The
Regular session – April 10, 2006 – 3:30 p.m. – Jacobson Faculty Hall 102
office: Jacobson Faculty Hall 206
phone: 325-6789
e-mail:
The Faculty Senate was called
to order by Professor Roy Knapp, Chair.
PRESENT: Apanasov,
Badhwar, Benson, Biggerstaff, Blank, Bradford, Brown, Burns, Civan, Clark, Croft,
Elisens, Fast, Fincke, Franklin, Frech, Gade, Geletzke, Gutierrez, Hamerla, Hawamdeh,
Hayes-Thumann, Houser, C. Knapp, R.
Knapp, Kolar, Lai, Lester, Liu, Magnusson, Marcus-Mendoza, Megginson, Ransom, Roche,
Rugeley, Scamehorn, Schwarzkopf, Skeeters, Tabb, Trytten, Warnken, Wood
Provost's office representative: Heiser
ISA representatives: Hough
UOSA representatives: Vedala
ABSENT: Albert,
Catlin, Cramer, Draheim, Garn, Kutner, Pace, Raadschelders, Weaver, Wei,
________________________________________________________________________________
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Announcement: faculty
development awards
Student Honor Council
Benefits: short-term disability insurance, retirement
Senate Chair's Report:
Reference in Faculty
Handbook to Information Technology Council policies
Searches: Deans
of Fine Arts and Journalism
Faculty tribute
Courses with numbers in the format of x960, x970, x980, x990
Environmental Concerns Committee proposal concerning ex-officio members
Resolution recognizing Senator Cal Hobson
Preliminary nominations for councils/committees/boards
________________________________________________________________________________
The Faculty Senate Journal
for the regular session of March 20, 2006 was approved.
The Faculty Senate is pleased
to present the faculty development awards for the spring 2006 semester to
Loretta Bass (Sociology), Heidi Karriker (Modern Languages, Literatures, and
Linguistics), Susan Laird (Educational Leadership & Policy Studies), Jeremy
Lindberg (Dance), Yunjun Xu (Aerospace & Mechanical Engineering), and Vicki
Williams (Educational Leadership & Policy Studies).
Mr. Ricker Deeg, chair of the
student honor council, described the group’s activities. He introduced three other members of the
council: Melissa Renfro, Public Relations, Matt Maupin, a new member, and Luke
Landis, secretary. Mr. Deeg said the
honor council had developed a brochure that will be distributed to freshmen. The brochure explains the academic misconduct
code and students’ responsibility and includes a quiz to tell students what
cheating is. Faculty who are interested
in handing out the brochure to their students can send an e-mail to honorcouncil@ou.edu. Mr. Deeg explained that the new OU blue books
will include the integrity pledge on the front.
The recent membership drive added 12-13 new members to the honor council,
which brings the total membership up to 20.
With more members, the honor council will be able to tackle additional
projects. Mr. Deeg is redesigning the
web page to make it easier to navigate. He
plans to include a list of best practices or guidelines to follow. The honor council may try to hold a student seminar
once a semester on proper study habits, which should lessen cheating. Council members will possibly attend
departmental meetings to encourage faculty to use the integrity pledge, address
concerns that faculty may have, and ask them to discuss ethics in class. The council expects to develop an online integrity
quiz pulled from a large pool of questions so that every time a student takes
the quiz s/he will see different questions.
Faculty could use the quiz as a tool in the classroom to help students
learn about integrity.
Prof. Fincke pointed out that
faculty members are required to take online quizzes on issues such as sexual
harassment, and they are quite effective.
Mr. Deeg said the quiz would be taken online, but he would like students
to see different questions every time they take it. Prof. Knapp noted that passing the quiz
online gives the person a quick pat on the back. Prof. Megginson pointed out that making the
quiz more complex could decrease participation.
The online sexual harassment quiz is surprisingly effective.
Dr. Greg Heiser, Assistant
Provost, remarked that the honor council had received a lot of help from the Faculty
Senate over the past years. Former
Senate chair Mike McInerney is the faculty liaison to the honor council. The council is soliciting input from faculty
and students who have used Turnitin.com, the plagiarism detection service.
Prof. Schwarzkopf asked
whether enough funds were available to print additional copies of the
brochures. Dr. Heiser said the Student
Affairs office had funded the initial printing and would likely provide continuing
support. Prof. Trytten suggested that
faculty members could include a link on their web sites to the honor council
web site as a way to get information out to students. If the integrity quiz was developed on
Desire2Learn, it is possible that professors could download the quiz for their
classes. Prof. Marcus-Mendoza said her
department requires its faculty members to include a link on their syllabi to
the provost’s page on academic integrity.
She commented that the main reason for academic misconduct is plagiarism. Students cut and paste electronic material
into rough drafts and then forget where it came from. The list of best practices should include information
on how to avoid plagiarism. She said she
was grateful for Turnitin.com because it saves so much time in identifying
plagiarism.
