the department head” which would occur in annual evaluation would need ensure it’s a 3 year process. Response: The department head evaluation is required. It’s a responsibility of the department head and not part of this. It’s separate from this. This process is a peer review; that’s what the post-tenure review actually is. There are two levels of this. There is one that occurs every 3 years; if a problem arises on that one, it would trigger a comprehensive review which is also a peer review. That one by itself raises all kinds of questions about who the peer group is and a lot of stuff in the details that needs to be addressed. Comment: So when it says OR upon the request of a department head, that is also on a three year basis or no? Response: that’s a question that’s come up on if we want to retain it as that’s language from the previous rule. Comment: Just to point out that that allows for a one-year review. Response: that allows for almost any time and that point has been made that it needs to be reviewed and possibly taken out.
 
Comment: Regarding the point about different levels of service, I recall when I was tenure-track, the Dean mentioned the highest level of service was being in the Faculty Senate so I got involved because I wanted to but also because of the possible benefits. It’s not only the definition of the different levels of service, but we also need guidance on the weight of the levels of service. Is service for the entire University going to be considered at the same weight as service to the department or the college? This merits clarification by the Faculty Senate and the administration.
 
Comment: One problem I have is with the definition 2.2 that was inserted- the definition of unsatisfactory. The issue I have with this is suppose someone was hired in 1980 and got tenure in 1985. Are they subject to post-tenure review under our new guidelines or is there some expectation that when they were hired the document that was in place is the correct thing? Response: There was no post-tenure review in 1985 so I guess they wouldn’t be subject to it at all, but that’s not what the law says. Comment: Point, someone has given years of their life to the University and their research dies off, so we kick them to the curb. That sound like a bad idea. Response: In my own department, we’ve had people who’ve written letters to the department head that explains that they are senior, been here for a long time etc. instead of picking up more research, I propose to teach more or carry the burden that way. You raise a good point. The answer we’ve gotten is that this would be the rule and you’d have to be senior faculty. I think it’s a legitimate question. Comment: Related to that, my department head sent an email about why one Unsatisfactory should force the Unsaitsfactory overall. Evaluations involve judgement and that is one reason why yearly review given by a peer panel is a good idea. How severe you are in one area depends on the overall picture. Response: that’s a good point. I think that could be remedied by changing the third criteria to “you can’t fall to zero in any one category unless there is a formal arrangement” which would be a fairly easy thing to do.  Not sure how that gets to the equity issue, but it’s a good point and should be considered.
 
Comment: Follow-up on definition of peer- suggest that it be explicitly defined. Does that mean equal rank, equal time in rank, equally having tenure?
 
Comment: How do we deal with exceptional situations like someone being down fighting cancer; are their ways to resolve that issue/how are we going to resolve it? It says if you’re under serious illness you can be exempted. Who does the exemption? Response: Department head with approval of the dean. Comment: what qualifies as serious illness? Response: Rather than list every possibility, leave that to the judgement of providing some type of appeal process. In some cases, if you’re eligible for FMLA, it’s serious enough.
 
Comment: You could ask for a doctor’s letter that says whether or not they can perform their duties. A number of the comments we’ve heard before about departmental guidelines, if a new section to follow the University Expectations section for College & Department Expectations. They are alluded to in two different places. They are referred to in fragmentary ways and in different ways. If those comments could be gathered in a new section, it would be helpful. Also, I think the criteria for categories for performance should be established by departmental faculty with approval of head/dean.
 
Comment: Section 4.1- another inconsistency between that section’s first paragraph and section 3.2.5 where there is a suggestion for the peer review that takes place annually. 4.1 says that a peer review can be triggered by 3 consecutive annual reviews or one unsatisfactory peer review. This should be corrected since peer reviews can happen annually as well. If the peer review happens annually, than it should have the same weight of the annual review if it takes the place of the annual review. Response: The intent was to say that if the department has a peer review annually, they can collect those up every three years and use those. Maybe we need to take out the reference to the annual review thing and let the departments deal with the 3 year thing however they choose to do it. Comment: then you will have to re-write what triggers a peer review.
 
Comment: Back to the point about who your peers are. Our department asked this question when we started with the six year review. At the point Dr. Benedik said all tenured faculty are your peers. It doesn’t matter if they are associate or full for the purposes of post-tenure review. Response: Each department determines who their peers are. Every department has developed their own guidelines. In some colleges they use external individuals as peers.
 
