The University of Oklahoma (Norman campus)
Regular session - October 8, 2001 - 3:30 p.m. - Jacobson Faculty Hall 102
office: Jacobson Faculty Hall 206 phone: 325-6789 FAX: 325-6782
e-mail: facsen@ou.edu web site: http://www.ou.edu/admin/facsen/

The Faculty Senate was called to order by Professor Al Schwarzkopf, Chair.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Announcements:

Senate Chair's Report:

Terrorism statement

Deadline for late registration

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The Senate Journal for the regular session of September 10, 2001 was approved with the following amendment. In the paragraph beginning with "Prof. Blank," under the Senate Chair's Report, "mean" should be changed to "median" in the first and third sentences.

The status of issues brought to the Faculty Senate for 2001-02 is attached. Prof. Schwarzkopf highlighted the major changes since last month. A research policies task force set up as a subcommittee of Research Council and chaired by Prof. Laurette Taylor will address issues other than awards that are critical to the research productivity of faculty. One of the issues is the function of the Institutional Review Board (IRB), which is becoming critical to far more areas of research than first realized. The federal government's Office of Human Research Protection (OHRP), which is in charge of auditing human subject research, will be on campus to conduct a quality assurance review of the IRB procedures and will hold an open forum on October 11. Prof. Taylor added that this would be an opportunity for faculty to express any concerns about IRB function or policies. The IRB is trying to clarify some issues that have been problematic and has already adjusted some of its policies, given feedback from the OHRP. She said the IRB wanted to get clarification on streamlining the process so it does not impede research. Prof. Schwarzkopf said this would be an opportunity for faculty to find out what was going on and ask questions. Prof. Taylor said this would give us direct contact with the individuals who write the policies just before the University resubmits the Multiple Assurance agreement with the federal government. She encouraged faculty to attend, ask questions and get clarification. Provost Mergler asked Prof. Taylor to discuss the meeting held at the Health Sciences Center. Prof. Taylor said she had gotten some clarification on a couple of issues. A group from the College of Education is trying to develop a streamlined protocol so that pedagogical research conducted in classes could be done in an easier fashion. The IRB has already responded to a couple of incidents. Provost Mergler pointed out that the University has had human subject cases in Engineering and Fine Arts. Prof. Taylor said every college on campus does human subject research.

Prof. Schwarzkopf then discussed the status of other issues. The e-mail policy, cost of phone service, and social security numbers on grade sheets were referred to the Informational Technology Council. A new issue added was a review by the Academic Programs Council of the approval process for online courses. Prof. Schwarzkopf said he was trying to move issues to committees and hoped to have some recommendations from the committees soon.

The Faculty Welfare Committee sent an e-mail survey to faculty and staff concerning their experiences with health care benefits. Prof. Willinger, Chair of the Faculty Welfare Committee, explained that the survey was short, just one question asking recipients to tell their experiences with Blue Cross or Schaller-Anderson. He said there had not been much feedback concerning problems people might be experiencing with the transition from the old health care system to the new system. He encouraged the senators to respond with both positive and negative comments. Prof. Cline asked how long people would have to respond. Prof. Willinger said it would be helpful to respond within a month because he will be meeting with Vice President for Administrative Affairs Brian Maddy to discuss the problems. Prof. Schwarzkopf pointed out that the University had signed a two-year contract with Schaller-Anderson, but if we have to reopen the bidding process, that procedure could take about a year. He said his personal experience with Schaller-Anderson was that they respond quickly when brought issues.

The Senate Executive Committee met with President Boren last week and brought up a couple of issues. One issue was security at large assemblies on campus. The President said the administration was doing some things to improve security at public events. The other topic was the issues Senate should focus on with the legislature. One concern is if we have an economic downturn, that will affect the amount of money the state will have available to allocate to higher education. The administration has been good about trying to find money for salary increases. The Senate hopes to work with the legislature to make sure the circumstances are not as dire as predicted.

