MSC Faculty Senate—Minutes of April 17, 2003 Meeting

SENATORS: Sheri Arosteguy, Barbara Borst, Jim Buckley, Richard Cowden, Mike Gizzi, Phil Kavanagh, Steve Murray, Doug O'Roark, Cindy Thomas, Russ Walker, Carrie McVean Waring, Mary Zimmerer.

GUESTS: Cathy Bonan-Hamada, Linda Curran, Matt Dahl, Ken Davis, Sam Gingerich, Valerie Horton, Duane Hrncir, Gary Looft, Gene Starbuck, Hasson Tavossi, Holly Teal

Senate President Doug O'Roark opened the meeting at 3:30 pm.

I. ANNOUNCEMENTS

The senate received a summary of the April 14 General Education 25 meeting prepared by Gayla Jo Slauson (CFAC’s representative on the GE-25 committee). Many of the courses that Mesa State submitted for the guaranteed-transfer list were not approved, but may be resubmitted. CCHE has agreed to revise the list of categories on the transfer list to be communications, mathematics, arts and humanities, social and behavioral sciences, and physical and natural sciences.

Jim Buckley shared with the Senate some concerns expressed by Chad Grabow (his department’s representative to the Curriculum Committee) about the collection of data from alumni for use in program reviews. Chad observed that the information that we need is not being accumulated. We should identify the data needed and start the process of collecting it so that it will be available for future program reviews. Sam Gingerich indicated that some of the information is collected by the Alumni Association.

The Board of Trustees is meeting April 24-25 at Western State College in Gunnison.

Doug introduced Linda Curran, the new Vice President of Financial and Administrative Services. Linda was once on the faculty at CU-Denver, and comes to us from the Office of State Colleges, where she was the Vice President of Finance.

Valerie Horton (Director of Tomlinson Library) reported that the state has cut funding to public libraries by 86%. This in turn triggers the loss of about $2 million from the federal government. Tomlinson Library won’t be affected except for the potential loss of the state courier service for interlibrary loan. The current draft of the state’s budget for the next fiscal year still has funding for the courier. If the courier is cut from the state’s budget, Valerie anticipates that the college and university libraries will join together to cover the costs.

A proposal from the Academic Policies committee was added to the agenda as item 3.

II. MEETING MINUTES

A motion was made to approve the January 23 minutes of the Curriculum Committee (Buckley/Gizzi). The motion passed.

A motion was made to approve the March 13 minutes of the Curriculum Committee (Waring/Thomas). The motion passed.

A motion was made to receive the March 27 minutes of the Curriculum Committee (Zimmerer/Thomas). The motion passed.

A motion was made to approve the April 3 minutes of the Faculty Senate (Thomas/Cowden). The motion passed.

III. ACADEMIC POLICIES

Ken Davis (Chair, Academic Policies) presented a proposal to make certain revisions to the college’s requirement for language courses under the Bachelor of Arts degree distinction. The current requirement states that students must complete at least six credit hours in one language from a list of mostly 100-level courses. The committee proposes to modify this to a requirement to complete two sequential courses, which may include upper division courses approved by the chair of Languages, Literature, and Communications. Following discussion, Ken agreed to take the proposal back to the committee for clarification of the wording.

IV. REDUCTION IN FORCE POLICY

Draft revisions to the reduction in force policy in the State Colleges’ Handbook for Professional Personnel were distributed. The revisions were written by a lawyer in the Colorado attorney general’s office, John Sleeman.

Sam Gingerich explained that the administrators at Adams State College and Western State College had requested a review of the current policy. They may need to make reductions in the near future and want a solid mechanism in place. Sam emphasized that Mesa is in a much better situation and is not as likely to need a workforce reduction.

Faculty raised concern about Section XI of the proposed revisions, in which tenure is no longer named as a conclusive factor in determining the order in which faculty members could be released. The reasoning behind this change is that junior faculty may have a skill set that is more relevant to the current needs of a discipline. Faculty also raised concern about the deletion of the section on reemployment rights, which required the institution to offer future vacant positions to qualified people who had been layed off. A motion was made to recommend that Cathy Bonan-Hamada (Mesa’s representative to the Trustee’s Governance Commission) pursue having the reemployment rights retained.

V. OMBUDSMAN

Sam Gingerich expressed his belief that there is a need for an ombudsman position here at Mesa. He is considering creating a quarter-time or half-time position that would begin in the fall semester. The ombudsman would be a mediator for complaints rather than being a part of the formal grievance or appeal process. Appropriate training would be arranged for the person who fills the position.

The meeting was adjourned at 4:40.