Meeting of the Full Faculty

MINUTES

MEETING OF THE FULL FACULTY

9/11/2007

Faculty President Gavin Townsend called the meeting to order at 3:15 p.m.

The faculty observed a moment of silence for the victims of 9/11/2001 and

for the three faculty members who died over the summer: Anne Chien

(Nursing), Kathleen Long (Accounting and Finance), and Steven Lewinter

(Art). The minutes of April 24, 2007 were approved unanimously

(Russell/Fanning) with one correction:

Under "Faculty Concerns, instead of "Theresa Liedtka (Library) said that

this summer the Library will be interfiling current periodicals with bound

periodicals; and that faculty who wish to express an opinion on this

decision can do so on the library survey"

Replace with"Theresa Liedtka (Library) said that the Lupton Library needs

to shift the entire 2nd floor bound journal collection this summer. The

idea of interfiling the unbound, current periodicals with their bound

counterparts has been suggested. In Practice this means the Library would

take down the big lift-up shelving and interfile the current, unbound

periodicals directly next to their bound counterparts. The library is

seeking input via its Annual Survey, as well as doing a use count of

periodicals. The Library recognizes that some faculty prefer to browse

print, while others prefer to use the online. If you have concerns about

the interfiling, please complete the library survey or contact Theresa by

May 4th. A note will be sent o UNTINFO with more information.

FARC Election

Pedro Campa (Foreign Languages) and Bento Lobo (Accounting and Finance)

were nominated to serve on the Faculty Administrative Relations Committee,

and Bento Lobo was elected. He joins Steve Kuhn (Mathematics) and Doug Kutz

(Chemistry).

Introduction of New Faculty

Dean Theresa Liedtka welcomed Colleen Harris and Brian Kysela

Dean Mary Tanner (Health, Education and Professional Studies) welcomed Tom

Buggey (Siskin Chair of Excellence); Barry Dale (Physical Therapy); Amy

Doolittle (Social Work); Darrell Meece, Pam Carter, and Kimberley O'Kelley

(Teacher Preparation Academy); Scott Monterde and Karen Sarnovsky

(Nursing); and Elizabeth O'Brien (Counseling);

Interim Dean Jim Cunningham (Engineering and Computer Science) introduced

Tricia Thomas (Engineering).

Dean Herbert Burhenn introduced John Coddington (Urban Planning and

Design); Juanita Tumelaire and Leslie Jensen-Inman (Art); Jose Barbosa,

Stylianos Chatzimanolis, and Nominanda Barbosa (Biology); Jisook Kim

(Chemistry); Christy Murphy (Communiation); Heather Palmer, Sibyl Baker,

Tom Balazs, Ann Buggey, Suzy Davis, Joshua Edwards, Mary McCampbell,

Tiffany Mitchell, and Sheena Monds (English); Joshua Davies and and Victor

Segura (Foreign Languages); Ralph Covino, Sara Jorgensen, and Andrea

Becksvoort (History); Melissa Laeser ( Mathematics); Ben Smith (Military

Science); Keyon Wilson and Julie Hobbs (Music); Kristin Whitson (Physics);

Jean Howard-Hill (Political Science); Christopher Cunningham (Psychology);

Vivian Anderson Barrera and Andrew Workinger (Sociology, Anthropology and

Geography); Gaye Jeffers, Margaret Clark, and Jeanne Hacker- Cerulean

(Theatre and Speech); and three new department heads : John Tucker,

(biology) Zibin Guo (Sociology, Anthropology and Geography) and John

Burgess (Theatre and Speech).

Dean Richard Casavant (College of Business) introduced Ann Wilkins

(Accounting and Finance); Lisa Burke and Jennifer Stanley (Management); and

Keith Richards (Marketing).

[The introductions at the meeting did not match completely the list of new

faculty on the University website, so if you are a new full-time faculty

member and I left you off mistakenly or misspelled your name, please let me

know and I will put your name into my corrected minutes]

Merger Committee Report (Lyn Miles and Shela Van Ness)

The Problem: The Merger Committee, an ad hoc committee of the Faculty

Senate, has been researching the Merger Agreement that was signed in 1969

when the University of Chattanooga (then a private institution) was

purchased for $1,000,000 by the UT System. The agreement stipulated that

the University, which was then re-named The University of Tennessee at

Chattanooga, would be a major institution in a federated system, such as

the University of North Carolina, with equal admission standards and

faculty salaries and comparable doctoral programs. With respect to the

first two items, we were pretty much equal to Knoxville at the time of the

merger.

Violations of a similar merger agreement compelled Memphis State

University, once a part of the UT system, to pull out and join the Board of

Regents and sparked the Geier court case and settlement that originated at

Tennessee State University. Throughout the years, resources were

consistently allocated to the Knoxville campus while UTC became more and

more like a branch campus. Objections to this violation of the merger

agreement were effective only when accompanied by the threat of litigation

(faculty summer school salaries in the 1980s). Compounding this problem,

THEC continually replaced UTC's peer institutions with lower-caliber

schools, which consequently justified smaller raises, resulting in lower

faculty salaries and thus setting off a downward spiral. UTC now has the

lowest level of state appropriations in the UT system and we fall into the

lower quartile of our peer institutions in terms of faculty salaries.