We are moving from the old system by which employees are paid to a new system called PeopleSoft in order to gain a better operating environment. However, a purchased environment limits the things that can be customized. Currently, faculty are paid eight full months and two half months in August and May, and benefit charges are distributed the same way. The new system is not set up to deduct half a month's benefits. The problem is not with salary or taxes, just with how we charge for benefits. A handout distributed at the meeting gave examples of net pay for three options. Option 1 would continue the gross pay the same way--eight full months and two half months--but deduct all benefit payments from only the eight full months. Option 2 would be the same pay system but load the benefit deductions equally on all ten months. Option 3 would be ten equal pay installments; however, that option would have to be reviewed by Legal Counsel. Prof. Schwarzkopf said the administration wanted a recommendation so that the implementation of PeopleSoft would not be delayed. Ms. Terry Turkington (Financial Support Services), who is in charge of implementing PeopleSoft, said this would only impact faculty who were on 9-month appointments paid over ten months. Nothing would change for faculty paid over 12 months. Prof. Milton said he did not see why there was a legal question about Option 3. He noted that OSU faculty members were paid in ten installments. Ms. Turkington said the administration just wanted to verify with Legal Counsel that that option did not violate state laws. Professors Magid and Kenderdine said they were concerned that if PeopleSoft could not handle the benefit deductions, that there might be other potential problems with the system. Ms. Turkington explained that currently, there was no leveling of the cost of benefits such as health and life insurance that the employees pay versus how the defined contribution plan (DCP) calculations were done. For example, in August, 1/12 of the employee payment is deducted, but 1/10 of the DCP is deducted. By making them consistent, we could put them in PeopleSoft without any problem. Prof. Schwarzkopf commented that People Soft was one of the well-established providers of human resource systems and had been in the business a long time. We would have a problem somewhere with any system. Provost Mergler explained that the less we had to customize PeopleSoft, the less expensive it would be when upgrades came out. Ms. Turkington remarked that these companies design products that meet 80 percent of their potential customer needs. Prof. Hanson asked whether people would have benefit coverage on day one under Option 1 if they did not pay for benefits the first month. Ms. Turkington said a similar situation is when new employees do not get signed up for benefits for 60 days, yet are provided coverage. Prof. Schwarzkopf asked whether anyone had any objection to any of the approaches. Prof. McInerney noted that Option 3 could be a problem for people who receive summer support because they would get less money during the 8-month period. Ms. Turkington agreed that it would be a personal cash flow issue. Prof. Kenderdine said he had a philosophical issue with all three options because the system was so inflexible, it could not handle little peculiarities. Moreover, in his experience, we could end up investing another 50 percent of the purchase price to customize the software. The senators were asked to indicate their preference and voted as follows: Option 1: 23, Option 2: 4, and Option 3: 0. Prof. Schwarzkopf thanked Ms. Turkington for asking the Senate for its recommendation and for having reasonable alternatives for the Senate to consider. Ms. Turkington said she was happy to talk about this and any other issues that might come up about the project.

Prof. Schwarzkopf said he was asked, as Chair of the Faculty Senate, to write a statement of reaction to the September 11 terrorism to be published in the school newspaper. In his statement, he wanted to accomplish two things: indicate outrage but also indicate that we should not target any ethnic sub-population. The Executive Committee, with his urging, thought it was important for the Faculty Senate to make a similar statement. Prof. Hart, author of the proposed statement (distributed at the meeting and reproduced below), said he wanted to express sympathy and understanding for students who lost family or friends. Second, he wanted to suggest that it was the responsibility of teachers to talk with students about the circumstances. Last, he thought something should be said to make sure our international students felt comfortable here.

