The
Regular session – March 12, 2007 – 3:30 p.m. – Jacobson Faculty Hall 102
office: Jacobson Faculty Hall 206
phone: 325-6789
e-mail: facsen@ou.edu web site:
http://www.ou.edu/admin/facsen/
The Faculty Senate was called
to order by Professor Roger Frech, Chair.
PRESENT: Albert,
Badhwar, Basic, D. Bemben, M. Bemben, Benson, Biggerstaff, Blank, Bradford,
Brown, Brule, Civan, Cramer, Croft, Elisens, Fincke, Forman, Franklin, Frech, Gade,
Ge, Greene, Houser, Keppel, Knapp, Kolar, Kutner, Lester, Livesey, Magnusson, Marcus-Mendoza,
Miranda, Raadschelders, Rambo, Riggs, Roche, Scamehorn, Schwarzkopf, Skeeters, Strawn,
Tan, Warnken, Weaver, Wyckoff
Provost's office representative: Mergler, Jorgenson
ISA representatives: Cook
ABSENT: Draheim,
Gutierrez, Hamerla, James, Lai, Thulasiraman, Trytten, Vitt, Wei
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Announcements:
Faculty tribute
Federal and state legislators
Benefits--health insurance, OTRS
Senate Chair's Report:
Committee nominations
Meeting with OSU and OU HSC
OU Tulsa Faculty
Faculty deaths
Employment Benefits Committee retiree member
Grading scale
Clicker technology
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Prof. Frech noted that in his
Chair’s report last month, he inadvertently referred to the Library Taskforce
as the “Library Serials Review Taskforce.”
Explaining that the charge of the Library Taskforce had nothing to do
with a serials review, he recommended that “Library Serials Review” be changed
to “Library Taskforce” in the minutes of the meeting. The Faculty Senate approved the amendment and
approved the Faculty Senate Journal as amended.
The Faculty Tribute will be
held on Monday, April 16, 2007, at 4:00 p.m. in the Sandy Bell Gallery, Mary
and Howard Lester Wing,
Prof. Frech pointed out that
a number of faculty had expressed concern about legislation that was pending
and wanted to contact their senators/representatives. To find out
the district you are in and to determine
your federal and state legislators, go to www.capitolconnect.com/oklahoma/default.aspx,
fill in your zip code (the only information needed), and click “Submit.”
Human Resources Director said
he appreciated the opportunity to comment on the issue of health
insurance. A lot of concerns have been
expressed in the university community with respect to the cost of health
insurance, the options offered and in particular, the high cost of dependent
coverage. The Human Resources (HR)
office has received resolutions from the Arts & Sciences chairs/directors
and Norman Staff Senate, and there is continuing dialog with the Norman Faculty
Senate as well as at HSC and
Another effort of HR is the Oklahoma
Teachers’ Retirement System (OTRS) choice project. In July 2004, the legislature approved the
offering of a retirement option for OU and OSU.
People who were hired after July 1, 2004 in positions that formerly
required mandatory participation in OTRS have a choice of making a monthly
contribution to OTRS and participating in the defined contribution plan (DCP) or
going into a new plan called the Optional Retirement Plan (ORP). The ORP is a DCP, does not require an
employee contribution, and is portable, once vested. HR filed a request with the IRS in late 2004 to
get approval to offer the ORP to existing employees. The IRS came out with a revenue ruling in the
fourth quarter of 2006 that said employers could not offer the type of choice for
existing employees that OU was proposing.
OU asked the IRS to look at the specific facts of our filing and gave
the IRS additional reasons why our request should be approved. A couple of weeks ago, a group from OU, OSU,
and OTRS went to
Prof. Frech solicited
volunteers for certain committees that were short on nominations. He asked people who were interested in
serving to see Prof. Bradford, chair of the Committee on Committees, after the
meeting. Charges of the committees were
available at the meeting. The Committee
on Committees will begin to draft people at its meeting on March 13.
“On March 1, the Senate Executive
Committee met with its counterparts from the OSU Faculty Council and the OU HSC
Faculty Senate. The meeting focused on four
topics:
a. Health Care Planning. There was much discussion on the change in
the way we will obtain and analyze information, as well as the actions that
will follow. At OSU’s request, we
established a liaison between their health care planning group and the Steering
Committee of OU’s group.
b. Textbook policies. OSU also has a Textbook Committee. They are close to having legislation; when
this legislation is passed, we will be given a copy that we will pass on to the
Textbook Committee here on campus.
c. Possible
change in the grading scale at OU. We
distributed copies of the Grading Task Force report. A discussion covered a variety of areas that
were nicely dealt with in the report.
d. Athletics
and Universities—challenges and opportunities.
