Faculty Policies Minutes--- April 28, 2008

Attending: Jim Benedict, Rob Bledsoe, Tom Colbert, Tom Crute, Wayne Mixon, Stephanie Myers, Carol Rychly, Jana Sandarg, Robert Smalley, Debbie van Tuyll, Steve Weiss.  From next year’s committee: Paula Dohoney, Walter Evans, Mark Fissel, Bruce Saul, Mike Searles, and Donna Wear.  Guests:  Jeff Heck and Donna Hobbs.

The committee thanked Jeff Heck for his service as faculty secretary and asked him to continue in this position next year.  He agreed.

Donna Hobbs distributed copies of the proposed “Key 5-year Initiatives” for ASU.  She explained the changes from the original document presented at the last faculty meeting. First, the title was changed from “goals” to “initiatives” as that better expressed the spirit of the document which was to target some specific areas to work on in this period rather than address every item important to the mission of ASU.  That end, the emphasis of initiative 1 remained on faculty for whom expectations are changing; initiative 2 could be interpreted more broadly than an initial reading would imply, but has a measurable outcome; initiative 3 is to bring science and math into line with our other programs; initiative 4 has been broadened in scope and initiative 5 is particularly relevant with NCATE accreditation approaching.   After some discussion, the committee unanimously approved the document.  The committee also commended the president for bringing this to the faculty for discussion. 

Minutes of the April 14 meeting were approved.

The committee discussed the election of the Faculty Marshall.  Traditionally, this position has been held by the faculty member who has the longest tenure at the university.  However, there are three faculty members who all started at the same time.  There was much discussion on the best way to resolve this.  The committee decided to remove academic deans from consideration, since they are already represented on the stage at graduation.  The committee agreed that if the retirement dates of the remaining candidates differed, the one who was closest to retirement should be the Faculty Marshall.  However, that information was not available.  The committee decided to ask both candidates if they would accept the position.  If both did, the position would be shared.  (This has been done in the past.)

Crute presented a new set of guidelines for the Lewis Bell Research Award.  The old guidelines were not clear on what information was to be submitted by the nominee and there was difficulty in comparing faculty from different disciplines.  The new guidelines are clearer and address those issues.  These guidelines have been approved by the appropriate committee and Bill Dodd.  There was some discussion about the timing which is tied to the Honors Convocation.  (Because there will be substantial changes in how that occurs next year.)  The committee approved the guidelines with only minor typographical changes.  The timing issues will be resolved as an editorial change when the entire faculty manual is revised to account for changes in Honors Convocation.

Report on the SGA constitution:  It is not finished yet, but the committee will meet on Thursday May 1, hopefully to finish it then.  If it is completed by the end of term, the faculty can approve it at the first meeting of fall semester and the students will operate under the new constitution. If it is not finished, the students will operate under the old constitution.

Crute is reformatting the “Expected Behavior of Students” document as a tri-fold pamphlet to present to Dean Jones for approval as that type of document.

Benedict has volunteered to help the Committee on Committees run the new program designed to help them with committee assignments.  The program should be working by May 10.

There was some concern that the Phi Kappa Phi program on the “perfect professor” introduced a lot of misinformation.  The committee was reminded that FPC has oversight of the promotion and tenure committee and should see that the committee follows the guidelines in the Faculty Manual when making their recommendations.

Tom Crute was unanimously elected Chair of the 2008-2009 FPC.  Bruce Saul was unanimously elected secretary. 

08-09 FPC members discussed new subcommittee assignments for the next academic year. Volunteers were solicited and initial selections were made. Fall 08 FPC weekly meetings will be on Mondays in Science Hall. The first meeting will be on 25August. A memo with more details will be sent to each of us.