Reinvisioning the Faculty Senate Notes
November 1, 2013 (2-3:15 p.m., Leaf)
Faculty Present:
Lynn Cherry (Community, Speaker of Faculty Senate), Mike Duvall (English,
Faculty Senate Secretary), Irina Gigova (History, Senator), Dan Greenberg (Psychology, Chair,
Faculty Curriculum Committee), Heath Hoffmann (Sociology), Bill
Olejneziak (History), Moore Quinn (Anthropology, Senator), Chris Starr (Computer Science.
Agenda:
o
Resolution
o By-Laws
reference a time limit for reports (Heath: check by-laws)
o Lynn
Cherry reports that Provost has submitted his PowerPoint to be added to the
webpage
o Speaker
and Secretary keep notes on suggested guidance for providing smoother
transitions from Speaker to Speaker and Secretary to Secretary, including
feedback to guests and faculty committee representatives to submit reports
ahead of time with as much detail as possible, that they won’t have a lot of
time (2-4 minutes) to highlight some main points in their reports and then have
time on the floor to answer questions
o Lynn
Cherry has been trying to get faculty committees to submit minutes once
approved to Heather to post on Faculty Senate webpage instead of waiting until
the end of the semester for all committees to submit minutes and reports from
the previous year.
o Mike
will include links in agenda to committee webpages when those committees appear
on the agenda.
o
Consent agenda for curriculum changes
o Dan
Greenberg talked with Jon Hakkila of Graduate Education Committee and they are
generally in support of the consent agenda with the exception of new online
courses. Is working on a resolution for a consent agenda ready to present to
Faculty Senate by December meeting. Dan will circulate this to Senators prior
to December Faculty Senate meeting to model the kind of preparation before
Senate meetings that we are encouraging Senators to practice.
o Lynn
suggest Dan and Jon Hakkila talk
o
Faculty speaker’s cabinet
o Lynn
Cherry convened meeting with Chairs of Academic Planning, Budget, Grad Ed, FCC,
Faculty Advisory to President, Gen Ed, Faculty Welfare, Nomination, By-Laws
(not all Chairs were able to attend)…good discussion; general sense among all
of these Chairs that having some kind of regular meeting with the Speaker would
be a good thing; sense at this first meeting was that there is support for
meeting between once a month and 1-2 times a semester depending on the issues
that are brewing at any given time.
o Question:
will there be minutes taken at these meetings and published for external folks
to read.
o Suggestion
that Lynn include in her Speaker’s report that this Cabinet is in the works.
o The
Cabinet could be source of discussion topics taken to the Faculty Senate as
well as a place for inter-committee collaborations to expedite changes and
initiatives
o Should
we formalize the Speaker’s Cabinet in the future? Lynn recommends that we wait
and see how this goes for the rest of this year before deciding
when/how/whether to formalize this into a permanent aspect of the Senate
organization.
o
Online discussion of recommendations from
Kraznoff committee
o
Heath will do this by the end of next week and
email interested folks to engage in that process. Open comment initially to the
“Reinvisioning” Group.
o
Formalizing The “Reinvisioning group”:
o The
concern is that our work will die with the end of Lynn’s term as Speaker;
o After
this semester/this year, does this group still have a purpose/need to continue?
o We
need to think about as we move through the spring semester that there are still
things that we need to do, we might consider putting together an ad-hoc
committee that will meet for a specified length of time to continue the work of
reenvisioning the faculty senate.
o It’s
important that we give the changes we are currently developing and implementing
some time to determine whether they work.
o Mike
will include link to the Blog in Senate Minutes
o
New Business/Action Steps
o Heath:
Revise resolution on guest speakers at Senate and distribute for
revisions/comment in time to get on agenda for December Senate meeting
(deadline for agenda items is Thursday before
o FCC
resolution for December meeting
o Lynn
continue work with Cabinet
o Heath:
post Krasnoff/Kelly proposal for discussion
October 8, 2013 Committee Meeting
ATTENDEES: Lynn Cherry, Mike Duvall, Irina Gigova, Dan Greenberg, Mary Beth Heston, Heath Hoffmann Bill Olejneziak, Moore Quinn and Jen Wright.
Kelly/Krasnoff--Adhoc Committee
- o Senate should only be focused on issues relating to the academic mission of the College.