This was a topic suggested by OSU.
I would summarize the discussion by saying that both OU and OSU see
challenges and opport unities in the interface between Athletics and the
Academy, although the issues of concern to one campus may not be of concern to
the other campus.
For the last half year, the
Executive Committee has been looking at the question of providing an
appropriate voice on the Senate for OU-Tulsa faculty. For purposes of discussion, the members of the
OU-Tulsa faculty (approximately 30 members) teach in academic programs that
fall under the jurisdiction of the Norman Campus Provost but whose primary
place of employment is
[Although not reported at the
meeting, Prof. Frech wishes to acknowledge the deaths of the following
faculty: Malcolm Morris (retired,
Business), February 15, and Danney Goble (Classics), March 8.]
Prof.
Frech explained that the OU Retirees Association requested that its delegate to
the Employment Benefits Committee, who has been a nonvoting member, be afforded
full membership and voting rights on the committee. This change has the support of the Employment
Benefits Committee and the Staff Senate and pre-approval of President Boren,
contingent on approval by the Faculty Senate.
The request came to the Senate from the Employment Benefits Committee and
is a “housekeeping” change. The Senate approved, on a voice vote, the
motion to grant voting privileges to the retiree member of the Employment Benefits
Committee.
At last month’s meeting, the
Senate discussed the recommendations of the grading scale task force (see 2/07
Senate Journal and http://www.ou.edu/provost/pronew/content/grading-scale-taskforce/gradingtaskforce_report_final_2-3-07.pdf). Prof. Frech
said the Executive Committee discussed the report and had two amendments to
propose. The most straightforward
approach under Robert’s Rules is to entertain a motion to adopt the
recommendations of the task force, which will open the floor for discussion,
and entertain any amendments. Prof.
Bradford moved to adopt the recommendations of the grading task force.
Prof. Bradford then moved to
amend the potential steps in the implementation of a plus/minus system on page
19 of the report so that the working group in paragraph b and the evaluation
team in paragraph c would be combined into one evaluation group to monitor
implementation and respond to student, faculty and administrative concerns and
problems. This group would be formed and
begin work during the first year of implementation. The Executive
Committee thought one committee to carry
out this charge would be sufficient and provide continuity. Prof. Frech said some members of the task
force were at the meeting and could answer questions: Prof. Joe Rodgers, chair, Ms. Cheryl Jorgenson,
and Mr. Matt Burris. Prof. Benson said
his understanding was students would start receiving plus/minus grades immediately,
but the pluses and minuses would not go on the transcript until 2010. He asked how the students would get those
expanded grades. Prof. Frech answered
that students would get the grades, but the pluses and minuses would not count
on the transcript. Academic Records would
have to strip the plus/minus in the first year.
Prof. Rodgers said plus/minus grades would not be recorded on the
transcripts but students would get the grades.
Provost Mergler clarified that in phase one, a student would know about
a plus or minus grade only if the faculty member notified him/her of the
grade. Prof. Badhwar noted that many
faculty members do that currently--give pluses and minuses, even though they
are not recorded. Prof. Rodgers said
Rick Skeel (Academic Records Director) suggested that faculty could write down
pluses and minuses and they could go to students, but those pluses and minuses would
be stripped at the point when grades are recorded permanently on the official
transcript. Ms. Jorgenson explained that
the current mainframe system could not easily record pluses and minuses and
carry them forward onto the transcript. Some
interim process would have to be created.
Faculty could report pluses and minuses to the students through several
mechanisms, perhaps D2L. The path will
be clearer once we are further into the new student records system. Prof. Rodgers explained that part of the
challenge was no one was sure when the new system would come on line. Prof. Frech said the initial step would give
faculty a chance to try plus/minus grading to see if it would work in a
particular course. Prof. Marcus-Mendoza asked
whether the working group would look at the effects on students and faculty with
the assumption that the expanded grading was definite or would look at whether
it was succeeding and should be implemented.
Prof. Frech said his assumption was that the goal, if the grading was
passed, was to move forward with the implementation, and the committee would address
any problems. Prof. Marcus-Mendoza asked
whether there was a mechanism to stop forward progress if the grading system was
not working well. Prof. Frech pointed
out that faculty would always maintain the right to grade on a five-point
scale. If there was a huge outcry that
the system was not working well, additional legislation could be introduced. The motion
to form one implementation committee instead of two was approved on a voice
vote.
