FACULTY EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

October 27 – 3:00 p.m.  – Provost’s Conference Room

Approved: 12/01/09

PRESENT: Ben Eggleston, Lisa Wolf-Wendel, John Stratton, Barbara Phipps, Steve Maynard-Moody, Jim Daugherty, Ada Emmett

ALSO PRESENT: Molly Mulloy, Governance; Kathy Reed, Governance; Town Peterson, Victor Bailey, and Marc Greenberg from the Task Force on Open Access Implementation.

            Chair Lisa Wolf-Wendel called the meeting to order.

MINUTES for October 13, 2009 were approved.

 

UPDATE FROM TASK FORCE ON OPEN ACCESS IMPLEMENTATION

            Wolf-Wendel welcomed the members of the Task Force.  During the discussion led by Chair Ada Emmett,  members referred to five handouts entitled: 1) “Draft 4.0 Requirements of the OA Implementation Plan”, 2) the “Addendum to Publication Agreement,” 3) “KU Open Access Policy: Getting Started,” 4) “Brief Glossary of Terms and Concepts used in Open Access,” and 5) ‘KU Open Access Common Questions and Misunderstandings.” 

            Emmett reported that the task force has held seven full meetings and four sub-committee meetings this fall, scheduled six Brown Bag luncheons, consulted with staff at IT and the libraries, held successful meetings with the University Senate Libraries Committee and four academic units, and will schedule two open forums. Presentations are scheduled with additional academic units and with the Provost’s Academic Council. Emmett was pleased to report that feedback from these groups has been mostly positive, and the participation of all task force members has been terrific.

            Emmett and task force members Town Peterson, Victor Bailey, and Marc Greenberg answered various questions from FacEx members. She pointed out that there is no compliance mechanism or chair reporting requirement in the current plan; rather, Open Access is meant to be a coalition of the willing. The task force recommends that the “Provost’s designate” be the Dean of Libraries and that an advisory board be created. FacEx and Task Force members agreed that the Faculty Senate must vote on changes to the Open Access Policy, but were divided over whether the details of the implementation plan, which will change over time, would also have to be approved by the Faculty Senate. Ben Eggleston suggested that one way to split policy and implementation is to state in the policy itself that the Open Access Advisory Board will have authority to make minor changes to the implementation plan. Much discussion ensued. Lisa Wolf-Wendel said it will be more apparent after the Nov. 19^th Faculty Senate discussion as to whether the task force should include any of the implementation details in the policy. Emmett said a special meeting may need to be scheduled just for Faculty Senate members in order to allow sufficient time for questions.

            FacEx members expressed appreciation to Ada and the task force members for their tremendous work on the Open Access policy.

 

REPORT OF THE FACEX CHAIR

            Lisa Wolf-Wendel met with members of the NCAA Accreditation team today to discuss governance’s involvement with KU Athletics.  The chair of the Faculty Senate Research Committee (FSRC) reported that a charge was omitted this year for the FSRC to reallocate GRF funds for the new School of Music, the College’s new School of the Arts, and other units that were created when the School of Fine Arts was restructured last year. Wolf-Wendel advised the FSRC chair to consult with the deans involved when reallocating GRF funds.  

RECOMMENDATIONS FROM THE SPPT COMMITTEE (Standards and Procedures for Promotion & Tenure).

RE FSRR 6.2.2 

Ben Eggleston stated that SPPT’s proposed changes to FSRR 6.2.2 were felt by FacEx to be overly elaborate when they were discussed last week. SPPT’s was responding to recommendations made by the FY-09 Task Force on the Assessment of Teaching and Learning which felt that faculty evaluations were based too heavily on student evaluations and that attention should be called to other things involved in evaluation. Last week a FacEx subcommittee reorganized SPPT’s proposed list of items and modified FSRR 6.2.2.as follows:

