Representative Faculty Senate Minutes, January 28, 2013
Representative Senators and Officers: 57
Ex-officio: 1
Faculty, Administrators and Guests: 24
Total Attendance: 82
1. Call to Order:
The meeting was called to order at 1:48pm.
2. Approval of Minutes:
It was moved and seconded to approve the minutes of the Representative Faculty Senate Meeting of November 8, 2013. The motion was unanimously approved.
3. Vice-President’s Report:
Faculty Senate Vice-President Mark Rahdert reported on progress with committees.
-He indicated that we need more members on the Budget Review Committee. We have members retiring and on leave and this is a very critical committee. He encouraged people to volunteer and recommend colleagues.
-There are still vacancies on the University Sabbatical Committee. The FSSC has decided that interim appointments may be necessary.
-The Faculty Senate Nominating Committee is being formulated. The role of that committee is to identify a slate of candidates for President, Vice-President and Secretary of Faculty Senate. Paul LaFollette, past president of the faculty senate, will be chair.
-He reminded senators that chairs of senate committees should be developing reports on what they have accomplished during the year. These committee reports should be brief -- 2-3 paragraphs at most. Shorter and sweeter is better because they need to meet the publication limits for the presentation in the Faculty Herald.
4. Terry Halbert:
Terry Halbert, faculty senate representative on the University Budgetary Steering Committee spoke to the senate to make a pitch for volunteers. She explained that right now the committee has 3 people from Fox School of Business and 1 member from the Law School. She emphasized that we need representatives from other colleges in the university. She indicated that people may be concerned whether they have enough expertise in budget matters but that service on this committee is “not about numbers, it’s about priorities.” She also mentioned that Deans are being encouraged to form committees in schools and colleges to be advisory to them on budget.
5. Guest: 10th Temple University President, Neil D. Theobald:
President Theobald was introduced to the Faculty Senate in his first address to this body. He graciously spent over an hour talking with faculty, listening to their questions and comments, and sharing his thoughts about his visions for work at Temple.
Faculty Senate President Joan Shapiro began by giving an introduction of President Theobald’s background and accomplishments as a teacher, researcher, and administrator. Among the qualifications and accomplishments mentioned were:
- Indiana University senior VP; top administrator at IU; leader of $1.1 billion capital campaign, and boosted IU’s credit rating to Moody’s highest level.
- Three-time winner of IU Teaching Excellence award well-published; received a Culbertson Award from UCEA, early career award researcher who focused on decentralized educational budget and financial models; ran a research center on higher education finances.
President Theobald thanked Joan for her kind remarks. He added that his path to administration was through faculty governance so he sees a very important role for shared governance. He explained that his main goal today is to hear from the faculty.
In his augural in October 2013 he plans to present a 5-10 year plan for the university.
Based on what he has heard and studied he has identified some critical issues for Temple. A brief discussion of those issues included:
Student debt and level of student debt is a critical issue. We need to do a much better job of making sure that students and their families are literate financially with these decisions.
The Fox School of Business has put together a course that someone can take to build financial literacy. He wants to see a broader application of these courses and has even talked with Dr. Hite, Superintendent of the School District of Philadelphia, about using these resources for their students.
We need a shorter length to graduation – strongest predictor of student debt; tuition is smallest part of debt, living expenses are huge; and there is a postponement of earning income.
He is a big fan of decentralized budgeting; it makes more sense to him.
He believes that faculty are our most important resource, and that recruiting and retaining best faculty possible should be a high priority.
We need balance between teaching and research; he values both sides.
It is crucial that we do a better job of telling our story about what a great place this is—but we’re adding a Vice President for Marketing to help with that.
President Theobald then invited faculty to make comments and ask questions. His responses to those are indicated as (PT) below:
Gregory Urwin (CLA): We need a leader to re-establish bonds of trust between administration and faculty. Much can be accomplished with a few gestures of respect and decency; give faculty credit for taking no raises and helping with state funding last year.
(PT): agrees, faculty are core of the university; question is how we put faculty in the lead.