Human Resources Assistant
Director Nick Kelly gave an update on the new short-term disability insurance
and on retirement. Mr. Kelly said the University
will offer a short-term disability insurance program on a voluntary basis. The Human Resources (HR) office did a request
for proposals last fall, Aflac was chosen, and the plan was presented to the Employment
Benefits Committee in February. The plan
will provide 50 percent of income protection, with a 3-month or 6-month benefit
period and a waiting period of 7 or 14 days.
The program is intended for new employees who have not accumulated much
leave. It is not a guaranteed issue
plan, that is, individuals with chronic conditions probably will not qualify. The other companies that offered a guaranteed
issue also required a participation rate of 25-30 percent of our population. With the leave that most employees have
accrued, we would not have that level of participation. The initial enrollment will be in August,
rather than the regular annual enrollment period, in order to give the program more
attention. The rates will vary depending
on the employee’s salary and length of benefit, but should be $25-40 per month. A pre-existing condition clause will exclude
some individuals, but maternity leave is covered if the individual was not
pregnant at the time of enrolment. The
deductions will be on an after-tax basis, so individuals will not be taxed if
they draw on disability.
In June 2004, the legislature
passed a bill that allowed new employees at OU to make a choice between the Oklahoma
Teachers’ Retirement System (OTRS) or the University’s optional plan, which pays
nine percent of base salary. The bill
also extended the choice to existing employees who were in OTRS, pending
approval by the IRS. The University
hopes to hear this summer whether the IRS will allow existing employees to make
a decision between remaining in OTRS or switching to the optional retirement plan. The choice is irrevocable, even if the
individual leaves and comes back or transfers to OSU. The bill applies to both of the state’s
comprehensive universities. HR plans to provide
a lot of information and is working with an actuary to develop a personalized
calculator. The calculator will compare
the benefit of staying in OTRS to leaving OTRS.
Individuals will have to make some assumptions, such as how long they
will remain at OU, how long they expect to live after retirement, and their
overall financial situation. Another
question the University asked the IRS was whether employees could roll their
OTRS money into the optional plan if they leave OTRS. HR believes there is little economic benefit in
leaving OTRS for anyone who came here before 1995. Another issue that will complicate the
decision is that the salary caps will come off in July 2007. Then employees will have to pay OTRS on total
compensation, including certain benefits.
Although some individuals will have to pay more, it will significantly
increase their retirement benefit. People
might want to start budgeting for that additional contribution. HR will pass along any news to employees who
need to make a choice. If the IRS
approves the choice, employees will have a year after the approval to make a
decision.
Prof. Marcus-Mendoza asked
whether the calculator could tell her what she will have to contribute when the
caps come off. Mr. Kelly said the
calculator will do that. He pointed out
that employees would get a randomly generated number to access information from
the calculator, but there will be no personal identifying information. Prof. Biggerstaff asked whether the
University would provide any financial counseling during the period of
transition. Mr. Kelly said the
University would have some general financial counseling. People in a borderline situation will be able
to meet individually with staff who have been trained on those financial issues. Prof. Kolar asked about the solvency of
OTRS. Mr. Kelly replied that OTRS says
there is no retirement system in the country that has been allowed to
fail. The state is aware of its
obligation. OTRS handles investments for
individuals, whereas employees are more or less on their own when they invest
in defined contribution plans. OTRS has
a long-term plan to reach the average retirement funding of 80 percent; right
now it is at 50 percent. The state is
putting more money into OTRS this year.
OTRS has a guaranteed return versus the unpredictable return of defined
contribution investments.
The Information Technology
Council requested that a reference to approved ITC policies be added to the Faculty Handbook. The statement would be added to section 8.12,
services and facilities, so the addition should not require any Senate action.
The Provost asked the faculty
in the colleges of Fine Arts and Journalism about their views on promoting
their interim deans to permanent deans.
She has interviewed the Committees A of both colleges. The Senate Executive Committee has talked
with the president almost every month this year about the search process for
the deans of those colleges. He asked
the Executive Committee to help him with the process by interviewing the
candidates. Prof. Knapp asked the senators
to notify the Executive Committee or the college Committees A if they or their
colleagues had questions or issues they wanted raised.
The Faculty Awards ceremony was
held April 6. More than 45 faculty
received awards, including Senator Kolar, who won the Regents’ Award for
Superior Teaching. In response to the
Faculty Compensation Committee proposal to recognize length of service for
faculty members, the Provost agreed to initiate a program this year. More than 70 faculty were recognized for 30
or more years of service, including Senators Blank, Catlin, Clark, Frech,
Kutner, Schwarzkopf, and
At
the February meeting (see 2/06 Senate Journal), the Senate considered three
proposals of the Academic Regulations Committee (ARC) concerning courses with
numbers ending in 60, 70, 80, and 90.
The third proposal was approved, with the following revisions (additions
highlighted; deletions crossed through):
Proposal 3: It is also requested that a University policy
be adopted so that Directed/Honors Readings, Independent Study,
Thesis/Dissertation/Honors Research and Special Topics/Seminar courses will be
added to the course inventory as part of the process of creating any new degree-granting department
or program. Existing departments or programs which do not have these courses
established would also be identified, and the courses would be created in
coordination with the academic department or program. The Curricular Changes and Academic
Publications office will coordinate creating the course forms and will send the
forms to the department or
program for departmental and dean’s office signatures department or program, dean and
provost approval in order to record the date of the action. The requests
would not require review/approval by college committees or the Academic
Programs Council, which is normally required for adding a course.
