UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-EAU CLAIRE

UNIVERSITY SENATE MEETING

VOL. 43, NO. 5

November 28, 2006

Members Present:

Rose Battalio, Judy Blackstone, Janice Bogstad, Marcia Bollinger, Jacqueline Bonneville, Don Bredle, Jennifer Brockpahler, Maria DaCosta, Barbara Davis, Patrick Day, Gary Don, Jeff Erger, Leslie Foster, Mitchell Freymiller, Warren Gallagher, Alan Gallaher, Andrea Gapko, Susan Harrison, Ann Hoffman, Robert Hollon, Larry Honl, Robert Hooper, Todd Hostager, Bill Jacobsen, Rose Jadack, Debra Jansen, Jennifer Johs-Artisensi, Fred Kolb, Jennifer Lee, Brian Levin-Stankevich, Bruce Lo, David Lonzarich, Barbara Lozar, Steven Majstorovic, Karl Markgraf, Sean McAleer, Sue Moore, Mike Morrison, Jill Prushiek, Scott Robertson, Sherrie Serros, Mehdi Sheikholeslami, Earl Shoemaker, Nick Smiar, Lorraine Smith, Laurie St. Aubin-Whelihan, Jan Stirm, Kent Syverson, Lois Taft, Steven Tallant, Charles Vue, Sharon Westphal, Scott Whitfield, Michael Wick, Marty Wood, Deborah Wright

Members Absent:

Robin Baker, Paul Butrymowicz, Margaret Devine, Michael Dorsher, Selika Ducksworth-Lawton, Jessica Franson, Harry Jol, Heather Kretz, Tim Lippold, Susan Mc Intyre, Tarique Niazi, Donna Raleigh, Troy Terhark, Max Von Klein, Rebecca Wurzer

Guests:

Margaret Cassidy, Donald Christian, Stephanie Jamelske, Andrew Phillips, Kathleen Sahlhoff, Andrew Soll, Christopher Wagner

The regular meeting of University Senate was called to order by Chair Harrison at 3:03 p.m. on Tuesday, November 28, 2006 in the Tamarack Room of Davies Center.

I. Minutes of November 14, 2006 University Senate meeting approved as corrected

· Motion on page 8 to suspend the rules to vote on Motion 43-AP-02 made by Senator Serros Stirm

II. Chancellor’s Remarks – Chancellor Levin-Stankevich

· Apologize for absence of last few weeks – had wonderful visit to Jinan University in China

· Have had relationship with that institution since 1989

· Jinan one of two schools in China established to serve overseas Chinese community

· Western influence present there

· As institution, UW-Eau Claire highlighted by host

· Delivered congratulatory address to about 1500 people at 100^th Anniversary Ceremony on behalf of all Western institutions

· Also gave paper on improving competitiveness of higher education at Presidents Conference later that day

· Good publicity for our institution among many there – were 26 delegations from around world

· Our athletes have done remarkably well this fall

· Volleyball and soccer won Wisconsin Athletic Conference

· Cross country teams both invited to nationals

· Men’s golf team did well; women’s basketball off to good start, haven’t caught up with men’s basketball team yet

· Luncheon by Mancino’s every Tuesday with basketball and hockey coaches at Wisconsin Room in Quality Inn

· Fun $6 lunch to meet student athletes and coaches as well as community people who support athletics and our students

· Next week at Board of Regents meeting, finally taking Davies Center renovation to regents

· Working to make sure proposal goes through smoothly

· Students there to demonstrate due diligence in terms of student support for additional fees that will fund part of construction

· Project in works since 2000; finally have plan and proposal to board

· Feel board will approve this, perhaps with some questions about student fee increases

· Going to board at same time Madison going forward with $110 million student union renovation project; may improve our chances

· Everyone deserves congratulations for level of student participation in political process; is making a difference

· Have already had legislative lunch, together with Stout and River Falls, with about six western Wisconsin legislators

· Will meet individually with newer legislators as well as continue to meet with veteran legislators

· Got advice from veteran legislator to begin to separate ourselves as comprehensive institutions and individual institutions from system

· Will be lot of anti-UW sentiment coming back in January as some people still miffed about one issue or another, most of which start out as anecdotes from Madison, but color us all

· Will pursue that strategy; have to some extent, particularly with local business supporters and local legislators who can take more ownership and pride in our institution

· Spellings’ Commission Report now out

· American Association of State Colleges and Universities, most significant umbrella higher education organization for us, was one higher education organization that welcomed many recommendations in report

· Is opportunity to talk about what regional and comprehensive institutions already doing – such as demonstrated accountability

