Executive Committee Report given at the Jan 28, 2008 University Senate Meeting

Steering Committee of the University Senate and Faculty Advisory Committee to the University President

Members:  President Leland, Vice President Gormly, Doug Goings (SoB),  Bill Richards (Library)

Officers:  Secretary: Chris Greer (SoE), Vice-Chair: Kendra Russell (SoHS), Chair: Craig Turner (SoLAS)

 

SUMMARY (an approximation to what was shared orally at the January 28 University Senate meeting)

 

DETAILS  (providing more comprehensive information for each of the individual committee meetings)

  1. Since the November 26, 2007 meeting of the 2007-08 University Senate, ECUS held three elected faculty workshops (Nov 29, Jan 10, Jan 24), and one joint meeting with the Standing Committee Chairs (Jan 17). 
  2. Throughout this report, the following acronyms may be used.
  3. On November 29, 2007, the elected faculty members of the Executive Committee (ECUS) met and

                                                         i.      discussed at length a draft resignation procedure for individuals to resign from University Senate or one of its committees.  Kendra agreed to prepare another draft for review at the next elected faculty workshop scheduled for January 10, 2008.

                                                       ii.      reviewed proposed language to revise the structure of the University Senate with respect to the six Presidential Appointees.  At present, the proposed revision is to reduce the number of Presidential appointees from six to five identifying these five appointees with the positions on standing committees called presidential appointees, and to make the sixth presidential appointee position a thirty-seventh elected faculty senator position specifically as a third at-large elected faculty senator position.  This proposal had been discussed several times earlier in the year and most recently unanimously endorsed by those present at the joint meeting of executive committee and standing committee chairs on November 15, 2007.  The draft language was approved as presented, thus requiring no changes.

                                                      iii.      reviewed a proposal to removing the section on administrative committees from the bylaws (thus taking the Executive Committee out of the business of Administrative Committee registration) and language that proposed an effort to provide information such as membership rosters, charge, and meeting minutes of committees to those affected by the work of the respective committee (i.e. continue a committee registry and recommend the University President assign this function to an appropriate university official).  The proposal for the latter will take the form of a resolution for university senate consideration and will be put forward as a separate motion from the bundle of proposed bylaws revisions under consideration this academic year. The primary goal is to continue to support the ideals of transparency in decision-making as well as access to the information relevant to the deliberations within the decision-making process.  There were some minor revisions to the wording of this separate resolution that Craig agreed to incorporate into the working draft.

                                                     iv.      the remaining items in the current draft of the proposed revisions were also reviewed and approved as proposed with one exception being the calendar and term length for the four elected staff senator positions.  The primary reason for not acting on the elected staff senator statement was that the Staff Council is continuing to discuss changes to their bylaws which may influence this item.  Further discussion on this matter was postponed until such time as the recommendations of Staff Council are known.  Craig agreed to coordinate with Staff Council Chair Gina Peavy to obtain this information.

                                                       v.      remaining items were postponed to the next elected faculty workshop due to the fact that our meeting time had come to an end..

  1. On January 10, 2008, the elected faculty of the Executive Committee met and

                                                         i.      the most current draft of a resignation procedure formalizing the process for an individual University Senator to resign his/her position on the University Senate including the committee on which he/she serves or for a non-Senator to resign his/her position from a University Senate Committee.  Suggested revisions were made and Kendra agreed to incorporate these suggestions to the draft and prepare a new version for January 24.

  1. On January 17, 2007, the Executive Committee met jointly with Standing Committee Chairs and

                                                         i.      to place this item on the agenda of the next joint meeting of ECUS and Standing Committee Chairs scheduled for February 14

                                                       ii.      that each of those present review the relevant existing university evaluation policy statements

                                                      iii.      recommendations on this matter could be made within the faculty advisory role of the executive committee and would likely include (a) identification of the matter as policy, procedure, information, etc. (b) specification of a group or groups to review the matter and (c) a synopsis of relevant aspects of the committee deliberation to provide the receiving group(s) a context in which to consider the matter.

                                                         i.      Faculty Compensation Study  -- We have implemented year one of the faculty salary study (year one brings all faculty salaries to market minimum).  We did send letters to all faculty who received a boost this year.

                                                       ii.      Budget  -- We will know more about how our budget proposal was received by mid-February or early March, although we may not be permitted to share this information until after the legislative session is over and the veto process completed.

                                                      iii.      Legislation  --We have been working to forestall another pending version of the "intellectual diversity" bill and also an effort by the NRA to overturn a Georgia law that prohibits guns at schools--including college campuses.

