Chair Weinholtz welcomed all Senators back, and especially Carol Padberg who had been off the Senate during the Fall, and Nola Campbell who would be filling in for Akane Mori during this semester

UNIVERSITY OF HARTFORD

FACULTY SENATE PRÉCIS

January 24 and 29, 2008

12:15 p.m.-1:50 p.m., Auerbach 426

Thursday, January 24

Attendance:

P	Ball, Kevin A.	P	Gray, Edward	A	Padberg, Carol
P	Beaulieu, Mark	P	Gray, John	P	Petry, Elizabeth
P	Borucinska, Joanna	P	Hill, Jonathan	P	Russell, Ingrid
A	Brown, Jennifer	P	Lei, Yu	P	Shepela, Sharon
P	Canedy, Charles	P	Machuga, Susan	P	Siegel, Paul
P	Carey, Elen	P	Mayer, Howard	P	Sumukadas, Narender
P	Comiskey, Anne	P	McMiller, Darryl	P	Weinholtz, Donn
A	Davis, Robert	P	Mohamed, Osama	A	Westfall, David
P	Decker, Robert	P	Campbell, Nola	P	Williamson, Daniel
P	Diehl, Susan	A	Nolan, Dennis	A	Zimmerman, Christopher
P	Fang, Clara	P	Oliver, Peter	=	Present/Absent Attendance: 83% (26 out of 32)

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Chair Weinholtz welcomed all Senators to the Senate’s 5^th meeting of the 2007-2008 year. He especially welcomed Carol Padberg who had been off the Senate during the Fall and Nola Campbell who will be filling in for Akane Mori during this semester. Additionally, our thanks to Jeremiah Patterson for representing Senator Padberg.

Chair Weinholtz brought the request to suspend admissions for the Counseling Program to the floor for Senators discussion and possible vote. Senator Oliver reported to the Senate that the ENHP Department of Education and Human Services met in December and made the following motions:

1. re-open admissions to the program, and

2. give the Department one year to study alternatives to closing the program.

Chair Weinholtz explained the history of the program to the Senators. The program takes in about 15 part-time students per year. Those currently in the program will be seen through to graduation. After some deliberation, the Senators agreed to table the request pending receipt of more information from the program director, the department chair, and the Dean of ENHP, all of whom will be asked to report to the Senate Curriculum Committee.

COMMITTEE REPORTS

· Academic Standards -- Senator Petry reported on the Proposed Policy regarding attendance that had been submitted to the Provost’s Office for changes in the MAPP. There are some concerns about the wording, but Senator Petry believes that the issue is in semantics, and not necessarily a serious disagreement. The word “arbitrary: in the current version is the stumbling block. Senator Petry promised to speak to the Associate Provost to discuss this issue further. Chair Weinholtz commented that the Interim Provost Joe Voelker is comfortable with the Senate wording. Other Senators suggested bringing it to the Senate/Deans Joint Committee for discussion.

· BLT–Senator Russell reminded Senators of the due date of February 1 for nominations.

· Computer & Technology – Senator Sumukadas addressed the concerns voiced at the last Faculty Senate Meeting to do with check stubs being sent to individuals via e-mail. He clarified that only reimbursement checks are going to be handled in that manner and that information on the stub is limited information. He also advised that UNotes will be announcing Showcase Sessions that will demonstrate various electronic teaching tools available, i.e., ipods, clickers etc. There are also grants that support some testing of these devices.

· Constitution and Bylaws

A. Senator Decker presented the Senate with a draft of suggested reorganization and/or elimination of some Senate Committees. The suggestions were discussed and received with enthusiasm. Senator Decker asked if the Curriculum Committee, which is one of the most active committees would want to split to Graduate and Undergraduate. The question will be put to the committee.

B. It was agreed that going out of the Senate for committee members in all committees is helpful in more than one way. It eases the load on the Senators, and it introduces the Senate committees to others who may not otherwise be familiar. Senators were reminded that in addition to the charge to each committee in the Constitution and Bylaws, there are yearly goals set by the previous year’s committees and the Faculty Senate leadership. Faculty Senate Chair Weinholtz will bring the goals to the next meeting for an update on current progress.

· Curriculum Committee – Chair Weinholtz reviewed the report from the Curriculum Committee. He noted each School’s requested changes, and noted the labeling of the first courses should be A&S not Barney. Barney courses began with FIN 310. He also pointed out that since the Dean and Provost were coming to speak to Senate this month about the ENHP program, that the courses brought to the Curriculum Committee for discussion, were being held (tabled) until after these discussions were held and the proper protocol was followed. All other courses presented were unanimously approved.

· Faculty Diversity Committee – Senator McMiller reported that he is updating his committee by sharing previous year reports with the committee.

· Environmental Task Force -- Senator Borucinska has been asked by the Staff Association to present the report of the University’s recycling to the Staff Association at one of their future meetings. She reported that there are some new recycling containers in the residency halls. She asked the Senators for guidance on how to reach the goal of presenting conclusions, observations, and a plan to President Harrison. The discussion that followed included a statement that President Harrison is sensitive to the issues, and supportive of plans to make the campus green. Also a Senator asked why recycling is not administered by the towns of which the University is a part; Hartford, West Hartford, and Bloomfield.