· One criticism was need to change what teaching because faculty teaching old material to students

· Dr. Melissa Bonstead-Bruns from Sociology, Wisconsin Teaching Fellows Program, just one more example of kind of changes and investments faculty make in updating course material, but also how teaching new generation and continuing to achieve outstanding learning outcomes

· Congratulations to everyone involved in that and all other such projects on campus

· Need to document how we are doing things Spellings’ Commission criticizes higher education in general for not doing

· Need to distance ourselves from run-of-the-mill, generic institutions and note what we are doing without additional resources

· Another report from National Conference of State Legislators indicates public higher education systems are under siege and part of problem is state legislators themselves not supporting higher education

· Need to get traction on real issues involved in providing quality higher education, not just rhetoric about what student organizations are funded or not funded, or whether they are religious or not

· Every state agency asked to submit 10% administrative cost reduction plan to Department of Administration

· System handling on behalf of all institutions

· Being viewed as exercise right now; if becomes reality, would come to campus level to some degree

· Hoping with outcome of election, at least at governor level with Governor Doyle’s stated commitment to higher education and support of Growth Agenda, will be able to keep this away from university system

· Particularly since university system has taken significant hits in last two biennia

· Response to questions from floor

· Great that journalist through due diligence got legislative sick leave records published in Milwaukee papers

· Records show although about 70% of faculty have not used sick leave in two years, 99% of legislators have not used any sick days in four years

· Legislative Audit Bureau hearing is tomorrow; sick leave issue will not be focus of hearing at this point, will focus on consultant issue and other things in report

· UWEC had one consultant position; person now titled according to official state title

· Was talk on radio this morning about eliminating conversion of accumulated sick leave for health insurance premiums at retirement benefit for all state employees; keep going in wrong direction on compensation packages in state

· If want to change for legislators in office for two-year terms, fine

· But lot of people invested and probably stayed in system because of those benefits when could have easily gone elsewhere – worry about that

· Have gotten number of emails with wonderful stories about personal sacrifices in getting to class; will save for ammunition should it become necessary

· Also when talk to students about cancelled classes, hear classes are never cancelled

III. Chair’s Report – Chair Harrison

· Governance going on as usual – nothing specific to report

IV. Faculty Representative’s Report – Senator Wick

· Faculty representatives met last week on UWS 7 – unable to attend but academic staff representative did

· Attended meeting with Department of Administration Budget Analyst – was discussion of NanoSTEM DIN proposal that has come forward from institutions in our region

· Administrative team did wonderful job presenting that proposal – looked quite positive

· Faculty representatives next meet December 1, 2006 to talk about campus reactions to criminal background checks policy

· Next Board of Regents meeting December 7 and 8, 2006

· Will be talking about number of things including recommended pay plan request

V. Academic Staff Representative’s Report – Senator Blackstone

· Report came to you in senate packet

· Included small piece on BOR meeting to give some understanding of how people going after our pay raises are pitching proposal this time

· If you have any specific examples from own department, let chancellor know

· Next academic staff representative’s meeting will be teleconference on December 14, 2006

VI. Announcements

· Next senate meeting on December 12, 2006

VII. Unfinished Business

Second Reading – Motion from Faculty Personnel Committee

Non-Participation in DPC Actions

Continued Debate

· Strongly support motion on grounds of rationality, which minimally requires that similar cases be treated similarly

· Current policy doesn’t do that

· If a department has two tenured members in addition to chair, there is no Department Personnel Committee – the chair is functional equivalent

· If a department has three tenured members, there is a DPC

· If because of a conflict of interest, one of those members isn’t participating so there are only two participating members, the DPC is replaced by chair as functional equivalent

· If for any other reason there are only two participating members, as handbook language is currently interpreted, the DPC continues with those two participating members

· Don’t see a relevant difference there – what is relevant is that there are only two participating members on the DPC, not why there are only two

· If a two-person DPC is a bad idea, it is a bad idea; in our system it is especially bad given that a tie vote is a no vote – gives one member of a department an effective veto for tenure

· Seems substantively unfair

· This motion would give the chair effective veto over tenure, that is what policy already does

· This proposal not doing anything new, just seeking to consistently apply an existing policy

· Assuming prospective chairs are vetted for qualities of judgment and character that should make their being vested with this effective veto less of a problem than it might be to just have one faculty member with this veto

· Committee also thought it was acknowledging an obvious truth that there are legitimate reasons for non-participation other than conflict of interest

· Didn’t want to turn deans into DPC police – on other hand, it seemed like these reasons for non-participation ought to be vetted at some higher level

