Faculty Affairs Policy Committee (FAPC) - October, 7 2011

Faculty Affairs Policy Committee (FAPC) Minutes - 07 Oct 2011

Attendance

Present:  Carrie Cook, David de Posada, Victoria Deneroff, Mary Magoulick, Leslie Moore, Holley Roberts, Mike Rose, Craig Turner.

Absent:   Mike Whitfield.

Regrets:  Dean Baker, David Connolly, Provost Sandra Jordan, Karynne Kleine.

Guests:   Associate Provost Tom Ormond.

Activity and Agreements

1. Call to Order: Craig Turner, committee chair, called the meeting to order at 3:30 p.m.


2. Agenda: A motion to approve the 07 October 2011 agenda, as circulated, was made, seconded, and approved.


3. Minutes: A motion to approve the 02 September 2011 FAPC meeting minutes, as circulated, was made, seconded, and approved.


4. Informational Items:

1. Years of service recognition lag: Some faculty have expressed a concern regarding the lag present in years of service recognition. For example, the recognition for 10 years of service to GC is made during the 11^th year of service. The committee chair noted that the Academic Policy Committee (APC) report given at the 23 September 2011 University Senate meeting included a statement that the issue of years of service recognition lag had been routed to FAPC. To inform the drafting of the tentative agenda of the 07 October 2011 FAPC meeting, the committee chair consulted with the presiding officer of the university senate to clarify whether this item (recognition lag) was to be considered by FAPC. As part of this conversation, it was noted that the service recognition was for all employees (faculty and staff) and thus might more appropriately be considered by the Resources, Planning, and Institutional Policy Committee (RPIPC) as that committee has both faculty and staff among its membership while FAPC is populated exclusively by faculty. The presiding officer agreed to consult with the members of Executive Committee at their next meeting regarding the steering of this item.


2. Georgia conference AAUP: GC is hosting the fall 2011 meeting of the Georgia Conference of the AAUP on Friday 14 October 2011 and Saturday 15 October 2011. The committee chair indicated that while the typical attendees of this meeting are officers of institutional AAUP chapters across the state of Georgia, all faculty (AAUP members or not) are welcome to attend. The guest speaker this year for the Saturday morning session will be the USG lobbyist, Mr. Tom Daniels. In addition, there is a lobbying workshop from 3:30-5:00 during the Friday session. The supporting documents, available at the meeting website http://math.GC.edu/~cmt/AAUP/index.htm, include additional details about the conference meeting and registration information.


3. Report on the 23 September 2011 joint meeting of Standing Committee Chairs (SCC) and Executive Committee (ECUS): David de Posada, FAPC Vice-Chair, will be attending these meetings on behalf of the committee chair during the fall 2011 semester as the chair has a class schedule conflict. The new business discussed at the 23 September 2011 meeting was an update on the GC Presidential search. When asked to report for FAPC, David reported that the items under consideration by FAPC were clearly within its scope. He also reported that Carrie Cook, the FAPC secretary, is to be commended for the level of detail she provides of the committee deliberations in the committee minutes. The remaining monthly SCC/ECUS meetings for the fall 2011 semester are scheduled for Friday 14 October 2011 and Friday 11 November 2011 from 8:00am to 9:00am in the University President’s Conference Room (Room 301 of the Parks Administration Building).


4. Report on the 23 September 2011 University Senate meeting: There was no elaboration on the items discussed during the 23 September 2011 University Senate meeting.


5. SOS Participation Rate: Prior to the meeting, the committee chair had emailed the committee with information, including supporting documents providing data and a narrative report on the data, about student opinion survey participation rates for spring 2009 through spring 2011. These supporting documents are linked to the agenda of the 7 October 2011 FAPC meeting and are available at the FAPC website. The data indicate the trends in the student opinion survey participation rates and showed a significant drop in participation rates in the first semester (fall 2009) of the on-line administration of the student opinion surveys followed by an increase in participation rate since, the most significant increase occurring from fall 2010 to spring 2011 when several strategies to increase participation rates were implemented. The reports were prepared by Institutional Research for the Provost and shared by the Provost with FAPC to inform the FAPC student opinion survey work group.


