Minutes of the Meeting of the Faculty Senate

Monday, February 9, 2015

Members Present: Ahmed,Bakeer, Barut, Bergman, Brooks, Bryant, Castro, Celestin, Deckeer, Dehner, Horn, Huckstadt, Hughes, Hunsicker, Johnson, Klunder, Mason, Moore-Jansen, Mosack, Muthitachareon, Peery, Rokosz, Ross, Shaw, Woods, Yildirim, Uy

Members Absent:: Adler, Chang, Close, Hanawalt, Houseman, Jin, Lu, Ramanan, Taher, Thiessen, Trechak, Yao, Yeager

Members Excused:: Walker

I. Call to Order: The meeting was called to order by President Mehmet Barut @ 3:30 pm

II. Informal Statements and Proposals - none

III. Approval of the Minutes: The minutes for January 26, 2015. were accepted
IV. Committee Reports

A. Rules Committee Peer Moore-Jansen, chair reported that we still have one more opening on the Undergraduate Committee.
B. Faculty Affairs Committee: John Perry, Chair, reported that the committee reviewed by request Policy 4.13 about Tenure and Promotion timeline regarding concern about peer pressure discouraging untenured faculty from applying for extention to the tenure clock. The committee decided that the policy was clear as it stands without specific examples. They were worried that examples might actually limit the application of the policy to only those example cases provided. The committee suggests that such a concern can be addressed through training instead of changing the wording of the policy. Chairs should receive more training that this is a right that faculty have.

V. Approval of Proposal for endorsement of alternative credentials
鈥� Motion from the Executive Committee: "The Faculty Senate supports the concept of Departments developing and implementing alternative credentials"
Senator Horn moved (second, Castro) to add the word recommend prior to 鈥榠mplementing' to 鈥榬ecommending'. Approved.
Amended motion: "The Faculty Senate supports the concept of Departments developing and recommending alternative credentials" Approved.

* It was noted that the next step is to discuss how to advance development of this motion. This is a departmental issue, this would give departments autonomy to develop proposals that would go through the usual curriculum change process.

VI. Updates:
a. Student Early Alert System Report [David Wright, reported that:
鈥� Warning alerts on four measures: attendance, assignments, participation, exams.
鈥� Includes the entire student body.
鈥� Tested in LAS Spring 2014.
* Data presented from Fall 2014 implementation for the whole university.
* total of 390 classes that participated (230 instructors). This was 68% of students enrolled on 20th day.
鈥� This is a voluntary activity, but there was a lot of buy-in among faculty.
鈥� Data shows % at risk across different demographics - class level, colleges, and type of warning, etc.
鈥� Approx 25% removed themselves from class after being notified of being at risk, OR the faculty took away the risk flag because performance improved. It is important to recongize that faculty can effectively intervene and change student behavior in a beneficial way.
鈥� David expresed thanks to faculty for their voluntary participation to make this first semester successful.
Q: How can this impact admissions? This is a discussion to have with admissions.
Q: Can we see if getting a particular grade is sufficient to successfully move forward? The student success initiative should have this capacity.

b. Initiatives to advance strategic planning goal # 7, 鈥淐reate a new model of assessment, incentive and reward processes to accomplish our vision and goals鈥� All of the Deans gave an update on what is being done in their college regarding goal 7. Some have done extensive work toward implementing this goal and others are in process.

VII. As may arise: none

VIII. Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 4:35.