THE
university SENATE OF
MICHIGAN TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY
Minutes of Meeting 450
21 March 2007
Synopsis:
The Senate
(1) heard reports from Mary Durfee on the Honors Institute and AQIP
(2) heard that the spring election will occur soon
(3) heard that the Search Committee for the Dean of Engineering has made a recommendation to the Provost
(4) heard that the Search Committee for the Dean of the College of Sciences and Arts has held its first meeting and is chaired by Mark Gockenbach, with Susan Amato as the vice chair
(5) learned that the Provost Search Committee has announced the schedule for the four semi-finalists; each candidate will present two public forums.
(6) heard a report by Brenda Helminen on the presidential evaluation
(7) passed Proposal 21-07, Amendment to Proposal 16-97, Minors in Degree Programs to Establish a Residency Requirement
(8) passed Proposal 22-07, Academic and Provisional Calendar 2008-09 and 2009-10
(9) accepted an editorial change from the lawyer on Proposal 13-06 on the extension of the tenure clock
(10) introduced Proposal 23-07 to change Michigan Tech's Policy Regarding the Required Number of Members of the Master of Science Committees from 4 to 3.
1. CALL TO
ORDER AND ROLL CALL
President Sloan called the University Senate Meeting 450 to order at 5:30 pm on Wednesday, 21 March 2007, in Room B45 EERC.
Secretary Glime called roll. Absent were At-large Senator Larry Sutter and representatives from Army/Air Force ROTC and Geological & Mining Eng. & Sci. Liaisons in attendance were Becky Christianson (Staff Council), Cailee Pearson (USG), and Nick Nanninga (GSC). Academic Services C, Advancement, and Auxiliaries currently have no elected representatives.
2. RECOGNITION OF VISITORS
Guests included Susanne Kilpela (Fine Arts), Dave Reed (Provost), and Mary Durfee (Asst. Provost).
3. APPROVAL OF AGENDA
President Sloan added item 8c, Tenure clock change, to the agenda.
Waddell MOVED and Miller seconded the motion to approve the agenda. The motion to approve as modified PASSED on voice vote with no dissent.
4. Presentation: honors institute and aqip by Mary Durfee (Asst. Provost)
Durfee stated that this was the second year of the Honors Institute. The founder group of 2005 started with 87 students and now has 79. The 2006 group started with 79 and now has 75. The retention rate is 93%, whereas the university rate for all students (including honors students) with similar qualifications is 83%.
The Madam Curie class starting fall 2007 has 10 applicants so far, whereas only 2 had applied by this time last year.
Durfee's best guess for graduation is that about 50% of the honors students will graduate in the Honors Institute. One reason for not qualifying is the 3.5 GPA needed. Another is that students have found it difficult to complete the contract as initially defined. Originally, students were required to design and complete a special project, but it had to be in connection with a course. The course connection was problematic and has been modified instead to be an independent course with 0 credits. The students like this approach better and several have already developed contract projects since the change.
The Honors Institute students have recently elected officers for the first time and have taken responsibility for their own goals in the program. They are developing better guidelines for the contract and showing excitement for having responsibility for new Honors Institute students.
Durfee presented parameters by which the goals of the institute might be measured. These include an increased interest in scholarship applications, SURF, and ultimately graduate school. The program aims to provide student leadership and enrichment opportunities.
The students have also established a discussion thread. Their discussions have included suggested speakers, a chain link haiku, and a challenge to write the shortest story with at least three plot twists.
Nancy Auer's honors perspectives group designed a fish game that they are trying to commercialize and may even earn real dollars.
They took a field trip to the
Durfee also reported on AQIP (Academic Quality Improvement Program). There are currently four action projects in progress. The Enhancing Learning Spaces Committee, chaired by Dr. Chelley Vician (SBE) has been concentrating on classroom improvement, but they are not restricted to that.
The Faculty Diversity Committee, chaired by Dr. Bill Bulleit (CEE), is developing ways to help increase diversity applications and hires, including briefing search committees and debriefing candidates after the search.
The Space Inventory Committee, chaired by Dr. Walt Milligan (CIO), has worked with the Enhancing Learning Spaces Committee on some issues. They have determined that there are 13 different databases on space, but that none is regularly maintained, they are not mutually compatible, are not user friendly, and no one is responsible for maintaining any of them.
The final project will start in April and is being called the Carbon Counting Committee. Students will be given data from a variety of sources on campus and charged with developing a model and making recommendations for the campus. One objective is to find ways to use these models and data in the curriculum.
