April 19, 2023 Minutes

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Faculty Senate Meeting (Leon Johnson 346)

04.19.2023

3:15 pm – 4:30 pm

I.            Call to Order

a.       Meeting called to order at 3:15pm.

II.            Approval of FS Minutes from March 22, 2023

a.       Tomas Gedeon moves to approve. Chris Posbergh seconds. None opposed. Approved. 

III.            FYI items

a.       Save the Date: 100th Day of Student Recognition May 5, 2023

IV.            Information Items

a.       Open Educational Resources – Brian Rossmann- MSU Library

i.      Handouts

ii.      Questions

A.      Why are they so expensive now?

1.       Publishers keep raising the prices

B.      What is the incentive to write a review?

1.       Foster open learning, save students money.

C.      Will publishing something like this effect tenure? 

1.       They can still be copy written.

2.       Role and Scope documents have been updated. 

D.      Are there smaller publishers where an author could still be compensated, but the book is still affordable. 

E.       Grants: Could add to your salary while they are writing a text book. 

F.       Are you going through your $50,000 budget each year? Not quite.

G.      Would grants help with writing online homework?

1.       Yes. 

H.      What about offering these to NTTs? They teach a lot of first year courses. 

1.       Yes. 

I.         Pay attention to your contracts.

J.        Inclusive access, pay extra fee, usually in your own discipline. 

1.       This is proposed as $125 and you get access to all texts for the semester. 

iii.      Would like to see OER into as many first year courses as we could would help. 

V.            Old Business

a.     RTP Role and Scope

i.      Department Head would like to ask if we can do this less frequently. 

A.      They are on a review schedule, every 3 years

ii.      Chris Posbergh moves to approve. Tomas Gedeon seconds. None opposed. Approved.

b.     RTP Standards

i.      Gary Caton moves to approve. Maggie Thorsen seconds. None opposed. Approved. 

c.     RTP Definitions

i.      Sustained effectiveness in teaching piece: What happens if someone teaches the same course over and over? 

A.      The language is intentionally vague for that reason. 

B.      Don’t want to exclude those doing exactly what they were hired to do. 

C.      Advising is part of Teaching.

D.      Will review go back to date of hire?

1.       That depends on what your letter of hire says. 

2.       Time of hire IN THAT SPECIFIC POSITION.

E.       What is the reason it has to start when in new position?

1.       Someone could do something fantastic at last institution, and then quit. 

i.      Wouldn’t sustain effectiveness cover that?

ii.      What you did elsewhere got you hired here. What you do here gets you promoted.

2.       Don’t understand why we cannot go back and look at previous work. 

ii.      Rob Maher moves to approve. Tomas Gedeon seconds. None opposed. Approved. 

VI.            New Business -Proposed Amendment to Mental Health Resolution

a.       In addition, the Faculty Senate acknowledges the extent to which MSU faculty already contribute unacknowledged, uncompensated, and unsupported emotional labor as first contact with students’ mental health challenges. The Senate further acknowledges the intensive efforts and positive impacts of Counseling and Psychological Services, the MSU Mental Health Task Force, and many other MSU offices supporting mental health on campus. In support of these efforts, and to facilitate further prioritizing student, faculty, and staff mental health, the Senate, therefore, calls on the MSU administration to 

1. More clearly communicate to the MSU community the scope and scale of mental health challenges MSU is experiencing.

2. Regularly report to the MSU community the budgetary resources available to meet these difficulties, and efforts MSU is making to expand resources to meet student and faculty mental health needs; and

3. Commit additional resources to help faculty and staff negotiate supporting student mental health.

b.       Doug Downs moves to approve. Chris Posbergh seconds. None opposed. Open discussion approved. 

VII.            Undergraduate Courses-New Courses – First Read

a.       AVMT 205 : Aircraft Communication Systems

b.       AVMT 210 : Aircraft Navigation Systems I

c.       AVMT 215 : Federal Aviation Administration Regulations

d.       ECIV 464 : Lightweight Concrete Engineering

e.       ETME 362 : Applied Electronics and Power for Mechanical Systems

f.        PSCI 445 : Political Psychology

g.       SOCI 334 : Gender, Crime, and Criminal-Legal System

VIII.            Undergraduate Courses-New Courses – Second Read 

a.       AHMT 240 : Clinical Chemistry

b.       ENSC 311 : Fundamentals of Environmental Data Analysis

c.       HSTR 360 : Cold War Europe

d.       PHOT 301 : Photography: Global Histories and Perspectives

e.       HSTR 476 : Oral History: Theory and Practice

IX.            Undergraduate Courses-Course Changes – Second Read

a.     ETME 202 : Mechanical Engineering Technology Computer Applications

i.      Change from 1 credit to 3

ii.      Added learning outcomes

b.       HORT 499R: Horticulture Capstone

i.      Changed from HORT 486R : Horticulture Capstone II

X.            Undergraduate Courses-Inactivations – First Read

a.       EELE 461 : Digital System Design

i.      The course has not been offered recently due to a staffing shortage. To keep students better informed of what courses will be offered, EELE 461 is to be inactivated.

b.       HORT 485R : Horticulture Capstone I

i.      We are switching the capstone courses to a single 3 credit option in the spring instead of two capstone courses.

