Faculty Senate
Minutes:
Present: K.
Atkins, S. Beck, R. Berry, C. Cornforth, C. Dale, T. Danford, M. Davis, D. Goeddel, ,
M. Grubor (presiding), D. Hans, K. Herrington, S. Hooff, L. Ingram, J. Keyser, A. Kuca,
M. Lewis, , R. Malek,
G. Norton , H. Papeika, R. Pusz,
J. Remias, C. Rogerson, S. Rychlicki, P. Sharma, Linda Shelek,
T. Vavra, M. Watson, G. Winland
Excused: N. Krupinski, R. Lucki, T. Ramsey, Cris Riter, Jeanne Ann VanFossen
Absent: F. Binkley, C.
Blatt, T. Boyers, T. Craig,
D. Folger, K. Freeman, B. Gast,
M. Goldstein, M. Hummell, D. Jones, C. Kefauver, , M. O’Brian, , D. Poffenberger,
M. Riley, D. Roth, V. Slider, C. Stokes, C. Teaff,
Guest: Mr. Bob DeFrancis (Dean of
Community Relations and Institutional Development)
M. Grubor
called the meeting to order at
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Minutes: The
minutes from the November 2003 meeting are on the Senate webpage, http://www.northern.wvnet.edu/~tdanford/senate.
M. Grubor
stated that the college would like to have a formal declaration of support for
the College Square Project by Faculty.
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Marian presented
a draft of a declaration and asked for endorsement by the faculty.
The faculty supports the president in the development
of the
Marian requested that any suggestions for wording
revisions be submitted to her by Tuesday, December 9th, in order to
present the declaration to the President on December 10th).
M. Grubor reported that Dr. Hunter had established timelines
for policies to be presented to the Board of Governors. The dates were provided to faculty on the
agenda. Notably, the following policies
are slated for the
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Conflict of
Interest
K. Atkins (policy chairperson) presented the following committee
response for discussion by Senate:
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3rd
Paragraph: 6th line down
delete “prior to action in Question.”
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4th
Paragraph: The final sentence in this
paragraph needs to be as follows:
While definition of conflict of
interest cannot be all-inclusive, the following are “limited examples” of
common situations which could raise a question regarding
commitment and/or conflict of interest.
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Several of the
examples are concerning:
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7th
entry: Change “Devoting so much time” to
“Devoting too much time”
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8th
entry: Delete this example
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9th
entry: Reword to read as follows: External employment which directly interferes
with the time needed to carry out normal responsibilities for College employment.
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5th
Paragraph: Delete from the first
sentence “or when the employee is not within the term of his or her contract
period or is on leave.”
o
Rewrite the
second sentence to read – It is understood that even some external employment
in the field assists the faculty member in keeping up-to-date with practices of
the field.
o
Delete the last
sentence that reads: Prior approval and
clarification should be sought in any matter which may pose a potential
conflict of interest. This is redundant, it has been addressed in the third paragraph.
Further
editing suggestions were offered by faculty.
Due to the extensive nature of the suggestions, it was felt that the
policy needed to looked at further by the faculty
committee. T. Vavra
agreed to chair the committee to further edit the conflict of interest policy.
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T. Vavra has suggested a new form that will combine work load
and conflict of interest issues. The
form will show that hours required by WVNCC are being met, and if they are
being met, then there can be no conflict of interest.
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T. Danford states that all state employees must file an
External Employment Form in order to be in state compliance.
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T. Vavra voiced concerns that the workload policy must be
addressed and completed before we can complete a conflict of interest
policy. Faculty must have their required
hours established before they can be evaluated for conflicts.
M. Grubor stated that there are concerns about faculty
teaching at other institutions and suggested that faculty consider teaching an
overload course for WVNCC rather than at another institution.
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T. Vavra responded that the salary is not comparable to
outside institutions.
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T. Danford stated that if our faculty cannot teach elsewhere,
than how can we hire faculty from other institutions as our adjunct faculty?
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M. Davis
proposes a motion stating that Faculty Senate does not see teaching at other
institutions as a Conflict of Interest.
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T. Vavra makes a motion that the Faculty Senate will react to
the Conflict of Interest policy after basic workloads are defined.
Discussion from the floor on the motions:
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T. Vavra states that we must see our required workload before
we can see if a conflict of interest is present.
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C. Dale states
that these concerns need to be first presented to the President through the
officers.
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C. Cornforth states that the faculty need
to be recognized as a “professional group”, not hourly employees.
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A Declaration
be sent to the President stating that the faculty support the state’s
definition and guidelines for Conflict of Interest and that teaching at an
outside institution is not a Conflict of Interest (Herrington/Norton) Motion passed unanimously.
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K. Herrington, T.
Vavra, and G. Norton to draft the Declaration.
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Workload Policy
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M. Davis stated
that the current HEPC policy states fifteen credit hours, but that it was going
to be addressed further at the January meeting of ACF.
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M. Watson stated
concerns that faculty received hour for hour equivalence with contact time with
students, such as in lab and clinical situations.
