Tuesday, October 16, 2007
1. Call to Order:
The meeting was called to order at 1:45 by
President Aiken.
2. Approval of Minutes:
The minutes from the September 17th meeting were approved.
3. Provost Lisa Listens:
The provost began with two announcements. The first was a review of the status of the Academic Planning process. With the help of the FSSC and EPPC, faculty have been identified to participate. Tonight there will be a kickoff dinner to begin the process, and tomorrow there will be roundtable discussions, the output of which will be sent back to the Academic Planning Steering Committee.
Secondly, she mentioned that there have been various episodes of poor communication manifest during her time here. She has been working with TAUP to develop a committee which can address the issues of improved communication between administrators and deans and faculty.
Hochner: Has worked out a written formal agreement to set up a procedure for improving communications. Has pledged to begin within the next month.
Provost Lisa: Views Faculty Senate as her partner to make Temple University as good as it can be.
Questions:
Question: Can you comment on the changes in the structure of your office?
Answer: She is currently working to re-organize her portfolio in ways that will make her office a more service-oriented and logically configured operation.
Question: Can you clarify the process of approval with respect to GenEd? Do forms go to Deans' offices or directly to Provost?
Answer: Watt discussed the history and issues. Previously courses were approved without talking to deans and chairs. This will no longer be the case. He is not sure yet whether there will be approval both by GEEC and by departments and schools. They don't want the process to become so cumbersome that it unmotivates the creators of courses. Englert added that there have been discussions that would allow courses submitted to GEEC to be simultaneously submitted to schools and colleges so that the schools and colleges could make recommendations to GEEC. Some additional faculty discussion followed.
Word came down initially that availability of TA's would be tied to willingness to teach GenEd courses. This, and also the importance of TA's and RA's to graduate programs needs to remain on the Provost's radar.
Answer: This is very much on her radar and will also be a part of the discussion of Academic Planning.
Comment: Provost's website is not well organized and it is hard to find things there.
Answer: There is a huge revision underway of all of Temple's websites.
Question: Will the role of the Ambler campus be part of the planning process?
Answer: Yes
Please talk about the search process for the new vice-president for faculty development?
Answer: We are working on job descriptions right now. Bonnie Brennen did much to bring order to the office but now she wants to get back to her research. Not sure whether we will start with an internal search or not. It should evolve rapidly. Please suggest names to Provost Lisa if you have them.
4. Report from Tim O'Rourke on the Enterprise Resource Planning Project:
O'Rourke presented Temple's plans for upgrading Temple's non-academic computer systems. Our current systems are ancient and have been highly modified to the point that they are can no longer be maintained or upgraded.
A plan for replacing our current systems with a new, integrated system has been in development for the past several years. It has recently been approved by the Board. It is a roughly 38 million dollar project which will consist of:
1) A new portal (to replace TUportal)
2) A financial product
3) A student system which will manage all aspects
related to students including financial aid.
4) A development system which will provide lifelong
tracking of our graduates.
5) Operational Reporting
6) A Data Warehouse
7) Workflow and Document Imaging modules
A decision has been made to use available software and not to try to modify it to conform to the way we currently do things. This will allow our systems to remain supportable and upgradable. We will change our way of doing things rather than make custom changes to the software. A large part of this project will be training.
Benefits to faculty will include the ability to post grades, create queries, and make purchases all on line. We will have our own financial aid system.
5. President's Report (Aiken):
Aiken reported that CATA has been working hard providing nominations for the Academic Planning Process, and nominations for the search committees for the Dean of Temple University Japan and the Dean of the Law School. They are now working on nominations for the search for the Vice President for International Programs.
The FSSC has been trying to have a weekly presentation from various organizations here at Temple. These often grow into presentations to the Representative Senate such as we had today. We have also recently heard from Eli Goldblatt about the Community Based Learning Committee. We have been working with the administration on several items including the possibility of changing the titles for NTT faculty back to what they were several years ago. We are still looking at the possibility of re-introducing a motion on senate membership.
The Faculty Herald is now on line. We have had over 2500 hits on the website.
Aiken's last comment was that we should all get our flu shots.
Past President Evans reported on the upcoming Teach-In on Friday Nov. 2 at 3:30 about academic freedom and urges us to attend.
Update on Academic Planning Project:
The steering committee consists of 26 members of which 10 are faculty. This is consistent with the previous statements of the President and Provost about the importance of faculty involvement.
The next process is to develop the specific committees to work on the Academic Plan. Once these committees are formed, they will look for more faculty to serve on them and provide expertise.
6. Vice-President's Report (Turner):
Turner has asked for volunteers to fill two open slots on EPPC. She continues to work on the updates for the Senate website.
7. Old Business:
None
8. New Business:
A request was made that we send the FSSC minutes out to the Listserv.
9. Adjournment:
The meeting was adjourned at 3:00 PM.
Paul S. LaFollette, Jr.
Secretary
