University Governance

FACULTY SENATE

October 8, 2009 –Room #203, Law School

Immediately following 3:30 p.m. University Senate Meeting

 

PRESENT: Beju Benjamin, Jonathan Clark, James Daugherty, Ben Eggleston, Ada Emmett, Mark Ezell, Allen Ford, Peter Grund, Matthew Jacobson, Nancy Kinnersley, Man Kong, Chuck Marsh, Brent Metz, Sara Morris, Bozenna Pasik-Duncan, Blake Peterson, Jean Philips, Suzanne Rice, Gitti Salami, Dan Spencer, Jeff Staudinger, Milena Stanislavova, Lisa Timmons, Rodolfo Torres, Donna Tucker, Tony Walton, Sara Wilson, Jie Zhang. Ex-officio – Danny Anderson, Provost

 

EXCUSED: Melissa Birch, David Brackett, Matthew Burke, Sandra Gray, Doug Huffman, Alice Lieberman, Steven Maynard-Moody, Joyce McCray-Pearson, Jean Phillips, Barbara Phipps, John Staniunas, Kelli Thomas.

 

 (Please contact Molly Mulloy if you were indeed present)

 

ALSO PRESENT: Molly Mulloy, Governance; Kathy Reed, Governance; Daphne Johnson and Hodgie Bricke, International Programs.

 

            President Lisa Wolf-Wendel called the meeting to order at 4:45 p.m.

 

MINUTES for 09/10/09 were approved.

 

REPORT OF THE FACULTY SENATE PRESIDENT

            Lisa Wolf-Wendel reported that an ad hoc committee that met with Vice Provost Mary Lee Hummert to review the new teaching evaluation form made minor changes to Item #9.  The revised form will be printed for the spring semester.  Item #9 used to state: “Compared with courses at a similar level, I would rate how much I learned as…” with choices of “much less” to “much more.” This was changed to: “I acquired the knowledge and skills this course is intended to promote” with the response scale similar to other items (“strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”). The committee also discussed the issue of open-ended comments and decided to leave this up to the individual units.

 

PROPOSED CHANGE IN ENGLISH PROFICIENCY REQURIEMENT FOR UNDERGRADUATE INTERNATIONAL APPLICANTS

            Wolf-Wendel explained that the change to require an official TOEFL score was originally proposed in the report of the Ad hoc Committee on English Proficiency Requirements for Undergraduate Admission” in March 12, 2009.  She welcomed Hodgie Bricke and Daphne Johnson from International Studies, who were present to answer questions about the proposal.

Nancy Kinnersley, chair of the Academic Policies and Procedures Committee that endorsed the proposal, noted that any change needed to be approved by the November 1 deadline for printing the new undergraduate catalog. Daphne Johnson explained that the test is required for all international applicants, even from Canada or England, who are all assessed by the ESL on reading, grammar, speaking, and listening skills when they arrive at KU. Tony Walton asked why the policy didn’t say “international students with non-English speaking backgrounds.” In the discussion that followed, Hodgie Bricke stated that the graduate catalog includes an exception for English-speaking students who are graduates of American high schools or whose class instruction in his/her country was in English.

Gitti Salami expressed concern that the requirement would exclude all applicants from Africa because they don’t have access to the TOEFL test.  

In the discussion that followed, Provost Danny Anderson commented that KU would use the TOEFL score to advise students that they should plan on anywhere from one to four semesters at the Applied English Center before they may start classes in their discipline.  It would be very helpful for students to know this before they arrive on campus.

Tony Walton/Man Kong moved to support the concept of the recommendation but to ask the administration to report back to FacEx on the two concerns raised today about native speakers and those who don’t have access to TOEFL exams.  Passed without dissent.

 

ACCESS TO GRADE DISTRIBUTION

            Lisa Wolf-Wendel reported that a commercial company (“Pick a Prof”)  has used the Open Records Act the last several years to obtain grade distributions for all instructors and classes with >5 students at KU in order to sell that information to students.  The Registrar and the Provost are considering making this information available free of charge on the Registrar’s website. The Provost is interested in feedback from faculty on whether this data should be available to students, perhaps with a disclaimer. Wolf-Wendel commented that FacEx members were divided on the issue.

Provost Danny Anderson noted that the university may only charge $25 to the commercial company for this information, which is the cost for the time it takes to run the report. Members made the following comments: (1) It’s not a problem for this data to be transparent; (2) It might help junior faculty see the grade distribution of others in their department; (3) Would it be used to minimize grade inflation? (4) It would make grade differentiation among different instructors in the same course more apparent. Wolf-Wendel asked members to email their comments on the pros and cons of the idea to her or Provost Anderson.

 

EDITORIAL AMENDMENTS TO THE FACULTY SENATE RULES

            Ada Emmett/Ben Eggleston moved to approve the editorial amendments to the FSRR. Passed without dissent. These include:

  1. Eliminate FSRR 2.2.3 and 2.2.5.
  2. Eliminate the first sentence of FSRR 2.4.2.
  3. Change the word “foreign” to “international” throughout the FSRR.
  4. Change the word “tested” to “evaluated” and “test results” to “evaluation” in FSRR 3.4.1.
  5. Change the word “his” to “his/her” in references to the gender of the Chancellor in FSRR .2.1.3.

 

No further business.

Respectfully submitted,

Molly Mulloy