MINUTES OF MEETING NUMBER 69
OF The
sENATE OF mICHIGAN tECHNOLOGical university

11 April 1973

(Senate Minute pages: 826-843)

Meeting No. 69 was called to order on Wednesday, April 11, 1973 at 7:05 p.m. in the Faculty Lounge by President A.S. Weaver.

The roll was called by the Secretary. Twenty-four members or alternates were present. Absent were DelliQuadri (AL), Gibson (ME), Halkola (AL), Meteer (FF), Nordeng (GE), C.K. Olson (MG), and H.S. Olson (IWR).

 

The Minutes of Meeting No. 68 were approved.



Senate President's Report

  1. At the last Senate you voted to establish a committee to study the roles and objectives of the Senate and the Faculty Association. This promises to be a study of considerable scope and potential impact. In my opinion, the chairman needs to be a person with a real interest in, and some experience in, both organizations. I would prefer, therefore, to have someone volunteer for this task and ask that interested individuals contact me later.

  2. Mrs. Brown, the secretary to the Senate and Emeritus Faculty, has nearly completed a cross-indexed summary of all numbered proposals of the Senate. She will proceed with a similar index for other major Senate actions; examples, Definition of General Faculty, Election Procedures, etc. This will be extremely helpful to any and all who need to know what policy is without reading 800-plus pages of Minutes.

  3. I have received a copy of the Minutes of the Social Sciences Department meeting of March 12, 1973, from which I quote: "The topic shifted to tenure. Larry Rakestraw moved that the Social Science Department request that the president of the Senate call a special meeting to discuss tenure policy and the proposed changes therein. Discussion centered around the composition and power of the committee which has been drafting the proposed changes for some time now. Vandette said that the matter could be brought before the Faculty Association, although that body consists of both academic faculty and general faculty (if the latter is not a contradiction in terms), and therefore, the Senate might be a better forum. Rakestraw's motion passed."

    Article VII of our Constitution specifies that, "Additional meetings shall be called by the President of the Senate upon written request by any five members of the Senate or as he deems necessary." Two Senators reside in the SS Department. If there are enough requests, an additional meeting can be planned, although since the Tenure Committee is not a Senate Committee, I expect that its Chairman would ordinarily handle the setting up of discussion meetings. The past track record of the Faculty in attending special informative Senate meetings has not been very spectacular.



Report on Meetings of the Academic Council and Board of Control

  1. Hodek reported on two meetings of the Academic Council. His report is included here as Appendix A (Available by Request from the Senate Office).

  2. Farrell's report on the meeting of the Board of Control is included here as Appendix B (Available by Request from the Senate Office).

    In response to a request for details of the proposed Campus Facility Names Policy, President Smith listed a few of the salient features as follows:
    1. Buildings may be named after people, things, or functions.
    2. If named after a person, that person must be deceased, except in the case of donors of substantial amounts of money.
    3. The person honored must have contributed substantially (in a non-monetary fashion) both to his profession and to Michigan Tech.
    4. At least one building will always remained unnamed.
    5. Buildings will be named within a reasonable time period.
 

Committee Reports

A. Curricular Policy - No Report

B. Elections - Velics' report is included here as Appendix C (Available by Request from the Senate Office).

Spain moved that the Senate resolve to approve the two-year option in the Humanities leading to the Associate Degree in General Studies as outlined in the proposal distributed at Meeting No. 67 (see page 804). Following a lengthy discussion on the possible effects of such a program on Michigan Tech's image and the usefulness and desirability of such a program, the resolution passed by a vote of 22 Yes, 1 No.

Spain then stated the intention of the committee not to move the adoption of Proposal 1-73, To Establish Procedure for Course and Curriculum Change (page 810), as a much more simplified process is being considered and will be formally presented in the near future.

C. Instructional Policy - No Report.

D. Audio-Visual Instructional Material

Rakestraw moved that the Senate set up an ad hoc committee on patent policy including patents related to audio-visual materials. The motion was seconded. Rakestraw then gave the following reasons for the motion:

  1. While A/V materials policy must involve policy on A/V related patents, it is hard to separate this from patent policy as a whole. We feel that a separate ad hoc committee, studying separate but sometimes converging matters, would be appropriate.

  2. Examination of patent policy is an appropriate activity of the Senate, under terms of the Faculty Senate Constitution. While the patent "Agreement" affects every member of the faculty, the Senate played no part in formulating the policy and has never examined it. The Committee feels there is need for such examination, and probably change.

