Skip to content
 Scroll To Top

SENATE FACULTY MEETING 

MINUTES FRIDAY FEBRUARY, 2007      

3:00- 5:00 pm Egan Library 211

Present: Cathy Connor Pres. Elect , Jill Dumesnil Natural Sciences, Lynn Shepherd Library, Eric Niewohner CIOS, Yuliya Ivanova  BPADM, Joe Liddle Sitka, Virgil Fredenberg Education,Not Present: Chuck Craig President, Tony Martin Career ED, Jeremy Kane Humanities, Lisa Hoferkamp Juneau at Large, Tim Ewest Ketchikan, David Noone Social Sciences , Ex Officio-Robbie StellGuests:  Ernestine Hayes Humanities

1. Call to order 3:02
Announcement: Permanent replacement Senator from Humanities is Jeremy Kane (Jane had to resign Senate due to department workload rearrangement).

2. Approval of minutes of January meeting   (Done )  ATTACHMENT 2.1

3. Approval of today’s agenda (3 additions)

4. Assembly member’s comments -later

5. Provost’s comments (out of town).

6. Chairs comments/report. (out of town) see attached ATTACHMENT 6.1

7. Cathy Connor: Introduction/ discussion of Funding for Faculty Development opportunities ATTACHMENT 7.1  Discussion on Faculty Excellence Awards – perhaps an E-Biz ticket and $500. 
UAS is accumulating a lot of E-Biz tickets and Robbie will investigate using some for faculty awards.  Could we apply for BP Conoco Phillips or Exxon monies? 
Senators should take these ideas to Departments and solicit feedback and/or new ideas for improving funding for Faculty Development.
Questions:  Does the Faculty Development Seminar attendance warrant a $12,000 per year expenditure?  Could/should there be a monthly meeting instead?  Should the monies be spent on adjunct orientation instead?
Sentiment:  Faculty Excellence Awards should be done anyway…..  Faculty should be recognized for excellent work….

8. Lynn Shepherd: Introduction of idea(s) for “student success” from “the Wagner Plan”.  Discussion, need for an AD HOC committee. 
 
ATTACHMENT 8.1

Issue is retention of students….There is a lot of data pointing to the fact that we are below where we ought to be with regard to student retention.  We need a coordinated and focused effort to retain quality students.  In 2001, UAS had a Retention Committee working on increasing our retention rate.  There were some positive things happening.  However, we need a coordinated effort between Student Services and Faculty.  We might need to look at GERS and at courses to see about retaining good students. 

Discussion of National Survey of Student Engagement data. 

See article by Vince Tinto.

Student engagement

On-campus students
Distance students
GERs

46% NODS
Top 3 majors at UAS:
  BBA, BLA, AA General Studies

Proposition:  Convene an Ad Hoc (whole campus) committee on student retention.

Charge:  Articulate what campus entities value, research literature on student success/retention, explore what UAS does well, list and prioritize opportunities for future action. 
Possible members:  Student gov’t member(s), Staff (perhaps Chris Wasiko and Karen Donovon), Faculty (one from each department) and a faculty chair.

9. AD HOC #8 GER Committee is held as inactive.  Does the Senate want to activate it to work on GERs. Charge to committee? What, why?   Mary Clair Tarlow, Brian Blitz, and Robin Walz are currently on it.

This was about alignment of GERs with other MAUs.

10. ACTION ITEM:  The UA Human Resource Council is considering requiring background checks on new hires of faculty and staff and maybe on existing faculty at time of promotion.  Does the Faculty Senate have a position on this matter? If so what is it?

Another item on the Alliance…..  Take this back to departments.

Ad Hoc Discussions:

Performance based budgeting allocations – UAS received $800,000 in January.  How are these funds being spent?

AIS Committee met.  Focus is on how we use computers to teach.  Committee has the ability to recommend policy….  Trying to evolve to a “blog” model where committee meets virtually….  Important issue is in installing software for academic use….

Adjourned at 5:03pm.

 
 

Content maintained by the Provost Office.