- o Consent Agenda
- o DONE: Academic Council now includes Speaker, Budget and Academic Planning committee Chairs.
- o Functions of Senate: Policy, Administrative and Gadfly functions; useful ways to see the different functions of the Senate
- o Academic Affairs presence on some faculty committees makes it feel as if they are running the show rather than being a guiding force:
o FCC:
yes and no. sometimes Academic Affairs and Registrar are necessary there and
helpful in identifying problems that could occur down the road; Registrar
generally limits its role to administrative/clerical/advisory role and detailed
logistics;
CULTURAL SHIFT IN
ROLE OF DEPT AND AT-LARGE SENATORS: CHARGING THEM MORE WITH SEEKING INFO FROM
THEIR CONSTITUENTS TO REPORT BACK TO THE SENATE. SENATORS SPEAKING TO MEMBERS OF DEPT, SOLICITING EMAIL FEEDBACK,
INVITING FOLKS TO MEET AT FACULTY HOUSE/COFFEE HOUSE…
Purpose of the Senate at an Institution Like Ours:
o Senate
is advisory
o Senate
does its own business and the other folks are guests and ex-officio and it
might be necessary to remind them that they are our guests and they need to
play by our rules (Heath’s words)—Provost, President and other guest speakers
(including reports from faculty committees) need to be posted a week in
advance. Time limit, discretion
of Faculty Speaker
o Lynn
Cherry needs a proposal/resolution from a Faculty Senator that sets as the
expectation that this become the precedent for reports to the Faculty Senate.
Suggestion that we
ask AA to initiate a College-wide discussion about the future of the College in
relation to funding challenges and merger discussions. Lynn has already had conversations with Provost to develop
opportunities to like these mirroring the structure of previous T&P and
strategic planning discussions that successfully integrated school-wide
participation in the discussion.
There is a Dropbox shared by all Faculty Committee chairs to
help identify when committees are working on similar items but they have not
been taking advantage to this as much as they could. To maximize the potential
for this create more effective faculty governance, there needs to be a cultural
shift.
Actions Steps:
- Heath: Resolution requiring guests to submit speech/text week before faculty senate meeting (“all invited guests”)
- Dan and Jon Hakkila (Chair of Graduate Education Committee): Resolution from FCC about change of procedure toward consent agenda by default
- o Lynn: Faculty Speaker’s Cabinet:
o Concern
with transition to next speaker and continuing the momentum stemming from any
initiatives that come out of these discussions.
o Issues
that come to the Senate should be the kinds of issues that we want Senators to
be having in their Departments
o Dept
Senators sometimes charged with issues to go back to Dept to discuss particular
issue raised by the Faculty Committee
o Institutionalizing
this through resolutions/by-laws changes right away might not work. But, beginning
these practices this year so that they become habits over the next year or two and
potentially a few more years we’ll see positive results and we’ll build a sense
of support for this.
- o Heath: Organize on-line discussion of various recommendations from Kraznoff/Kelly report?
- o Lynn Cherry: before opening Senate discussion on resolutions, Speaker say let’s try to limit discussion to the substance and not engage in wordsmithing Wordsmithing—
o RECOMMENDATION FOR BEST PRACTICE: lots
of discussion of Senate is wordsmithing-like, folks might say that they
couldn’t support a proposal in its current form and thus it would be remanded
back to the committee and/or person presenting the resolution to address
concerns raised in the Senate and resubmit it at the next Senate meeting;
o maybe
we ask folks to post their proposals and initiatives for public comment (like
the Federal government); discussion/comment period is open for a couple of
weeks and allow those proposing resolutions to use feedback to revise the
proposal before submitting it to the Faculty Senate.
- o Formalize this “Reinvisioning Group”—Make it an official ad-hoc committee of the Senate to legitimate its work.
Questions:
- o Role of Senator in Departmental meetings—cultural shift such that senators were charged with engaging their departments in more meaningful discussion
Reinvisioning the Faculty Senate at the College
of Charleston
Summary of September 17th Meeting
5-6:30 pm, Leaf
Summary of September 17th Meeting
5-6:30 pm, Leaf
NEXT
MEETING: TUESDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2013, 5 P.M. AT LEAF
ATTENDEES: Jen Wright, Lynn Cherry,
Mike Duvall, Bill Manaris, Dan Greenberg, Mary Beth Heston, Heath Hoffmann
Problems with Faculty Senate Status Quo:
●
Wells Fargo auditorium is
not conducive to thoughtful discussions.