Teaching is a primary function of the university, which strives to provide an outstanding education for its students. The evaluation of teaching includes consideration of shall be based primarily on the intellectual aspects of the candidate's teaching, drawing on information that may include the following: syllabi, course materials, and other information related to a faculty member’s  the candidate's courses; peer and evidence of student evaluations; a candidate’s learning and achievement; internal peer reviews and external evaluations of teaching; end-of-course student evaluations and systematically acquired feedback from former students; the candidate's own observations, statement of teaching philosophy and goals; public published articles on teaching, and representations of teaching such as teaching porfolios; and other sources of information accepted methods of as relevant to the evaluation which may include external evaluations of teaching. Candidates shall be encouraged to provide evidence concerning a broad range of teaching, supervising, and advising activities.

 

FacEx members debated whether: a) the list might be considered prescriptive, b) the phrase “the student’s learning experience” should be added to the second sentence, c) a sentence should be added to clarify that units may determine which of these things are required, d) a final sentence should say “included, but not limited to the items required on the Blue Form,” and e) the current language of FSRR 6.2.2.2 should be retained.  Wolf-Wendel pointed out that SPPT was charged to insure that policies not stated in the FSRR do not slip into the Blue Form process. All agreed that the Provost should not arbitrarily change the Blue Form if it creates new policy. Following lengthy discussion, Ben Egggleton/Ada Emmett moved that FSRR 6.2.2.2 be amended as shown below. Passed.  Wolf-Wendel will discuss FacEx’s amendments with the SPPT chair.

6.2.2.  Teaching.  Teaching is a primary function of the University, which strives to provide an outstanding education for its students. The evaluation of teaching should be developed using multiple sources of information and evidence about the intellectual aspects of teaching and student learning. The evaluation of teaching includes consideration of syllabi, course materials, and other information related to a faculty member’s courses; peer and student evaluations; a candidate’s own statement of teaching philosophy and goals; public representations of teaching; and other accepted methods of evaluation, which may include external evaluations. 

Re FSRR 6.5.3.1

            Ben Eggleston said that the Facex subcommittee recommends that the sentence in bold font below be added to FSRR 6.5.3.1. Ada Emmett/Barbara Phipps moved to approve this amendment. Passed.  

6.5.3.1. The committee shall provide for the solicitation of outside reviews to assist in the evaluation of a faculty member’s scholarship.  The committee shall give the candidate the opportunity to suggest individuals to be included or excluded from the list of reviewers, but the candidate's suggestions shall not limit the committee's discretion in selecting reviewers.  Emphasis should be placed on selecting reviewers who hold academic rank or professional position equal to or greater than the rank for which the candidate is being considered.  When soliciting external reviews of a candidate’s scholarship, the committee shall inform prospective reviewers of the extent to which the candidate will have access to the review.

 

NEW BUSINESS

Question from FRPR    Barbara Phipps, a member of the FRPR (Faculty Rights, Privileges and Responsibilities) Committee, said the group met today and had questions about the difference between unclassified professional staff and unclassified academic staff, and the interface between FRPR and the new Task Force on Academic Staff. Wolf-Wendel recommended that the FRPR chair visit with Jeannette Johnson, president of the Unclassified Senate, and Rex Buchanan, chair of the Task Force on Academic Staff, about these two groups.

Revised Recommendation regarding TOEFL Requirements

            Members reviewed the exceptions to the TOEFL requirement that were modified by the ad hoc Committee on English Proficiency based on comments made at the Oct. 8^th Faculty Senate meeting. Consensus of FacEx was that the listing of countries with Native English speakers was too restrictive. FacEx also felt that the final bulleted item (“Other requests for exemption from the requirement to submit a TOEFL… will be considered on a case-by-case basis.”) should be restated to clarify that this would apply to persons who cannot afford to take the test.  Finally, members thought an exception should be included that would address applicants whose high school classes were taught in English. Wolf-Wendel will discuss FacEx’s comments with Associate Vice Provost Susan Gronbeck-Tedesco.

No further business.

Respectfully submitted,

Molly Mulloy