Prof. McInerny asked whether something should be said in support of the President and armed forces personnel. Prof. Schwarzkopf said if there were substantial revision requests, he would want to send the statement back to committee for a rewrite. Prof. Magid said he had problems with the second and third paragraphs and thought strong support should be expressed for all students. Prof. Henderson said he agreed with the suggestion to express support for all of our students and not just international students. Prof. Hart said the discussion in the second paragraph included all students. In the third paragraph he was trying to reach out to international students who might be feeling uncomfortable. Prof. Kenderdine said he did not want to shut out native-born ethnic students. Prof. Schwarzkopf proposed that "international" be deleted from the last paragraph. Prof. Hanson pointed out that some ROTC cadets were verbally abused at the Kansas State football game while collecting donations for the September 11 victims. In view of the current military action, he asked whether the second paragraph should be deleted or at least modified by removing "condemn extremism and violence in all its guises." Prof. Palmer said she would recommend striking the first, second, and fourth sentences of paragraph two.

Prof. Gensler asked whether he was being asked to express his opinion as an individual faculty member or as a representative of his colleagues. Prof. Palmer asked where the statement would appear. Prof. Hart said it would be in the Senate journal and any other place the press wanted it. Prof. Greene asked whether the statement could read "Faculty Senate" instead of "faculty." Prof. Gensler said he thought something coming from the Faculty Senate connoted an authority from the faculty. Prof. Schwarzkopf said he would regard his decision as part of his obligation as an elected representative of the faculty and not as an obligation to poll everybody. Prof. Henderson added that the Senate voted on many issues representing the faculty without polling them. Prof. Wieder asked for examples of other kinds of issues like this that the Faculty Senate had made a statement on. Prof. Schwarzkopf said the Senate had voted on the issue of textbook disclaimers. He asked the Senate members to indicate by voice whether they thought it was appropriate to make some statement. The vote was favorable.

Prof. Harrison said he was not in favor of striking the sentences in paragraph two but thought the second sentence should be changed to "...condemn terrorism and fanaticism." Prof. Cline moved to send the statement back to committee and gather suggestions for changes. Prof. Hartel said that by the time the Senate voted, the whole reason for making a statement would be moot. Prof. Milton agreed that this was a timely matter and should be voted on. Prof. Greene said she thought "violence" should be deleted because of the current U.S. military action. Prof. Kenderdine remarked that the President had indicated that we are in a state of war, and violence happens in war. Prof. Taylor said she did not think it was appropriate to include a statement supporting government action since a lot of people did not know if they agreed with bombing Afghanistan. Prof. Cline said that regardless of whether people agreed with the current policies, it was unfair to abuse our ROTC cadets. Prof. Greene said there was nothing in the statement that spoke to the issue of military action if "terrorism" was substituted. Prof. Hart said he tried to be as generic as possible. Prof. Schwarzkopf called for a vote on the proposals involving paragraph two. The change in the second sentence to "... we condemn terrorism" was approved on a voice vote. The suggestion to eliminate all but the third sentence was not accepted. Prof. Schwarzkopf said he wanted to distribute this statement to the faculty along with information about the resources available to students who were having problems. He also wanted to provide the statement to the Public Affairs office. The amended statement was approved by a show of hands 29 to 9.

Prof. Schwarzkopf explained that a request had been made last spring to reduce the amount of time allowed for late registration from two weeks to one week. The request was forwarded to the Academic Regulations Committee, which made the following recommendation:

Prof. Schwarzkopf said the issue was that students who arrive in class a week late cause considerable disruption to anyone who does team teaching and give the impression that the first two weeks of class really do not count. According to fall 2001 course add data, there were 4774 adds in the first week and 2747 adds in the second week, so a third of the students who change classes do so in the second week. The Senate will discuss the proposal and vote at the next meeting. Prof. Schwarzkopf pointed out that the policy would not be approved without input from Student Congress. Prof. Harrison asked whether the instructor's permission applied to the second week only. He pointed out that the proposed language did not set a time limit. Prof. Schwarzkopf said the Senate Executive Committee would propose some language to clarify the recommendation. Mr. Richard Magann, Student Congress liaison, asked whether the recommendation would affect drops. Prof. Schwarzkopf said it would not.

The meeting adjourned at 4:40 p.m. The next regular session of the Senate will be held at 3:30 p.m. on Monday, November 12, 2001 in Jacobson Faculty Hall 102.

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Sonya Fallgatter, Administrative Coordinator

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James S. Hart, Jr., Secretary