XI.            Undergraduate Courses-Inactivations – Second Read

a.     BIOB 477 : Genome Science and Gene Expression
b.     BIOM 460 : Infectious Diseases Ecology and Spillover

i.      Instructor has left MSU, no available faculty.

c.     BMKT 241 : Sales

i.      Neither Business, nor Gallatin College are teaching this course. Business says it belongs to Gallatin College. Gallatin says they've never taught it.

d.     ECIV 332 : Engineering Hydraulics

i.      Course has been replaced with ECIV 333.

e.     ENGL 490R : Undergraduate Research

i.      ENGL is not an OCHE approved rubric. WRIT 490R and LIT 490R already exist.

f.     129 : Manufactured Home Weather

i.      Program was put into moratorium.

g.     WRIT 091 : Sp: College Writing Co-Req

i.      We are no longer offering this course.

XII.            Undergraduate Programs/Certificates – Second Read 

a.     AVET-AAS : Aviation Electronics Technology
b.     CARP-CAS : Carpentry
c.     HADP-CAS : Healthcare Administrative Professional
 

XIII.            Graduate Courses-New Courses – First Read

a.       EDCI 543 : Introduction to Curriculum Design and Assessment

XIV.            Graduate Courses-New Courses – Second Read

a.     HIST 509 : Oral History: Theory and Practice
b.     EDCI 519 : Addressing Equity in Linguistic and Cultural Diversity
c.     PHSX 579 : Special Relativity for Teachers
 

XV.            Graduate Courses-Course Changes – Second Read

a.     BIOH 586 :AP Biology for Teachers

i.      Title change from BIOH 586 : A Big Ideas Approach for AP Biology Teachers

b.     CHMY 526 : Solution NMR Spectroscopy: practical applications to the structural determination of small molecules

i.      Title change from Adv Protein NMR Spectroscopy

c.     EIND 511 : Advanced Human Factors

i.      Title change from Design for Quality of Life

d.     HDCO 598 : Internship

i.      Credit change from 2-12 to 1-12

XVI.            Graduate Courses-Inactivations – Second Read

a.     CSCI 541 : Computer Graphics

i.      The course has not been taught for several years. No current faculty have the expertise to teach it.

b.     DGED 524 : Cellular Mechanotransduction

i.      Per Craig Ogilvie: As a disciplinary course it should not be managed by the

graduate school, learning outcomes, instructor etc. These should be in a dept. MIE already has an EMEC 424 and an

c.     EMEC 524 which are co-convened.

d.     MB 560 : Infectious Disease Ecology & Spillover

i.      Instructor no longer with MSU.

e.     NEUR 528 : Molecular Basis of Neurological Diseases

i.      Instructor no longer with MSU.

XVII.            Graduate Programs/Certificates – Second Read 

a.       -CERT : Nonprofit Leadership and Administration

XVIII.            Updates

a.       Sustainability Initiative – Progress Report 

XIX.            Senators’ Open Conversation

a.       Stephanie McCalla

i.      Want to put together a group to modify the hate speech resolution, address campus culture.

ii.      Please contact me [email protected] if you want to help. 

iii.      What do students want?

A.      Putting time and effort into figuring that out.

B.      Validation of what they are going through

C.      Improve communication

D.      Want help fixing the problem

XX.            Public Comment

a.       Kristin Blackler Office of Sustainability

i.      Hello,

My name is Kristin Blackler, and I’m the Director of the Office of Sustainability. I am giving public testimony today to describe the background of the sustainability plan and the campus sustainability advisory committee.

Many people across campus have, and continue to, work very hard on developing and implementing our campus framework. Those committed professionals, faculty members and students have been poorly served by repeated, erroneous, comments made in Faculty Senate that have gone unchallenged and threaten to harm our students and our sustainability efforts on campus.

MSU’s strategic plan, Choosing Promise, goal 3.3.6 reads “Montana State University will develop a comprehensive sustainability plan by 2020 with measurement and annual progress reports to campus.” In early 2019, the priority was to develop a sustainability plan with, what I hoped, would be a

broad group of campus stakeholders represented by the Campus Sustainability Advisory Council, CSAC

Unfortunately, most meetings didn’t have a Chair or Vice-Chair present and the work was not getting done. In an attempt to make progress, I wrote a draft sustainability plan using metrics from our STARS report and placeholders. Throughout this process, I began to have doubts about a “plan” and became increasingly convinced that first and foremost we needed a climate neutrality date, and other easily understood and communicated sustainability goals. In collaboration with a new CSAC Chair, Dr. Julia Haggerty, we were able to form a group of stakeholders interested in working on the Sustainability Plan. As these stakeholders at MSU began developing this commissioned sustainability plan, it became apparent that the plan was cumbersome and inaccessible to the average campus stakeholder, as well as redundant to the STARS rating system. The Sustainability Framework was born out of this need for refinement and is based upon extensive research by my office and a guided independent study class led by Dr. Haggerty and Dr. LaChapelle.