        5. Action Items:

A.    Tentative agenda items for FAPC for the 2011-2012 academic year considered at the 10 August 2011 governance retreat: The list is provided below with a summary of the committee deliberation on each item.

(1)         Mission/vision of CETL: The committee agreed to defer committee consideration of this tentative agenda item in light of the efforts currently in progress to rethink the mission of CETL. Specifically, the interim CETL director distributed an email survey to the entire faculty inviting feedback on how CETL can best serve faculty needs. Associate Provost Ormond indicated that Provost Jordan is inviting Dr. Linda Noble, Associate Vice Chancellor for Faculty Affairs in the University System of Georgia, as a consultant to review CETL and offer advice for campus consideration. David de Posada also mentioned that the CETL committee (on which he sits) welcomes more volunteers to join the committee. He also provided information that the next meeting of this CETL committee will be held in November.

(2)         Faculty voice on Presidential search committee: The committee agreed that this issue has been addressed as there are four faculty members on the Presidential search committee. Therefore, this item can be taken off of the 2011-2012 agenda.

(3)         Start/end dates on faculty contracts (historical data gathering): The committee discussed this agenda item during its 2 September 2011 meeting. There was also information shared that the Academic Policy Committee (APC) is also discussing academic year faculty contract start dates. The committee asked David de Posada to submit this item to Executive Committee for steering at the 14 Oct 2011 meeting of Standing Committee Chairs and Executive Committee as presently it is being considered by both APC and FAPC. There was also some discussion that the nature of the original inquiry was a curiosity question seeking information on the process by which the start/end dates for academic year contracts are determined and an opinion expressed that the Provost’s recent email response was informative and comprehensive in answering the questions from the previous committee deliberation on this matter. Some committee members expressed the opinion that consideration of this item should no longer be on the FAPC agenda for 2011-2012. The committee decided to conclude its consideration of this item until the committee is asked to further consider the item by either one of its members or by the Executive Committee.

(4)         Standing Committee officer mentoring (guidance on operating procedures): The committee chair indicated that he had forwarded this item to the presiding officer of the university senate via email for possible consideration by Executive Committee. The committee expressed the belief that this item should be forwarded to Executive Committee for steering as this item is outside the scope of FAPC. David de Posada was asked to share this belief with Executive Committee at the next joint meeting of Standing Committee Chairs and Executive Committee scheduled for 14 October 2011.

(5)         Pre-tenure review language (review language in university policy manual): Committee members expressed the opinion that this is a worthwhile item to include on the FAPC agenda, but that it might be prudent to complete the review of the post-tenure review language, currently in-progress, before undertaking a review of the language of pre-tenure review.

(6)         Post-tenure review language (2011-2012 FAPC work group continuing its review): The FAPC post-tenure review work group is continuing its work on reviewing the language of the post-tenure review policy. This work group is presently informing its work with a review of the post-tenure review language recently adopted by the University of West Georgia and will be meeting on 18 October 2011 to continue its deliberation.

(7)         Student opinion survey instrument review/ coordinating with University Chairs Council: A work group reporting to the University Chairs Council is examining this item. This work group is currently populated by members of the University Chairs Council (Lee Gillis (chair), Steve Auerbach, Bill Fisher, Indiren Pillay) and members of FAPC (Carrie Cook, Karynne Kleine, Craig Turner). Karynne Kleine has requested that another faculty member be considered in her place on this work group. Julia Metzker was nominated as Karynne Kleine’s replacement. The committee members present at this meeting unanimously endorsed this recommendation. A committee member requested that the work group consider whether questions added to any adopted instrument might be customizable by the department or if the university will have its own customized questions.