· Grants – Senator Nolan offered the information that his committee had just received; 11 Stipend and 10 Coffin Grant applications.

· Part Time Faculty Committee

A. A discussion on how to represent Part Time Faculty in the Senate began with Chair Weinholtz relaying that University Secretary Thomas Dorer is looking into the legality of adding part-time faculty representation to the Senate in the Charter. Part-time e-mail access was discussed. There was a consensus that if a professor has a University e-mail address, the University has the right to communicate to the Professor using the address.

B. Senator Siegel brought the following resolution to the Faculty Senate at the request of the Part-time Faculty Committee “The committee recommends that the University continue to increase the compensation for all part-time instructors in order to become more competitive with other local public and private institutions.” The Senate voted and approved the resolution unanimously. The resolution will be forwarded to the Provost and the President.

· Professional Standards

A. Senator Shepela reported Katherine Black sent the Senate proposed changes to the “Additional Information” section of the FPM on misconduct on research and scholarly activities. Senator Shepela will bring the proposal to the Professional Standards Committee for their comments.

B. Senator Shepela read the amended employment of relatives for the FPM. After discussion of the addition made by University Secretary Tom Dorer, the Senators passed the changes in total, unanimously.

· Student Affairs – Senator Oliver said his committee continues to create a university statement and has a meeting this Thursday with Dean Horvath to discuss the University Values Committee that she is chairing, for comparisons.

Orders of the Day.

January 29, 2008

Attendance:

P	Ball, Kevin A.	P	Gray, Edward	A	Padberg, Carol
P	Beaulieu, Mark	P	Gray, John	P	Petry, Elizabeth
P	Borucinska, Joanna	P	Hill, Jonathan	P	Russell, Ingrid
P	Brown, Jennifer	P	Lei, Yu	P	Shepela, Sharon
P	Canedy, Charles	P	Machuga, Susan	P	Siegel, Paul
P	Carey, Elen	P	Mayer, Howard	P	Sumukadas, Narender
P	Comiskey, Anne	P	McMiller, Darryl	P	Weinholtz, Donn
P	Davis, Robert	P	Mohamed, Osama	A	Westfall, David
P	Decker, Robert	P	Campbell, Nola	P	Williamson, Daniel
P	Diehl, Susan	P	Nolan, Dennis	A	Zimmerman, Christopher
P	Fang, Clara	P	Oliver, Peter	=	Present/Absent Attendance: 93% (29 out of 32)

Reconvened:

Chair Weinholtz relayed a message received by e-mail from Senator Westfall. He thanked the Senate for their message of condolences and support on his mother’s death.

PRESENTERS:

President Harrison addressed the Senators and discussed some of the beginning of semester “glitches:”

administrative issues (i.e., letters that went out in error by the clearing house to prospective students)
power outage; due to the volume of electricity needed by having the addition of the Hawks Hall and the generator having been inadvertently switched off, the University experienced a power outage in the residential and academic buildings for roughly 2 ½ hours.

President Harrison shared with the Senate that he will be overseeing a creation of a Civil Liberties in Time of War Symposium. He asked the Senate for input and to suggest “a couple” of members for the committee.

Power Boothe, Dean, Hartford Art School, spoke to the Senators to discuss the proposal to suspend admission to the HAS MFA Resident Program. The major problem is reported lack of a critical mass of students as well as space in which to house the program. He asked the Senate to support putting the program on hold for up to five years, with yearly reviews.

The program is a high residency program. It currently has 10 students that they will see to graduation. The most they have had was 18. This program requires two years, is studio-based and takes 60-credits. The school has developed a low residency MFA in Illustrations, which Dean Boothe said is doing well.

Dorothy Zeiser discussed closing of the 6^th year certification in Educational Leadership Program. She gave reasons such as the focus being on the doctoral program, and the five member department not being able to sustain this second program in addition to the doctoral program.

Interim Provost Voelker – The Provost introduced the topic of electronic evaluations. He said there is a program called CourseEval by means of which students fill out their course evaluations online. This program can be linked to Banner, with many different options of security and use. Questions may be tailored by the professor, including open-ended ones. Senators were reminded that evaluations are voluntary for students. There is also a faculty feed-back mechanism for comments. Low returns with the system concerned the Senators (Provost Voelker said returns are about 30%), as well as unsupervised input. Provost Voelker asked the Senate if they agreed on doing a pilot program to test out the CourseEval software. The Provost gathered questions from the Senators, and promised he would come back with answers and more discussion.

There being no further business, the meeting adjourned at 1:35 p.m. The next meeting of the Faculty Senate is Tuesday, February 12, and Thursday, February 14, 2008, at 12:15 in A426.

Respectfully submitted,

Maria Marques, Recorder

Office of the Faculty Senate