University Governance

FACULTY EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
April 14, 2009

Approved April 28, 2009
PRESENT:  Nancy Kinnersley, Mary Berry, Ben Eggleston, Lisa Friis, John Staniunas

EXCUSED: Liz Kowalchuk, Lisa Wolf-Wendel, John Stratton,

ALSO PRESENT: Molly Mulloy, Governance; Prof. Mark Ezell, chair, SPPT Committee.

            Chair Nancy Kinnersley called the meeting to order at 3:00 p.m.

MINUTES for 03/31/09 were approved.

REPORT OF THE FACULTY PRESIDENT
            Nancy Kinnersley reported that she sent an email to Reggie Robinson and Drue Jennings to thank them for their presentation at the Faculty Senate meeting on the Chancellor Search Committee.

OWNERSHIP OF POLICIES TO BE MOVED FROM THE FACULTY HANDBOOK TO THE POLICY LIBRARY, THE CODE/RULES, OR ELSEWHERE
            Kinnersley distributed copies of an appendix from the Handbook Task Force’s Preliminary Report entitled “Policies Located in Handbook that Require Relocation.”  Members briefly discussed the eighteen policies and recommended the appropriate “owner” of each policy, whether it should be reviewed and by whom, and where it should ultimately be placed. Ben Eggleston/John Staniunas moved to approve FacEx’s recommendations on ownership of the various policies. Passed.
            Stratton suggested that Facex request an update from Task Force chair Rick Hale as to the status of the four subcommittees working on Faculty Rights Board procedures, the Faculty Code of Conduct, unclassified staff policies, and academic staff policies.
            Kinnersley reported on an email she received from the Policy Office in regard to the Faculty Evaluation Policy, which is being moved from the old Faculty Handbook’s section C.2.b to the Policy Library.  Consensus of FacEx was that the Faculty Senate should be included with the Provost as the owner of this policy.
            Ben Eggleston suggested that individual departmental evaluation policies be included in the Policy Library. [Mulloy forwarded this suggestion to the Policy Library office.]
            Lisa Friis asked if a task force would be created to address issues raised about the employee invention agreement form. Berry said this should be discussed by SenEx.

RECOMMENDATIONS FROM THE SPPT COMMITTEE (STANDARDS AND PROCEDURES FOR PROMOTION AND TENURE). 
            Nancy welcomed Mark Ezell, chair of the SPPT Committee. During the discussion that followed, members referred to the SPPT handout entitled “Promotion and Tenure Issues with proposed Amendments.” Ezell noted that SPPT had been charged to look at the work of the Rask Force on the Assessment of Teaching and Learning to see if any of their recommendations should be included in FSRR Article VI, and also to look at the Provost’s “Blue Form.”
            Lengthy discussion ensued about the instructions in the Blue Form, Folder D, Item B, “Evaluation of Research, Scholarship, Creative or Artistic Work” that requests evaluation of “a program of work beyond that completed for the terminal degree … or “prior to appointment at KU.”  Members discussed debated whether a faculty member’s articles based on research done for the dissertation should count for tenure.  For example, Lisa Friis noted that each chapter in some dissertations could be a separate article sent for publication after a person is hired as a faculty member. Several members agreed with Ezell that the individual department or discipline should have the authority to decide whether this would be considered “new work” or not.  However, a question was raised about quality control or “soft criteria” if individual units were allowed to develop their own definition of independent scholarship. Ezell commented that the dean should review the criteria before it is forwarded to the Provost for approval.
            In regard to FSRR 6.3.3.3, Friis pointed out that a new faculty member might be brought to KU with the promise of tenure whose articles at the previous school were all done with co-authors.  Does the faculty member negotiate when hired about what would count toward tenure? Another member said it would be important for UCPT to know exactly what was negotiated when a new faculty member was hired after working at another school. Eggleston said the current language of 6.3.3.3 may restrict new faculty who did most of their research at a prior university and came to KU with one year to tenure. Following much discussion, Friis/Eggleston moved to send the proposed amendments to the Faculty Senate with the following changes.
6.2.2.1.  Add "that enhance student learning" at the end of the first sentence.
6.3.3.2.  Add "or products" after the phrase "scholarly product" in the first sentence.
6.3.3.3   At the beginning of the second sentence, delete "in all cases, the greatest" and insert "Unless previously negotiated, the emphasis..."
Passed.

            In regard to the student rating instrument that was approved by the Faculty Senate last year, Ezell said it may not conform to the Regents’ policy requiring that student ratings be normed and corrected for bias. He will look into this.

REVISED OPEN ACCESS POLICY
            Kinnersley distributed the latest revision of the policy, which has been shortened to two paragraphs. It does not include the details of implementation, which would be negotiated next fall. Ben Eggleston/John Stratton moved to add the sentence “Faculty will be afforded an opt out opportunity”  before the last sentence and to forward the document to Faculty Senate. Passed.

NEW BUSINESS
            Kinnersley distributed an excerpt from the Board of Regents Policy Manual regarding their annual “Faculty of the Year Award,” which has apparently never been awarded. Consensus of FacEx was to not participate in the process at this time.

No further business.
Respectfully submitted,
Molly Mulloy