The University of Oklahoma (Norman campus)
Regular session – February 14, 2011 – 3:30 p.m. – Jacobson Faculty Hall 102
office: Jacobson Faculty Hall 206
phone: 325-6789
e-mail: facsen@ou.edu web site: http://www.ou.edu/admin/facsen/
The Faculty Senate was called
to order by Professor LeRoy Blank, Chair.
PRESENT: Adams,
Asojo, Atiquzzaman, Baer, Bergey, Blank, Chapple, Cox-Fuenzalida, Deacon, Devegowda,
Dial, Hahn, Kimball, Kosmopoulou, Lauer-Flores, Leseney, Marsh-Matthews,
McPherson, Minter, Morrissey, Morvant, Moses, Moxley, Muraleetharan, Natale, Palmer,
Park, Ransom, Remling, Sandel, Stock, Strauss, Tabb, Taylor, Vehik, Verma, Weaver,
Wyckoff, Xiao, Yi, Zhu
Provost's office representative: Mergler
Graduate College liaison: Griffith
ISA representatives: Cook, Hough
UOSA representatives: Dean
ABSENT: Ayres,
Bradshaw, Chang, Chiodo, Gramoll, Jean-Marie, Sadler, Williams
________________________________________________________________________________
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Announcements:
New senators
The Big Event
Retirement seminar
Faculty/staff night, men’s basketball game
Senate Chair's Report:
Faculty athletics representative
Defined contribution plan
Pre-finals week
Salary compression
Budget, health insurance cost
Accreditation
Student evaluation of faculty
Long-term disability insurance
Textbooks
Campus closures
Resolution, Roth contribution option
Defined Contribution Plans (retirement fund record keeper)
Committee nominations
Guns on campus
________________________________________________________________________________
The Faculty Senate Journal
for the regular session of January 24, 2011 was approved.
Meijun Zhu (Mathematics) was
elected to the Faculty Senate as of February 2011 to complete the 2010‑13
term of Phil Gibson (Zoology), representing the College of Arts & Sciences.
Eric Wydra (Aerospace
Studies) was elected to the Faculty Senate as of March 2011 to complete the
2009-12 term of Steve Dial (Naval Science), representing the non-degree-recommending-ROTC
units.
The Big Event, a student-run
community service effort, will be held on April 2. Faculty members are encouraged to volunteer
as individuals or in groups. For more
information, see http://bigevent.ou.edu/OUs_Big_Event/Home.html.
The faculty is invited to
“Worry-Free Investing for Retirement,” the second program on retirement planning
offered by the Price College of Business.
Due to last week’s snow storm, the program was postponed from
February 4 to Friday, February 18, 1:30-3:00 p.m. in Adams Hall 150. This program will feature Zvi
Bodie, Barron Professor of Management at Boston
University, who will describe his investment approach that focuses on market
and inflation risks, the major uncertainties associated with saving for
retirement. Dr. Bodie
is a renowned investments scholar, author, and consultant who has appeared on
Public Radio’s All Things Considered, Here and Now, and The
Diane Rehm Show as well as the PBS News
Hour, Wall $treet Week, CNNMoney.com,
and Nova. Further information is
at http://www.ou.edu/admin/facsen/InvestingSeminar.pdf and http://www.zvibodie.com/home.
Due to the snow day last week,
the faculty/staff night scheduled for the men’s basketball game versus Baylor
was cancelled. It has been rescheduled
for the men’s basketball game vs. Nebraska on February 16 (see flyer).
Prof. Blank said he wanted the Faculty
Senate to be aware of some issues that the Faculty Senate Executive Committee
has been discussing. He invited the
senators to provide input and to send him any other issues.
Prof. Connie Dillon, the faculty
athletics representative, reported that she spends a lot of time making sure
the Athletics Department is in compliance with NCAA rules. The working capital loan to the Athletics
Department from the University will be paid off the end of this year. Athletics gives money to academics through contributions
by some of the coaches, the academic enhancement fee on football tickets, and trademark
fees. We are one of the few universities
that do not provide funding to its Athletics Department. Athletics Director Joe Castiglione has been very
transparent about fiscal matters. He met
with the Budget Council in December and was very open about the department’s
finances.
The Faculty Senate Executive
Committee met with the Retirement Plans Management Committee on February 7 to
clean up some remaining issues. Prof. Blank
received 5-6 emails of concern regarding the management of the Defined
Contribution Plans, and he forwarded those to the committee. The committee responded to each of those and can
answer any remaining questions at today’s meeting.
