MINUTES OF MEETING NUMBER 143
OF The
Senate OF mICHIGAN tECHNOLOGical university
27 March 1985
(Senate Minute pages: 2418 -2457)
President Baltensperger called the meeting to order at 7:05 p.m. on March 27,1985 in the Faculty Lounge of the Memorial Union.
Roll: Twenty one members/alternates were present. Absent were: Gary Gimmestad (KRC), Allan Johnson (IMR), David Thomas (Library), Lucian Eddy (AFROTC), Ralph Hodek (CE), Bruce Haataja (IWR), Philip Parks (PH), Ben Singer (Student Council, T. Apparao (Graduate Student Council), E.H.T. Whitten. Visitors were Vern Watwood, Tom Courtney, Tom McGovern, Laurie Isaacs.
Minutes of Meeting 140, No. 141, and No. 142 :
The minutes of Meetings No. 140, No. 141, and No. 142 were approved as written.
President's Report
President Baltensperger's written report was presented (Appendix A - Available by Request from the Senate Office). In addition to the items reported in his report, the President reminded Senators that the annual Senate election to elect two At-large Senators and a member of the Committee on Academic Tenure will be occurring soon.
A short discussion took place concerning exactly what students would be affected by the New General Education proposal. The consensus of the Senate was that the proposal should take effect at the beginning of the next academic year. At that time, all new students, all current students who change majors, and any students who do not continuously enroll as students will need to satisfy the new requirements.
President Baltensperger introduced a student, Tom McGovern, who proposed to the Senate that the distinctions "with honor" and "with high honor" granted at graduation be replaced by the distinctions "cum laude," "magna cum laude" and "summa cum laude" for students with grade point averages of 3.0, 3.5 and 3.75 respectively. The proposal was referred to the Instructional Policy Committee.
Vice President's Report
The Vice President attended the Academic Council Meeting of February 12, 1985 and submitted written minutes of that meeting (Appendix B - Available by Request from the Senate Office)
Committee Reports
A. Curricular Policy
The committee has completed work on the Structural option under the Ph.D. in Engineering program and a proposal concerning this is under New Business.
Two more options, Geotechnical and Signal Processing are still being evaluated. Proposals may be forthcoming.
B. Instructional Policy
The committee is evaluating the results of the survey to the faculty. Approximately 60% of the faculty responded.
The committee again asked for input from the faculty on the grade change policy discussed at the last Senate meeting. (See Senate minutes p. 2398 for Vice President Whitten's memo that prompted this discussion - Available by Request from the Senate Office). So far the committee has received no response on this issue.
C. Elections
The President asked for volunteers to run the spring election.
D. Faculty Handbook
The committee has been working on the Provisional Information Booklet, in particular on the section concerning Duties and Responsibilities. They will be meeting with Vice President Whitten shortly to discuss areas of concern.
E. Retrenchment Planning
The proposed Retrenchment Planning document (Appendix C - Available by Request from the Senate Office) was presented. (Appendix D - Available by Request from the Senate Office - highlights points in the proposal). The committee is requesting that Senators get feedback from their departments on this document and report any major concerns to members of the committee. The committee plans on presenting this document as a formal proposal at the next Senate meeting.
H. Teaching Effectiveness
The committee has had meetings with the faculty and the students. The meeting with the faculty was well attended while the meeting with the students was not. The committee is planning on reworking the document based on comments received at these meetings and elsewhere.
Senator Hellawell presented the Department of Metallurgy's concern over the draft proposal presented by the Teaching Effectiveness Committee. Concerns were related to both motives and implementation. A main concern is the amount of time that the proposed peer evaluation would take. Appendix E (Available by Request from the Senate Office) is a handout showing his calculations estimating this amount of time. A motion was made that the teaching effectiveness committee be thanked for its efforts and that the committee be asked to cease its deliberations. After some discussion, the motion was defeated.
A second motion was made to refer the report back to committee and ask it to reconsider both its motives and the implementation. The President ruled this motion out of order since the committee had not yet issued a final report.
New Business
A. Election of Candidates for Vacancy on the University General Education Committee
The following people were elected as the Senate nominees to the University General Education Committee: B. Baltensperger, B. Whitten, and K. Weinmann.
B. Proposal 5-85, University Long-Range Planning Committee
Proposal 5-85, University Long-Range Planning Committee was approved.
C. Proposal 6-85, Doctor of Philosophy in Engineering - Structural Engineering
Proposal 6-85, Doctor of Philosophy in Engineering - Structural Engineering was approved.
D. Course Change Policy
It was asked that the appropriate Senate committee review Senate Proposal 2-75 since there seems to be disagreement between current practice and the Senate proposal. The President referred this to the Curricular Policy Committee.
The meeting adjourned at 8:37 p.m.
Linda M. Ottenstein
Senate Secretary