Faculty Senate Minutes March 24, 2005

SENATORS: Rich Cowden, Cindy Thomas, Phil Kavanagh, Tom Acker, Bill McCracken, Tim Hatten, Gayla Jo Slauson, Larry Madsen, Jill Cordova, Barbara Borst, Tim Casey, Ellie Baldwin

MINUTES SECRETARY: Jessica Cowden

GUESTS: Laney Wooster, Duane Hrncir, Steve Murray, Hasson Tavossi, Don Carpenter, Chad Grabow, Morgan Bridge, Joseph Richards, Gig Leadbetter, Phil Gustafson, Gary Looft, Regis Tucci, Paula Nichols, Peter Ivanov, Dan Walker, Richard Vail (?), Harry Tiemann

I. ANNOUNCEMENTS

Two candidates for the position of Vice President of Academic Affairs will be brought on campus: Harrington on March 29 and Futhey on April 4. There was a third candidate who pulled out.

Linda Drexel is currently assembling the list of full-time faculty members eligible to vote for the Faculty Trustee.

Cowden and Casey gave an update from the Handbook Revision Committee. Their recommendations will be posted for the faculty to view for one week prior to their presentation to the Board in April. The faculty will also now be notified whenever Board initiated revisions are made to the Handbook.

II. MEETING MINUTES

There were a couple of typos on the February 3, 2005 Faculty Senate minutes.
The motion was made, seconded and passed to receive and approve the Faculty Senate minutes from February 3, 2005 as amended. (Thomas/Cowden)

III. REPORT FROM THE SALARY AND BENEFITS COMMITTEE (ELAINE WOOSTER and Chad Grabow)

The Salary and Benefits Committee was charged by the Senate with the task of compiling and analyzing salary data for tenured/tenure track, full-time temporary, and part-time temporary faculty at Mesa State College. What they found was that since the first year that no raises were given (in 2001), a deficit has occurred whereby the adjusted average salary is lower than the average salary in 2001 given adjustments for the national consumer price index. That decrease is equal to 8.34% for tenured/tenure track faculty and 7.73% for full and part-time temporary faculty. They also compared this data to the tuition increases since 2001 and found no correlation to show that tuition increases had gone towards faculty salaries. The average salary at other institutions across all ranks in the year 2004 was $54,000. At Mesa State the average was $42,000. Similarly, at community colleges with no ranks the average was $52,000, leaving Mesa State below average even when compared to community colleges. The purpose of the study was to inform the President and the new Board of Trustees of the results of the recession and the TABOR amendment.

IV. GENERAL EDUCATION REQUIREMENTS AND THE PERFORMANCE CONTRACT

Duane Hrncir informed the Senate that some schools have started signing the Performance Contract (a copy of which can be found on the CCHE website). He addressed the question of reviewing the objectives and relevancy of the general education courses, which he recommended doing next year as part of a large campus-wide discussion. Ideally MSC would use the data from the Assessment Plan being developed this year. He also discussed the passage of the Student Bill of Rights and how MSC fits into the statewide core curriculum requirements. There are to be 33 hours in the gen. ed. core, 40 hours or less of lower division work, and each major should contain 120 hours of required course work. MSC is over these limits and is still brainstorming ways to fit into the requirements.

V. ACADEMIC FREEDOM STATEMENT

It was proposed that the Faculty Senate make a public statement concerning academic freedom. After much discussion the Senate chose not to make such a statement at this time.

Meeting adjourned at 5:04 pm.

Respectfully submitted,

Jessica Cowden
Minutes Secretary