Response: All of this points out that there are a lot of things may be acceptable, but need to be clarified.
 
Comment: I hear a lot of talk about service. One of the things our deans and department heads don’t do is value service. We have one tenure track member as a part of our caucus serving on the Senate. We have 7 APTF faculty looking at and voting on tenure track information. If you’re truly trying to get maximum buy-in and feedback, my hope is that this committee consider those faculty who are APT because there are wild inconsistencies for those faculty.
 
Comment: In all of this discussion, I want to make it explicit that there will be a chilling effect of all of this. Tenured faculty’s openness to discuss faculty governance related issues is affected because they worry about repercussions, and this culture of constant surveillance is not going to help effective debate that could move the University forward. We know what a fraught process the tenure process is, and now we’re entertaining a parallel process of guidelines that currently don’t exist, and there are so many open questions about who is going to make those decisions. I worry that there is a lot of room for capriciousness. Response: I think annual evaluations, tenure & promotion, and post-tenure review should all measure similar things.
 
Comment: Is this internal vs. external in terms of peer? What all is involved and there is no definition to what a peer is. The rule doesn’t even consistently use the word peer. Lots of talk about internal service to A&M, but what about professional service so that the rest of the world outside of A&M know that we’re good at tending to our field? This should be considered as well, although I’m not personally in favor of outlining some type of list. Section 2- Recommend that we put those post-tenure review guidelines be clearly posted and available online to the public & the faculty. Response- should be posted on the Dean of Faculties website. We post it there once we get them for review. They are encouraged to put that in writing as part of the rule- clear, established, published, and distributed widely.
 
Comment: Trying to think of last time my department had any discussion about professional development. Wondering if the University has enough of a professional development program for this not to be punitive.
 
Comment: When we think about who is on the committees/peers, it’s important that the person under evaluation being given the choice to select someone as well. Response: Department heads should not be included in the peer group since they do their own evaluation.
 
Comment: I’ve seen the whole process of tenure decisions become much more regularized. What strikes me is that some of the representatives from other colleges have issues that I don’t think exist in my college. The question I have for those drafting this document- what sort of issues are you considering when it comes to different colleges by their nature have different activities defined as research, teaching, and service. Understand why we need university wide document, but don’t know how specific we can be when it’s department/college and trying to cover so many different disciplines. Response: that’s a major issue. Should be referred to departmental faculty to come up with this. There has to be judgement throughout this whole process. That’s exactly the reason this document is vague on some of the specifics- because they do vary from college to college and departments. Reluctant to say that we have to define the criteria, but we can say how those things should be defined to make sure faculty have a voice in those decisions.
 
Comment: In section 4.1- this points to the need to not be too specific. The last sentence on page 4, 4.1.3 it specifies a specific minimal requirement for comprehensive professional review. The portfolio is used in the rule, but not every college uses this. I would strike those specific items out of the requirements for professional review.
 
Speaker- This is a proposal. We have the opportunity to react to the proposed changes but to the policy as it stood before the changes that are being suggested. Even though we record this, I’d appreciate it if you’d reflect on your comments and send an email to the Senate office summarizing your concerns and your remedy. This has been an example of what I think the Faculty Senate should be doing on many issues. Too often we’re regarded by our peers as a group that rubber stamps whatever comes before us. This shows that we can do much more than that. Having discussions like this can help us earn the respect of our colleagues and administration.
 
Approval of February 15, 2016 and March 21, 2016 Faculty Senate Meeting Minutes
The minutes were approved as presented.
     
Consent Agenda
GRADUATE COUNCIL – GC REPORT
March 3, 2016              
New Course Request
CSCE 451/651     Software Reverse Engineering
FORS 601             Foundations of Forensic Healthcare
FORS 602             Victimology: Clinical Implications and Applications
FORS 603             Justice Today, Prevention Tomorrow
FORS 604             Advanced Trauma Assessments and Injury Pathology
FORS 610             Forensic Sexual Assault Examiner Course
FORS 611             Application of Clinical Pharmacology to Victims of Violence
FORS 612             Human Trafficking
FORS 613             Forensic Photography
FORS 614             Policy and Ethics of Interpersonal Violence
FORS 615             Forensic Mental Health
Attachment B
FS.33.300
Motion Passed with Revisions (removal of CSCE 451/651)
 
