Faculty Senate of Virginia Tech
September meeting
minutes
(Pamplin 32)
Senators
in Attendance:
Susan Anderson, Rick Ashley, Carlyle Brewster, Carol Burch-Brown, Sam
Easterling, , Frank Gwazdauskas, Tom Hammett, Bernice Hausman, Ian Herring,
Kathleen Jones, Ann-Marie Knoblauch, Ellen Krupar, Shelley Martin, Susan
Molesky (ALT), Amy Nelson, Sean O'Keefe, David Radcliffe, Susanna Rinehart,
Kamal Rojiani, Nan Seamans, Edd Sewell, Jim Weaver, Dennis Welch, Yonsenia
White, Sharon Witonsky, Randy Wynne, Diane Zahm
Senators
not in Attendance: Larry Alexander, Terry Clements, Jack Cranford, Helen Crawford, Leon
Geyer, Richard Goff, Bill Greenberg, Mike Gregg, Valerie Hardcastle, Sam Hicks,
Rakesh Kapania, Brad Klein, Michael Lambur, Jack Lesko, , Jim Pease, Kerry
Redican, Shelly Nichols Richardson, Brian Woerner, Shep Zedaker
President Diane Zahm called
the meeting to order at
April minutes were approved
with minor changes.
August minutes were
approved with two minor changes.
[The scheduled presentation
by Virginia Reilly, ADA Coordinator, did not happen, as she was unable to be
there.]
Diane Zahm reported on the
meetings that she, Sam Easterling and Susanna Rinehart had with the President
and the Provost.
§
The Provost will
be creating an overview and written guidelines on procedures for “cluster
hires”. There has been real concern over a seemingly widespread lack of clarity
on the part of the faculty on this question.
§
The Provost has
been scheduling meetings with Departments.
§
The President
plans to do forums/receptions on the college level in November.
§
Minnis Ridenour
has officially announced his retirement at the end of next year. As Senate
President, Diane will be a member of the search committee to hire his
replacement.
Commission and
Committee Reports:
§
Sam Easterling
reported that the Commission on Faculty Affairs had what was primarily an
organizational meeting on Friday, September 12th. CFA will be continuing to look at Promotion
& Tenure guidelines. Last year, the CFA reviewed the University P&T
guidelines in an advisory capacity to the University P&T committee. Main
issues are with the differences among colleges in their procedures, etc. The
Provost has responded to the recommendations that came out of that process last
year. CFA has been asked to make the recommended changes and send it on to the
University Council this semester. The Provost has sent a directive to
Department heads that there will be a mandatory second and fourth year review
for tenure-track faculty. The second carryover item on CFA’s agenda is
regarding the language in teaching policies. The new item on the agenda is the
Computer Privacy Policy. The CFA will be taking that up in their October 10th
meeting.
§
Susanna Rinehart
and Edd Sewell reported that the Commission on Equal Opportunity and Diversity
had held its first “orientation meeting” on September 8th. Both felt
very upbeat about the composition and work of the commission. The latter part
of the meeting was spent with commissioners suggesting potential areas for
action.
§
Jim Weaver and
Frank Gwazdauskas reported for the Commission on Research that Joe Pitt is
chair; and that there are still commissioners who haven’t been appointed. They
are discussing the new research institute; what are the criteria for research
success; and the resubmitted intellectual property policy. There is also some
discussion of replacing the term “Top 30 University” with “
§
The Commission on
Student Affairs has not yet met. Ellen Krupar volunteered and was approved as
the new Faculty Senate representative to Student Affairs.
§
University
Council had a very brief, uneventful meeting.
§
Shelley Martin
reported that the Building Committee never meets as a committee.
§
The Honorifics
Committee will hold its first meeting October 1st.
§
The Honor System
Committee met the week prior to this Senate meeting. The turn around time is
now down to 30 days on cases. The back log has been completely eliminated.
There was a lengthy
discussion regarding transportation and parking, prompted by the upcoming
weekday football game.
Diane will write a letter
on behalf of the Senate regarding the following:
§
Disruption of
classes for weekday games
§
The fact that
student athletes end up missing more classes for weekday games than for weekend
games.
§
Being disallowed
from parking starting at
§
Parking
disruption for student move-in.
§
A request that
there be fewer of the new “carpool” spaces, to more accurately reflect the
number of faculty and staff that are using them.
§
The absence of a
bike path on
§
If, as it seems,
there will be a fall holiday added to the calendar starting in 2005 in order to
balance out the observation of the MLK holiday, then why not make that
“holiday” on the same day as the weekday football game?
Nan Seamans reported that
the Core Curriculum Committee is
working on refocusing the “writing intensive” classes to a broader definition
called “communication intensive”, where the goal is to demonstrate
“communication competency”. Their next meeting will be on October 16th.
Another senator commented
that some departments are finding it extremely challenging to comply with the
standards for the writing intensive courses, largely as a result of budget cuts
and resulting inflated enrollments.
Diane said that she would
be bringing a proposal on the lobbying effort to the next meeting.
The meeting was adjourned
at
[Minutes taken by Susanna Rinehart]