Prof. Bradford moved that “the
plus/minus system to be adopted shall not include a silent A+.” He said the Executive Committee was concerned
that another institution might automatically take an A+ as a 4.0, an A as 3.7
and so on and not pay attention to OU’s definition of an A+, even though an A+
and an A would be 4.0 under the proposed system. When asked whether other institutions
re-calculate GPAs, Prof. Bradford said his understanding was for graduate
school, some institutions that count an A+ as 4.3 could re-scale the grades so
that an A+ would become 4.0 and an A 3.7.
The Executive Committee did not want to take that chance. Prof. Badhwar asked about the task force’s reasons
for proposing a silent A+. Prof. Rodgers
said the silent A+ was not a strong component of the proposal. In his view, the task force would not think
the proposal had changed much with that amendment. Many universities use a silent A+. One of the concerns of students is that the
plus/minus could disproportionately affect students at the top of the
distribution. A silent A+ would be a way
for faculty to indicate to those students that they have done especially well
without creating a problem. Some
institutions count A+ as a 4.3, so there was a concern that accrediting
institutions and other institutions could re-scale a student’s grades and
negatively affect student grades. A+ is
often a popular piece of the plus/minus grading system with students, even though
it does not count in the grade point average.
Prof. Biggerstaff asked whether the transcript would show that an A was
the highest grade. Provost Mergler said accredited
schools have an explanation of the grading scale on the back of the
transcript. Prof. Skeeters asked how the
A+ would be indicated on the transcript.
Provost Mergler said the A+ would look like the other grades, but it
would be counted as a 4.0 in the computation of the grade point averages. Prof. Skeeters asked about the number of universities
that use a silent A+. Prof. Rodgers responded
that quite a few that have the plus/minus system use the silent A+, and quite a
few do not. Prof. Greene asked how the
A+ would be recorded on the back of the transcript. Provost Mergler answered that typically the
explanation delineates how many points each grade that is available is
worth. Prof. Kutner said he thought the
language of the amendment was ambiguous.
He suggested that the intention was that the top grade would be A, and
that there would be no A+. Prof. Frech
said he would accept that as a friendly amendment. There was a brief discussion of other ways to
express what was meant by the amendment.
Prof. Frech summarized that the sense was to strike the silent A+. He reported that if the recommendations passed,
a ballot would be sent to the general faculty.
Prof. Skeeters said the initial argument for dropping the A+ was the
fear that some schools would re-scale the grade inaccurately. Since many universities use a silent A+, most
schools would be aware of the situation and take that into consideration. She said she did not understand the concern
and thought the argument for rewarding the top students was pretty strong. Prof. Frech said if grades were renormalized
with a non-silent A+, it would have an effect on a student’s GPA. Prof. Rodgers said the amendment did not bother
him, but he did not think it was especially important. The task force heard of mistakes being made
with a real A+ but not with a silent A+.
Prof. Benson said he took it that a silent A+ was meant as a gesture
toward the students, to reward exceptional students. Students are not excited about a plus/minus
system. He said he would hate to take
away a gesture made toward students without compelling reasons. The Executive
Committee thought it had the potential to
harm students. He asked how important this
was to the students. Prof. Rodgers it was
more than a gesture to the students. It was
also a gesture to the interaction between faculty and students because faculty could
signal to students that they had done better than A work. It was not fair to say it was a gesture
without content. Those A pluses, even
though silent, could be used by students. There could be some real value to it. The motion
to strike the silent A+ failed on a voice vote. Prof. Forman asked if this was an appropriate
time to hear from the students. Prof.
Frech said he would let the students speak after all amendments had been
discussed but before the final vote.
Prof. Biggerstaff moved that
the plus/minus grading be adopted at the graduate level, not the undergraduate
level. He said there was a need for
greater fidelity in grading at the graduate level. He said there did not seem to be anything
broken at the undergraduate level, and he did not see what the plus/minus
grading aimed to fix. The number of
institutions that do and do not do it is close to equal. Prof. Rambo asked whether implementing the
system at the graduate level initially would provide a model for assessing
possible benefits and problems for undergraduates. Prof. Rodgers answered that the Big 12
universities had a variety of systems.
In no cases, were the plus/minus systems viewed as experimental and one
case carried over to the other case. Prof.
Rambo asked whether the graduate level was so dissimilar from the undergraduate
level that it would not be a good model.
