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Post Info TOPIC: Faculty Senate Meeting Highlights
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Faculty Senate Meeting Highlights
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From Faculty Senate Listserv:


Colleagues,
        Below are highlights (not official minutes) of last Friday's Faculty Senate meeting.  Please share as you will.

MB



Faculty Senate Meeting Highlights, Nov. 11, 2005



4.1.4          CoH Tenure & Promotion document

The COH administration asked its faculty to Vote on a new Tenure and Promotion policy for the COH.  Wording in that new document, placed there by Dean Fos, stated that grant attainment  would be a requirement for P&T.  The faculty and faculty senators from COH expressed concern to Dr. Fos about this policy stating that policy for T & P needs to be set by academic units (i.e. Departments), not by the whole college.  Further, they expressed that Administration and CAC does not have the authority to modify or create T & P policies, that must come from each department (like Nursing).  Dean Fos, after conferring with the College Advisory Committee (CAC), halted the voting process and agreed that a process that directly involved academic units would be preferable and more in concert with the Faculty Handbook.  The senate discussed the concern that the university's administration will still be using grant attainment as an implicit criteria for judging P&T. 



4.1.6         Visit to Hattiesburg & USM by Dr. Belle Wheelan, President, SACS Commission on Colleges

In October, Dr. Belle Wheelan, president of SACS, made an overnight visit to Hattiesburg and visited the USM campus in route to a statewide summit of university and community college administrators.  No faculty or faculty representatives were invited to participate in this visit nor was mention of the visit was made to faculty at any point by the university's administration.  The president of the Senate and the chairs of Graduate, Academic, and Council of Chairs wrote and signed a letter to Dr. Wheelan expressing "disappointment and surprise" by the visit and the university administration's omission to include faculty representation, particularly after the faculty's immense efforts to correct the issues related to the probationary status.  The senate voted 31-1 authorizing the exec. committee to write a letter to the university administration expressing the same concern. 


4.1.7         Raises

The senate had voted last meeting to authorize the senate's budget committee to write a letter to President Thames concerning the recent raises given to select administrators and faculty as well as concerns regarding MIDAS.  The budget committee wrote a letter which was distributed to senators who approved the letter unanimously.  The letter will be hand delivered to the president Monday. 

 

4.1.8         Discussions with Provost Grimes

4.1.8.1    Tenure & Promotion calendars

There are discussions with the Provost to consider granting latitude to faculty who request extensions of the P&T deadlines if they were adversely affected by Katrina.


4.1.8.2    Revision of FAR due date

Bill Powell stated that the Provost office will be pushing the FAR due date back to January.


4.1.8.3    FAR qualifying comment

Bill P. has also asked the Provost that a qualifying statement be put on all faculty's FAR reports due to SACS and Katrina.


4.1.8.4    Summer Grants, sabbaticals, etc.

Because of the budget uncertainties, summer grants and sabbaticals may be canceled.  Senators expressed the opinion that if budgetary concerns were the impetus to cancel summer grants and sabbaticals MIDAS should also be canceled for the same reason.


4.1.11      MIDAS

The senate is involve in meetings with the administration to discuss some of the inequities of the MIDAS program.  One of the more positive outcomes is the consideration of incentives to faculty/staff who attain grants without salary recovery.


4.1.12      Push for online program in each college

Bill P. reminded senators to remind colleagues in their respective colleges that newly developed online courses need to go through appropriate councils for approval.  Senators expressed concern over the administrations push to force colleges to develop online courses believing that this violated SACS criteria which stated that curriculum is developed by faculty.  The senate's Academic and Goverance Committee will review.


4.1.13      Calendar committee

Next fall (2006), school semester will begin on Wed. instead of Thurs. and the Wed. before Thanksgiving will be given as a holiday.  The senate also voted 32-0 in favor of spring breaks going back (in 2007) to being scheduled in mid-semester and coordinated with public school breaks. 


4.1.14      Online evaluation of teaching

An online policy has been sent to senators to send out to their colleges for review and comment.  All comments should be sent to Bill Powell, Steve Oshrin or Stan Hauer. 


4.1.15      Half tuition for spouses

Bill Powell asked senators to be sure to fill out the staff survey and to encourage their constituents to do the same. 


5.10.2         American Association of University Professors

Next meeting November 17th LAB.  Also, exec. officers have a meeting with Tom Meredith Nov. 28th.



6.0       New Business

There was a lengthy discussion concerning the mini-courses being offered during the winter intercession.  A motion was passed recommending that the Academic and Graduate Councils consider a review process for courses offered through an alternative learning mode of delivery.


__________________
Wheelan Letter Leaker

Date:
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The University of Southern Mississippi


 


November 2, 2005


 


Dr. Belle Wheelan, President


Commission on Colleges


Southern Association of Colleges and Schools


866 Southern Lane


Decatur GA. 30033


 


Dear Dr. Wheelan:


 


We hope that you found your recent trip to Hattiesburg productive and that you were able to get a sense of the resilience of the University of Southern Mississippi in face of its recent challenges.


 


We were, however, disappointed and surprised that representatives of the faculty councils were not included on your itinerary prepared by our university administration. USM faculty members have contributed immensely and centrally to the efforts to correct the probation situation and to assure that we succeed in the reaffirmation process, and we are sorry that we were not able to share with you a sense of the dedication and long hours invested by faculty in addressing these issues.


 


Should your travels bring you toward Hattiesburg again, we would welcome the chance to meet with you. Should we be able to provide or the Commission on Colleges any service, please feel free to contact us.


 


Sincerely,


 


Jeffery Evans, Chair                                          William Powell, President


USM Academic Council                                         USM Faculty Senate


 


 


Michael Forster, Chair                                       Susan Ross, Chair


USM Council of Chairs                                      USM Graduate Council


 


 


 



__________________
wheelen and dealing

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The Commission on Colleges has an Annual Meeting in early December. The Commission has procedures for for persons to be on our agenda to present any issue that needs to be presented to the Commission.

Anyone with any issue that needs to be addressed regarding any institution that is accreditted by SACS has an avenue to bring things before the Commission.

You may look at the SACS webpage regarding how to contact SACS officials.

SACS has a long history, since 1895. The procedures that are in place for addressing issues at it's accredited institutions can be accessed if the party seeking relief is persistent and has justifible grievences based on any standard violation.

So, if you have a grievence....go for it.

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Get your elbow out of my ribs

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wheelen and dealing wrote:

The procedures that are in place for addressing issues at it's accredited institutions can be accessed if the party seeking relief is persistent
Persistent? Just how persistent? Once? Twice? Three times? Ad nauseum times? Nag? Once should be enough. If that attempt is totally ignored, I'd say forget about it.

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reader

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Why meet with faculty when you have someone interested in what you have to say listen to you!


 




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