At no point were we ever told to “keep our heads down” to avoid the legislature. I absolutely said, “Let’s put our heads down and get to work”. While some might be confused by this phrase, I hope you all can appreciate the difference. MSU’s University Council formally adopted the Sustainability Framework on December 1st, 2021, with tangible institutional goals for Carbon Neutrality by 2040, Net Zero Waste by 2035, and STARS Platinum rating by 2035. Answering the call of Choosing Promise, these goals meet

the charge of a comprehensive sustainability plan in an easily digestible presentation that the entire MSU community can understand and rally behind. Our institutional STARS report and greenhouse gas tracking in the SIMAP carbon accounting platform meet the charge for measurability in this plan. The annual Sustainability Summit, held just last week on campus, meets the charge for annual progress reports to campus. Carbon Neutrality efforts are well underway on campus, and countless smart and dedicated individuals

are pouring their hearts and souls into this work. I have seen a tremendous acceleration in progress these past 2 years compared to the previous 10 and know the transformations will only continue to exceed expectations.

Your faculty peers, your students, and the staff dedicated to this effort need your help and support. I hope this body can join in moving us forward.

Thank you for your time.

b.       Durward Sobek

i.      Director for the Center for Faculty Excellence is open. 

ii.      Reach out if you have questions

c.       Albert Reyes-Graduate student leadership

i.      Can you, the faculty, hold administration accountable?

ii.      Can Faculty Senate resolutions be broadcast to students?

A.      They would like to know that you care.

XXI.            Adjourn

a.       Tomas Gedeon moves to approve. Chris Posbergh seconds. Meeting adjourned at 4:28pm.

XXII.            Appendix – Written comments from April 5 Faculty Senate Meeting

My name is Paul Lachapelle and I am a Professor in the Dept. of Political Science. 

I would like to comment on what I see is a history of troubling trends in terms of MSU Administration not addressing issues that it deems controversial.

Back in fall of 2020, I served with roughly two dozen other individuals on the Campus Sustainability Advisory Council (CSAC); this was an open forum for students, citizens, faculty and staff to advise the University President on sustainability-related initiatives and was the predecessor to the current Campus Sustainability Advisory Committee.  At that time, the Council submitted a detailed Sustainability Plan that had specific metrics on carbon emissions reductions.  

The Council received word from President Cruzado via an email dated October 13, 2020 and sent to the Council from the Council Chair with the meeting reminder and agenda, that “we've been asked to put the process for university-wide, formal adoption of the Sustainability Plan on hold until summer/fall of 2021. While the President is broadly enthusiastic about the goals of the Sustainability Plan and genuinely grateful for the work that has gone into it, concerns about provoking reactionary responses from elected officials in the legislature are extremely high right now. This is one of several university initiatives on hold while the administration battens down the hatches for the possible perfect storm of uncertain/unfriendly political change and a state budget crisis. The term used to describe this to me today was "keeping our heads down."”  Details of this email are reflected in the October 15, 2020 CSAC minutes (https://www.montana.edu/csac/meetings.html). 

The Council then received word from President Cruzado reflected in the September 16, 2021 CSAC Minutes and emailed to the Council on October 14, 2021, “Julia Haggerty and Kristin Blackler met with President Cruzado about the Sustainability Plan. President Cruzado is excited about the plan and to work more closely with CSAC in the future. She provided feedback that she thinks there should be less public-facing detail and more focus on the major targets.” It should be noted that the minutes were altered from the original sent on September 16, 2021 with the words “public-facing” removed without notification to Campus Sustainability Advisory Council members.

There seems to be a trend to “keeping our heads down” when there are issues that MSU Administration deems controversial for fear of “provoking reactionary responses.”  This is antithetical to our fiduciary as a public institution of higher learning and as a Land Grant University charged with upholding the public trust.  These types of messages coming from Montana Hall have acculturated our campus with a sense of reticence to address critical issues and have chilling affects for faculty, staff, students and the general public who rightly recognize their obligation to address the health, welfare and safety the people of the state of Montana. 

I hope that the current situation is not a repeat the “keeping our heads down” message when what we should be doing is holding our heads high to serve, to protect and to support our campus and our citizens.

I’ve typed my statement and will submit to Faculty Senate to be entered into the minutes for the public record.  Thank you.