The
Regular session –
office: Jacobson Faculty Hall 206
phone: 325-6789
e-mail:
The Faculty Senate was called
to order by Professor Mike McInerney, Chair.
PRESENT: Abraham,
Biggerstaff, Bozorgi, Bradford, Brown, Caldwell, Catlin, Cintrón, Davis,
Devenport, Dewers, Dohrmann, Driver, Forman, Frech, Halterman, Havlicek, Hayes-Thumann,
Henderson, Houser, Huseman, Kauffman, C. Knapp, R. Knapp, Liu, Marcus-Mendoza,
McInerney, Megginson, Mendoza, Milton, Pender, Penrose, Ransom, Russell,
Scherman, Schramm, Sharp, Sievers, Striz, Watts, Wyckoff
Provost's office representative: Mergler
ABSENT:
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Announcement: new senators
Campus Campaign
Regents’ policy manual
Senate Chair's Report:
NEH award policy
Out-of-state tuition waivers for graduate assistants
State regents’ grading policy
Health benefit survey
Faculty hiring/raises
Parking fines
Renewable term faculty
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The Faculty Senate Journal
for the regular session of
The
following faculty members were elected by colleges to the Faculty Senate as of
January 2004:
Arts & Sciences –
Peter
Barker (History of Science), completing the 2002-05 term of Cesar Ferreira
(Modern Languages)
Ron
Halterman (Chemistry & Biochemistry), completing the 2002-05 term of Ola
Fincke (Zoology)
Susan
Sharp (Sociology), completing the 2003-06 term of Kevin Grier (Economics)
Business
– Russ Driver (Management), completing the 2002-05 term of William Whitely
(Management)
Geosciences – Michael Biggerstaff (Meteorology),
completing the 2001-04 term of Mark Morrissey (Meteorology)
Ms. Mary Matlock, assistant director
of annual giving programs of University Development and coordinator of the 2004
Campus Campaign, said the campaign had grown a lot over the past ten years. She handed out a summary of the campaign
(available from the senate office). In 1993,
the campaign raised $83,000 and had 357 participants. Last year had the largest number of
participants at 1700, and they gave almost $1.2 million. Every year the campaign proves to be more and
more successful. Discussing participation
on the three campuses, Ms. Matlock said the Norman campus faculty participation
rate of 34 percent last year was the highest in the history of the campaign. The retired faculty and staff gave at a 30
percent participation rate. The total
number of participants rose from 2002 to 2003, but the participation rate was down. She mentioned the extra events held to raise
money and asked the group to send her any suggestions and ideas about those
events or the campaign as a whole. She
provided a list of the programs that received gifts last year. Prof. Megginson asked whether a payroll
deduction option was available. Ms. Matlock
said that option is included on the pledge card that is sent to everyone. Prof. Watts asked about the number of professors
who donate to their own departments. Ms.
Matlock said about 85 percent of the faculty give back to their own
department. Last year, the University raised
$20,000 for the Sooner Heritage scholarships, which provided over 20
scholarships for students. At a recent conference
of about 200 schools, OU was a leader of on-campus solicitation.
Prof. McInerney asked Prof.
David Levy (History), chair of the ad hoc committee that reviewed the proposed
changes in the regents’ policy manual, to give an update on the committee’s
progress. Prof. Levy explained that the OU
regents decided to revise their manual because it was too bulky, out of date,
and unusable for new members. The 2002-03
senate chair Ed Cline formed a committee of four Norman campus faculty and
three HSC faculty to study the proposed revision and call attention to any
matter that seemed to be of direct
In response to the report,
the Faculty Senate appointed two committees, one chaired by Prof. Susan Marcus-Mendoza
to consider the matter of renewable term faculty, and the second chaired by
Prof. Levy to negotiate with the provost about the other matters of
“National Endowment for the
Humanities has changed its award policy. The award is now made directly to the
individual rather than through the university. The university’s policy has been
to offset any loss in salary and benefits for individuals that receive such
awards. However, if the individual is not being paid by university funds, there
is no policy to determine the type of benefits to which the individual faculty
member is entitled. Graduate College Dean Lee Williams recommended at the last
Deans’ council meeting that the individual faculty member sign the check over
to the university and the university would then cover all of the salary and
benefits for the individual. This seems like a reasonable solution to the
problem, but I would like to get your input. I will establish a committee with
individuals from fine arts and humanities to work with Dean Williams and Cindy
Cash in the Provost’s Office to develop a policy for this situation.
