President Adler called the meeting to order at 7:08 p.m. on June 4, 1990 in rooms 105A and B of the Memorial Union Building.

Roll: Twenty three members/alternates were present. Absent were Martha Janners, Cheryl DePuydt, Pat Martin, Jonathan Henkel, Terry Monson, and John Daavettila. Continuing members President Stein and Provost Powers were not present.

Visitors: No visitors present wished to be recognized.

Minutes of Meeting No. 174 (May 2, 1990) were accepted with several corrections. The second page of the Vice President's Report (Appendix A) was inadvertently omitted. Dr. Dresch offered an addendum to statements attributed to him (Appendix B). On page 3044 in the Vice President's Report the word "quite" should be "quiet". On the same page in Provost Powers presentation reference to the College of Forest and Natural Resources should be the College of Forest and Natural Sciences. On page 3075 under item 1b "distinguised" should be corrected to "distinguished." And on page 3083 "Chorine"should be corrected to "Chlorine."

A. Advisory Group on Economic Development Activity

President Stein requested Senate consideration of the formation of an advisory group on University activities associated with economic development activities (see Appendix C - Available by Request from the Senate Office). A request was made that in addition to the eight issues cited by President Stein the issue of ownership and disposition of intellectual property also be considered.

A motion was made to form a standing Senate committee titled Economic Development Advisory Group Committee. The motion was amended to change the title to the Ad Hoc Economic Development Advisory Group.

The motion was passed without dissent on a voice vote. John Lowther volunteered to chair the committee; and Allen Niemi, Peter Laks, Davis Hubbard, and Konrad Heuvers volunteered to be members.

The Committee's charge is to recommend potential actions and procedures to be followed by the University in economic development activities. The Committee will advise the Senate which will in turn forward recommendations to the University President. These activities are issues on university campuses around the country that are becoming issues at MTU. President Stein is concerned that we do not have any policies on some of these issues at this time. For example, how does a faculty member's formation of a computer software company relate to that individual's faculty position?

B. Resale of Complementary Examination Copies of Textbooks

There was an extensive discussion about the letter from the Association of American Publishers (Appendix C - Available by Request from the Senate Office). Some points raised were:

1. Any unsolicited material distributed through the mail becomes property of the person receiving the material which can be disposed of as that person wishes.
2. Faculty members in some departments are virtually inundated with unsolicited and unwanted complementary copies of textbooks which are frequently totally unrelated to the classes they teach.
3. Most faculty members have never seen the alleged special return mailers.
4. Some textbook distributors have quotas of complementary copies to distribute and fill this quota to faculty members who do not necessarily want copies.

A motion to send a letter to the Assoc. of American Publishers relating some of the concerns expressed by Senators (to be drafted by Professor Suits) was passed without opposition on a voice vote.

C. Report of the Investigation by Michael Lewiston to the Board of Control.

The motion: "The Senate encourages the Board of Control to release the results of independent council Michael Lewiston's investigation of ESI/Ventures. If the report contains items that, if made public, would prejudice future litigation, then the report with those items summarized in a non-prejudicial form be released." was made and seconded. This motion was amended to "A letter containing the above statement be drafted and sent to the Board of Control."

The motion as amended was passed unopposed on a voice vote.

D. Proposal 2-89, A Proposal to Establish a Formal Evaluation Procedure for the MTU Administration

Senator Hubbard submitted some proposed changes to Proposal 2-89 that arose from a meeting with Board of Control member Dr. Jaaskelainen who was acting as liaison to the Institutional Evaluation Committee during the process of developing a proposed evaluation procedure of the senior University administrators (Appendix F - Available by Request from the Senate Office). Senator Hubbard expressed that it was his understanding that since the Board of Control passed a motion to encourage the Senate's proposal for an evaluation of the administration by the faculty, and since this is part of the minutes of the Board of Control meeting, the Senate is authorized to begin the evaluation procedure as amended by suggestions from Dr. Jaaskelainen upon passage of Proposal 2-89. This is the course of action that the Institutional Evaluation Committee recommends.

