Faculty Senate of Virginia Tech
November meeting
minutes
(Pamplin 32)
Senators
in Attendance:
Susan Anderson, Rick Ashley, Carlyle Brewster, Jack Cranford, Helen Crawford,
Sam Easterling, Leon Geyer, Mike Gregg, Frank Gwazdauskas, Tom Hammett, Valerie
Hardcastle, Bernice Hausman, Ian Herring, Rakesh Kapania, Brad Klein, Ellen
Krupar, Shelley Martin, Susan Molesky (ALT), Amy Nelson, Jim Pease, Kerry Redican,
Shelly Nichols Richardson, Susanna Rinehart, Kamal Rojiani, Nan Seamans, Edd
Sewell, Dennis Welch, Sharon Witonsky, Diane Zahm
Senators
not in Attendance: Larry Alexander, Carol Burch-Brown, Terry Clements, Richard Goff, Bill
Greenberg, Sam Hicks, Kathleen Jones, Ann-Marie Knoblauch, Michael Lambur, Jack
Lesko, Sean O'Keefe, David Radcliffe, Uri Vansberger, Jim Weaver, Brian Woerner, Randy Wynne, Yonsenia
White, Shep Zedaker
President Diane Zahm called
the meeting to order at
October minutes were
approved with minor changes.
Presentation by Virginia Reilly,
Reilly gave a power point
presentation about Virginia Tech policies and practices concerning students
with disabilities.
The focus of her
presentation was to clarify the following:
1) What is the Americans
with Disabilities Act; what does it say?
2) Who it benefits,
protects and supports
3) How we can meet the
spirit and the letter of the law
4) The role of faculty,
staff and administrators in implementing it.
[Senate secretary has
additional hard copies of this presentation available]
Q & A with Reilly:
Senator: Writing intensive
courses are a particular challenge for students with disabilities that
compromise writing skills and reading comprehension skills. Are there minimum
standards for a student to be at VT? When does it move beyond “accommodations”?
VR: We do not
want in any way to lower standards. Any student at VT has met the criteria
required for admission to this university. The question is, what accommodations
do they need so that the can meet the requirements and standards set by the
professor for that class? What assistive technology?
Senator: What is meant by a “psychological disability”?
VR: Clinical
depression, OCD, stress disorders. The most common accommodations are extra
time and/or a quiet place to take exams; sometimes, class at a different time
to accommodate effects of medications.
Senator: In order to
qualify for accommodation there is an arduous process of testing etc. My
understanding is that this is very expensive and many students can’t afford it.
Should the university provide testing?
VR: Testing is
very expensive. We work hard to get them and their parents to get it done
during high school.
Senator: Isn’t it the case
that students with certain disabilities might not be able to succeed in certain
majors?
VR: We cannot
counsel them out of a major. We can inform them of what the standards will be.
VR: The law
requires that web pages and electronic course content be accessible.
VR: Be reminded
too of confidentiality issues. Disability information is confidential and may
not be shared in reference checks, oral communication or via email.
Senator: What should we do
if we think a student has a learning disability?
VR:
Do not provide
accommodations without their having gone through the SSD (Services for Students
with Disabilities) Office.
Senator: A student is harming
themselves and you know about it. What are a faculty member’s responsibilities
in that situation?
VR: Call Brian
Warren (Assistant VP for Student Affairs) when you believe there is potential
for harm to a student’s health and well-being. If there is a suicide risk, it
is our obligation.
VR: We encourage
faculty to put statements in their syllabi to establish a safe environment in
which students with disabilities or special needs will feel comfortable
approaching their professors regarding accommodations.
Commission/Committee Reports:
§
Ellen Krupar
reported that the Commission on Student
Affairs dealt with parking issues:
1)
resident students who receive a parking lot ticket will now receive an email
notification, instead of multiple tickets, and will have 24 hours to remove
their car 2) the issue of weekday football games making it hard for students to
get to class was raised. Ellen referred to Diane’s promised letter on the
subject. Diane told the Senate that the President has asked that she send the
letter to the Parking Committee.
§
Ellen Krupar
reported that the Honor System has
six cases pending, mostly class 3 and class 4. The number of cases is low this
semester (1/3 the usual rate). The drop is unaccounted for. Concern that
faculty are sanctioning students themselves, which is a violation of the honor
code. Faculty must go through the honor system. There are very few cases of
students turning in other students. This is the first semester in 5 years in
which we do not have a case pending from the prior semester.
§
Rakesh Kapania
reported that the Commission on Graduate
Studies and Policies discussed residency requirement issues, and the
problem of faculty not attending commencement exercises.
§
Rakesh Kapania
reported for the University Council
that they had the first reading of the request to reinstate and implement
President’s memo #1 with modifications so as to update it appropriately. There
was no discussion. UC also discussed the graduate Certificate program (9
credits, rigorous process, signed by the President). There was a lot of
discussion as to criteria – the details are not there, more language needed. A
Senator commented that this will need to be flexible department to department.