 
Course Change Request
OMFR 5210         OMR Imaging Technology
OMFR 5250         Advanced Oral and Maxillofacial Radiology
OMFR 5V01        Literature Review/Journal Club
OMFR 5V06        Clinical Oral and Maxillofacial Radiology Service
Attachment C
FS.33.301
Motion Passed
 
Special Consideration Item
Texas A&M Health Science Center
  Certificate in Healthcare Forensic
                        New Graduate Program Proposal  
Attachment D
FS.33.302
Motion Passed
 
Special Consideration Item
        TAMU Mays Business School
Master of Science in Entrepreneurial Leadership
                        New Master’s Program Proposal
Attachment E
FS.33.303
Motion Passed
 
UNDERGRADUATE CURRICULUM COMMITTEE – UCC REPORT
Change in Courses – March 4, 2016
AGEC 285             Directed Studies
AGEC 291             Research
AGEC 484             Internship
AGEC 485             Directed Studies
AGEC 491             Research
BIOL 456               Medical Microbiology
Attachment F
FS.33.304
Motion Passed
 
Texas A&M University at Galveston
Change in Courses
MARB 303           Biostatistics
MARB 310           Introduction to Cell Biology
MARB 408           Marine Botany
MARB 425           Marine Ecology
Attachment G
FS.33.305
Motion Passed
 
W-COURSES   - March 14, 2016
Courses submitted for W certification
WGST/FIL 481 Model 2              Gender and Citizenship
PHIL 485 Model 1                         Directed Study in Philosophy
PHIL 491                                           Research
 
Courses submitted for W recertification
ANTH 412                                        Archeological Theory
ECEN 405                                         Electrical Senior Design
ECON 410                                        Macroeconomic Theory
FSTC/DASC 313                             Food Chemistry Laboratory
GEOG 309                                        Geography of Energy
HORT 315                                         Issues in Horticulture
MART 301                                        Seamanship II
POLS 323                                          Political Systems of Latin America
POLS 328                                          Globalization and Democracy
POLS 481 Model 1                        Research in American Politics
POLS 481 Model 2                        Research in Comparative Politics
POLS 481 Model 3                        Research in International Relations
POLS 481 Model 4                        Research in Political Theory
 
Courses submitted for C recertification
MATH 396                                       Communications in Mathematics
Attachment H
FS.33.306
Motion Passed
 
__________________________________End of Consent Agenda____________________________________
 
COMMITTEE REPORTS
Core Curriculum Council Report- March 2, 2016
Attachment I
FS.33.307
Motion Passed
 
Unfinished Business
 
Old Business     
Proposed Revisions to Student Rule 7.11516
Attachment J
Motion Tabled
No revisions have been received
 
 
Proposed Revisions to Student Rule 10.11516
Attachment K
Motion Tabled
The justification had not been received until just before the meeting
 
Proposed Revisions to Student Rule 14.11516
Attachment L
Motion Tabled
No revisions have been received
 
Academic Affairs Resolution Regarding Safety Issues at Tailgate Parties
Attachment M
Motion Pulled- no longer being considered
 
New Business
Proposed Revisions to Student Rule 12
Attachment N
FS.33.308
Motion Passed
 
Proposed Changes to W & C Course Committee
Attachment O
FS.33.309
Motion Passed
 
For Review/Discussion (to be voted upon at next meeting)
 
Information Only
               
Committee of the Whole
Speaker –Elect Bierman called the Senate into the Committee of the Whole.  He announced that Senators who would be representing the Senate on the Climate and Diversity Task Force for the University.
Speaker-Elect Bierman noted that the Post Tenure review process includes a new category for the annual review – needs improvement.  Questions he raised were – what does this mean? How will this be supported regarding the new category of need improvement? What if a person constantly needs to improve?
Senator Akabani – would like the University to address safety issues in transportation and mobility on campus, particularly with respect to the pedestrian crossings across University to campus.  He suggested a partial solution might be a bridge.  There are real concerns about student safety accessing campus that have been increased with the construction of Zachry.  He also asked for a review of the timing of lights on University. 
Speaker-Elect Bierman announced that elections were opening for the Executive Committee and the officers of the Senate.  He then returned the meeting to Speaker Strawser.
 
 
 
Adjourn