Dr. Jaaskelainen indicated at a meeting with the Committee that it must be clearly stated that the evaluation is a faculty evaluation. Consequently, the Board of Control would not have members on the evaluation commission as indicated in the Proposal. Dr. Jaaskelainen further indicated that the Board of Control wished to see some additional documentation. Specifically, how other administrators, what kinds of survey instruments will be used, who will be interviewed, what kinds of documentation will be requested, etc. The current proposal does not contain sufficient information about how the evaluation will be performed.

It was suggested that an annual open forum by the University President would be more effective than a performance evaluation in opening lines of communication between the administration and faculty. It was further suggested that an annual forum should be a part of university life and did not preclude a review of the administration.

A motion was made to amend Proposal 2-89 by replacing the word faculty with MTU Senate (page 1 lines 2 and 7, page 2 line 16).

During the discussion it was indicated that the Board did not find the procedure found on pages 4 and 5 of the proposal to be sufficiently specific. It was recommended that the first three pages be cleaned up so that work on the procedures can go forward. The Board wants an evaluation procedure that is useful to them. As it stands the procedure is general and left up to a proposed evaluation commission. Furthermore, the Proposal's conclusion was found to be fairly offensive to the Board and should also be omitted. There is the additional problem of who provides funds to perform the evaluation. Therefore it is important that the evaluation be carefully constructed to be useful to the Board so that whatever funding is necessary is forthcoming.

There was considerable discussion about how frequently an evaluation would be performed. Several senators favored an annual review whereas others favored review at three to four year intervals. The issue of evaluation frequency revolved around the kind of evaluation to be performed. If the evaluation was simply a questionnaire survey, then an annual review might be appropriate. However, if the evaluation was an in-depth review, then an annual review could prove to be onerous.

The motion to amend Proposal 2-89 [see above] was passed on a voice vote without opposition.

There was objection to the President's ability to influence the selection of an evaluation commission by deleting one name submitted to the Senate from each department, school, and one from those submitted by research institutes and academic services.

It was suggested that the Proposal as amended could be presented to the Board as a procedure for establishing an evaluation commission. The Institutional Evaluation Committee could then refine the evaluation procedure and provide documentation at a later date.

A motion was made to return Proposal 2-89 to the Institutional Evaluation Committee to develop a complete document which contains an evaluation procedure and documentation requested by the Board of Control.

During the discussion Senator Hubbard stated that faculty evaluation of senior administrators is not performed at Michigan State, University of Michigan, and Clarkson. It is done at Wayne State and University of California - San Diego. There is a lot of work yet to be done before specific survey instruments and specific procedures are fully developed and documented.

President Adler stated that ". . . an open bridge has been opened to the Board . . . that did not exist previously. . . . It is incumbent on us to send an appropriately framed document that has the elements that they [the Board] are asking for. In fact this document does not have the elements that they made it very clear to me needed to be in such a document for their approval."

Senator Melton requested that the Senate tidy up some of the changes in the proposal that have been discussed and clarify what is needed to complete the document to the satisfaction of the Senate.

The motion to return Proposal 2-89 to the Institutional Evaluation Committee was approved on a voice vote with some senators voting against the motion.

A motion was made to change the number of members on an evaluation commission selected from colleges from two to three, to change from two to one the number of nominees forwarded by each department to the Senate, to strike the sentence "The University President may delete one name submitted from each department . . . and one name among those nominated by the academic services, and to exclude Board of Control members from membership on the evaluation commission." The motion was approved on a voice vote without opposition.

A motion was made to change the frequency of evaluation to two years. A suggestion was made to delay a decision on the frequency until a procedure is developed. The motion was amended to change the frequency of evaluation to three years, or more often if necessary, as determined by the Senate.

The motion was approved on a voice vote with some opposition.

A motion that the evaluation procedure requires that the evaluation commission will seek input by an objective canvas of the entire Senate constituency was approved on a voice vote without opposition.

By general consensus the final two pages of the proposal would be eliminated and the evaluation procedure would be reformulated.