Alexander: I had no fears of being denied the use of my office and other facilities as is implied in items I-A and I-B. Is this sort of statement really necessary?

Liba: What is the current policy?

Romig: There is none on copyrights.

Hodek: This sounds like the sort of thing the ombudsman was supposed to handle.

Thayer: Why not include this in the patent policy? It should be spelled out somewhere.

Ortner: I just can't see a 5-man commission.

Weaver: Sounds like a standing committee.

Smith: In nine years we have had no copyright problem and only one patent problem.

Williams: I would hope some present standing committee could handle this. Why not spell out a policy and examine it later to see if it is working rather than to spell out the policy one case at a time in a 5-man standing committee?

Rakestraw: This approach would take too long.

Thayer: There is no limitation on time of service for an ad hoc committee.

Following the discussion, Alexander recommended that in light of the extension of the charge to the committee perhaps it should consider a unified patent-copyright policy.

The Secretary suggested that the proposal not be numbered at this time but rather that the final version submitted by the committee be numbered. If the final draft is prepared before the necessary 15 days preceding the next meeting, then it will appear in detail on the agenda for that meeting.

E. Curricular Impact - No Report.

F. Instructional Evaluation - No Report.

G. Joint Faculty Association - This committee has been discharged.

H. Promotion Policy Review

Crowther stated that at Dr. Stebbins' request, the committee has agree to serve as a liaison group with the Vice President for Academic Affairs in defining criteria for promotion. The size of the committee has been enlarged to include Dr. Gladys Dawson and Professor Sam Tidwell. The committee has received and is reviewing proposed criteria from Dr. Stebbins. The committee solicits suggestions and comments from interested faculty.

 

Old Business - None

New Business and Voluntary Remarks

Thayer pointed out an apparent policy change concerning the approved HU-SS list. He stated that the change has been brought about by a directive from the office of the Vice President of Academic Affairs and is in direct violation of the HU-SS policy which the Senate squabbled over so long and so hard a few years ago. He stated that it involved the inclusion of the second year of foreign language as a Group A or Group B elective.

In the discussion which followed, Stebbins stated that he didn't realize that the new directives violated the policy and had simply forwarded to the Curricular Policy Committee a list generated by Professors Power, Hill, and Butler. Spain stated that the committee hadn't recognized the policy change. At President Weaver's suggestion the several principals involved have agreed to thrash out the problem.

Spain then brought up the subject of the academic calendar (day-by-day) by pointing out that we again have an extreme unbalance in the distribution of class days this quarter -- 8 Mondays and 10 of everything else.

Of the lengthy discussion which followed, the following comments are representative:

Weaver: Who draws up the day-to-day calendar?

Stebbins: No one in my area.

Weaver: Exactly! The academic area is simply left out of the picture, and its needs are ignored in this function.

Smith: The old Senate said, "Let Sermon do it." (Tom Sermon was the registrar at the time).

Barstow: Let's leave it strictly in administration hands.

Williams: We can have the same number of each day in the week. Simply redefine any necessary days. For example, a campus directive could be distributed saying next Tuesday is a Monday. This worked and worked well in a school where I taught.

Weaver stated his intention to contact Mr. Lucier in person to discuss these points.

Barstow then moved that the Senate appoint an ad hoc committee to propose a simple, direct, self-additive, self-pruning procedure for naming members of the Graduate Faculty. Following a second he described the current Graduate Faculty as a private club run in a self-perpetuating fashion by arbitrary procedures. He cited in support of his statement that fact that "of the twenty faculty members in the School of Business, which school actually teaches as many as or more graduate courses than any other on campus, only four are members of the Graduate Faculty. Of these four, one is dead, one does not teach any graduate courses as a matter of choice, one teaches very few graduate courses, and the fourth is the only one who actually teaches graduate courses on a regular basis."

During the discussion, the purview of the Senate in this area was questioned. President Weaver pointed out that the Senate had formulated and the Board of Control had accepted a statement defining the Graduate Faculty (see page 361, Senate Minutes) and, thus, it should be within its rights to propose modifications thereto.

A heated discussion continued for some time on the appropriateness of some of Barstow's remarks. Finally, Hodek moved to table the motion. His motion was seconded and passed by a vote of 16 Yes, 4 No.

Hodek then asked President Weaver to invite Dean Yerg to attend the next Senate meeting in order that he might be present when the matter is again brought up.

 

The meeting was adjourned at 9:35 p.m.

 

Ralph S. Horvath
Secretary