Faculty Senate Meeting
Lamar University
March 1, 2017
8th floor Mary and John Gray Library
Presiding: Vivek Natarajan
Attending: Arts and Sciences: Christian Bahrim, Valentin Andreev, Judy Smith, Cheng-Hsien Lin, Jennifer Daniel, Kami Makki, Stacey Knight, Michael Beard, Yasuko Sato, J.P. Nelson, Joseph Kruger, Randall Terry, Gina Hale, Adrienne Blackwell, Ozge Gunaydin-Sen, Business: Tim McCoy, Karyn Neuhauser, Purnendu Mandal, Vivek Natarajan, James Slaydon, Seokyon Hwang, Education: R.J. Davis, Rick Carter, Anna Nguyen, Ken Young, Janice Kimmons, Belinda Lopez, Mamta Singh, Engineering: Paul Corder, Xinyu Liu, Xuejun Fan, Nicholas Brake, John Gossage, Fine Arts and Communication: Nicki Michalski, Xenia Fedorchenko, Zanthia Smith, Bryan Proksch, , Library: Michael Saar, College Readiness: Melissa Riley, Lamar State College Port Arthur: Mavis Triebel,
Absent: Arts and Sciences: Ana Christenson, Michael Beard, Ted Mahavier, Charles Popp, Martha Rinker, Jennifer Ravey, George Irwin, Tom Sowers, Carol Hammonds, Education: Vanessa Villate, Engineering: Gleb Tcheslavski, Communications and Fine Arts: Vinaya Manchaiah, Sherry Freyermuth, Joel Grothe, Library: Sarah Tusa
Call to Order: 3:30 p.m.
Approval of Minutes: February 1, 2017
- James Slaydon moved to approve the minutes
- Valentin Andreev Seconded
- Approved by consensus
Guest Speaker: Dr. James Marquart, Provost and VP Academic Affairs
- Enrollment is up this semester over all except for Engineering which is down. Currently there is a recruiting effort to admit more diversity and International students.
- Also investing time and resources to enlarge the number of first year students admitted. Currently doing major recruitment efforts in the Houston, Dallas, etc. areas.
- Have been working on establishing cooperative interests with Lone Star College, San Jacinto College, Lee College, Lamar State College Port Arthur, and Lamar State College Orange to develop a seamless transfer between the community colleges and Lamar University for students to continue their education.
- Retention and Graduation rates have been 30% for the past six years. Need to work on improving this rate.
- On March 2, 2017, there will be a meeting to contract with an expansion program of Degree Works.
- Additional changes: Looking to move away from offering developmental math in the future.
- Also looking at revising the Advising Center
- Freshman Orientation was held two weeks ago with 500 possible freshman’s attending with their parents.
- The next Cardinal View will be held in downtown Houston to talk to prospective students and their parents.
- Faculty are encouraged to participate in the freshman orientation activities when they occur.
- Looking to create a data resource to trend academic progress of students better.
- Financial aid and Scholarships were able to send awards out to the students by the end of January. There was a state and federal audit completed in the fall to ensure that the monies were being properly dispersed to the recipients.
- The Library renovation is going well
- The CICE building is beautiful. Had a port management seminar there that was well received as well as a dinner for distinguished alumni.
- Setzer Center renovation is going well so far-Hope to be completed by the end of the year.
- The Quad area is to be opened later this summer.
- There will be a ground breaking ceremony for the new Science and Technology building in April. The building will be decorated by faculty driven input.
- Plans are being made to renovate two of the older dorms.
- Discussed SACS-Commended Dr. Tony Martin for all of his input on the SACS report before his passing.
- Theresa Hefner-Babb has assumed coordination of the SACS report and is progressing well with it.
- Report will be due to SACS in September 2018.
- The visit is currently planned for April 2-5, 2019
- Plan to have a consultant come in July to look over what we have.
- The Faculty Handbook is in the final stages for review and will be sent out to Faculty Senate members soon for review.
- The Education Coordinating Board has had a major impact on what we can do with programs in the future.
- A proposal has been presented to develop a Ph.D. in Speech, Deaf and Hearing.
- A proposal for an M.S. in Port Management has been delayed.