Some Student Congress
representatives are concerned about dead (pre-finals) week (see 12/10 Senate
Journal). Sometimes it is intimidating
for students to bring complaints to chairs, directors, or deans when there is a
violation of the pre-finals week policy.
Following discussion among the Faculty Senate Executive Committee and
with Provost Mergler, the Provost said she is willing to have students come
directly to her office, where they could meet with Greg Heiser or Joyce Allman,
depending on the nature of the issue.
This will provide another alternative if students have complaints about
dead week violations or academic issues in general.
During discussion of phased
retirement, which is being considered at Oklahoma State University and the
University of Nebraska-Omaha, the Faculty Senate Executive Committee raised the
concern about our ongoing salary compression and intends to bring these issues
up again with President Boren.
Governor Mary Fallin
has said higher education will be taking a 2-3 percent cut this year, which is
less than what other agencies will experience, but will nevertheless be a major
issue for us. In addition, the health
plan next year will likely increase the amount that faculty and staff will have
to pay.
The University’s accreditation process
is starting to warm up. Faculty will
have input on academic and other issues in the near future through the various
committees that have been formed.
Several faculty members have
expressed concern about the low response rates from students now that we have
gone to web-based course evaluations. A
low response rate does not give a good evaluation of the instructor and could
have implications on issues such as tenure.
The Provost said she would look into ways we might get a better response
rate from students in the future. Prof. Strauss
said he did an informal poll of his class and discovered that students who
never come to class fill out a course evaluation, now that the evaluations are
online. Not only do we get lower
response rates, but we also get evaluations from disgruntled students, so they really
are not a fair evaluation of what an instructor is doing. Prof. Blank said a wide variety of issues
come into play.
Recently, a faculty member had to
access long-term disability insurance, and there was some discrepancy between the
individual’s expectations and reality. The
Faculty Welfare Committee, working with the Employment Benefits Committee and
Human Resources, would like to create a short summary document that clarifies
what employees can expect under this program.
About a year ago, Tulsa Community
College wrote a program called Text2Trade, which was funded by the state
regents and intended for use by all colleges and universities in
the state. It is a cross between eBay and Craigslist and
would enable students to buy, sell, and trade textbooks among themselves. Prof. Blank is working with the Information
Technology office to make the program available to OU students.
There were several concerns about
the university closings due to the snow storms.
The administration’s number one priority is safety. Instructors are encouraged to use electronic
media, such as D2L (Learn), to communicate with their students. Instructors can have optional classes when
the University reopens, but they cannot make students attend a class that is
outside the normal class time. Prof. Atiquzzaman
asked if instructors could hold additional classes because of closures if the
students agree. Prof. Blank said instructors
could have extra classes, but they have to be clear that the classes are
optional, and students cannot be required to attend. Prof. Griffith asked if it is an optional
class, whether the content had to be optional.
Prof. Blank said he would consider those classes to be equivalent to a
help session. Prof. Moses said he posts his
lecture notes on Learn, and that content is required. He uses Doodle to schedule an optional
session at a time that works best for most of the students. The students who come to the class will
probably learn the material better.
Prof. Palmer noted that instructors could pick up the pace in their
regular class to catch up, and a help session would be useful for repeating the
material that the instructor went over more quickly. Prof. Devegowda said he uses a system called Tegrity to record an actual video of his lecture. If he misses classes because of travel or
university closings, he has his students watch the video. It is an online
learning tool that he uses to supplement his teaching in the classroom. He said he was not sure if the system was
available university wide. The School of
Petroleum & Geological Engineering has purchased a few licenses. The School of Meteorology uses another
system, Echo360. The idea is these
systems capture what is going on on the instructor’s screen
and on the blackboard. Prof. Blank said the
College of Arts & Sciences has something similar but it is not widespread.
The Faculty Welfare Committee
presented a resolution requesting that a Roth contribution opportunity be made
available for 403(b) and 457(b) plans.
It would be an after-tax contribution that would have tax-free
withdrawals.
Whereas: The University of Oklahoma offers two
voluntary retirement savings plans for employees, namely the 403(b) and 457(b)
plans, hereafter referred to as VRSPs, and;
Whereas: Contributions to VRSPs historically have
only been allowed to be made using pre-tax dollars and therefore withdrawals
are treated as taxable income, and;
Whereas: A Roth contribution option to VRSPs is now
permitted by law and allows employees to make contributions with after-tax
dollars and thereby withdraw earnings tax-free at retirement (subject to rules
on qualified distributions), and;
Whereas: Adding a Roth contribution option to VRSPs
allows employees to increase the diversification of the taxability of their
retirement income, and;
Whereas: A Roth contribution option to VRSPs would
make Roth accounts available to employees who otherwise are ineligible to
contribute to Roth IRAs due to income limitations;
NOW,
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Faculty Senate of The University of Oklahoma
hereby requests that The University of Oklahoma provide a Roth contribution
option for 403(b) and 457(b) voluntary retirement savings plans beginning no
later than January 2012.
