Faculty Senate Meeting

February 1, 2011 at 11:30 a.m.

Minutes

Attendees: See attached sheet. (Quorum present)

Items of Business:

Next Full Faculty Senate Meeting: March 29, 2011 in Fisher Hall 107 – lunch provided

Approval of Minutes: A motion was made by Shailendra Gajanan to approve the minutes of the November 16, 2010 Full Faculty Senate Meeting. Warren Fass seconded. Motion to approve minutes passed.

Elections: Bradford Senate Elections will be held from February 13-19, 2011 on the Pitt Portal. A reminder email for voting will be sent out, along with instructions. Chairs should forward a slate of nominations for division representatives from their division meetings as soon as possible to Kim Bailey. Faculty interested in running for an at-large position should also email Kimberly Bailey < >. The at-large positions to be filled this year are:

2 representatives for Faculty Welfare (2-yr. term)

3 representatives for Academic Integrity Board (2-yr. term)

2 representatives for Academic Integrity Board Alternates (1 yr. term)

1 representative for University Assembly/University Senate Council (3-yr. term)

Faculty-Staff Relations: Lindsey Retchless, Staff Association President, and Greg Page, Faculty Senate President, have created a Friday evening social event in an attempt to bring faculty and staff together in a relaxed environment. The gatherings, called the Friday Evening Club, are held at Tortugas restaurant on the first Friday of each month. The event has been well attended and Jeremy Callihan, a former Pitt-Bradford student who owns Tortugas, has been providing free appetizers and drink specials. Page encouraged faculty to attend.

Faculty members were recently invited to attend the Staff Association’s January meeting, which focused on closing the gap between faculty and staff. Together they worked to give ideas on how to bring faculty and staff closer. The top trend identified in this get-together was that more meetings and events, both professionally and socially, need to be planned.

Academic Affairs Update:

Workshop: As a faculty development opportunity, Steve Hardin would like to invite Angela McGlynn to campus for a ½ day workshop on teaching the millennium generation. As an incentive to get faculty to attend, Hardin is offering a free parking pass for next year.

Ad-hoc Committee Updates: The Global Competency Committee, chaired by Michael Stuckart, has submitted recommendations to Hardin. Hardin has forwarded these recommendations to the General Education (GE) Review Committee, who will look at incorporating them into the GE curriculum. The GE Review Committee is also reviewing general GE examples from the School of Arts and Sciences in Oakland and other comparable institutions.

Faculty Searches: Searches are taking place for 3 replacement positions (Anthropology, Nursing, and Marketing) and 3 new positions (Biology, Petroleum Technology, and Criminal Justice). This will increase our teaching FTE by 2.

Critical Thinking Assessment Information: Lauren Yaich, Associate Dean of Academic Affairs and Associate Professor of Biology, presented the results of the CAAP Critical Thinking Exam from Pitt-Bradford students in fall 2010. (Pitt-Bradford faculty can email to request a copy of the Powerpoint). This 40 minute test was an attempt to assess critical thinking skills from faculty teaching. The test allows the university to compare results to a standardized or national rating. CAAP was chosen over the CLA due to budget issues. This particular test will serve as a baseline for Pitt-Bradford because this assessment has not been completed in the past.

The GE Assessment Committee has discussed the results of the CAAP and will come up with an action plan to recommend changes. One recommendation was to test freshman students and follow-up by testing those same students in their senior year. Yaich proposed that more opportunities be available to help faculty build critical thinking into classes.

President Alexander Update: Livingston Alexander thanked faculty for their work on assessment and stressed the importance this role plays in the Middle States accreditation, which the university goes through every 10 years. As the campus continues to move forward, general education and other courses are complimenting one another. This is especially important now since students are opting for courses that get them jobs.

Faculty Luncheons: Alexander thanked faculty for attending the luncheon meetings and stated that several good ideas came from those meetings.

Freshman Convocation: The intent of a Freshman Convocation is to capture students as freshman and to impress into them the importance of orienting themselves into college expectations. In order for a fall Freshman Convocation to happen, plans need to be implemented now.

Faculty Salary Update: Some progress has been made in Bradford to move faculty salaries closer to the averages of the Provost’s AAUP II-B benchmark group of 255 institutions. Alexander indicated that two major salary upgrades occurred in FY 2009 and this past summer out of the incentive money. The Provost’s office contributes a small amount to help increase salaries, approximately $14,000; however, the majority of these increases have come from Bradford’s incentive money, approximately $140,000-$150,000. The Full Professor averages were increased from $74,000 to $80,300, but still fell below the $84,000 benchmark average. The Associate Professor’s averages increased from $63,000 to $65,800, also still slightly below the benchmark average of $66,816. The Assistant Professor’s averages were increased from $53,824 to $56,560 which reached the benchmark average of $56,000.

Matters Arising:

Millennium Students: Faculty are expressing concern about the millennium generation. They believe students fit into one of three categories:

1)  Highly achieving, highly motivated student

2)  Low-average student who needs more support, but does well with support

3)  Underachieving and underprepared student, unwilling to prepare to meet the level of work

Faculty are especially concerned about the underprepared students in the third category. It was made apparent that Pittsburgh is also experiencing the same motivation level. Attempts to provide more support to faculty about teaching the millennium generation will be made.

Distance/Online Education Policies: There was some concern about how to limit students in the distance education courses who do not have the ability to complete online courses.

Part-Time Faculty: Concern was raised that part-time faculty need to become more integrated into the system or merge part-time positions into full-time positions.

A motion to adjourn was made by Jesse Steinberg and seconded by David Merwine. The meeting adjourned at 1:00 p.m.

Full Faculty Senate Meeting –February 1, 2011 3 Submitted by: Kimberly M. Bailey