May 2, 2002

David Jaffee announced that the Office of Faculty Enhancement, the Undergraduate Academic Enrichment Program, and the Office of Student Affairs are co-sponsoring a faculty-staff-student discussion of the widely-acclaimed book Making The Most of College: Students Speak Their Minds, by Richard Light. The book is available on reserve in the library.

Timothy Robinson announced that faculty are invited to a brown bag luncheon with Dr. Ann Radwan, former UNF faculty member and current Executive Director of the Binational Fulbright Commission in Egypt. Visit with Dr. Radwan on Friday, April 5, from 12:15 to 1:30 p.m. in the Faculty Commons while she discusses Fulbright possibilities worldwide as well as in Egypt.

Mary Borg announced that UNF has two prestigious scholarship winners. Bree Frank, junior psychology major, won the 2002 Truman Scholarship. Rebecca Hayman, sophomore electrical engineering major, won the 2002 Goldwater Scholarship.

No report. The Committee will meet April 25 at 10:00 a.m. in FAMA.

The Committee met March 14. The next meeting will be April 11 in FAMA. The Committee has one agenda item today.

No report.

The Committee will meet April 11 at 12:15 in FAMA. The results of the campus climate survey are on the Faculty Association Web page. The Committee will have four items on the agenda for the May meeting. One deals with a revision of the rules for usage of the Faculty Commons, one is a slight revision to the undergraduate teaching awards process, one deals with bringing back the administration of SIR, and the final one is the first reading of a proposed change to bylaws for the Promotion and Tenure Committee.

The Committee, along with the Office of Faculty Enhancement, plans to send out a survey seeking information about needs and expectations for faculty development. Dr. Scott urged people to take the time to send it back. The survey is quite extensive and will be very helpful for planning purposes. The Committee is sponsoring another Faculty Forum April 12 from 10:00 a.m. to noon in the Faculty Commons -- "The Impact of Religion on the Academic Climate."

The next meeting is April 17 at 11:00 a.m. in the Faculty Enhancement library.

Voting for committee slots is being held during today's meeting and will continue in the Faculty Commons this afternoon and on Friday.

No report.

Committee members conducted some business by email. Members are finalizing the guidelines for summer grant proposals.

Kathleen Cohen welcomed President Hopkins back after her absence for heart surgery. Dr. Hopkins said she was very glad to be back on campus. She noted that eight weeks is a long time to be gone. She said that she had been taking care of business through email, 10 or 12 hours a day and plans to gradually get back to full time on campus.

Dr. Hopkins said she has closely followed what has been happening in the Legislature. The school code rewrite is the major question now. The Legislature must finish by the end of this week. If not, the Governor will call another session. Governor Bush initiated the school changes and he needs to have them finalized. If the new code is not passed, there is no school regulation.

Dr. Hopkins said that right before she went to the hospital, she finalized work on the budget reductions and she wanted to comment on that. She noted that the legislature cut UNF's budget by $4.1 million this fiscal year, a 5% reduction overall. What she thought was most important for the faculty to know is that she and David Kline agreed on what was necessary for the instructional budget. They took $32 million off the top for instruction, which substantially increased the percentage of the instructional budget. This meant that everyone else took a 9% cut. She noted that although most faculty didn't see much problem, other parts of the university have suffered mightily. She indicated she wouldn't be able to hold the instructional budget harmless again. She did say she held back almost 5 percent more money as a contingency in case the economy did not turn around. That money is still being held as a safety pot. The economy is better, but there may not be much in the way of increases. UNF will have more students which will increase some dollars. She will want to give raises, but she must wait until the legislature is done to decide. She reminded people that all positions were frozen in October. Some of that money was released before she went in the hospital. A good bit of it went for instructional purposes so she could hire people for next year. She also released a parcel of frozen lines in other units because some units were becoming dysfunctional. Very shortly she will begin to entertain bids for filling frozen lines. She said she can't tell what the future budget will look like, although she does not think there will be a major reduction. She is hoping for more funding.