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T. Vavra questioned the “40 hour work week” and also how
normal, low, and high enrollments would be developed and implemented into
workloads.
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K. Herrington had
concerns of faculty teaching high workloads would be released from advising
duties. She stated that many faculty are sole advisors for their programs and that this
was not practical.
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K. Atkins stated their could be accreditation implications for some programs
concerning workloads.
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L. Shelek agreed and stated that the Nursing accreditiation had cited concerns about faculty having “too
much overload.”
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Ralph Lucki is nominated to chair the committee on Workload. (Shelek/Danford)
Motion passed unanimously.
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Faculty agreeing
to serve on committee: L. Shelek, T. Danford, C. Kefauver, and S. Beck.
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Results need to
be presented at the January meeting.
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Professional
Development
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J. Daley requests
that Department chairs send him a plan on how professional development funds
will be utilized by the program or department.
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Travel Policy
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T. Danford stated that the policy was held up at the last BOG
meeting due to a matter of wording concerning travel between campuses. The intent of the policy is to allow payment
of faculty/staff traveling between campuses to be allowed to go home prior to
returning to the home campus
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FERC
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L. Ingram
reported that faculty had been sent the updated version of the Faculty
evaluation policy, it included some minor wording
changes suggested by faculty. The FERC
chairs had also received concerns from faculty that had entered at the rank of
Instructor, but had an existing Master’s Degree. These faculty
questioned the need for them to accrue 15 more graduate hours prior to being
eligible for a promotion. They also
questioned how some faculty were assigned a higher
rank with a master’s degree. Discussion
ensued that many faculty entered with existing master’s degrees and had to
accrue the hours according to the policy.
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T. Danford stated that this was not a FERC issue,
it is an issue of assigning initial rank.
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S. Rychlicki questioned when the change occurred from needing
hours. M. Watson stated that the Track
A/B had been eliminated when the new policy was passed.
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T. Vavra stated that the requirement to stay at a rank for a
period of time had also been eliminated in the current policy. Discussion ensued, M.Grubor
stated that this had been done as a provision for those
faculty hired as “temporary” and were unable to apply for promotion
until last year. It was unfair to hold
them back further with this stipulation.
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K. Herrington
suggested that a requirement stating a certain number of years of service be
required before moving to each rank, Not years at a
particular rank.
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M. Watson and L.
Ingram asked that further suggestions be sent to them and they would bring the
policy back in January.
Bob Defrancis addressed the faculty regarding business relating
to the College Square Concept.
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The Foundation’s
Capital Campaign has been implemented with local attorney, Bill Wilmoth serving as Chairperson.
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The Foundation
has approved a one million dollar campaign.
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The
administration requests a resolution of support from the Faculty Senate.
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M. Grubor reported that this had already been completed.
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A steering
committee has been developed: Nick Zervos, Becky Yescenski, Darryl
Ruth, Mary Dudley.
This committee needs a faculty representative.
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Mr. Defrancis reported that college officials had med with Banc
One officials to discuss how the college can write bonds, if necessary.
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The college has
been approved to receive over 6 million dollars in bond issues, with 5.5 million
earmarked for the new building.
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Mr. Defrancis thanked the faculty for allowing him to speak and
for their support of the project.
M. Grubor was nominated for
the position on the Steering Committee. (Watson/Berry). Motion passed unanimously.
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Old Business: M. Grubor announced that she had spoken to J. Daley concerning
faculty absences. It was noted that the
institution is teaching by objectives and not seat time, therefore if there is
an absence (excluding extended illness, etc) that the faculty member is
required to make provisions that objectives are met for the missed class time.
Marian Grubor announced that the Faculty Senate needed to nominate
seven Full Professors for the Promotion and Tenure Committee.
The following Professors were
approved: R. Berry, T. Danford, S. Hooff, D. Hans, R. Malek, N. Krupinski, and M.
Watson.
M. Grubor also asked that a new Vice-President be elected due
to the large volume of business that Senate is involved in at this time.
R. Lucki is nominated for Vice-President (Vavra/Berry)
Motion
to close nominations (Danford/Watson) Nomination and motion passed
unanimously.
M. Grubor had the following announcements from J. Daley:
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Department Chairs
need to submit budget request.
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Space allocations
for the new building are due by the end of the semester.
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Lynn Lapinski is now in a Rehab Facility in
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All are invited
to the Daley’s Christmas Party
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New Business:
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M. Davis
questioned if it is standard procedure for the Faculty Representative to report
Senate Business to the Board of Governors?
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T. Danford stated that this was not currently done, but if we
wish to do this it is not a problem.
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Faculty
representative to the Board of Governors will make a monthly report concerning
the business of the Faculty Senate.
(M. Davis/K. Herrington)
Motion passed unanimously.
M. Grubor dispensed with committee reports due to worsening
weather.
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Adjournment: With
no further business, the meeting was adjourned at
Respectfully submitted,
Lisa A. Ingram, secretary