Faculty Senate Steering Committee
Agenda for April 9, 2013 – 1:00 P.M.
GL 835 – Modesto A. Maidique Campus
LIB 155 – Biscayne Bay Campus
1. Approval of the Agenda Moved & Approved
2. Approval of Steering Committee Minutes of April 18, 2013 Moved & Approved
3. Chairperson’s Report (attach Chair’s report)
· Legislature- SB904 has legislators trying to lead higher education curriculum once again. Under this bill the legislature can hire “outside organizations” to teach courses.
· Senate Elections- Elections for new senators will be conducted soon. There will be no changes in the number of Faculty Senate seats representing each College.
· Commencement- Please attend commencement. This will be the first graduation class for the College of Medicine.
· University College- There was a discussion and some confusion about University College and its role at FIU.
· Dual Enrollment- Dual enrollment requires a lot of student services. Are we being adequately compensated? Some students appear to be getting credit without much oversight. Who is teaching these courses? (see Provost response in his report below.)
4. Topics for discussion and action:
A. Graduate Council motions
Motion: Graduate Council recommends that the Faculty Senate approve the UGS Proposed New Policy on Conditional Admissions. (Under this motion conditional admissions will be suspended by Graduate School and the power for conditional admissions will rest with approval within each department. The graduate admission criteria has also been changed to the requirement of a 3.0 GPA.) Moved & Approved
Motion: The Senate endorses recommendations of the University Curriculum Committee and the University Graduate Council that no online programs on the graduate level be considered until those two committees develop criteria to evaluate proposed programs with the same scrutiny applied to in-person graduate programs. This includes all requests to convert in-person master’s programs to online delivery. Moved & Approved (Provost has stated he will not approve this without a timeline for criteria formation. He needs this completed by the June meeting)
B. Instructor resources for current text book
· Test Banks- Are professors selling test banks to students? After much discussion it was determined that the “genie is out of the bottle.” Students have many ways of obtaining test banks from on-line resources. The best way to secure testing integrity is to require proctored exam sites (or virtual proctoring). Another option is to move to more formative testing models (instead of summative final exams) testing students throughout the semester. The Steering Committee decided to refer this course integrity issue back to the on-line committee for reassessment.
C. FAAS (see report and recommendations)
· FAAS Instrument- will be revised using most of the recommendations of the sub-committee. Provost’s office will use previous data to validate questions and shorten the instrument. A “Don’t Know” column option will be added to the Likert scale.
· Implementation- It is too late in the semester to implement this year. Revisions will be made, an outside entity will be hired to gather data and the FAAS will be implemented in Spring, 2014.
D. Name change recommendation
The College of Engineering has recommended that the University change its name to “University of Florida Miami.”
A motion to table this discussion was Moved & Approved
E. Agenda for the April 18, 2013 Faculty Senate Meeting Moved & Approved
(MMC Location: PG5 153 | BBC Location: ACI 319 )
1. Approval of the Agenda
2. Approval of the Minutes of the March 28, 2013 meeting
3. Chairperson’s Report
4. Action Items:
A. Curriculum Bulletin #5 Motions
B. Graduate Councils Motions- Fred Blevens, Chair of Graduate Council
Motion: Graduate Council recommends that the Faculty Senate approve the UGS Proposed New Policy on Conditional Admissions.
Motion: The Senate endorses recommendations of the University Curriculum Committee and the University Graduate Council that no online programs on the graduate level be considered until those two committees develop criteria to evaluate proposed programs with the same scrutiny applied to in-person graduate programs. This includes all requests to convert in-person master’s programs to online delivery.
5. Reports:
A. Provost’s Report, Changes to Tenure and Promotion– Provost Wartzok
B. Senator Allocation for 2013-2014
C. Division of Research- Andres Gil, Vice President for Research
D. Business and Finance- Kenneth Jessell, Chief Financial Officer
6. Unfinished Business
7. New Business
5. Reports:
A. Provost’s Report— Provost Wartzok
· Graduate Committee Motion must have a short timeline for criteria development. Needs this completed by the June Faculty Senate meeting.
· T&P Revisions- (see revisions in red and send additional comments to the office of the Provost)
o Most of the changes reflect recognition for community engaged scholarship.
o Guidelines need to add that journals (especially e-journals) will be ranked in the field and colleges should determine specific criteria for engagement within their fields.
o All T&P faculty should be assigned mentors. All votes must be made by “eligible faculty” only and faculty cannot change their vote upon announcement of the outcome.
o Timelines should be clearly specified for conversations with the candidate about the outcome and for tenure credit.
o The file needs to clearly indicate if the candidate has waived their right to view support letters.
o The manual has added a list of “other possible contributions” that may be added to the file, indicating engaged scholarship (i.e., podcasts developed).
Dual Enrollment- 4000 students are involved in Dual Enrollment each semester in their high schools.
o Less than 500 come to campus to take these courses. We work with the school district to develop these courses and train instructors.
o FIU receives $3500 per school each semester plus $500 per course offered which does not adequately fund these courses. These fees are used toward student registration and for faculty evaluation of syllabi and evaluating instructional outcomes at the end of each course. The University loses money but we assume this burden because it helps our community and the school districts that are measured on IP enrollments and other criteria.
o All instructors must meet SACS accreditation requirements. We rely upon the departments to “raise the flag” if there are problems with instructional quality or qualifications.
6. Unfinished Business (none)
7. New Business
There has been a complaint lodges that the Graduate Council is not complying with Sunshine Law requirements for public meetings. Deliberations are made in private (asking the public to leave the room.) Senator, Neil Riser and Chair, C. Delano Gray agreed to review the law. When a University Body announces a policy we need to have appropriate documentation regarding our legal responsibilities. We should have a section in the Faculty Senate manual that informs committees about the Sunshine Law as it applies to our committee work.
: Announcements
The next Faculty Senate meeting is on Thursday, April 18, 2013 at 3:00PM in PG5 153. All are invited.
The next meeting of the Steering Committee is on Tuesday, June 4, 2013 at 1PM in GL 835.
Go to facultysenate.fiu.edu for regularly updated information on the Faculty Senate.