Faculty Policies Committee Minutes, March 17, 2003, 3 p.m.

 

Present: Michelle Benedict, Barbara Coleman, Bill Dodd, Cliff Gardiner, Jim Garvey, Andy Hauger (chair), Jeff Heck (secretary), Donna Hobbs, Bill Reese, Jana Sandarg, Sabina Widner

 

Guests: Chip Matson, Director of Computer Services, and Bill English, Assistant Director for Systems and Programming Services

 

Minutes of March 3, 2003 were approved as distributed. (There was no meeting March 10 to allow FPC members to attend the Sexual Harassment Committee Forum.)

 

 

Agenda items: Old Business

 

1. Proposed Change from Anlon to WebCT Vista

            Chip Matson presented information concerning a change from Anlon, the current Web teaching tool, to WebCT Vista.

 

ADVANTAGES: The latter product is used by all other schools in the University System. Changing to WebCT would mean using a shared server elsewhere in the state, which would allow for 24/7 support for the product for students and would relieve us of doing maintenance, upgrades, etc. on the server. The change would allow students tranfsferring between our school and others an easier transition, and it would allow us to use WebCT content created by national publishers to accompany their textbooks. The WebCT system is owned by the same company that owns PeopleSoft, so the interface between the two should be better than the custom program written by Anlon to work with PeopleSoft. The University System staff can supply training here. Finally, we are close to the current limit of our license agreement with Anlon (100 faculty users), while the WebCT agreement would provide campus-wide use.

 

DISADVANTAGES: The annual maintenance fee will increase. Transition work.

 

            If the change is accepted, ASU will begin with the most recent version of WebCT available, either in the Fall or Spring. If needed, both Anlon and WebCT could be run concurrently for one semester to aid in the transition.

            The FPC did not object to the recommendation and suggested asking the chair of the IT Committee (Norm Prinsky) to send information about the change to Academic Policies, as he did to the FPC.

 

2. EMail Policy

            The final version of the proposed email policy was discussed with Bill English and Chip Matson. Matson reported that it is not clear how requests for Georgia Open Records are to be handled, but that it seems it should be handled at the departmental level.

            The proposed policy will be forwarded to the University Council.

 

3. Faculty Elections

            Donna Hobbs presented the ballots for this year, developed by Donna and formatted by Jeff Heck. Bill Dodd will check on who should be listed on the ballot from Military Science. After minor changes, the ballots will be forwarded by Andy Hauger to faculty as Word and Acrobat attachments in order to keep their current formatting.

            It was noted that the School of Business is NOT listed on the University Council ballot because only one faculty member from that unit may serve at a time and there is a member of that school on the UC through next year. It was also noted that the College of Education had been rotated to the beginning of the ballot.

            Primaries will be held Tuesday and Wednesday, March 25th and 26th, with paper ballots in the library front office and email ballots accepted by Donna Hobbs and Jeff Heck. Email balloting will end at 2:30 p.m. Wednesday, the 26th. Paper balloting will end at 3 p.m. Wednesday, the 26th. Ballots will be tallied by Hobbs and Heck at 3 p.m. in the Library Conference Room.

            Use of email for voting will be encouraged.

 

 

 

4. Sexual Harassment Committee Policy

            Andy Hauger presented an amended version of the SHC Policy following the forum held March 10, 2003. The new version included suggested wording to address the concerns of forum participants and other respondents to the new policy. The FPC reviewed the additions and suggested minor changes. Sabina Widner, chair of the Sexual Harassment Committee, and Hauger will work together to make sure the final version is polished, then forward the document to the University Council.

 

5. Promotion and Tenure

            There was no need to cover this item at this meeting.

 

6. Textbook Resale by Faculty

            The FPC discussed further a concern about restrictions in place that allow only one book-buying vendor on campus to buy textbooks from faculty. The bookstore has responded that there are actually about six vendors who are approved to rebuy books on campus, but that only one vendor has been approved to purchase used books in academic office buildings.  This policy was reportedly put into place to regulate the traffic of non-university persons in faculty suites and offices in order to protect against thefts of books and other faculty belongings that have occurred in the past. Faculty concerns remain that these vendors are not selected by the faculty and that a percentage of the buyback earnings from these vendors go to support services on campus. Discussion will be continued.

 

7. Geography of Free Speech

            The question of approved protest locations on campus was raised. Bill Dodd recalled that the area around the flagpole was the only approved location for demonstrations and that it was named as such in response to state requirements that each school designate a location.

 

 

Adjourned 4:30 p.m.
Next meeting: March 24, 2003, 3 p.m., Science Building