There is now more than a $20,000 difference between UTC and UTC terms of

full professor salaries.

Possible Solutions: The THEC Master Plan Goals (2005-2010) call for a

world-class faculty, higher salaries, and more research and grantswriting

at UTC. These goals will be difficult to meet under the UT System's vision

of UTC as a branch campus in a consolidated system. To achieve the THEC

goals, we need to form a community coalition charged with finding a way to

enforce the provisions of the Merger Agreement so that UTC can build the

kind of university that will prepare our students for careers in the 21st

century and so that the Chattanooga area can grow.

Negotiation, mediation, arbitration, and litigation are all steps that

could be taken by this community coalition. George Barrett, a partner in

Barrett, Johnston, and Parsley, the Nashville law firm that represented

Rita Geier, is now evaluating the research that the Merger Committee

accomplished over the summer.

Provost's Report (Philip Oldham)

Enrollment and Retention: Enrollment is up 7 or 8%, growth came

particularly at the freshman level with about 1,950 students in the

freshman class. One problem is that many of these students will not

persist in their studies at UTC; our retention rate for freshman is around

65%; the topic of retention will be a focus of this academic year. Our new

Vice Chancellor for Student Development, John Delaney, will be a partner

with the Provost in working to improve student retention. There will be

many opportunities for faculty to play a role in this effort. Good

indicators are that our average entering ACT score for freshman continues

to climb and the distribution is skewing more toward the high side. Our

graduation rate is a reflection of our retention rate: our six-year

graduation rate is around 45%. Two major areas, financial consequences and

academic reputation, come into play. We need more resources at the lower

level of instruction; we lose lots of tuition dollars at the upper end

because of poor retention. We can absorb another 1500-2000 students at the

upper level without sustaining any substantial additional cost: an

additional $3,000,000 in tuition would result if we could retain these

students. Poor retention and graduation rates have a negative impact on

our academic reputation. What do we do about it? To get started we are

forming a task force on retention co-chaired by the Provost and the Vice

Chancellor of Student Development, that will collect and analyze data to

identify the primary factors that create student persistence, marshal

resources to improve student retention.

Other Projects of the Provost's Office: searching for a new Dean of the

College of Engineering and Computer Science, re-structuring the Provost's

Office to address the research and engagement component of UTC; hiring a

new Associate Provost for Research and Engagement; realigning some of the

duties of the existing Associate Provosts; expanding the Dean's Council to

include the president of the Faculty Senate, a representative from the

Department Head's Council, and a representative from the Student Government

Association; refining articulation agreements with Chattanooga State;

negotiating facilities projects, such as the new library and the renovation

of Grote Hall; and reviewing space allocations,

Additional Resources: An additional block of operating funds has been

provided to the deans. pay plans for the respective colleges are up on the

web, and faculty have received a 3% raise with additional merit, market,

and equity increases for some. The additional money that was distributed

to the faculty was significantly below 2%, so approximately $103,000 more

has been allocated to accomplish this goal. Some faculty can expect more

money in the September or October checks; this adjustment will be

retroactive to the beginning of this academic year and will be distributed

according to the formula previously developed and implemented by each

college. This fall we are also in the process of raising the minimum pay

rate for adjunct faculty, also retroactive.

Vice Chancellor's Report (Richard Brown)

We had a fantastic budget year and all books closed in the black.

Highlights include the new lab fee for academic instruction adding $175,000

to laboratory operations in Academic Affairs; the new library is moving

forward, with a committee having been constituted to advise on this

process; the University Club Committee hit a snag because we lost an

attorney working out of Nashville; UTC has now hired its own attorney and

she will be working in the next 30 days to get the University Club off the

ground. University housing is 99% occupied, security devices have been

installed in classrooms and buildings to improve our emergency response

capability; over the summer we added a $40,000,000 lab sciences facility

and a $40,000,000 health science s facility to the THEC list, we now have a

nurse practitioner model in place for Student Health, a major student

information project will be implemented, and we hope that the UT system

will offer some assistance with the financing of this system. Kay Lindgren

(Nursing) asked if the Metro Building will be renovated in the immediate

future. Answer: renovations will start this spring. Beverly Simmons

(Library) stated that the new courtyard green way area is beautiful and

thanked everyone who worked on that project, including Linda Collins

(Biology) who headed up the effort.

Strategic Planning (Karen Adsit and Charles Nelson)

Three task forces have been working along with the Steering Committee and

have put together a draft of the Strategic Plan, which has been given to

the University Planning Council. The University Planning Council will get

more information back to the Steering Committee, which will revise the Plan

and give it to the campus by September 24 for comments. Then a final draft

will be put out in November that will be ready for in time for budget

hearings. Questions can be directed to the person in your college who is

on the Steering Committee: names are listed on the University web page.

The meeting was adjourned at 4:50 p.m