Wednesday, March 18, 2009
1. Call to Order:
The meeting was called to order at 1:56 PM.
2. Approval of Minutes:
The minutes were accepted as amended.
3. President’s Report: Karen M. Turner
If you want to listen to the proceedings of our last meeting or earlier meetings, go to the Senate website where there is a link to the meetings via Apreso.
- Since our last meeting the Steering Committee met the with the faculty athletics representative, Eleanor Myers, Director of Athletics, Bill Bradshaw, and the Associate Director of Athletics, Herman Frazier, to get an update on the recertification process. The decision on recertification should be available sometime in April. Turner has invited Myers and some of the coaches to speak at the May 8 University Senate Meeting.
- The Steering Committee has also met with consultant Bob Zemsky, who is reviewing graduate programs and graduate education at Temple. Any changes that will be made will not take place until 2010.
- Turner is encouraging faculty to attend the Senate meetings since the President and the Provost see these meetings as a place where they can give out information and get feedback from the faculty.
- The Steering Committee toured the Tyler Building. Turner mentioned that faculty must look for opportunities for cross discipline dialogues and projects. The Steering Committee will work with the President to facilitate such projects.
- All Steering Committee minutes and agendas are on the Senate website. President Hart will be at the April meeting.
4. Vice President’s Report: Paul S. LaFollette
- LaFollette discussed the coming election for officers of the Senate and for members of elected committees. The Steering Committee has presented the following slate of officers:
President: Karen Turner
Vice President: Paul LaFolletteSecretary: Joan Shapiro
LaFollette asked if there were nominations from the floor. There were none. He stated that candidates were needed to fill the following:
Three open spots on EPPC; two, on the Honors Oversight Committee; two, on RPPC; three on the Study Leave Committee; and one on Tenureand Promotion .
The only restrictions are that for T and P, a tenured full professor is needed and for the Personnel Committee a tenure track faculty member is needed. According to the bylaws petitions must be in now. The slate for elected committees must be ready in one week.
Faculty members are also needed to serve on non-elective committees. All of the information about the committees and the number of vacancies is on the Senate website: www.temple.edu/senate. LaFollette would be delighted to have candidates for the appointed committees as well. He repeated the importance of having all positions filled; however, it is essential to fill the positions on the elected committees first.
He also mentioned that prior to his becoming involved in committees, he had not known how many interesting things were going on at Temple and how many interesting people there were to meet at Temple. He also mentioned that a person is elected for two years and that at the end of two years, the person must leave the committee for at least a year before he/she can run for election again.
5. Guests: Heidi Grunwald, Assistant Vice Provost and Director of Research Development and Financial Planning and Dennis Lynch, Director of Government Relations.
Their topic: The American Recovery and Revitalization Act and the impact it will have on Temple.
Grunwald gave a presentation from a set of power points which is updated every half day with live links to NIH and other agencies. This set can be found on www.research.temple.edu/index.html.
On the left side of the screen, click on the link to American Recovery and Reinvestment Funding Opportunities. Other live links, within the program, are to agencies such as NIH, NSF, HUD, and NEA for example.
Grunwald gave an overview of some of the power point slides: NIH has been given $10.4 Billion for grants. All agencies must spend their monies within 2 years. The grants vary by Institute and Center. Temple has applied for three large scale construction grants: Two for the Medical School and one for Science and Technology. Temple has also applied for other smaller grants,
Challenge grants vary by Institution and Center. If you are interested, go to your program officer. These grant proposals must be in by April 27. Each Institute is setting its own priorities. NSF has not yet announced its program publicly.
Grunwald attended a video conference given by DHHS. 90% of the money will go the states.
However 84M will be available for strengthening block grants for communities.
- Lynch spoke about what is happening with the state budget. If you are interested, go to HUwww.recovery.pa,govUH . Changes are made frequently. Stimulus money to the state will help to cover healthcare, job training, education, energy independence, tax breaks, food stamps, public safety, etc. 42M will help fund state related universities: Temple, Penn State, Pittsburg and Lincoln.
In response to a question pertaining to what the University can do to help faculty grant proposals get out, Grunwald stated that they were working on a strategy to help. She expects about 75 Challenge grant proposals to be made from University personnel.
Art Hochner has researched the American Recovery and Revitalization Act and says that the Governor should be funding $42M in each of the fiscal years 2009, 2010, and 2011 and that the state should be giving more this year. The Governor has stated that he would give money next year. Lynch agrees with Hochner and said that he has met with the Budget Director of the state. There will be further discussions with the Budget Director on this topic.
Turner asked Grunwald to summarize priorities. Grunwald mentioned two construction grants are for the Medical School to be used to build two floors, and one to be used for the Bio Life Science Beury addition, a Bio Life Science construction proposal. The Medical School is also writing a proposal for the Verio 3 Tesla (3T) MRI scanner magnet used to study brain functions of animals. She expects Engineering to go for a project through NIST, National Institute of Standards and Technology.
Greg Urwin had questions to be brought to the attention of the Academic Affairs Committee. 1) He had read an article by the TAUP, in the student newspaper, implying that the University has been paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to Ballard Spahr, known to be a union busting law firm. 2) There is a rumor that a member of the Board of Trustees has helped David Horowitz attack the faculty. Urwin would like the Provost to respond to these issues at the next faculty meeting.Grunwald said she will bring this issue up at a meeting that she and the Provost attend.
6. Old Business:
None
7. New Business:
None
8. Adjournment:
The meeting was adjourned at 2:44 PM.
Bonnie Averbach, Secretary