· Didn’t make sense for chairs to be approving or disapproving non-participation because in small departments chairs would be directly impacted by their own decisions since they would be replacing the DPC

· On grounds of consistency, rationality and fairness, this is a good motion that I encourage other senators to support

· Speak against motion because not convinced we need to do this

· Would apply only when a department has three DPC members, which can’t happen very often; then on top of that, it has to involve a member, who not for a conflict of interest, but some other excusable reason isn’t able to participate

· Extremely rare circumstances; not necessary to anticipate every possible circumstance and make a rule about it

· Handbook language doesn’t currently say only reason that DPC would be replaced by functional equivalent is for a conflict of interest, but that is how it is read

· Trying to acknowledge there is not an only in there

· May be rare occurrence; may never come up, but this issue came up in a department with a three person DPC and there was a genuine concern about whether there were actually going to be three participating members

· Concern is that data show this hasn’t happened; one reason is because of gravity of issue

· Handbook says you must be member of DPC, cannot ask not to participate – is serious responsibility of faculty member

· Once an out is legislated, gives people legitimate reasons not to be there

· Speak against motion although agree with motion in spirit of not waiting for problems to deal with issues

· What happens if when DPC votes there are five people there and three abstain

· At that moment could they decide not to participate so all work of DPC goes away and we go to functional equivalent

· Ought not to be setting up any policy that encourages faculty members to walk away from responsibility

· Through policies enacted last year, faculty members can get vote included through synchronous distance communication

· Don’t see motion as a solution, but opening another can of worms

· Was involved with writing language currently in handbook – intent was that only reason to not participate in DPC is conflict of interest

· Committee concerned this might be taken to encourage, or not sufficiently discourage, non-participation; that is why included language about someone needs to say this is legitimate

· Rationality and fairness outweigh that worry

· If our processes are not rationally reconstructable, why bother

· See problem that is being addressed by motion, but still have problem with dean not particularly convinced he wanted to be inserted into conflicts of this type

· Other issue that came up two weeks ago, was terminology may versus must in conflicts of interest – in those cases, should have to recuse yourself and not take part in proceedings

· Chair small department that goes in and out of having DPC – current policy works well

· For reappointment and tenure, chancellor can overturn no vote, but have to be overwhelming reasons

· If department says yes, chancellor can say no

· Department is identified as DPC on this campus

· Are only three legitimate votes, DPC, chancellor, and Board of Regents; chair, dean, and provost only make recommendations

· Promotion is different – promotion stops with negative vote

· Two things concern me about proposed language

· If dean is person who decides whether reasons are legitimate, thus moving decisions to functional equivalent, then dean can ultimately influence nature of DPC

· Opens can of worms in that any member of any DPC can approach dean with reasons to be excused

· There is currently no provision for resignation from DPC or DPC subcommittees – only mechanism recognized in handbook for taking yourself off DPC is conflict of interest

· If you just get up and leave, it would be same as abstaining; two people left in room would make decision

· It is up to faculty member on sabbatical whether choose to participate in deliberations and/or vote of DPC; if choose not to, it is essentially an abstention

· Sometimes difficult to codify traditional practice

· Seems badness of a two-person DPC is worse outcome than risk that someone is going to successfully weasel out of DPC participation – that is point of having it approved at higher level

· Not that two-person DPC ceases to be bad idea, but conditions that make it an event at all

· In one case, there is no way to have a DPC of three because there are only two members

· In other case, there is possible dereliction; person who chooses not to exercise statutory duty is making a negative choice

· Don’t know that remedy for that is to write a superior rule to cover it

Vote on Motion 43-FP-01: Motion DEFEATED by vote of 8 for to 24 against by University Faculty.

VIII. Reportable Items from Committees

¨ Academic Policies Committee – Senator Hollon

· No meeting next Tuesday since no items for consideration

¨ Executive Committee – Chair Harrison

• In closed session, discussed possible appointments to Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee and Institutional Review Board for the Protection of Human Subjects

IX. Special Reports

A. Report on Provost Search and Screen Committee – Senator Markgraf

· Now advertising position and encouraging nominations

· Prominent link to provost search webpage on university home page

· Position description, letter from chancellor inviting nominations, and nominations form as well as information about search committee and timeline included

· Deep in mode of soliciting and encouraging applications and nominations

· Advertising in numerous newspapers and on websites

· In addition, direct personal letters and job announcements out to college and university presidents and other leaders in higher education

· Invite members of University Senate to provide input or suggestions to members of committee

· Next meet on Monday, December 4, 2006 to take up any information or input shared with us