●
Too much time in Faculty
Senate is devoted to small issues; the time we spend in Faculty Senate meetings
are inefficient; spending time on wrong issues
●
Senate is reactive, not
proactive
●
Suspicion that the current
state of Senate is a “backlash” related to the failed attempt at Gen Ed reform
in 2008-2009.
●
In addition to
Departmental Senator representatives in Faculty Senate, Interdisciplinary
Programs (e.g., International Studies) should be treated like Departments in
terms of having Senator representatives.
●
NEED CULTURAL SHIFT:
Senators, and faculty in general, do not take Faculty Senate seriously.
Attendance at Senate meetings by some Senators is sporadic and the general
faculty do not look to Faculty Senate for leadership.
o Need to create sense of responsibility and accountability for
Senators to take the position in the Senate seriously.
●
Faculty lack power at the
institution or faculty are not taking advantage of the power that they do have.
●
If we reduce the amount
of junk that comes to the Senate floor, how do we address issues in the Senate
in a productive way so as to avoid Senate becoming a mere venting session
without moving to action?
Issues on which Faculty Senate Could be Spending Time:
●
Junior faculty taking on
significant leadership roles at the College, including Senate Committees, that
makes them vulnerable since they are not tenured and do not necessarily have
the experience and knowledge of culture and College structures
●
Devaluation of Service at
the College: potential for rebranding service as “community investment” and
Senate-lead discussion on giving more value to service to the College.
●
General Education reform
(several mentions)
●
Merger with MUSC (several
mentions)
●
Cultural problem with faculty
“looking down their noses” at Staff (Heath)
●
More integrated
involvement of faculty in student well-being issues such as excessive alcohol
use and sexual assault (Heath)
●
Expansion of distance
education and what that might mean for faculty workload and the mission and
culture of the College
Solutions/Action Steps/Pending Initiatives:
●
Move much of current
Senate Meeting agenda items to a Consent Agenda, in which curriculum changes
would, by consent, be approved unless a single Faculty Senator (Chris Starr:
correct me if I’m wrong on this) wants to “pull” one of the items off of the
agenda to discuss and vote to approve in the full Senate. Heath adds that we
might, as standard procedure, make new Programs (undergraduate or graduate) as
ineligible for the Consent Agenda.
o When a faculty committee (including Joe Kelly and Larry Krasnoff)
proposed reducing the size of the Senate, they included in their proposal a
number of other items including a Consent Agenda. Heath will check with Joe
Kelly about this.
o Come up with a list of:
§ Items on which the Senate always votes
§ Items reserved for inclusion on consent agenda
●
Faculty Curriculum
Committee (FCC) will propose (from Dan Greenberg (Chair of FCC) email:
“The Senate must vote on all new
course proposals, but it can do so in a bloc. That is, the Senate can
cast one vote to approve them all unless a Senator decides to “pull” one for
further discussion.
OR
2) New course proposals are
considered under a consent agenda. Everything is deemed passed
unless a Senator pulls one.
I don’t know that there’s a huge
difference between these two, but whatever we do for new courses should be done
for deactivated courses as well. I think (2) is probably fine and will
save some time.
In either case, I believe that
the FCC, as well as the Senate, should be allowed to call for an individual
Senate vote on a course (most committee members aren’t Senators). I would
imagine that this would only really happen if someone proposes a new *kind* of course—for instance, Chris
Korey’s 1-credit research and study-abroad FYE courses, an internship or
service-learning experience, etc. In the past we have sometimes felt that
such courses raised broader issues that warranted a fuller review.”
●
Speaker of the Faculty forms
a Cabinet that consists of Chairs of standing faculty committees to identify significant issues to be
discussed in the Faculty Senate. The Speaker would ask Faculty Committees to
come to Senate and present an issue, facilitate discussion around the issue,
and then go back to work within the context of the Committee to arrive at a
solution that is subsequently returned to the Senate for discussion and vote.
●
Speaker invites
faculty/committees to bring an issue to the Senate. After discussion, there is
either traction to send this issue to a committee to continue working on the
issue (which is within the Speaker’s purview) or the issue is dropped.
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