MINUTES OF MEETING NUMBER 82
OF The
Senate OF mICHIGAN tECHNOLOGical university

30 April 1975

(Senate Minute pages: 1031-1044)

Meeting No. 82 was called to order on Wednesday, April 30, 1975 at 7:04 p.m. in the Faculty Lounge by President R.S. Horvath.

The roll was called by A.S. Weaver on behalf of the Secretary, H. F. Nufer, who was excused. Twenty-two members or alternates were present. Absent were Alexander (BA), Danielson (IWR), Doane (IMR), Gibson (ME), Miller (AL), Nelson (HU), Nufer (S), Wyble (AL), and Juntunen (AFROTC).

 

The Minutes of Meeting No. 81 were approved after the following corrections:

Baillod said that two changes should be made to Appendix A, "Results of Teacher Evaluation Survey" (see page 1029): Under Item 2, Civil Engineering, the first column, "Formal Teacher Evaluation Policy in Effect," should be changed from "No" to "No" with two asterisks (denoting that "Student Council evaluations made on voluntary basis" are applicable); and the third column, "Use of Teacher Evaluation for Considering Tenure, Reappointment, Promotion, or Improving Instruction," should be changed from "Unknown" to "Yes" with three asterisks (denoting "At request of teacher only").

 

President Horvath said that he had no President's Report to make except to note that the Secretary, Nufer, had to be out of town and Senator Weaver was substituting for the latter this evening.

 

Reports on Meetings of the Academic Council and the Board of Control were delivered by Vice President Julien, who attended such meetings as the Senate observer as follows:

  1. He reported that the Academic Council met three times since the last Senate meeting.

    1. At the first meeting, on April 1, the Mathematics Department reported on the placement of students in the algebra and trigonometry sequence, based on the examinations given at the beginning of the school year. Approximately 80% of those students receiving D's or F's in Calculus 150, 151, and 152, had failed one of the first two tests. Many of the failing students had come into Calculus 150 without having taken Mathematics 130 or 131. A recommendation is that all advisers should look more closely at their students who have failed the placement exams and perhaps suggest that such students enroll in Math 130 or 131.

    2. Suspending class sessions on Good Friday, "K Day" and "Homecoming" was also mentioned. The question was whether such releasing of classes was meant to be at 12 noon or 1 p.m. This topic was discussed but not resolved.

    3. The question of evaluation forms and centralization of records was raised. I will discuss this later in my report.

    4. The suggestion was made that, instead of separate awards for "teaching" and "research", there might be a combining under one award, for a "distinguished professor" to be presented annually at Tech. There was no action taken on this suggestion.

    5. At the second meeting, on April 15, the 1976-77 tentative copy of the school calendar was discussed. The "number of days" in each quarter (for fall, winter and spring) will be 48, 50.5 and 48.5 respectively for a total of 147 days, with 15 final examination days additionally.

    6. The question of student involvement in faculty reappointments was raised. The result of this discussion was that it is very difficult to use "student evaluations" meaningfully in faculty reappointments.

    7. On year-end funds: the point was made that, if any departments have excesses, such should be spent wisely.

    8. At the final meeting on April 28, the subject of computer terminals for the planned Electrical Engineering Building was discussed, with respect to purchasing of such terminals at a low price.

    9. There was a request that a "position list" on projected faculty members for the coming year be processed; also, the question was raised as to when more information would be coming from the state legislature so that the "salary review" preparations could be made.

    10. The Michigan State Academic Officers reported on English and math contents in high school curricula, and how such affected Michigan Tech students who had poor English and math backgrounds.

    11. On faculty-exchange programs: there should be information available in the near future on faculty exchanges within the state of Michigan.

    12. There was a question on formal job descriptions for positions on campus with respect to accrediting and legal matters. Some of these need to be more defined.

    13. On the centralizing of records (see paragraph 3 above): a lawyer will be on campus shortly to discuss with departmental heads the legal requirements for that proposed system.

    At this point, a question was raised from the Senate floor with regard to the difficulty encountered by students in obtaining their "placement exam scores" before classes begin. Julien said that the matter was also discussed by the Academic Council, with one of the suggestions being the possibility of all students starting the term with the same course -- say, in math -- for the first two or three weeks; then, those who had failed the "placement exam" could then drop back to take Math 130 or 131, while those who passed that exam would move into Calculus 150.

  2. Julien said that the Board of Control meeting was reported in the local newspapers. While he was unable to attend that meeting, he did check with Joe Romig, the Board of Control Secretary, and was informed that the newspaper accounts of what transpired at the session were fairly accurate. One item of particular significance was discussed at the board meeting: looking to the future and the ways of directing Tech's efforts accordingly.

 

Committee Reports

A. Curricular Policy

Spain said that the committee finally completed a list of Humanities/Social Sciences electives (see Appendix A - Available by Request from the Senate Office). He said that the Curricular Policy Committee has the responsibility, delegated to it by the Senate, to review this list. The review was begun two years ago. In the interim, a School of Engineering committee made its own review of such electives; thus, the Curricular Policy Committee waited to see what the Engineering committee's recommendations would be. The Curricular Policy Committee felt that the Engineering recommendations were compatible for the whole university and thus essentially "rubber stamped" those recommendations. This list is now submitted to the Senate for information purposes; it has already been sent to the Academic Vice President for consideration in the upcoming (1976-77) catalog. Spain said that Senator DelliQuadri has pointed out that a Business Administration course -- "Industrial Labor Relations" -- is not on the electives list. Spain added that no such lists, dating back some years, included that particular course. DelliQuadri responded that the course in question has never been on the list due to the earlier requirement that every student must enroll in "Industrial Labor Relations." Spain suggested that, if the School of Business desires to have that course added to the electives list next year, a recommendation should be submitted.