“The executive committee
received several emails
“The State Regents are
considering a revision to their grading policy. The most significant change is
the addition of a third academic forgiveness option, called academic renewal,
which allows students who have been out of higher education for a number of
years to request all coursework over five years old not be counted in the
retention/graduation GPA. The student must present 12 hours of coursework with
a grade of C or better in order to petition for this option. This would allow
students that did not do well in higher education for whatever reason to have a
second chance. This is an option in addition to academic reprieve, where up to
two semesters of coursework can be discharged from retention/graduation
GPA. Both academic reprieve and academic
renewal are options, not mandates from the State Regents. Matt Hamilton, Associate Vice President for
Enrollment, is looking at how this will affect OU and how OU will implement
this policy. Any petition would be sent to the appropriate college for
approval.
“The faculty welfare
committee sent out a survey to faculty, staff and retirees to solicit feedback
on experiences with Health Choice. This information will be useful to the
university as it contemplates its options for health care in 2005. It will also
be beneficial to Health Choice to know what the
“The next item
“Staff Senate is considering
a recommendation to increase parking fines as a way to offset some of the
increases in the cost of permits. Please
let me know whether you think this is a good idea.”
Prof. McInerney explained
that a committee chaired by Prof. Susan Marcus-Mendoza had considered the
matter of renewable term faculty and had submitted a draft proposal.
The committee on renewable term faculty recommends
that the definition of regular faculty be changed in the faculty handbook as
stated in section 3.5 of the proposed revisions in the regents handbook,
“Regular faculty appointment(s) to an academic position must be a) a
tenure-track appointment (beginning and terminating at a specified date), b) a
tenured appointment (beginning with and following the granting of tenure) or c)
a ranked renewable term/consecutive term appointment (renewable annually for a
fixed term); and must be at the rank of assistant professor, associate
professor or professor.”
This change in definition will affect all other
sections that refer to the regular faculty and in turn will modify the faculty
handbook.
The committee on renewable term faculty recommends
that a limit on the proportion of renewable term faculty be enacted, as stated
in section 3.5.3 of the proposed revisions in the regents’ handbook, “At no time
may the number of the ranked renewable term faculty exceed ten percent of the
number of tenure-track and tenured faculty on the Norman campus.”
The committee on renewable term faculty also
recommends the addition of the sentence, “Renewable term/consecutive term
faculty contract renewals will follow the process of the appointing college.”
Prof. Marcus-Mendoza said the
committee had met several times and had discussed the issue with the provost
and College of Arts & Sciences dean.
The proposal would change the definition of regular faculty to include
renewable term/consecutive term faculty at the rank of assistant, associate, or
full professor. The committee also added
recommendations that would limit the proportion of renewable term faculty and recognize
that contract renewals would follow college process. The new definition would give ranked
renewable term faculty a chance to interact university-wide and be represented
on the Faculty Senate. This type of
appointment started in 1992. Right now,
there are about 35 renewable term faculty across 21 different units. These are faculty members who are full-time
on five-year renewable term contracts.
Some are on their second five-year contract. Because of the way the Faculty Handbook is worded, they have not been included in the
definition of regular faculty.
Prof. Forman pointed out that
one department could be overwhelmingly populated with contract people. Prof. Marcus-Mendoza replied that when a
department hires faculty, it has to be a department decision, with the approval
of the dean and provost. Prof. Watts said
the Fine Arts College had talked about a 10 percent cap for each unit but
thought that could hamstring small departments.
Prof. Marcus-Mendoza noted that a unit with five people could not hire
any renewable term faculty. Prof. McInerney
said the AAUP had made a recommendation on department caps, and it was
considerably higher than the university cap.
[Note: AAUP recommends that “no
more than 15 percent of the total instruction within an institution and no more
than 25 percent of the total instruction within any department should be
provided by faculty with non-tenure-track appointments.”] He said his suggestion would be that
renewable term faculty would not be represented on the Faculty Senate as a
separate group, but could run for the Faculty Senate as the tenured and
tenure-track faculty do. Prof.
Marcus-Mendoza said the primary decision would rest at the department
level. Prof. McInerney said, “This is an
important issue, so make sure you discuss this with your home departments. Nationally, there is a lot of
The meeting adjourned at
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Sonya Fallgatter, Administrative Coordinator
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Karen Rupp-Serrano, Secretary