- Proposals were turned down due to out poor retention and graduation rates with our undergraduate students.
- Texas Educational Association/Administration (TEA) rulings have affected Educational programs.
- It has been the policy to evaluate students in the Educational administration track Principals 3 times on line.
- Have been informed that such evaluations must be done face to face. This will add an additional $500.00 to the costs for students.
- The budget is still in limbo. Dr. Evans has been meeting with the Legislature to justify our budget.
- There is a hiring freeze in effect from February through August 31, 2017. Schools are applying for waivers to hire. Freeze could possibly extended if the legislature cannot agree on a budget.
- However there is currently a search for a chair for the Math department.
- The records department is short 6 people, need 2-3 more people in advising.
- Position openings are being evaluated on a case by case basis.
- Legislation is being proposed to exempt one semester of tuition for freshman if they maintain a 3.2 GPA.
Guest Speaker: Judith Mann, QEP Director
- Works with first year students
- The QEP is due by September which consists of a white paper, but as yet no specific topic has been selected.
- Proposals have been sought from all departments. Only 4 departments have submitted ideas.
- Currently in the process of narrowing the topics down to 2 proposals.
- 228 people gave feedback on the proposals but for a University of our size this is not enough feedback.
- Also currently looking at Institutional data and Literature Review. Need more proposals and broad based feedback from the faculty, students, staff, etc.
- In the process of developing a survey for faculty to complete.
- The committee will be going to every department for input. Main topic will be retention of students.
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Faculty Senate President’s Report:
- New Business:
- Faculty Senate and Committee elections need to follow the process for department and colleges.
- Want to have newly elected Senators to be able to come to the May meeting
- Sarah is working on the list of Faculty Senate Representatives on University committees.
- Faculty Senate Committee Chair Reports:
- Academic Issues-Melissa Riley
- No report
- Waiting for Dr. Marquart to determine whether they need to meet again regarding concerns with Proctor U.
- Budget and Compensation-Rick Carter
- Distinguished Faculty Lecturer: Jennifer Ravey
- Research and Development: Faculty Developmental Leave (FDL): Cheng-Hsien Lin
- Survey responses are good. Top reasons for not seeing R and D leave:
- Lack of support from department Chair
- Lack of support from College Dean
- Family lack of support
- Not feeling they are qualified to ask for R and D leave.
- Have determined that a need exists to have a workshop on how to fill out the packets
- Evans was surprised that Deans and Chairs have not been supportive of R and D leaves. There is a need for the Deans and Chairs to be informed on the Faculty Developmental leave process.
- 08 Task Force: Nicki Michalski
- Seeking feedback by e-mail on the proposal that was passed out
- Hope to be able to vote on the proposal at next month’s meeting.
- Faculty Salary Equity: James Slaydon
- Received the remainder of the CUPA data but it is essentially unusable.
- Do have information from Sam Houston State on their equity policy.
- Hope to be able to vote on proposal for the University in May.
- Faculty Issues: Jennifer Daniels
- Next meeting March 8, 2017 in Parker Room 105 at 3:30 pm
- Have found out that the F2.08 is a faculty driven form and any changes to the form content can only be done through a vote by Faculty Senate.
- Jennifer will be meeting with Dr. Marquart and Dr. Palanki next week.
- Feels like this committee has become a complaint department.
- Marquart is looking at creating an Ombudsman position in the future to deal with such problems.
- Reminded everyone that all departments need to have promotion and tenure guidelines in place.
- The problem with filling the M.B.A. position has been resolved
- The policy for adding items to promotion/tenure dossiers after initial submission has been completed.
Old Business: None
Adjournment:
- Valentin Andreev motioned to adjourn the meeting at 4:25
- James Slaydon seconded
- Approved by acclamation.
Dr. Judy Smith
Attachment: F2.08 statement
Statement and Recommendations from the F2.08 Revision Task Force
Upon investigation of the current F2.08 process and its implementation, the task force has accrued the following information:
- For the most part, the faculty feel that their work is being satisfactorily represented by the current system.
- The faculty do not support the implementation of an additional committee at the department level for the purpose of peer review of the F2.08 document on an annual basis.
- They believe this is the responsibility of the department chairs.
