|
|
|
Faculty Senate College Info Committees Governing Bodies Information Items Meetings Membership Policies & Constitution Faculty Handbooks Tenure Forms Dean's Response to Tenure Document
|
ATTENDANCE Present: Damon Bahr, Deborah Baird, sub. for John Balden, David Brandt, Joe Buchman, sub. for Elaine Byrd, Eddy Cadet, Ernest Carey, Malcolm Crawford, Kathie Debenham, Jeanille Gooch, Eldon Greenhalgh, Ron Hammond, Chris Jones, sub. for Stephanie Larsen, Dave Manning, Doug Miller, Duane Miller, Gary Noll, Tom Perkins, LouAnn Provost, Kirk Rasmussen, Liliana Riboldi, Grant Richards, Merlin Smith, Keith Snedegar, K.D. Taylor, Jon Turner, Lynn Turnquist, sub. for Cristine Veit, Forrest Williams, Laurie Wood Absent: Max Christofferson, Jeanette Hall, Chester Heath, Don Wilson Excused: Jill Jasperson, Pres. Kerry Romesburg, Dr. Lucille T. Stoddard Guests: Nancy Bartlett, Janet Bennion, Andrea Brown, Karl Worthington CALL TO ORDER Faculty Senate President, Grant Richards, called the meeting to order at 3:10 p.m. APPROVAL OF MINUTES Laurie Wood moved to accept the minutes with the following change: Keith Snedegar's substitute voted for him at the last meeting, he was not present. K.D. Taylor seconded the motion. The vote to approve was unanimous. ACTION ITEMS None. INFORMATION ITEMS
Ron Hammond stated that there would be two policies, a transitional policy and a new policy. Both policies will be on the agenda next time as action items. They will be voted on by the Board of Trustees at their April 8th meeting. Ron Hammond gave a handout of the time-line for implementing the new salary program. He asked that senators note the date changes from the time-line in the proposal packet. The schools of Sciences, Trades, and Humanities have already formed committees. The time-line dates were changed because we did not want the faculty to go into the summer without knowing what is considered meritorious. K.D. wanted know how much of our salary increase is now going to merit. Ron responded that the new policy states that no more than 80% of a salary increase can be given to the faculty automatically, so at least 20% must be earned by merit. Grant stated that about 20% per year went to merit under the current system. Ernest Carey stated that the Webmaster on campus took another job, and that the school will not give out the authorization codes until the duties are transferred to someone else. No one has been hired, and nothing will be done with the web sites until someone is hired. Mark Spencer was unable to attend; he will be invited to the next meeting. Mark Spencer was unable to attend, but a handout was made available on this. Laurie Wood passed around a memo showing who had been nominated already and what nomination openings were still available. Elections will be at the next meeting, March 23. Six nominations for committees are still open. Chairs were asked to contact committee members rotating off to see if they would like to serve again. Laurie needs all nominations before Spring Break. Retiring senators need to let Laurie know who will be taking their place. Elections should be held within departments to decide. We also need to hold elections for Senate President-Elect. Faculty members can either talk to Ernie or Grant for nomination by them, or they can submit a petition signed by 15 eligible faculty. Nominations are needed 10 days prior to elections, so the due date is March 13. Two nominees are needed per position. Committee chair positions that are open must be filled by a senator. Forrest Williams stated that a committee chair would want to have a good mix of faculty on the committee. Damon Bahr asked about a committee to review the hiring process. Laurie stated that she had kept extra names for an ad hoc committee on this. Grant stated that there wasn't much interest in pursuing that committee, so one had not been created. Laurie stated that she forwarded those names on to Nancy Bartlett. Forrest explained that this policy deals with teaching competencies taught through modules. The Faculty Senate was asked to look at it. If we remove this policy, it would help keep practice in line with policy. Forrest stated when we hire a teacher, we know their teaching competency. The available training modules in their present form are not meeting the needs of the college. President Romesburg and Dr. Stoddard are both in favor of this change. Forrest asked if the modules were a benefit to those who had used them. LouAnn Provost stated that the nursing teachers need help in teaching. She stated that the modules weren't great but felt the need to do something. Forrest stated that his committee has several ideas. Many people are not going through the modules, and he has heard that they are not printed any more. He stated that the teaching competencies are important, but should be done more on a personal basis. This committee hopes to be doing more seminars. Ernie stated that the policy would still exist, but the way a person became competent is what would change. Kirk Rasmussen stated that as a general rule the teaching competencies haven't been done. He also stated that the committee needed to demonstrate competency in ways other than just class evaluations - - maybe something that shows visitation by other faculty members. This policy was put into place for those faculty with no teaching experience. We don't want to throw the modules out, but the alternatives are good too. Eldon Greenhalgh feels that if the faculty member doesn't have an education background they probably don't know how to put together a lesson plan. They need something. Dave Manning said that the way this is administered is weak. When he started teaching he had to teach six different classes, and didn't have any time to do the teaching competency training modules. Maybe they should make them meritorious, but not require them. Janet stated that as a new teacher this year she hadn't heard anything about the modules, but that she had received good mentoring from Ron Hammond. Forrest stated that mentoring is a good way to learn, but some departments don't have a very good mentoring program. Forrest's committee will come to the next meeting with a policy suggestion. Senators can give suggestions to Forrest. The change in this policy states that an employee may not use sick leave for longer than five months without applying for long-term or disability insurance. Nancy Bartlett pointed out that the policy change is based on experience, not on a state law. Keith Snedegar was concerned at how the policy got approved without passing