Faculty Policies Minutes – October 16, 2006  

Attending:  Carol Rychly, Charles Jackson, Rick Pukis, Robert Reeves, Mike Searles, Jim Benedict, Tom Colbert, Sam Myers,  Cathy Tugmon (chair),  and Debbie van Tuyll (secretary)

1. Tugmon began the meeting by reporting on her recent meeting with President  Bloodworth and VPAA Sullivan. She reported on their discussion of the differences between the ORP retirement plan and the TRS retirement plan and the president’s efforts to gain equity between the two programs regarding the application of accrued sick leave to time toward retirement. They also discussed FPC’s perspectives on the applicability of the “customer service” language to academic activities and FPC’s questions regarding the Student Technology Fee.

2. Tugmon asked for a recommendation or volunteer from FPC to serve on the Fee Review Committee. Pukis volunteered, and committee members unanimously approved his appointment.

3. The Oct. 9 minutes were approved without change. 

4. Myers led a discussion of the proposed memo to be sent to campus committee chairs seeking information about their committees’ charge, membership, and constitution. Myers will make the requested editorial changes and send the memo to committee chairs. Their responses will be due Nov. 16.

 5. Pukis and Colbert reported on their meeting with AVPAA Dodd regarding the Student Technology Fee. Tugmon will schedule a meeting with the Academic Vice President to discuss any apparent deviations from BOR policy regarding the use of this fee at ASU. Because they have been tasked with studying the STF policy, Pukis and Colbert will give her a full briefing on those deviations in preparation for that meeting. The committee will decide whether further investigation is necessary following Tugmon’s meeting the Academic Vice President.

6. The committee approved Tugmon’s memo regarding the suspension of the Cullum Lecture Series for 2006. She will send it to the faculty shortly.

7. Jackson distributed the revisions to the proposed Faculty Grievance Policy, which the committee will discuss next meeting. Tugmon suggested that she and Jackson meet with VPSS Jones and VPAA Sullivan to discuss the policy.

8. Van Tuyll asked the committee to consider revising the charge and constitution of the Faculty Research and Faculty Development Committee so as to ensure that faculty members who travel in the summer do not have to wait until December to be reimbursed for their expenditures. Further, the committee expressed grave concern over the apparent change in policy that will privilege those who seek funds from the FRFD committee to be used as matching monies for external funding. Members pointed out several problems with this change in policy: 

a. ASU faculty are saturated. They do not have the support for grant seeking that faculty at research universities have (i.e., teaching loads reduced to two or three classes a year; graduate students to assist with grant writing as well as the research itself; relief from advising and service duties).

b. To improve retention rates, ASU faculty are being asked to increase their teaching and advising loads in order to offer more courses with more students enrolled in them. This leaves even less time for grant seeking and means that faculty will either not do something they’re supposed to do or do some of their tasks badly. 

c. The FRFD funds have traditionally been used as a source of funding when faculty are unable to secure grants. The development office has been the source for grant matching funds.

d. Many faculty do research that is valuable but that has few, if any, opportunities for external funding.   

The committee’s sense was that if ASU administrators have decided to push to make this a research institution, then resources and programs must be developed to support that change in mission. Each new task assigned to faculty means further dilution of time and effort for the things faculty are already doing.

9. Jackson will bring goodies next time.

10. Rychly will serve as acting secretary next week because van Tuyll must be absent due to jury duty. 

11. The meeting was adjourned at 3:40 p.m.

 Respectfully submitted,

 Debbie van Tuyll