Faculty Senate Minutes of February 18, 2014

The meeting was called to order by the Chair Delano Gray with the following Senators and visitors present:

College of Architecture & The Arts
Jaime Canaves
Patrick Schmidt
Steven Schoen
Kathleen Wilson
College of Arts & Sciences
Gerardo Aladro
Astrid Arraras
Laurel Collins
Piero Gardinali
Alan Gummerson
John Makemson
Assefa Melesse
Rene Price
Marifeli Perez-Stable
Joerg Reinhold
Laurie Shrage
Renee Silverman
Ronn Silverstein
Victor Uribe
Hassan Zahedi
Absent
Krish Jayachandran
Fenfei Leng
Oren Maxwell
Jean Rahier
Misak Sargsian
Louis Tebou
Enrique Villamor
Ping Zhu / College of Business Administration
Krishnan Dandapani
Delano Gray
Shahid Hamid
Cliff Perry
Clark Wheatley
College of Education
Martha Pelaez
Absent
Leonard Bliss
Teresa Lucas
College of Engineering
Malek Adjouadi
Osama Mohammed
Anthony McGoron
Gang Quang
Ibrahim Tansel
Absent
Arindam Chowdhury
Albert Gan
School of Hospitality
Pablo Simon
David Talty
School of Journalism
Juliet Pinto
Maria Elena Villar
College of Law
David Walter
Absent
Jan Oseitutu
Library
Lauren Christos
Patricia Pereira-Pujol / College of Medicine
Dietrich Lorke
Juan Lozano
Alan Wells
Absent
Sheldon Cherry
College of Nursing & Health Sciences
Lucie Dlugasch
Jennifer Doherty-Restrepo
Florence Keane
College of Public Health & Social Work
Marianna Baum
Fatma (Rose) Huffman
Ray Thomlison
Guest:
Elizabeth Bejar
Joann Brown
June Hawkins
Ken Johnson
Mary Martinez-Tuttle
Brian Peterson
Douglas Robertson
Caroline Simpson
Lisa Stonlzenberg
Kristen Wood


Faculty Senate Minutes
Tuesday February 18th, 2014 – 1:00 PM
Wolfe University Center 155 – Biscayne Bay Campus

Wertheim Conservatory 130 – Modesto Maidique Campus

I.  Approval of the Agenda Moved and approved

II.  Approval of the Minutes of the January 28th, 2014 meeting Moved and approved

III.  Chairperson’s Report

MOOCs and HB 7029

The BOG is drafting RFPs to submit to eligible Institutions to adopt rules that enable students to earn academic credit for online courses, including massive open online courses, prior to initial enrollment at a postsecondary institution.

“Section 6. 1004.0961, Florida Statutes, is created to read:

1004.0961 Credit for online courses.—Beginning in the 2015-2016 school year, the State Board of Education and the Board of Governors shall adopt rules that enable students to earn academic credit for online courses, including massive open online courses, prior to initial enrollment at a postsecondary institution”.

Performance Funding

FIU will receive $6,956,234 based on the new Performance Funding Metrics. This is based on a point allocation of 34/54. FIU is ranked third among the 11 rated Florida Institutions.

But not all Florida universities benefit from the performance-based funding. The University of West Florida (21), Florida Atlantic University (24) and New College of Florida (25), did not meet the 26-point minimum score set by the BOG. They will not receive any new performance funding and each will also see a reduction in its base funding.

Policy Proposal : Text book Affordability.

There is a draft of a bill in the State Legislature on Textbook affordability. The proposed legislation would require posting 14 days prior to the first day of registration, required and recommended textbooks. In addition, it would require that textbooks have minimum use of at least three years unless substantially revised and that records be maintain of any exceptions. I will keep you informed of the progress of this legislation.

Thanks for your kind cooperation.

IV.  Action Items:

A.  Tabled motions from Curriculum Bulletin 3

Curriculum Committee Motions – Shahid Hamid, Chair

Motion: The Faculty Senate approves the Unit-Specific Graduate Admissions Standards for the Combined BS/MS in Criminal Justice, in the Department of Criminal Justice. Moved and approved

Motion: The Faculty Senate approves the Unit-Specific Graduate Admissions Standards for the MS in Criminal Justice, in the Department of Criminal Justice. Moved and approved

V.  Reports:

A.  Provost’s Report—Elizabeth Bejar, Vice-Provost

Governmental Affairs:

We are monitoring all of the proposals/bills that are coming out of the legislature. Please feel free to copy me with any concerns that you have.

We have concerns with h respect to the Textbook Affordability proposed bill. The registration timeframe particularly for institutions like ours who in order to support the ability of students to do long range planning, we have registration months six, seven months in advance this semester. So, those unintended consequences are truly impactful. We will also try to address the 3 year minimum.