through the Faculty Senate. Nancy said that to expedite the policy it was taken to President's Council for approval. Forrest wondered if that makes Faculty Senate an irrelevant committee. Nancy replied that expediting a policy does not happen very often, she has only seen it done twice. Expedited policies and housekeeping changes are the only things that do not pass through this council. Ernie pointed out that there is no fund for those on sick leave. The college or the department must somehow pay for teachers to cover the absent faculty member. Keith stated that many processes at UVSC bypass those people it involves. The senate should have been informed about this policy change at the very least. He feels that UVSC needs to open up the lines of communication. Chris Jones asked why five months was used as a deadline, when you can't get disability until six months after an accident. Ron asked why, if there is no money in sick leave, do we borrow sick leave. Ernie replied that it has allowed them not to apply for disability. It enables the person to continue receiving their paychecks. Karl Worthington stated that the employee just has to apply for disability, they don't have to accept. Nancy stated that this policy is not meant to hurt the employee, but rather to help them look at their options. If they ran out of sick leave and didn't know they could apply for long-term or disability insurance, they would not get paid. Grant distributed a handout about faculty activity and explained that the handout was just for information. Point of interest, UVSC uses more time in administrative hours. This is a self-reported study. Grant announced that benefits issues would be discussed at the all-college meeting on March 31. Things such as open enrollment and all the changes in benefits would be discussed. They are still working on the dental package. Medical coverage has gone up. Office visit copays and prescription copays will be higher. Mail order prescriptions will remain the same. Educators Mutual is the only group who successfully bid for UVSC. The benefits committee convinced Blue Cross and Blue Shield to bid, but BCBS would not customize their plan, and our rates would be much higher. A handout from the Tribune gave a good background to the story. UVSC is anticipating a 13-15% increase in benefit costs which must be funded from the 2.5% raise. This will only leave enough for column changes. CEU's benefit costs will go up 70%; they will cut insurance and experience a pay cut to cover the increase. We have begun to look at the possibility of self-insuring. UVSC met with Weber to begin looking at the possibility, and could possibly join with Salt Lake Community College also. USU and UofU are both self- insured. Both have felt good about it. From the pay increase, PACE plans to cover benefits and add very little to their base. Our policy is to fund column changes first, then steps, then add to the base. Karl stated that there has been some mistaken advice given to students about what matriculation is in the four-year programs. There will be an advisors meeting this week to get everyone on common ground. All students must matriculate by meeting certain criteria. A conference brochure was handed out by Forrest. Forrest stated that the conference was being sponsored by the School of Sciences. It will be held March 25 and 26 at UVSC. If faculty sends email to Joyce Oliphant by March 16, Dr. Stoddard will pay the $90 registration fee for any faculty who is interested in attending. Some of the faculty did not get a copy of the conference brochure, so senators were asked to make sure to circulate their brochure in their department. Faculty Development- Forrest, nothing further. Academic Policy- Jill not in attendance. Academic Standards- Dave Manning stated the committee just finished working on add waivers. Many students get into a class and don't register. They all say at petition that they have to have this class to graduate or some other important reason. Most of the requests were denied. Budget- Ron, nothing further. Curriculum- Chris stated they are meeting every two weeks. They will be looking at more degrees on Tuesday. They are expecting Criminal Justice, Legal Studies, Computer Science, and Biology four-year degrees to be coming soon. Faculty Merit- Duane said that they met on Wednesday to go over Merit Bonus applications. They are polished off and ready to be signed. All those who applied should receive a memo stating their score. A score over 80 means you get a bonus. The committee will meet to go over the pay distribution. Duane will bring the sheet next time. K.D. asked if we could find out which paycheck the bonus would go on. If faculty knows which paycheck, they could tell payroll to use a special multiplier to reduce the amount of taxes taken out of it. Faculty must contact the payroll department five days before the paychecks are cut. Janet Bennion asked if faculty is eligible to apply for a merit bonus during their first year of teaching. Duane answered yes if they teach at least half time, but they can't apply for teacher of the year during their first year. Tenure- Kirk, nothing to add. Ernie stated that comments had been made to him regarding parking. UVSC is showing an increase in faculty hired, but not in faculty parking slots. There is also an increase in student employees using faculty parking. Apparently, a part-time student who also works part-time on campus can get a faculty/staff parking sticker. Should we address this issue with Parking Services? Maybe we should propose that adjunct instructors and full-time faculty and staff are the only ones who can receive faculty/staff parking stickers. Grant stated that we should talk about this problem with our departments and come back next week with some suggestions. Karl stated that on April 5th they will start moving dirt for the new Information Sciences Building. This means less parking. Chris Jones stated that many lots are not patrolled, including the one by the Business Building. David Manning stated that they have problems with parking near the Trades Building and he has had to call for someone to come and monitor the lots. Grant said that we could invite someone from Parking Services to come and talk to us at the next meeting. Laurie again pleaded for senators to fill the nominations. She needs to have a full ballot at the next meeting. ADJOURNMENT Kirk moved to adjourn. Forrest seconded the motion. The meeting adjourned at 4:20 p.m.
Page maintained by UVSC: |
Web Development Services Report Errors Here |