Dr. Hopkins said she appreciates what Gary Fane and the Strategic Planning Committee are doing with their questionnaire concerning strategic planning for UNF's future. Even though there is not much money to do anything, she wants to have some strategic plans to discuss with board members. She said the input from the questionnaire is very timely. She is attending an all-day retreat with board members on May 17. She noted that some board members have very good ideas. She does not anticipate doing anything drastically different than the way it is now. If so, she will get back to faculty.

Chris Rasche said that there was a rumor that some members of the Board are dying to get their hands on the everyday function of the university. She asked about the training of the board. Dr. Hopkins responded that it was her general sense that she doesn't think members of the board will be interventionist. She said it is tempting as a board member to ask pretty detailed operating questions. She said she had had a discussion with the board about tenure. They were fascinated with her answers and passed her recommendations. She thinks everything is okay so far. Dr. Kline said he thought UNF had a very good board and he is very optimistic.

Absent. No report.

Bruce Fortado indicated he wanted to report on three items. During spring break, UFF sent out a faculty survey and has received 98 responses. He is happy with the response, but would like to have more. He encouraged people who had not taken the time to return the survey.

UFF sponsored a collective bargaining forum. The UFF president and executive director attended. Dr. Fortado thanked administrators for attending. He noted there was some concern about whether there would need to be a re-certification of the union.

The final item Dr. Fortado addressed was the UFF election of officers and senators. The results are as follows: Bruce Fortado, president, Cheryl Frohlich, vice president, Adel Boules, secretary, Sid Rosenberg, treasurer, Cynthia Nyquist-Battie and Carolyn Williams, senators.

Kathleen Cohen read an anonymous question that asked why the College of Business Administration SUSSAI results were not included in the fall 2001 report. She talked to Kathy Hughes about the problem and was assured it was an inadvertent mistake. Computing Services is rerunning the report and it will be inserted in the folder in the Library as soon as it is available. – Update: the COBA SUSSAI are now available in the Library at the reference desk.

Steve Shapiro asked about the possibility of having to re-certify UFF. He said there had never been a certification. He wondered if faculty members were going to have the right to vote on whether they want UFF, or some other union, to represent them. Dr. Hopkins said the answer is not clear now. There are legal issues. Joann Campbell said it depends on the school code rewrite. Chapter 447 has to do with collective bargaining. It may be a moot point depending on what the legislature does.

Judy Solano asked Richard Crosby to reconsider the recent changes to accounts payable. Signing a receiving slip immediately triggers a payment. Computing Sciences received and signed for a shipment which was defective, but the money was immediately withdrawn from the account. Richard Crosby responded that he had heard about this problem and that it was being looked into.

Item #1 -- FA 02-08: Submitted by the Academic Standards Committee.

Reduction of Paperwork – Revise the "Request for Withdrawal After the Established Deadline Form" to require only one approval in the attached form.

Pali Sen moved the item.

Katharine Brown, Computer & Information Sciences, spoke against the motion. Ms. Brown said she feels the proposed change will increase the amount of paperwork instead of decrease it. The majority of colleges on campus rely on the academic advisors to provide information about a student and the impact his withdrawal may make. There are many ramifications to dropping a course that might not be known to the student or the dean. These include athletic eligibility, surcharges, impact on international students, VA requirements, and more. Many issues are currently advising issues. Ms. Brown thought maybe the committee was not aware of these ramifications. She wants the form to remain as it is.

A faculty member asked if all those rules Ms. Brown spoke about are available someplace where students could find out how dropping a class would affect them. Ms. Brown said students would have to go to each place to find out. The comment was made that it would put the responsibility back on students. Ms. Brown asked if people really expected students to do that. She thinks students would be back with reinstatement forms when they found out the ramifications. She said there would be an increase in paperwork because they would have to be reinstated or go through an appeals process.