                                                     iv.      USG Core Curriculum -- The University System of Georgia (USG) core curriculum committees will meet jointly for the first time in early February for a two day working retreat.  These 35 faculty members will be charged with developing one or two preliminary curricular models, which will then go out by mid-February to all USG faculty for input / comment / reaction.

                                                         i.      University Senate tab in myCATS:  In short the tab has been elevated from a faculty user group tab to a "world tab" making the number of "world tabs" four (myCATS, Emergencies, Tutorial and University Senate).  A "world tab" is available to the world i.e. all user types including faculty, staff, and student.  I wish to acknowledge Barbara Monnett, University Webmaster, for her extraordinary work of the implementation of this tab within myCATS in both the developmental and current versions as well as its implementation as a “world” tab.

                                                       ii.      Electronic Suggestion Box:  An electronic suggestion box for the University Senate is also being implemented and is linked from the University Senate webpage and also from the myCATS University Senate tab.  This suggestion box facilitates the submission, anonymously if desired, of suggestions regarding any matter deemed relevant to the University Senate by an individual.  This suggestion box was developed by Dr. Chris Greer who designed and drafted the front-end, and implemented by Barbara Monnett who developed a back end to collect and archive the suggestions received in an electronic file and migrated Dr. Greer’s draft onto the university server.

                                                      iii.      Discussion of this electronic suggestion box included suggestions that

o       a plan should be developed to review and respond to the suggestions received, with the understanding that anonymous suggestions which are not clearly understood may not receive adequate response in all cases

o       an electronic archive of the suggestions and responses should be accessible to the same set of individuals that have access to make suggestions to promote transparency and the sharing of information and support possible closure of information loops to authors of anonymous suggestions

o       language displayed to the user immediately following the submission of a suggestion should provide relevant information about the process for responding to suggestions

                                                     iv.      received an update on the Governance Retreat Planning Committee (GRPC) from Bill Richards, noting that the committee (a) had its organizational meeting November 28, 2007 (b) continues to review participant feedback of the May 10, 2007 governance retreat (c) plans to have its next meeting at the Jefferson Building aka The Macon Center, the proposed site for the upcoming Governance Retreat scheduled for Thursday May 8, 2008.and (d) membership is Bill Richards (chair), Craig Turner, Todd Shiver, Carol Ormond, and Karen Higgs.

                                                       v.      accepted the tentative meeting schedule for joint meetings of the executive committee and standing committee chairs for Spring 2008 as proposed.  These meetings are scheduled for February 14, March 20 and April 10, each of which is a Thursday, from 9:30 am to 10:50 a.m. and will be held in the President’s Conference Room.

                                                     vi.      finalized the template and due date for the comprehensive committee annual reports.  These reports are due no later than noon on Thursday May 1, 2008 which is the first day of Spring 2008 exams and one calendar week prior to the Governance Retreat at which these reports might be distributed to participants.  Information relevant to the comprehensive committee reports including supporting docs and the template is available at the 2007-08 Comprehensive Annual Report web page.

                                                    vii.      finalized the agenda for the University Senate meeting scheduled for January 28, 2008. There was consensus that the University Senate should attend to the disposition of business in favor of receiving informational reports.  To support this agreement, reports of committees that have submitted motions for consideration will be delivered to the University Senate prior to reports of the committees that have not submitted motions.  The agreement was to arrange the committee reports in the following order:  CAPC, APC, RPIPC, ECUS, SAPC and FAPC.

                                                  viii.      Each of the chairs present shared information about his/her respective committee; the details of which are provided in the other committee reports given at the January 28, 2008 University Senate meeting.

                                                     ix.      finalized the tentative agenda for the next meeting of the executive committee.  This meeting will be an elected faculty workshop on January 24, 2008 in Arts & Sciences 1-16.

  1. On January 24, 2008, the elected faculty of the Executive Committee met and

                                                         i.      a review of the proposed process for resignations -- after some discussion and some minor word-smithing, Kendra agreed to prepare a final draft for inclusion in the existing bundle of bylaws revisions.

                                                       ii.      a review of the 2007-08 bylaws parking lot revealed that all the items on this list had been considered, each resulting in a proposed revision to the bylaws

                                                      iii.      a review of the level I, II, III list of proposed revisions to bylaws

a.       noting that the administrative committee issue (item 11 in level III) had been considered in its entirety in our earlier discussions.

b.      proposing the creation of a Presiding Officer Elect position for the University Senate, and agreeing not to recommend introducing a Chair-Elect position for Standing Committees.  Doug Goings agreed to draft some language for review at the Jan 31 meeting of bylaws revisions to support the creation of a Presiding Officer Elect position.

  1. The next meeting of the Executive Committee is an elected faculty workshop scheduled for Thursday, January 31, 2008 from 9:30-10:45 in the Arts & Sciences 1-16.