Durfee will coordinate the reports for reporting to AQIP, and these four small committees will evaluate the reports. The final report will be submitted in the spring of 2009.
5. Presentation: presidential survey results by Brenda Helminen (Chair, Administrative Policy
Committee)
Helminen stated that the Board of Control had asked for direct feedback to the criteria being used by the Board to evaluate the President, so this year's evaluation instrument specifically asked for evaluation of how well the President met those criteria.
The current Senate policy requires that the survey be conducted in the fall, but that never seems to be possible. The committee will be recommending that the Senate policy be changed.
The committee will place the numerical results on the web, but the comments go only to the President and the Board of Control.
The number of participants was disappointing at 104 total, about 12% of those eligible, with the number of faculty and staff respondents being about equal. The previous survey had 156 participants. The committee considered several possible contributing factors: problems with the web CT interface and being busy.
The first 16 questions were the same as last year, making comparisons possible, but no real changes appeared. The highest ranking on the numerical questions were the responses to supporting quality education, quality research, and representing the University well, with means of 3.29. The lowest ranking was for creating an effective senior administrative team (2.48). Another low ranking was for the Board of Control criterion of providing an outstanding work environment (2.55).
The last question on the survey asked for suggestions for additional questions and improvements to the survey. Participants suggested eighteen questions.
Senator Flaspohler asked if there was any possible incentive to get a greater response.
Senator Miller stated that she asked herself, regarding some of the comment questions, "how could I possibly know answers to these questions?"
Senator Vitton reported that in prior years he had had no problems using the evaluation software, but this year he tried three times and couldn't get the program to work.
Senator Waddell agreed that initially he couldn't get into the site; when he did succeed the last day of the survey, he was working late at night and at midnight the program wouldn't let him complete the survey.
Helminen stated that by the next survey the faculty will have to submit grades on web CT, and training programs will most likely be provided.
Waddell said that some of the questions assumed knowledge of quantitative information and that if such information were included in these questions, respondents would be better prepared to respond. For example, if statistics on changes in minority enrollments were included in the question about the President's success in achieving diversity goals, respondents would be better prepared to make reasonable judgments about the President's accomplishments in this respect.
Senator Johnson stated that we need to relate performance to measurable criteria.
Helminen responded it would probably be helpful to put the metrics into the form instead of in the long presidential statement.
Senator Smith expressed concern about the low response and that the data have no meaning when they represent so few respondents. He stated that he would consider it a failure when the response is under 50%. The last Harvard response was 99%, but they wanted to get rid of their president. He had posed the problem to his students and they had a number of suggestions that could increase the response. We also need to remove the WebCT hurdle; there are other programs that could do the job.
Senator Luck asked how many paper evaluations were submitted. Helminen responded there were four.
Luck stated that some people were reluctant to submit an evaluation because it was not anonymous. Helminen stated that she had initially called it anonymous, but was corrected because of the necessary verification required to get into web CT; it could not be anonymous. She had changed the statement to "confidential."
Luck asked how many responses there had been in prior years. Someone from the prior committee responded there were 118 the first year.
Smith stated that he had polled 20 people. Eleven did not participate because they were concerned that it wasn't anonymous; the rest just didn't care.
Senator Miskioglu asked if the results correlated with action of the Board. Helminen stated that they had shared the results with the Executive Team. Sloan stated that the officers could ask when they met with the Board, which had not happened yet this academic year. Secretary Glime added that the fact that the Board had asked to have the evaluation include their criteria was encouraging.
Helminen agreed to put the numerical results of the survey on the web. Their availability and location will be announced later.
6. approval of minutes from meeting 449
Secretary Glime reported that Ingrid Cheney had subsequently corrected her statement that the increase in health care costs for MTU had been 6%; it was actually only 4.5%. This information will be added parenthetically to the minutes. A second change in the minutes is on the last paragraph of page 2 of the minutes. The paragraph ends with "Hendricks responded that Medicare only pays what MTU doesn't cover. Therefore, it isn't very much." Cheney stated that Hendricks had not made this statement and that it wasn't true. Since we could not determine who made the statement, and it was a misrepresentation, It will be stricken from the minutes.
Miller requested a change in the third paragraph of Pat Joyce's presentation. Instead of "MTU is second in the state in athlete success" it should read "MTU is second in the state in athlete graduation rate."