Spain also commented that a number of the committee members feel that the committee should essentially be reorganized next year. He than gave special recognition to four members for long service on the Curricular Policy Committee: Kenneth Alexander, Howard Anderson, Vern Johnson, and Bill Conrad. Spain recommended that the committee be reformed. Horvath thanked all of those members on behalf of the Senate for their service.

B. Instructional Policy - Baillod said that there was no business before the committee to report.

C. Institutional Evaluation - Wettack, speaking for Quinones, said that there was no report to make at this time.

D. Academic Calendar-Structure - Weaver said that the committee's report was made at the January meeting.

E. Audio-Visual Instructional Material - No Report.

F. Dependents Scholarship

Julien said that there had been no further input from the faculty on the subject of a dependents scholarship program at Tech. Horvath said that there does not seem to be any real interest on the part of the faculty to adopt such a scholarship program in exchange for receiving salary raises; thus, he thanked Julien for chairing the committee and disbanded it.

G. Elections Committee

Horvath said that Senator Doane could not be present tonight. He then read the following letter from her, which will serve as her report:

I will not be able to attend this meeting as I will be out of town for a professional meeting. I have asked W.A. Hockings, the alternate senator for IMR, to attend. [Horvath interjected here that Hockings was also unable to attend this evening.]

I wish to present two reports [See Appendixes B and C to these minutes - Available by Request from the Senate Office).

  1. The Senator-at-Large election and run-off election have been completed. R.F. Timm and V.W. Snyder are hereby declared Senators-At-Large for the 1975-78 term of office. I wish to thank G.E. Bahrman and M.A. Townsend, who conducted this election.

  2. The Academic Calendar-Structure poll has been completed and tabulated (Appendix C). I wish to thank Jon Steele, Computer Science major, for his help.

  3. Departments with senators whose terms of office expire in 1975 have been notified, so that elections can be conducted for new Senate representatives [Horvath commented that he had received a phone call from Virginia Doane in which she said that three of the eight departments needing to hold such elections had done so, with the following results: Physical Education elected R.E. ElRite; Social Sciences, H.F. Nufer; and Mining Engineering, C.K. Olson].

Horvath then reviewed the tabulation of the Academic Calendar-Structure poll which showed that 223 of 305 ballots distributed to faculty members were returned (for 73%). The first choice among the faculty members was the "Late In - Late Out Quarters" (with no split sessions), which received 42% of the vote; then the "Early In - Early Out Semesters" (also with no split sessions), with 31% of the respondents. On a "weighted average scoring" basis of 0 to 5 points, the "Quarters" approach received 2.60; the "Semesters" 1.92. He also quoted some "additional comments" included by respondents, such as the suggestion of a "four-one-four" calendar (i.e. essentially a two semester system with a short January session of, say, three weeks, for special projects: TV and film shows, concentrated courses, language labs, travel, and others).

A discussion on the above faculty poll ensued. Weaver noted that the Academic Calendar-Structure Committee had made the recommendation that the student body also be surveyed on the latter group's feelings concerning a proposed calendar, and that the Lode was considering the possibility of running a series of articles on the committee's report to the Senate (See Appendix B, pages 1001-1013 - Available by Request from the Senate Office). Weaver added his concern that it appeared the Lode had taken no "follow-up action" to publicize that report, and he feared that whatever calendar approach finally adopted would be a faculty decision with no student input. Horvath responded that he, personally, had been contacted by the Lode editor on the possibility of publishing the committee report either in a series of articles or in a condensed form; however, there had been no follow-up by the Lode, or any other student group and Horvath felt that it was not the function of the Senate to poll the students. Hennessy moved that the faculty should be repolled on Items A and C (on "Late Quarters" and "Early Quarters" respectively) to see which of those two options was most favored. The motion was seconded and, following a brief discussion, passed by a vote of 13 yes, 8 No. Phillps said that he would check with the Lode to see if there is interest in conducting a student poll on a proposed calendar. Horvath suggested that the student might want to use the same format as the faculty poll. Weaver agreed on the need for uniformity in format. Spain pointed out that there might be difficulty in changing to the semester system, should the students desire semesters over the present quarter approach, that a change to semesters might involve, among other things, increased tuition costs. Horvath concluded by stating that he would ask the Elections Committee to conduct the repolling of the faculty in the near future.

H. Elections Procedure

DelliQuadri said that the committee had not heard of any procedural problems which arose in the last election. Horvath remarked that there had been an "indirect" problem: the fact that only one vote separated the second and third place candidates running for the two Senator-at-Large seats. Horvath said that a clearer-cut election might have been to have the run-off among the top three candidates instead of the final four. DelliQuadri recommended that the committee be discharged at this time. Horvath thanked the committee for its past efforts and accordingly dismissed the committee until future needs might arise.

I. Promotion Policy Review

Hennessy said that the Vice President for Academic Affairs had distributed some weeks ago the latter's generalized policy on promotion, which each department was then to consider and modify. Such modifications were to be returned to Dr. Stebbins after the departmental faculties had reviewed the policy. Stebbins responded that the review was to be conducted through the deans and departmental heads, with involvement of the faculty, but no schedule was specified by him as to when the respective reviews were to be completed. Hennessy said that he would check into this matter and report back to the Senate in the fall.

J. Roles of the Senate and Faculty Association

Stebler commented that the Faculty Association had surveyed the faculty relative to the role of that association. The results of that survey are being tabulated and will be available to the faculty later this spring at a Faculty Association luncheon, or at the first Senate meeting in the fall.

 

Old Business - None

 

New Business - None

 

The meeting was adjourned at 7:49 p.m.

 

H.F. Nufer
Secretary