B. Report on the Higher Learning Commission Self Study – Associate Vice Chancellor Phillips

· On November 15 and 16, 2006, five HLC Criterion Groups and Reactions Since 1999 Group participated in pair of hour-long focus group sessions

· Approximately 160 campus and community members participated

· Discussions used to pilot test initial research and survey questions with various small groups of faculty, staff, students, and community members

· Helped each group sharpen and adjust wording of questions, to learn whether questions were interpreted as intended, get feedback on other concerns, and collect related questions that may be useful to explore

· View as important step in engaging entire campus and community and for validating approach to data collection

· Also first major campus event hosted; many participants reported sessions were worth time and very productive

· On January 17, 2007, conducting a workshop for study group chairs and members on two topics

· Designing effective surveys

· Tips for managing focus group sessions

· Another in series of planning sessions to help study groups make best use of time

· Still plan to roll out first campus-wide survey in April of 2007

· Feedback and suggestions always welcome

X. Miscellaneous Business

A. First Reading – Motion from Academic Policies Committee

Report on New Prefix for Materials Science Courses (MSCI) and inclusion of New Prefix in GE II-F – Senator Hollon

· Motion establishes new course prefix, MSCI, to represent work in materials science area and locate that course prefix in category GE II-F Interdisciplinary Studies – Natural Sciences

· Brought forward by Physics and Astronomy Department on behalf of all science departments to establish visibility and organizational functionality for work going on in materials science and provide mechanism for students to take courses like that for general education not just for science students

· Has received lot of support from Arts & Sciences Curriculum Committee and faculty

Motion 43-AP-03

MOVED and seconded by Academic Policies Committee (5 for, 0 against) that the MSCI prefix be approved and that MSCI courses be included in the GE II-F Interdisciplinary Studies – Natural Sciences category.

Debate

· Only concern would be for students applying to graduate school or for jobs, transcript might not be clear about what these courses include

Without objection, vote on motion will take place at next senate meeting.

B. First Reading – Motion from Academic Policies Committee

Report on Name Change of Dual Degree Emphasis (230-204) to Dual Degree Engineering Emphasis – Senator Hollon

· Motion primarily to clarify by including word engineering

Motion 43-AP-04

MOVED and seconded by Academic Policies Committee (5 for, 0 against) that the Dual Degree Emphasis title in the Physics: Liberal Arts major (Code 230-204) be changed to Dual Degree Engineering Emphasis in the Major: Physics, Liberal Arts (Code 230-204).

Debate

· Big improvement because dual degree emphasis doesn’t mean anything; is lot easier for those of us in sciences to encourage students to do such a thing if engineering is actually in name

· Can still make catalogue deadline

MOTION by Senator Smiar to suspend the rules to vote on this today seconded and PASSED by two-thirds vote.

Continued Debate on Motion

· None

Vote on Motion 43-AP-04: Motion PASSED without dissention by University Faculty

C. Other Miscellaneous Business

· Senator Serros introduced topic from department meeting requesting that all classes be canceled on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving

· In 2008-2009 calendar, do have flexible fall semester so this day off would fit in

· Couldn’t have an additional fall break because that would not allow for 13 full weeks of classes

· Department discussed in some detail

· People talked about what they do in classrooms on the Wednesday before break – do you reward students who come or do you punish students who don’t come?

· Will take comments to Executive Committee since that committee charged with bringing calendars forward

Discussion

· Is terrible idea – already have students asking if I am canceling class on Wednesday because other professors have done that

· No reason students should expect that – it is a class day they are paying for

· If they can’t be there, that is their choice

· If you then cancel on Wednesday, problem will just be pushed back to Tuesday

· Can’t imagine any academic reason to justify

· Nice idea if people were responsible

· If cancel classes on Wednesday, they will be taking off Tuesday, and then maybe Monday also

· Becomes a real headache

· That is horrible idea – if we are going cancel Wednesday before Thanksgiving, then need to cancel Monday after Thanksgiving so students have an extra day to travel back

· Keep eroding principal mission of institution which is to educate people

· How can we do that by constantly shortening semesters and eliminating classes?

· In terms of precedent, we already have Monday after Easter off for travel

· Classes are officially canceled as of 5 p.m. on Wednesday before Thanksgiving – would be better for students to drive in daylight

· Provost and deans to look at problem of professors who canceled classes on Wednesday

· That is not policy and only creates problems for other professors who try to hold class

· On agenda for deans council tomorrow

Without objection, meeting adjourned at 4:03 p.m.

Submitted by,

Wanda Schulner

Secretary to the University Senate