Velat MOVED and Turnquist seconded the motion to approve the minutes of Meeting 449 as modified. The motion PASSED on voice vote with no dissent.
7. President’s Report
Elections: The spring election cycle continues. Madhu Vable and Barry Solomon are candidates for Senator-at-large (faculty); Beth Hoy , Nick Koszykowski, and Mary Cruickshank Peed are candidates for Senator-at-large (staff). The following units need to nominate senators and alternates for 2007-2010: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Computer Science, Forestry (working on an alternate), Materials Science and Engineering , Unit 3: Academic Services C, Unit 4: Auxiliaries and Cultural Enrichment, Unit 5: Admissions, Alumni Relations, Financial Aid, Records and Registration, Career Center Unit 7: Advancement, Communications, and Unit 8: IT, ETS, Facilities Group. Unit 9: Library, and Unit 10: Exercise Science, Health and Physical Education The Senate Vice President is coordinating an approach to these staff units.
At the 18 April meeting the Senate will elect officers, who must be Senators for 2007-2008. The Senate Elections Committee, chaired by Sean Clancey, and the Senate Executive Committee are seeking nominations for Senate officers.
Searches: The search committee for the Dean of the
The provost search committee has announced the schedule for the four semi-finalist candidates.
Each candidate will present two public
forums: at 12 :10 of the first day and 12 :30 of the second day. Please attend these forums
and encourage your constituents to do so and to provide feedback to the search
committee. Not only will the next provost provide major leadership to the
future of Michigan Tech, but also this is the highest position for which the
university community has been able to provide input in nearly a decade.
President Sloan
encouraged Senators to get people to attend the provost forums.
8. old Business
a) Proposal 21-07, Amendment to Proposal 16-97, Minors in Degree Programs, to Establish a Residency Requirement
Senator Gorman MOVED to approve the proposal and offered a friendly amendment that clarified the intent of the proposal. The original wording "A student also must complete at least six credits of 3000–level or higher Minor-required courses at Michigan Tech." with "At least six credits of the 3000-level or higher Minor-required courses must be taken at Michigan Tech."
President Sloan ruled that the amendment was editorial.
Smith seconded the motion.
Smith inquired if the intent is for the course to be an MTU course or if it is to require residence. Gorman responded that the meaning is defined in the proposal.
The proposal PASSED on voice vote of academic Senators with no dissent.
b) Proposal 22-07, Academic and Provisional Calendar 2008-09 and 2009-10
Kern MOVED and Pollins seconded the motion to approve the proposal. The motion PASSED on voice vote with no opposition.
c) Lawyer change to Proposal 13-06 on the extension of the tenure clock.
The Senate
Assistant distributed revised wording of Proposal 13-06.
Sloan reported that in the legal review the lawyers had changed some of the wording for clarification. The Senate-approved proposal was worded in such a way that grandchildren could be considered in extension of the tenure clock, and that was not the intent.
It was the officers' intent to include this proposal on the ballot for the spring election. Before that could be done, it had to be approved by the Senate. Sloan suggested several options:
1) Rule the changes as editorial and consider the proposal as already passed.
2) Consider it as a new proposal, giving two alternatives.
a) Pass tonight as an emergency proposal.
b) Consider the presentation tonight as the first reading and put it on the agenda of the next meeting, thus delaying the faculty vote until fall.
Johnson MOVED and Glime seconded the motion that the changes be considered editorial.
Miller asked if use of the word "spouse" is a problem.
Waddell asked for clarification of the phrase "born to." He asked whether a child was considered "born to" a candidate even if the candidate was not married to a partner who physically gave birth.
Provost Reed stated that
the
Glime questioned why this is considered a benefit. Reed responded that the lawyer had interpreted the extension of tenure to be a benefit. Johnson added that the wording is a legal issue and we can't change it. Flaspohler asked if the extension is specifically interpreted as a benefit. Reed responded that the attorney had interpreted it that way.
The motion PASSED on voice vote with one vote in opposition.
9. new business
a) Proposal 23-07 to change Michigan Tech's Policy Regarding the Required Number of Members of the Master of Science Committees
The proposal
changes the required number of committee members from four to three, with one
being from outside the department. Kern
stated that the Instructional Policy Committee had reviewed the proposal and
found no problems with it. The proposal
permits individual departments to require a larger number of members.
10. Adjournment
The meeting adjourned at 6:55 pm.
Respectfully Submitted by Janice M. Glime
Secretary of the University Senate