Faculty Senate February 19, 2007 Minutes Summary
March 21, 2007
I. Roll – The following senators were absent: Baldwin, Balling,
Brown, Burger, Chasteen, DeMitchell, Ferber, Graham, Morgan, Robertson,
Schiller, Tenczar, and Walsh. Excused were Ament, Carr, Jacobs and Kistler.
Stephanie White was a guest.
II. Remarks by and questions to the chair – The senate chair said
that, although some directors of centers serve two-year terms, this may
be practice and not policy. What is the policy regarding term length? For
the Discovery Program, Joanne Curran-Celentano will serve for another year
but Cliff Brown will be replaced by an assistant director. A senator asked
if the Faculty Senate will reciprocate the potluck dinner the student senators
hosted for the faculty senators. The Agenda Committee will consider this
matter at its next meeting.
III. COLSA reorganization – The senate chair has sent a note to
the university president, to thank her for her expeditious handling of
the recent decision on the COLSA reorganization. Tom Brady will be the
next dean of COLSA. The provost has said that, since the COLSA reorganization
will consolidate the COLSA departments into fewer departments than before,
even though the tenure-track faculty will continue to have jobs in the
combined departments, he considers this to be displacement which requires
a meeting of the administration, the faculty union and the senate's Agenda
Committee. However, many faculty believe that, because no tenure-track
faculty are expected to lose their jobs in this reorganization, no displacement
is occurring. No university-wide financial exigency has been declared.
The determination of whether displacement will exist, under the terms of
the faculty contract, is a negotiable issue between the AAUP and the administration;
and the Agenda Committee will await that determination.
IV. New university programs – The senate chair said that a new university
program is being discussed, on community and environmental health planning.
The provost is considering the possibility of having the current UNH schools
(WSBE and SHHS) designated as colleges and then creating as schools certain
cross-college programs. These new schools might report to a college dean
and not be responsibility-center-management units. The senate chair said
that such programs/schools should be proposed by faculty, approved by deans,
and then brought to the Faculty Senate for approval. Mimi Becker will have
informal discussions with faculty members who are likely to be interested
in a program on community and environmental health planning, and the discussion
could then be broadened to all faculty. Such a school could merge teaching
with a heavy emphasis on the “discovery” model, service and
outreach, and coordination with state organizations such as the Jordan
Institute. This might be a model for other kinds of inter-disciplinary
efforts. A school of marine sciences might be developed as well. Interested
faculty should propose such schools and present the proposal to the provost
and the senate. What would be the administrative arrangements under which
such schools might be constructed?
A proposal for an inter-college program on eco-gastronomy may be presented
to Vice Provost Ray at the end of March and would be similar to the International
Studies Program. The new program would be part of a dual major, and the
student would be enrolled in the college of the other major. Any such proposal
would need to come to the Faculty Senate for approval and would probably
be dealt with after work to rule. Submitting a proposal to the University
Curriculum and Academic Policies Committee alone is not sufficient, because
the charter of UCAPC says:
The UCAPC is a standing committee of the UNH Faculty Senate. The UCAPC
is intended (1) to serve as an appeals and fact-finding body to consider
academic and curricular matters which have inter-college and/or campus-wide
effects or which are likely to affect the quality or integrity of the realization
of the university’s academic mission and (2) to advise the Faculty
Senate on its findings and recommendations. The Faculty Senate will consider
the UCAPC’s recommendations, act and forward the recommendations
arising from the senate’s deliberations to the Vice President for
Academic Affairs.
Such new schools might be run by faculty directors who would report to
deans, and academic faculty appointments might be restricted to colleges
and not schools. Faculty might report for tenure to the dean of the college
but report to the school director regarding curriculum development for
courses in that school. Faculty would have their home departments in a
college but could collaborate with other faculty so that courses could
be offered in a new interdisciplinary school, which might offer undergraduate
and/or graduate courses. Proposals for such programs should be approved
by the Faculty Senate before they are submitted to the Systems Academic
Planning Committee.
A senator said that International Studies is also a dual major, inter-college
program. He added that current interdisciplinary programs tend to have
difficulty funding teaching in which faculty members work outside their
home department; and so any new proposals should make clear how the teaching
would be funded. Another senator suggested that current courses could be
combined across colleges in a conscious, collaborative approach and that
this collaboration might not require a great deal of new resources but
could help students better prepare for future employment. An environmental
conservation studies major already exists.