Presumably, expanded grading could not occur at any level until the software
could handle it. Prof. Rodgers said the
task force thought they were fairly dissimilar, and most of the compelling
arguments applied equally to both. At
the graduate level, the range is more restrictive; faculty members typically use
two grades. More grades are used at the undergraduate
level. Prof. Kolar said he was not in
favor of the amendment for the reason that the
Mr. Matt Burris, a member of
the task force and a member of the UOSA Undergraduate Student Congress, distributed
copies of a resolution passed unanimously by Student Congress the previous week. It was the second such resolution concerning
the grading scale; the first resolution was included in the task force
report. The resolution “asks the Faculty
Senate and the Provost not to proceed any further on implementing the
recommendations of the Grading Scale Taskforce which will, with great
adversity, affect the undergraduate student body of the
Prof. Benson asked how many
4.0 students there were. Ms. Cheryl Jorgenson
(Institutional Research) said about 1.4-1.5 percent of the last three graduating
classes. Prof. Frech added that the
number of 4.0 students in the graduating classes was 53 out of 3776 in 2005-06,
51 out of 3544 in 2004-05, and 48 out of 3181 in 2003-04. Prof. Greene asked if the students thought
only the 4.0 students would be impacted.
Mr. Burris said the 4.0 students were not the only problem. He was also concerned about students who
could possibly get the A+ points that are not there. Prof. Bemben pointed out that the state
regents recognize a 4.0 as the highest grade.
An A+ would not do anything for a student’s GPA. Mr. Burris said he would like to make an A+ equal
4.3. Otherwise, a student with all As, including
A minuses, could have a GPA below a 4.0.
Prof. Livesey noted that if a student received 39 As and one A- for 120
hours, his/her GPA would be a 3.9925. He
asked if Mr. Burris thought that would severely reduce one’s likelihood of
getting into graduate school. Mr. Burris
said there were myriad other scenarios. Prof.
Livesey asked whether it was fair for someone who got 39 A minuses to be given
the same credentials as someone who got 39 As.
Mr. Rod Jahromi, vice-chair of Student Congress, suggested that the
Senate delay action until the executive committees could come up with a
compromise. Prof. Benson asked what kind
of compromise the students were proposing.
The only issue raised was that students prefer an A+ that would really count. Mr. Burris said it went beyond that. The only dialog the students had had with the
Faculty Senate was from reports from the task force and emails from Prof. Frech. He said he thought there needed to be a forum
where students had an official place at the table.
Prof. Marcus-Mendoza asked
whether a vote to approve meant approving the recommendations of the task force
or sending it to a vote of faculty. Prof.
Frech explained that if the Faculty Senate voted to adopt the recommendations,
then the next step would be a general faculty vote on both the form of the
grade scale and the implementation process.
Prof. Forman said his opinion was we should do it or not do it, and do
it in one year. Prof. Blank asked whether
there would be a mechanism for indicating on the transcript if an instructor
chose to grade on a standard five-point scale.
Provost Mergler answered no, that an A, B, C, etc. would simply get the
usual points. We do not note it
currently when professors choose to give all As and Bs, for example. Prof. Skeeters asked whether the only input from
students had been through the task force.
Prof. Frech replied that two students served on the task force. Provost Mergler said the task force held a
student forum with student leaders. Prof.
Rodgers added that students had input to the task force. Mr. Burris said his only invitation to the Faculty
Senate was through the task force. Prof.
Schwarzkopf asked Prof. Frech whether he had received an invitation to speak to
Student Congress. Prof. Frech said he
had not. Prof. Schwarzkopf asked about
the time frame for the general faculty vote.
Prof. Frech said he expected to ask the general faculty to vote
electronically in mid April and have the vote completed by end of the spring
semester. Prof. Knapp asked whether the task
force took a formal vote and whether the decision was unanimous. Prof. Rodgers said the process played out in
two meetings. There were differences of
opinion, which reflected the differences of opinion within the university; that
is, faculty members were more supportive than the students, and the
administrators were in the middle. No
vote was recorded of who was in favor and who was not.
The motion to adopt the recommendations as amended was
approved by a vote of 26 to 11,
including one written ballot. After the meeting, an additional written
ballot was submitted in favor of the recommendations, making the vote 27 to 11.
Prof. Blank announced that
individuals who were interested in discussing various forms of clickers (classroom
response technology) would meet on March 15 at 1:00 p.m. This is an effort to standardize as much as
possible across the university system. Anyone
who is interested should email Prof. Blank, lblank@ou.edu, or Prof. Bruce Mason,
bmason@ou.edu.
The meeting adjourned at 5:05
p.m. The next regular session of the
Faculty Senate will be held at
____________________________________
Sonya Fallgatter, Administrative Coordinator
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Cecelia Brown, Secretary