Tracy Weiss (SMC): She is concerned that we don’t have an umbrella platform where schools are working together on online education.
(PT): The first step here is hiring the Provost who should lead this effort.
Molefi Asante (CLA): We need to emphasize academic leadership; we have a problem of faculty harassment. There is also a need for marketing flagship programs like the Ph.D. in African-American Studies.
(PT): He is not fully informed about harassment issues, but will examine this.
Doug Wager (TFMA): How do you see the process unfolding? How does it fit with the RCM approach? Long range planning could be about retrenchment and reallocation.
(PT): Each university is unique and we’re starting from scratch. He’s used the wisdom of Doug Preist and budget colleagues like Amy Heiter, but acknowledges that there are many issues to think through. For example:
-If money follows student does that mean it follows their major or their courses?
-How do we pay for general administration and “commonwealth” services?
-How can we help Deans in these issues?
-The planning processes have already started; budget model task force; starting a master planning process (not
20/20); and, analysis of fundraising.
Pamela Barnett (TLC): She explained the nature of TLC.
(P): This is very important work.
Jeffrey Solow (Boyer): Can you speak to value of a traditional arts education; with RCM how do art and music schools who are faculty intensive get supported?
(PT): We need very good academic counselors/advisers. It is possible to use state appropriations to supplement faculty intensive schools.
Michael Jackson (STHM): There is concern about institutional discrimination in hiring practices; ethnicity and racial discrimination. Will we have access to data on race/ethnicity in faculty and students? How do you feel about service as part of the trident?
(PT)- We have to reach out and have more diverse faculty.
-Kevin Clark is working with Rhonda Brown on data based decision-making.
-Recruiting and retention needs to have more attention; but he is not generally supportive of ‘special’ hiring.
-Service is not enough alone for tenure and/or promotion; we need to emphasize all three things.
Art Hochner (FSBM): Tuition increases is failure of the state to fund public higher education; we need to make the best case we can to the governor and the legislature.
-NTTs constitute over 40% of the faculty at TU. It’s an unhealthy trend here --years and years with one year contracts is not good. We need more long-term contracts for these NTTs. In addition, NTT salaries are often very low and they are shut out of the merit process.
-He is concerned about decentralization of the budget; lots of Deans who have weakened shared governance; for this RCM to work we need to have more faculty input.
-Curricula that go through more than one college, like GenEd, should come through Faculty Senate and shared governance processes.
(PT): The state funding point is correct. Over the last 30 years states moved away from funding public education. We don’t know whether the state is going to come back with more money. The old model is probably gone.
-For NTTs he agrees that longer contracts make sense.
-Faculty should be in control of the curriculum.
Terry Halbert (FSBM); GenEd is important. We have been traditionally able to keep class size small; money came from central administration. How can we save GenEd quality; who decides?
(PT):- IU didn’t have GenEd, so this is somewhat new to him. Of course, class sizes happen at the school level, but there are two levels in this model. We need a central pot of funds.
Karen Turner (SMC): Is it true you are rethinking where the new library is located?
-Cherry and White Day happening in Harrisburg, but faculty weren’t included.
-African-American Studies – some bad information out there; we need to deal with it.
(PT): Having faculty participation in the Cherry and White Day is a DONE deal. The AAS issue came up last week in a luncheon, he’s looking into it. Yes, he is considering asking the Trustees to rethink that library location.
Jennifer Cromley (COE): - There is data from a 4-year transition study that suggests quality of feedback to students is key; that we need to think smarter about socializing these teenagers for college?
(PT):- Having robust quality orientation is key.
Tricia Jones (COE): In the planning process it may be helpful to have more of a safety net for schools and colleges attempting innovation and entrepreneurial activity – something the Faculty Senate has been emphasizing. Perhaps this can be included, especially for smaller colleges that have fewer resources to weather initially costly start-up efforts under an RCM model.
(PT): Good idea.
6. Motion to Adjourn:
It was moved, seconded and unanimously approved to adjourn the meeting at 3:21pm.
Respectfully submitted,
Tricia S. Jones
Faculty Senate Secretary
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