Prof. Moses, chair of the
Faculty Welfare Committee, moved that the Faculty Senate consider the
resolution and vote at this meeting. The
resolution was approved on a voice vote, with one abstention.
Prof. Blank encouraged the
senators to bring up any remaining questions about the retirement fund management
at this time. (See 1/11 Senate Journal
for background information.) Mr. Chris
Kuwitzky, chair of the Retirement Plans Management Committee (RPMC) introduced
other members of the RPMC who were present:
Julius Hilburn, K.K. Muraleetharan and support staff Nick Kelly and R.V.
Kuhns representative Charlie Waibel. He explained that since the last meeting on
January 24, the RPMC has been responding to specific questions that have been
presented. Many of the questions were related
to TIAA-CREF and the options that will continue to exist. Other questions had to do with whether this was
some veiled effort to redirect saving or reduce the University’s contribution
to the Defined Contribution Plans. The
University cannot legally retain any savings as a result of this program, nor
is this process an effort to reduce the contributions the University is making
to the retirement plan. Additional questions
were raised about why Fidelity was chosen as the record keeper, whether we
could have multiple record keepers, and what the advantage was of a single
record keeper.
The RPMC is supportive of the
resolution that was adopted at this meeting that would add a Roth option. The committee intends to follow up with
Fidelity. Any changes to the plan will
require a change in the plan documents and be subject to approval by the OU
regents. The RPMC will make a presentation
on February 16 to the Staff Senate. The
committee is working on additions to its web site so there will be a single
place for documents. The web site will
have a high-level overview as well as detailed explanations. A campus-wide communication will be done in mid-May. The feedback from the faculty has been
instrumental in making several revisions to the recommendations. The expectation is two recommendations will
be brought to the OU regents in March. The
first recommendation would be to appoint Fidelity as the record keeper, and the
second would be to adopt the charter that governs the RPMC.
Prof. Hofford encouraged the RPMC
to have additional faculty representation on the committee and incorporate that
in the charter. Mr. Kuwitzky said the
charter does not specify the number of committee members and, going forward, the
RPMC could visit with the President about changes in membership. Prof. Adams asked whether the charter was the
document that explained all of the information that is being presented to the Faculty
Senate. Mr. Kuwitzky said the charter lays
out the framework under which the RPMC works.
Prof. Strauss said his colleagues had a question about the traditional
TIAA account. Mr. Kuwitzky said the
annuity product that employees have today will not be available in the new
lineup, but there will be a new TIAA traditional annuity product called
Retirement Choice that has similar historical returns. The proposed product has a shorter liquidity
period (6 years and a day compared to 10 years). Further questions may be sent to Prof. Blank,
who will forward them to the RPMC.
Prof. Blank announced that the
call for faculty nominations for University and campus councils and committees
had gone out. The committees serve some
very important functions. He encouraged
the senators to consider nominating themselves or colleagues to serve. Nominations are due March 11.
Prof. Sandel said he had seen the
article in today’s newspaper about a bill in the state legislature that could
allow guns on campus. The article said
President Boren and others are strongly opposed. He asked if there was any possibility of the Faculty
Senate making a statement opposing such legislation. Prof. Blank said the Faculty Senate had
passed a resolution (http://www.ou.edu/admin/facsen/firearms2010.htm) on this issue last March and purposely
made it very broad ranging. Prof. Blank said
he would give a copy of the resolution to the state regents to use in
communicating with the legislature. He serves
on the Faculty Advisory Council to the State Regents. He said he did not think it would be
necessary to bring the resolution back to the Faculty Senate to consider again. Prof. Sandel pointed out that there is a new
legislature and a new governor. Prof.
Blank noted that everybody is paying attention to the news, and we are all
concerned.
The meeting adjourned at 4:05
p.m. The next regular session of the
Faculty Senate will be held at 3:30 p.m. on Monday, March 21, 2011, in
Jacobson Faculty Hall 102.
____________________________________
Sonya Fallgatter, Administrative Coordinator
____________________________________
Amy Bradshaw, Faculty Secretary