V. Shared governance – The senate chair wrote to the director of
the Office of Institutional Research, asking for data on comparisons of
the grade point averages of certain categories of students at UNH. The
administration replied that the senate chair went out of the chain of command
and should direct future requests to the vice president for academic affairs.
However, the senate and its committees cannot review certain issues without
collecting appropriate data; and the senate has traditionally asked for
data from university offices as needed, as part of the senate’s shared
governance function. The senate chair discussed this matter further with
the vice president for academic affairs. The director of the Office of
Institutional Research has said that his office will work on preparing
the data.
VI. Task force on grade distributions, course evaluations and course rankings – On
4/17/06, the Faculty Senate discussed how to deal with course evaluations
and their dissemination on the web by pickaprof.com, grade distributions
and course rankings. The senate chair said at the end of that discussion
that those matters would be dealt with in the subsequent academic year.
Last week, the Agenda Committee decided not to set up such a task force
until the end of work to rule. David Richman said that he would like to
serve on a task force on course evaluations at that time, and he added
that he considers this issue to be separate from grade distributions. However
the senate vice chair said that some faculty had expressed concern that
there may be pressure to give higher grades in order to get good course
evaluations from students and that this may contribute to grade inflation.
Other possible task force members previously suggested were David Feldman,
Alan Ray, Victor Benassi, Lee Seidel and a student senator. A member of
the Student Senate’s Academic Affairs Council said that students
are very interested in putting on blackboard the student evaluations of
faculty members’ courses. Those evaluations are currently available
in hard copy at the university library and electronically on pickaprof.com.
However, many faculty have concerns about these matters; and therefore
the senate will not approve that request at this time and will consider
having a task force take a comprehensive look at the whole issue after
work to rule.
VII. Minutes – The senate unanimously approved the minutes of the
last Faculty Senate meeting.
VIII. Presidential search – The senate vice chair said that the
search committee is now talking with many interesting individuals and is
trying to make sure that there is a good match before bringing candidates
to campus. If necessary the current interim president may stay on for another
year, but the committee may be able to complete the search by July 1. A
search advertisement has been published, and the consultants are also working
to find suitable candidates who have good academic experience. The candidates
are aware of the contract negotiations, work to rule, working with the
university system, the COLSA reorganization, and the high turn-over of
deans, among other issues.
IX. McNair Undergraduate Opportunity Program – Senator Rebellon,
who is an advisor to the McNair Program, said that the goal of the program
is to help first-generation economically disadvantaged students or minority
students from groups underrepresented in doctoral programs to prepare themselves
for the graduate and doctoral experience. Sophomore students and some juniors
participate in a two-credit INCO course each semester designed to develop
an understanding of the culture of graduate education and to help students
focus their research interests and identify a faculty mentor. Summer research
fellowships are available to eligible college juniors from institutions
around the country. UNH students must have participated in the academic
year component in order to be a summer research fellow. Participants engage
in an eight-week graduate-school-preparation program, produce a research
proposal, work with a faculty mentor, and later try to enroll in a graduate
program.
In the first summer, the program pairs each student with a faculty member
with similar research interests. For the UNH students, the faculty mentoring
continues into the fall semester. Senators are asked to invite their departmental
colleagues to review the McNair Program website at http://www.unh.edu/mcnair/
and to fill out a form on that site to indicate their interest in possibly
serving as a mentor for a suitable student. There is a stipend for the
mentoring faculty. A senator asked if the syllabi of the research courses
are available on line, and Senator Rebellon responded that that might be
arranged in the future. Other suggestions were for the program to send
an email to all faculty in the spring, indicating for what areas of research
faculty mentors are needed and perhaps combining this email with information
about the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) and the International
Research Opportunities Program (IROP).
X. Off-campus guests in the classroom – The Vice President for University
Communications has sent a memo directing that faculty and staff contact
the president's office prior to sending invitations to many categories
of persons including many national and state office holders and candidates
and even Durham town council members. However, a number of faculty have
such people speak to their classes on a regular basis and do not want to
ask for the administration's permission to do so, because that could be
an interference in academic matters. The senate chair discussed this with
Vice President Murray and also with the provost. Although the directive
said "it is essential that the President's Office is contacted prior
to the invitation being issued", the provost said that this is not
the same as asking permission. Some senators said that, to comply with
this request, they would have to report to the president’s office
so many times per semester that it would be impractical and inappropriate.
Also a senator pointed out that five state legislators are current students
at UNH.
XI. Adjournment – Today’s meeting was adjourned.
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