MSU FACULTY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES
February 21, 2001
PRESENT: Young, Weaver for Morrill, Sherwood, McDermott, Kommers,
Peed, Linker, Leech, Benham, Howard, Stewart, Larsen,
Nehrir, Mooney, Jacobs for Lefcort, Weaver, Amend for
McClure, Locke, Levy, Bogar, Bond, Jelinski, Francis, Lynch,
Butterfield, Scott, Griffith.
ABSENT: Hatfield, White, Anderson, Jost, Harkin, Lansverk, McKinsey,
Prawdzienski, Fisher, Carlstrom.
The regularly scheduled meeting was called to order by Chair Ron
Larsen at 4:10 PM. A quorum was present. The minutes of the February
7, 2001, Faculty Council meeting were approved as distributed.
Chair's report - Ron Larsen.
- A draft of the proposed Board of Regents policy, Ownership of
Electronic Course Material, was distributed (attached for members
absent), and there was brief discussion. Comments about the
draft may be e-mailed to Ron ([email protected]).
- Administrators have received letters requesting they prepare
statements of responsibilities, accomplishments and goals by
March 2. The statements will be posted at the Faculty Council
web site. Tenure-track faculty may review administrators between
March 5 and March 21.
- Some concern has been expressed that the list of faculty
incentives from last week's meeting do not necessarily apply to
all faculty.
- A draft resolution on instituting FY2001 faculty salary
increases at the end of this academic year will be discussed at
tomorrow's UGC Steering Committee meeting.
UGC Nominating Committee report.
- Linda Simonsen, Mathematics, has been nominated to fill a
faculty vacancy on the Athletics Committee. As there were no
additional nominees from the floor, it was decided by consensus
that her name should be forwarded to President Gamble for
approval.
Faculty Affairs Committee report.
- The committee did not meet this week.
- Sabbaticals were funded at the level included in this year's
budget. Names of faculty receiving sabbaticals will be announced
next week.
Hewlett Committee report on the new core - David Cherry, Jeff Adams,
Adele Pittendrigh (members of the Hewlett Executive Committee).
- Two years ago, a grant was received from the Hewlett Foundation
to improve MSU's general education (core) requirement. A second
grant was received to fund the project an additional two years.
- The current goal is to pilot a new core for about 300 students,
beginning Fall Semester 2001. Five foundation courses (Seminar,
Quantitative Reasoning, College Writing, Inquiry, Diversity,
Research and Creative Experience) are part of the core, and there
are additional core electives. The course material will vary in
some of the foundation courses, depending upon the instructor.
- The minimum number of credits in the new core is 28 (The
current core credit minimum is 32).
- Assessment will be part of the pilot project.
- There is a notion that the new core will help retention.
- During discussion, it was noted that if the new core is fully
implemented, there will be campus-wide impacts, because large
core lecture classes will no longer be as appropriate. In the
short term, faculty advisors of students will need to be
familiar with the requirements of the new core so they can advise
students participating in it.
Proposed Workload policy (MSU-Bozeman: Faculty Expectations and
Institutional Accountability) - Provost David Dooley (Proposed policy
attached for members absent).
- A task force including faculty and the Provost has been working
on the policy since the task force was set up by then-President
Roark. The task force is now soliciting feedback on the
proposal.
- Key elements of the new document include:
- It is no longer a workload document but addresses faculty
expectations and institutional accountability. Faculty
expectations are built into P&T documents.
- Definitions of teaching, research and creative work,
outreach and service have been expanded.
- There is no numerical standard or even a range of
numerical measures.
- A goal of the policy is to help MSU explain to outside
constituents how faculty use their time.
- President Gamble was consulted about his views, and he
recommended accountability measures and a measure of outputs be
used, not inputs.
- During discussion, it was pointed out that the original intent
of Faculty Council in proposing a task force to develop a policy
was to address inequities in teaching load across campus that
give some faculty less time for scholarly activity while
expecting all faculty to meet uniform UPT standards.
- According to the Provost, the task force agreed assignments
need to be consistent with the role and scope of their unit and
the way in which their work is reviewed. Deans and department
heads must ensure consistency between role and scope and
evaluations. If necessary, either standards or assignments must
be adjusted so they are compatible with each other. This should
be left in the hands of the units.
- It was pointed out there is a perception that there needs to be
equity in faculty workloads across the university and this
document doesn't address it.
- The Provost responded that this policy isn't the mechanism to
address the issue. That must be done through resource
allocation, and different inputs are needed to address resource
allocation. Diversity in expectations and assignments needs to
be recognized. There needs to be differentiation in expectations
between units and over time, perhaps with an individual.
- Concern was expressed for the way money is currently allocated
to colleges which is based on history.
- The Provost said this will change for the coming biennium.
The Budget Analysis Committee, Long Range Planning
Committee, Strategic Planning and Budget Committee, deans,
department heads and faculty will develop principles by
which budget decisions should be made. The process will be
more data driven than in the past.
- MSU can now provide both incentives and rewards for
faculty and units participating in reaching the university's
goals.
- The point was made that any statement of work expectations
should apply to non-academic units, also. The Provost stated
that there will be accountability measures across campus.
- There will be further discussion of the statement.
The meeting adjourned at 5:25 PM.
Joann Amend, Secretary Ron Larsen, Chair