(8)         Faculty pay (12 month pay for academic year faculty/ alternatives to 10 monthly checks): The committee expressed interest in keeping this item on the agenda. There has been ongoing interest in this issue from faculty and several previous efforts to gather information and make recommendations about the issue. Information was provided that there is preliminary consideration by centralized payroll that all USG employees (faculty and staff) be paid twice a month. It is not clear how likely this is to actually be implemented but it is receiving consideration at this time.

(9)         Years of service recognition lag (10-year recognition awarded during 11th year of service): This item will be considered by Executive Committee for steering soon (see 4.A. under informational items). David de Posada was asked to follow-up on this matter at the 14 October 2011 meeting of Standing Committee Chairs and Executive Committee.

(10)     IFR from academic year to calendar year: The committee expressed interest in keeping this item on the agenda.

(11)     Syllabus (required statements) and whether one could link to the central website in place of having standardized statements on syllabi: The committee expressed interest in removing this item from the agenda in light of (a) the update received from the Provost at the 29 April 2011 FAPC meeting indicating there is a centralized archive of required statements for syllabi in existence (see item 7.c.i. on 29 April 2011 FAPC minutes) and (b) the fact that Academic Policy Committee (APC) is presently considering the matter of the inclusion of a link to the central website in place of the actual appearance of standardized statements on the syllabus.

B.     Student opinion survey work group recommendations: The committee chair asked the committee if there should be further discussion about the action recommended by the student opinion survey work group that was introduced at the 02 September 2011 meeting. This action stated that the FAPC work group members agreed to recommend that FAPC should put forward a motion to the effect that faculty should have meaningful and substantive involvement in issues related to faculty evaluation. A motion to postpone consideration of this item to the 4 November 2011 FAPC meeting was made, seconded and approved.

    6.    Updates from FAPC Work Groups:

1. Student Opinion Survey Form: Carrie Cook indicated that the group is currently working with members of the University Chairs Council (see item 5.A.(7). above for a list of the members) gathering information about commercial student opinion surveys that are nationally-normed with published measures of validity and reliability.


2. Post-Tenure Review Work Group: Included in item 5.A.(6). above.

    7.     Unfinished Business: There was no unfinished business.

   8.      New Business: There was no new business.

   9.     Tentative Agenda for the next FAPC meeting: The tentative agenda for the next meeting includes discussion of the action recommended by members of the FAPC student opinion survey work group (see 5.B. above).

  10.     Opportunity for the FAPC Secretary to clarify any matter with the committee: Carrie Cook, committee secretary, was provided an opportunity to clarify any matter with the committee to assist her in the preparation of minutes for this meeting. She required no clarifications.

Actions Some activities lead to actions to implement the committee agreements.

5.A.(3).   At the 14 October 2011 joint meeting of Standing Committee Chairs and Executive Committee, submit the item of “start/end dates of academic year faculty contracts” for steering as this item is presently being considered by both Academic Policy Committee (APC) and FAPC. (David de Posada)

5.A.(4).   At the 14 October 2011 joint meeting of Standing Committee Chairs and Executive Committee, communicate to Executive Committee the belief that “Standing Committee Officer Mentoring (guidance on operating procedures)“, an item from the tentative FAPC agenda list from the 10 August 2011 governance retreat, is outside the scope of FAPC and is directed to Executive Committee for steering. (David de Posada)

5.A.(7).   Invite Julia Metzker to serve on the University Chairs Council Student Opinion Survey work group in place of Karynne Kleine. (Craig Turner)

5.A.(9).   Follow-up on the steering of the matter of “Years of Service Recognition Lag (e.g. 10 years of service recognized during the 11^th year of service)” at the 14 October 2011 joint meeting of Standing Committee Chairs and Executive Committee noting this might more appropriately be considered by RPIPC than FAPC since years of service recognition is given for all employees (faculty and staff). (David de Posada)

9.            Set the tentative agenda for the next FAPC meeting in consultation with the committee. (Craig Turner)