Performance Funding:

Some points of clarification on performance funding.

We are actually tied with UCF for third.

We received almost 7.3 million dollars was our total new funds with the change in net increase. .016% is the positive change to our budget.

Following up on the ability to impact performance funding model that is more predictable across time – through stability and transparency.

PAWS:

There were over 50 alumni who self-registered to speak in front of freshman experience. So, we were able to impact 19 sections of freshman experience across both MMC and BBC.

There were additionally over 65 alumni who were invited by faculty to speak in their class in MMC, BBC, and the engineering campus. 25 alumni participated in panel discussions and lectures across the College of Law, the College of Public Health and Social Work, CARTA, and the Division of Athletics.

We had approximately, 140 individuals participating in classrooms, arts studios, rehearsals, concert halls and via Skype from PG5 to BBC, and panel discussion, lectures, and various elementary school locations throughout the county.

Instant feedback that we received has been positive from both alumni and faculty that participated; many faculty said they would invite more alumni and they felt that the dialogue with the students was very engaged. Alumni were very appreciative of the recognition and the efforts and indicated that they would be happy to do this more often. One hospitality student was offered a job opportunity on the spot by the alumni speaker that attended the class –that is a direct benefit.

The office of alumni has sent out a survey to alumni and faculty to receive more feedback in greater detail. So if you did participate or if your colleagues participated please encourage them to send us feedback. That the way we can make the process even better.

Budget and Strategic Planning:

An all-day strategy session with the Deans and Vice Presidents will be held to discuss the budget process moving forward.

The goal is to establish a process about how to engage the university community about discussing and addressing the budget issues moving forward.

As it stands right now, we have enough in carry forward and excess funds from the Fringe Benefit pool to cover next year’s operational costs and one time commitments.

The purpose of the meeting is to help us define how to establish a process for long term engagement with the university community, faculty and staff and administrators on what to do with the budget situation in 2,3,4,5 years out. Longitudinally there is a basic structural deficit in the budget in future operating costs. Forecasted out to 2020 there is close to $30 million structural deficit in the ability to operate this university by 2020 if we do nothing.

iREAL and Strategic Planning

Ken Furton, the Dean of Arts and Science has lead the iReal commission. They are close to finalizing a document and we will be analyzing all the recommendations within that document in the afternoon, so that the document can be then finalized.

We must establish a bridge from iREAL to what would be the next strategic plan.

B.  Gen-Ed Report – Dean Douglas Robertson and Dr. Joann Brown

See attachment

C.  Faculty Club Report – Mary Martinez-Tuttle

Thank you to all senators who are members and support the Club, especially Chairman Delano Gray and Faculty Club Advisory Board member Rose Huffman. The Club currently has 238 members and is open to all FIU employees. Thank you for your Faculty Club membership which authenticates the Club’s ongoing presence on the Modesto A. Maidique Campus and underwrites member programming. Featuring the “open table” where you can make new friends and meet members of the University community to ignite interdisciplinary collaboration, the Club is your oasis in the centrally located Graham Center. As membership grows, we are able to expand our offerings and provide the WorldsAhead service our faculty deserves. Annual memberships are $50 and inquiries can be mailed to .

D.  UFF Report—Alan Gummerson, UFF-FIU Treasurer

Events:

Spring Chapter Meeting and Election: Thursday, February 27, 10am - 12noon. MMC: WC-130 BBC: HSB-105

Tenure & Promotion Workshop: Thursday, March 6, 1:00 - 3:00pm, GL-220

Bargaining:

Doing interest-based bargaining, which tries to brainstorm solutions acceptable to both sides.

Legislation:

UFF has leverage by helping to direct the Florida Education Association, mostly made up of K-12 teachers, the most powerful union in the state.

Currently trying to prevent implementation of HB 7029, which would allow an appointee of the governor to choose courses created by for-profit corporations which all state universities and colleges must accept for credit. This would take curriculum decisions out of the hands of faculty and put in the hands of a political appointee.

Another possible bill would deny a union whose membership density fell below 50% of the bargaining unit the right to represent that bargaining unit. We are trying to prevent that bill from coming to a vote. But the best solution would be to boost UFF membership at FIU well above the 50% mark. Join, and encourage your colleagues to join. Who else represents your interests in Tallahassee?

E.  SGA Report— Fu Zhou-Wu, SGA-BBC President

VI.  Unfinished Business None

VII. New Business None

Announcements

The next Faculty Senate meeting is on Tuesday, March 4th, 2014 at 1:00PM in the Wertheim Conservatory 130 on the MMC Campus. Go to facultysenate.fiu.edu for regularly updated information on the Faculty Senate.