Chris Rasche said if the rationale of the change was to permit a reduction in paperwork, the thought process eluded her. She is also concerned about taking advisors names off the form. She said she thinks this is a bad idea. Judy Solano said the new revised form does say that the dean can designate a responsible person to sign the forms. He might designate a chair or advisor – it could vary from college to college and department to department. How will a student know where to go? They will all go to the dean's office and he will have to route them around. She noted that students are used to going to the advisors' offices or to their department. She thought that this could potentially lead to all kinds of errors.

The item failed.

Item #2 -- FA 02-09: Submitted by the General Education Council

Central Student Outcomes of General Education

Hank Camp moved the item.

Dr. Moraldo voiced his concern with the last part of the outcome statement having to do with values and ethical behavior. He thinks the statement is well and good but in a previous version there was an additional statement that he wants reinstated. He feels the new statement is not sufficient. He feels we need to train students as required in the previous statement, "Students should value ethical behavior by acquiring knowledge and skills necessary for ethical judgement and its application to everyday life". He asked the committee to accept this as a friendly amendment. Dr. Camp said he was in a difficult position. This statement of outcomes has been discussed for several years and gone through many revisions. There are many places in the document that could possibly be changed. Dr. Camp did say he would accept this friendly amendment.

Dr. Henry Thomas said his department had concerns about the outcome statements. He felt that these were isolated statements and did not look at the totality in terms of assessment and evaluation. He felt that parsing this out in this way invited negative consequences. He noted that there are currently eight options for students within social science requirements. He wondered if there would need to be additional courses based on these outcomes. He was also concerned about how we assess this. He gave an example from American politics. If a student has not taken an American politics course, how can we accept his outcome? He said faculty must know how outcomes will be assessed and evaluated.

Dale Clifford asked what faculty are saying if the statement is approved? Is it a philosophical statement or is it something that will drive the curriculum?

Hank Camp said this had started three or four years ago when people were preparing SACS documents. There was language about moving to outcome driven programs. At that time there was a general statement about general education. It talked about knowledge, skills and values and each had a brief statement beside it. People felt there was a need for a better statement. Forty-plus faculty members from all departments met and spent a year studying this. During that time they also put together a team that went to the Ashville Institute and then drafted the first set of outcomes. These went through faculty, deans, colleges, etc. There were many earlier versions and the final version was to be used in a very specific way. It states what we want our students to accomplish. Do students have a reasonable chance of achieving these? Teachers should be able to note on their syllabi that this is expected as an outcome. Once we do that we could have an assessment. We need to have some goals. Will it have an impact? He hopes so. He wants to communicate this to the whole faculty.

Ron Kephart said he felt that what is missing is culture and cross-cultural understanding. If it is a statement of philosophy, it doesn't meet needs. If it becomes prescriptive, he wants to add that it is prescriptive. He asked to propose a friendly amendment to add cross-cultural understanding to the outcomes.

Cheryl Frohlich wanted to know if this is put in the catalog as expected outcomes of general education and SACS comes in, then do they use this as a measure to see if we have achieved goals? Hank Camp replied that from a SACS perspective, we are in very good shape.

Dr. Kline remarked that SACS expects us to have outcomes for general education. It is not something abstract. If you list this, they expect you to be engaging in activities to try to accomplish it. Dr. Kline said the next step is to try to assess outcomes. Is the student better prepared?

A motion was passed to extend the discussion time by five minutes.

Marianne Barnes spoke in favor of the document. She said she was one of the original group of people who put it together. She said that she had been so impressed with the people working on the document and how they had input from so many people on campus. She said she thought UNF needs a documents like this; we should show the public what we want to accomplish. Chris Rasche thinks it is a prescriptive document and will be used to assess and change courses. Ron Kephart is concerned that the key word in his discipline, culture, (anthropology) is left out and it should be taken very seriously. Dr. Camp said that all comments made to the committee were taken very seriously – he considers it a very serious document. He also sees it as a starting point.

The question was called. The body voted on the entire document with the friendly amendment about ethics proposed by Dr. Moraldo and accepted by Dr. Camp.

The item passed.

The meeting adjourned at 1:22.

Respectfully submitted,

_______________________
Barbara Tuck
Secretary