As
a result of the Senate’s suggestions, the ARC revised proposals one and two as
follows:
Proposal 1: It is
requested that a University policy be adopted that all new courses with numbers ending in in the format of x960
(Directed Readings or Honors Readings), x980 (Thesis/Dissertation or Honors Research) and x990 (Independent Study)
be S/U graded except by appeal, and that all new courses ending in in the format of x970
(Special Topics/Seminar) be letter or S/U graded at the instructor’s
discretion.
Proposal 2: It is also requested that a University policy
be adopted that all new
courses with numbers ending in in the format of x960 carry the title of Directed
Readings or Honors Readings, courses with numbers ending in in the format of x990 be
titled Independent Study, courses with numbers ending in in the format of x980 be
called Thesis/Dissertation or Honors Research, and courses with numbers ending
in in the format of x970
have the title of either Special Topics or Seminar with an additional variable
title. If a topic is offered under this
number, a specific topic could only be offered twice within a six-year
period. After offering the course a
maximum of twice, the department must request a permanent number for that
specific course content.
Discussing proposal one, Prof.
Marcus-Mendoza asked what would happen to requests to letter grade directed
readings courses that are currently going through the approval process. Mr. Breck Turkington, Enrollment Services
Director, said his guess was the requests currently in the system would clear
as is, and the new policy would be in effect as of fall. Proposal 1 was approved on a voice vote.
Referring to proposal two,
Prof. Marcus-Mendoza noted that the Human Relations Department offers courses on
multiple campuses. She asked whether the
second sentence meant a course could only be offered twice within a six-year
period per site. Mr. Turkington answered
that multiple sections of the same course offered in the same term would count
as once. Prof. Benson said he thought
the last sentence was confusing. He
suggested, as a friendly amendment, that the language be changed to, “A course cannot be offered a third
time within that six-year period without requesting a permanent number.” The two voting members of the ARC who were
present agreed to the change. Prof. Megginson
proposed that the last part of the sentence read, “…without having approval for
a permanent number.” Prof. Knapp asked whether the revision would lead
to any unintended consequences. Mr. Matt
Hamilton, Registrar and Associate Vice President and Chair of the ARC, said the
University would notify individuals who offered a course a second time that
they needed to start the process if they planned to offer the course a third
time. Prof. Schwarzkopf asked whether a
department could create a course with another number such as 5950, call it
special topics, and have it letter graded.
It would take care of situations described by Prof. Marcus-Mendoza,
would allow courses to be taught on a special experimental basis, and could be
controlled by the Graduate Council. Prof.
Knapp commented that if a course was offered on an experimental basis, the University
should be able to accommodate that rather than build rules to meet every exception. Prof. Schwarzkopf inquired whether there was flexibility
in the system to allow those kinds of exceptions on a special basis. Mr. Hamilton said the Academic Programs
Council would make that decision. Prof. Knapp
remarked that Prof. Megginson’s modification probably should read, “without being
approved for a permanent number.” Proposal
2 was approved on a voice vote, with the last sentence amended to read, “A course cannot be offered a third time
within that six-year period without being approved for a permanent number.” The three proposals, including the revisions,
are attached (http://ou.edu/admin/facsen/arcprop4.htm).
The Environmental Concerns
Committee withdrew its proposal to allow ex-officio members to be voting
members of the committee (see 3/06 Senate Journal and http://www.ou.edu/admin/facsen/ECCmem.htm). In response to concerns expressed at last month’s Senate
meeting, the committee decided to change its bylaws to allow ex-officio members
to vote if they hold an office. The
terms of the staff appointments had been increased from two years to three
years by the administration 5/23/05 at the request of the Staff Senate when the
ECC had asked for equal representation of faculty, staff and students (see 5/05
Senate Journal). Prof. Knapp commented
that since the change was to the committee’s by-laws, the Faculty Senate would
not have to take any action.
The Faculty Senate approved a
resolution proposed by Prof. Schwarzkopf recognizing Senator Cal Hobson (see
3/06 Senate Journal): “The Faculty
Senate of the University of Oklahoma Norman Campus recognizes Senator Cal
Hobson for over a quarter century of service to higher education in general and
the University of Oklahoma in particular.”
Prof. Schwarzkopf said the resolution would be presented to Senator
Hobson at the April 14 AAUP meeting. He
distributed fliers at the meeting and invited the senators to attend.
The Senate Committee on
Committees’ preliminary nominations for the end-of-the-year vacancies on
university and campus councils, committees, and boards were distributed at the
meeting and will be voted on at the May meeting. Prof. Frech, chair of the Committee on
Committees, asked for volunteers for four openings on committees.
The meeting adjourned at 4:30
p.m. The last regular session of the
Faculty Senate for 2005-06 will be held at 3:30 p.m. on Monday, May 8, 2006, in
Jacobson Faculty Hall 102.
____________________________________
Sonya Fallgatter, Administrative Coordinator
____________________________________
A. Steve Bradford, Secretary