§
Susanna Rinehart,
Edd Sewell and Helen Crawford reported that the Commission on Equal Opportunity and Diversity attended the Provost
and BOV’s forum on affirmative action and narrow tailoring in place of their
regularly scheduled meeting on November 10th. It was very well
attended; there was a logistical problem in the number of questions and
comments which couldn’t be articulated due to time constraints. The provost’s
web page will continue to invite any and all questions on the subject. There
were articulate statements of concern on the part of the students as to the
status of “legacy” admissions; dropping the Gateway program, etc. At the CEOD’s
prior meeting, they began creating working subcommittees to address issues such
as campus/community climate, admissions, etc. The commission heard a very
articulate presentation on the negative impact of the Patriot Act on our
international students. A resolution was put forward as a recommendation,
modeled after one in
§
Frank Gwazdauskas
reported for the Commission on Research:
the review and report on the Center
(reviewed every five years) was not accepted; the petition from the Graduate
commission on Graduate Students Rights and Responsibilities was not supported.
There was a concern as to how centers are named, and a desire to institute
policy on naming. The Provost made a presentation on the research expenditure
metrics. The criteria will be evaluated and then will talk to the Board about
which to use.
§
Frank Gwazdauskas
reported that the Athletic Committee
discussed additional recognition of faculty at athletic events. Sporn and Wine
Award winners are already recognized. Profile recognitions on the Jumbotron
were suggested.
Report on the
§
Connie Jorensen,
Legislative Assistant to Delegate Mitch Van Yahres, gave a presentation on the
do’s and don’ts of lobbying: personal statements work, not form letters; hard
copies are more effective than emails or faxes.
§
Catharine Gilliam
discussed a new organization advocating for K-12 education: the
§
Higher Education
Advocacy Day will be held on January 15th in
§
The three
priority issues identified are: 1) Passage of a bill to have a non-voting
faculty representative on BOVs of all public universities and community
colleges in the state 2) Develop
a plan for providing adequate funding for colleges and universities, beginning
with Base Adequacy recommendations; develop a plan to fund faculty salaries at
60th percentile of peers 3) provide
relief for the additional burden the new medical co-payments have placed on
state employees
VT
Senate discussion on FSV report:
§
Senators
commented yet again on the huge negative impact of the changes in health
insurance and benefits, arguing that the erosion of benefits, increased copays,
and higher costs amount to a pay decrease,
given the lack of pay raises. Faculty members should send specific personal
accounts of the impact of higher copays on them and their families
§
It was
recommended that the FSV needs to coordinate with other state agencies on these
issues.
§
One senator felt
that the BOV representation issue was not worth pursuing, since it had gotten
nowhere so far. Another argued that now is the time, and the fact that VT does have representation makes it
incumbent upon us to do so.
Diane distributed a handout
with answers to Frequently Asked Questions on Cluster Hires put out by the
Provost’s office.
Commission on Faculty Affairs Report on Promotion and
Tenure Policies review (Sam Easterling)
Information was solicited
from all faculty and departments.
Sam received comments from
12 faculty members on the 2/3 majority/division of vote question. One of the
comments indicated that the faculty of the sender’s department was unanimously
opposed to both items.
§
On the 2/3
majority, 8 were in favor, 4 opposed.
§
On the division
of vote, 7 were in favor, 4 opposed, 1 gave comments only.
§
Reasons:
2/3 Majority in
favor (good idea, reasonable, makes sense)
opposed
(departmental politics, undue influence of dep’t head)
Division of vote in
favor (everyone has the information, open)
opposed
(anonymity may be effectively lost on small committees, votes
may be influenced by that loss)
Sam received information
from approximately 20 departments regarding their current policies and
procedures. None reported the mandatory use of anything but a simple majority;
several report the practical use of unanimous consensus.
December 5th is
the next CFA meeting. Send any additional data to Sam before then.
Senate comments and
questions:
§
There are real
differences among departments, fractious or not.
§
Policies are
there to protect and direct.
§
Is the valuable
information in the vote or in the written comments?
§
There seems to be
a real differential between departments that have an ongoing personnel
committee versus those that put together separate review committees for
different cases as they come up.
§
There are
differences as to what is supposed to be in the letter
§
Perhaps we
shouldn’t mandate a particular policy
§
Is there a
problem with the policy or is this just procedural?
§
It is complicated
to have the provost making this strong statement about quality at a time when
we are not being supported.
§
A senator
commented that in light of the provost having turned down three cases last
year, then the vote divisions should go through. That way there is “no gray
area. Just the facts.”
§
Another commented
that the votes need to go through with explanations.
At this point, Diane
clarified that this did not come from, or start with, the Provost. Diane was
the one who brought this to the CFA last year, because she felt there was a
lack of uniformity from department to department.
Following this clarification,
several senators expressed the need for more clarity as to what we are talking
about here. The two things on the table are policy issues; the issues arising
out of the discussions seem to be much richer, deeper concerns. It was stated
that we seem to be bringing too many issues together, without making any real
headway.
The meeting was adjourned
at
[Minutes taken by Susanna Rinehart]