The meeting was convened at 10 a.m.
Attending:
Dennis Devine (Psychology); Dring Crowell (Biology); Ray Chin (Computer Science); David Malik (Chemistry); Marvin Kemple (Physics); Jon Luke (Mathematics); David Stocum; Kathryn Wilson; Kim Nguyen; Joe Kuczkowski; Ruth Allen
1. Discussion of budget issues:
Dean Stocum walked the committee through two sets of budget figures detailing different budget scenarios based on alternate projections for salary increments. Due to rising compensation costs and decreasing funds, the campus is projecting deficits for the coming year.
A vigorous discussion ensued about specifics of the budget. The Dean made the point that higher salary increments would likely lead to lower operating fund allocations to departments (and vice versa). The Dean stated that he feels the school is already at a minimum in terms of faculty numbers and therefore that there should not be a freeze on faculty hiring.
The SC decided that it is not possible to address this issue completely until more is known about the state budget, enrollments etc. Salary increments are not decided until late April, so we will revisit this issue at a later meeting.
It was agreed that, despite many efforts by the Dean and his staff to address the problem, many faculty still do not have a complete understanding of budget issues. The SC will work together with the Dean's office to improve this situation.
The Steering committee members will discuss the current budget scenarios with their individual departmental faculty.
2. SOS website.
The SOS website currently does not work properly in some versions of Netscape browsers. In particular, there is no available link to the Faculty Assembly website. This is a problem as it inhibits the access of faculty to SC minutes, bylaws etc. Kathryn Wilson was asked to see if she could address this problem.
3. Bylaws changes
The subcommittee charged with this task (Ray Chin, Dring Crowell and Jon Luke) has completed changes to address the issue of including lecturers in the overall definition of faculty within the school. Dring Crowell presented an overview of the changes.
There was a proposal to include a statement that the voting faculty of the individual departments must elect members of the unit committee. There was a question of whether this is already specified in the Promotion and Tenure document. David Malik will contact the subcommittee members next week to let them know about this. If election of unit committee members is not already specified in the P&T document, the SC decided that the wording could be added to the proposed bylaws changes.
There was a discussion of exactly who could form ad-hoc committees. It was decided that the subcommittee should amend the wording to state that the President, the Steering Committee or the voting faculty present and voting at a faculty assembly meeting could form ad hoc committees.
It was agreed that the bylaws changes concerning lecturers be implemented in three stages. The first stage will include a mail ballot proposing changes that will improve deficiencies in the existing bylaws (conflicting statements etc) and add lecturers to the definition of faculty. In a separate, second mail ballot to be undertaken in Fall, 2003, a proposal to allow lecturers to participate in administrative reviews will be submitted to faculty. A third proposal, to include lecturers in membership of four committees (Nominations and Awards, Academic Appeals, Technology, Library) will be presented to faculty by mail ballot in Spring, 2004. In view of the complexity of the changes in the bylaws required by each of these proposals it was felt by the SC that this is the only practical approach.
The subcommittee will work on the bylaws revisions and a revised version will be sent to RA next week. RA will email a copy of the revisions to SC members and also put a formatted copy on the FA website. SC members will make their departmental faculty aware of the proposed revisions and seek further input from faculty. The subcommittee will work on determining how the proposed bylaws revisions should be presented in the mail ballot.
4. Administrative review cycle
It was agreed by the SC that the bylaws changes proposed in Fall, 2003 will include, in addition to the proposal to allow lecturers to participate in administrative reviews, separate proposals addressing changes in the timing and nature of the administrative reviews. If faculty approves a proposal to change the timing of the reviews in the Fall, 2003 ballot, a review will not be performed in 2003.
5. Spring Faculty Assembly
Two items were identified for the agenda:
1) Budget issues
2) Proposed bylaws changes the subcommittee will present the proposed changes to the faculty.
David Malik suggested delaying the timing as long as possible in order to have as much new budget information as possible. It was tentatively decided that the Spring FA would be held on Thursday, April 3rd at 12:30 pm, pending room availability.
6. Revisit budget issues
The SC revisited the budget issue. RA asked KW if it would be possible to have a breakdown of the general fund carryover so that we could begin to make this issue clearer to faculty. KW agreed that this would be possible and that this would go a long way to lessening the confusion over this issue.
RA also asked SC members to collect specific budget questions in order to identify the areas that are causing confusion.
The next SC meeting is scheduled for 10 a.m. on 14 March in SL306C. At that meeting the subcommittee will present ideas on how the proposed changes to the bylaws should be presented to faculty in the mail ballot.
The meeting was adjourned at 12:05 pm