- They note there is already an appendix attached to the document for the tenured faculty to sign off on the evaluations of untenured faculty members. There are many departments where this portion of the document is not being implemented, and that needs to be addressed rather than adding another layer to the process. Perhaps moving the signature page up with the other signatures will encourage completion of the form.
- There is agreement that the primary issue is a lack of quantifiable criteria for evaluation. While every department is supposed to have clearly delineated guidelines, there are a significant number who either do not have criteria or have not revised them in many years.
- Many faculty members stated that they are not made aware of the spread of the evaluations in their departments. They do not want to know names in connection with scores, but the distribution of scores would help them to determine areas for improvement.
Therefore, the task force makes the following suggestions:
- Each department needs to draft new criteria for evaluation. We recommend a point system wherein faculty members can clearly determine how many points they have accrued during the evaluation period. These points will then be converted to the 1-5 ranking system tied to exemplary, high, adequate, marginal or unsatisfactory performance which are used for determining merit.
- Departmental criteria should be reviewed and revised at a minimum of every five years.
- Department chairs should receive training in faculty evaluation.
- Each department should distribute their criteria to all new faculty members within the first semester after hire.
- The F2.08 form should include, at the end of the research/creative activity section, a running total of amount of research/ creative activity required for tenure and what has been accomplished. This should be based on the departmental criteria (i.e. number of publications, number of shows staged, number of conference presentations, etc.)
We are attaching examples of potential criteria to which point values or rankings could be assigned. These examples are not intended to be all inclusive. Departments should add or adjust for their own discipline.
Example Guidelines for Annual Evaluation of Teaching Effectiveness (point-based system)
ACTIVITY Point value Awarded
Satisfactory completion of assigned course duties
Letters of recommendation
Service on Masters comprehensive exam committees
(Theses and dissertations count in research)
Chairing of Masters comprehensive exams
(Theses and dissertations count in research)
Course/curriculum design or redesign
Collaborative course design or team-teaching
Effective leadership and management of online courses
Continued reflection, innovation, and redesign in courses
Demonstrated improvements in student learning outcomes
Leadership in student learning
Student success resulting from your teaching/advising
Positive Online Course Evaluations
(with narrative contextualization)
Peer observation of teaching with
letter of support or classroom observation instrument
Mid-semester feedback and description of adjustments made
Advisee/student letters and comments about your mentorship
Scholarly teaching
Participation in professional development opportunities (re: teaching)
Investigating and assessing innovative teaching strategies
linked to SoTL research studies
Nomination for or receipt of teaching awards
(receipt of award counts more than nomination)
Teaching philosophy and evidence of implementation
Example Guidelines for Research and Creative Activity Annual Evaluation (point system)
ACTIVITY POINT VALUE AWARDED
Publication in national/international journal (peer reviewed)
Publication in regional journal (peer reviewed)
Publication in state journal (peer reviewed)
Publication in popular press periodical
Publication of book, chapter or essay
Publication in conference proceedings
Due to the length of publication schedules, submissions should also be included/evaluated with higher points being assigned once the piece has been published
Presentation at national/international conference
Presentation at regional conference
Presentation at state conference
Presentation at local conference
Presentation to public interest group
Completion of major creative undertaking
(e.g. film, painting or sculpture series, orchestral score)
Submission to festivals/competitions/etc.
(Acceptance counts more than submission)
Awards won at festivals/competitions/etc.
(placing and honorable mentions also count)
Selection for public presentation of creative work
Grant writing (submission and award count; award counts more)
EXAMPLE GUIDELINES FOR SERVICE ANNUAL EVALUATION POINT SYSTEM
ACTIVITY POINT VALUE POINTS AWARDED
Community activity (volunteer work)
Leadership in community group
Leadership in disciplinary organization
Membership in disciplinary organizations
University committee membership
(Committees which meet frequently awarded
more points)
Office held in university committee
College committee membership
(Committees which meet frequently awarded
more points)
Office held in college committee
Departmental committee membership
(Committees which meet frequently awarded
more points)
Office held in departmental committee
Sponsorship of student groups
Recruiting activity
Representation of department at university events
(graduations, view day, orientations, etc.)