MINUTES
UAF FACULTY SENATE MEETING #131
Monday, September 19, 2005
1:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.
Wood Center Conference Room C/D 

I	Call to Order – Paul Layer

Faculty Senate President Paul Layer called the meeting to order at 1:00 p.m.

A.	Roll Call

Members Present:  
	Members Absent: 	
Allen, Jane 	Anderson, Jodie	
Anahita, Sine 	Bailey, Scott	
Ayagarak, Nancy	Berge, Anna	
Brown, Liz	Haugen, Lee	
Burleson, Derick		
Cahill, Cathy		
Chowdhury, Ataur		
Collins, Jim		
Cooper, Christine	Others Present: 	
Corkern, Cliff	Bult-Ito, Abel	
Davis, Mike	Gold, Carol	
Genetti, Jon	Goodwin, Mary	
Gray, Patty 	Hapsmith, Linda	
Illingworth, Marjorie	Hardy, Cindy	
Iken, Katrin	Kassier, Ted	
Kawula, John	Jones, Steve	
Konar, Brenda	Layral, Sheri	
Lan, Ping	Martin, Wanda	
Layer, Paul	Reichardt, Paul	
Newberry, Rainer		
Patil, Shirish		
Prakash, Anupma		
Rickard, Anthony		
Riley, Julie		
Roberts, Larry		
Thompson, Joseph		
Weber, Jane		
Wiechen, Heinz		
Wies, Rich		
Wolsko, Chris		
Zhang, Mingchu		
Zhou, Wendy (Debasmita Misra)		

Non-Voting Members Present:  
	Non-Voting Members Absent:	
Morrow, Phyllis - Dean, CLA	Stickel, Tim - Registrar	
Williams, Richard - Dean, CEM	Hazlett, Susan - GSO	
Salganek, Maya - Staff Council President 	ACCFT	
Kitaysky, Roman & Sarah Byam - ASUAF	United Academics	
	United Academics-Adjunct	

B.	Approval of Minutes to Meeting #130

The minutes were approved as distributed.  

C.	Adoption of Agenda

The agenda was adopted as distributed.  

II	Status of Chancellor's Office Actions 
	A.	Motions Approved:
1.	Motion on Academic Calendar for 2006-2007. 
2.	Motion on Facilitating a UA Academic Calendar with a Common Start Week.  
3.	Motion on earning only one degree in a specific discipline. 
4.	Motion to amend the Course Designation/Classification Criteria for Social Science "s" designators.    
5.	Motion to amend the Section 1 (Article III:  Membership) and Section 3 (Article V: Committees) of the Bylaws to add union representation to the Faculty Senate and Faculty Affairs Committee
6.	Motion to approve the Unit Criteria for the Fisheries Division (SFOS). 
7.	Motion to approve the Unit Criteria for the Institute of Marine Science (SFOS). 
8.	Motion to approve the Unit Criteria for the Fisheries Industrial Technology Center (SFOS). 
9.	Motion on the UAF Academic Calendar. 
	B.	Motions Pending:  none
	C.	Motions Approved by the Administrative Committee:
	1.	Resolution on Senior Tuition Waiver (Attachment 131/1)

Paul Layer indicated that we have amended our bylaws to add union representation to the Faculty Senate.  He has written letter to the three unions asking them to provide name of those representatives.    

The motion to establish a policy on minimum grade of "C" for prerequisite courses from the April 5, Meeting #129 has been approved with an effective date of Fall 2006.

Over the summer the Administrative Committee approved a resolution on the Senior Tuition Waiver.  

III	Public Comments/Questions - none

IV	A.	President's Comments - Paul Layer

Senior tuition waiver - The Administrative Committee approved a resolution in support of keeping the waiver.  Since that time other proposals have been put forward.  The one that is now preferred by the President is to modify the waiver, raise the eligibility age and to make it a fifty percent waiver.  At the Faculty Alliance meeting on Friday the Senate presidents were unanimously against any change in the policy.  

Grading policy -- Paul has written a letter to the Sun Star concerning our grading policy.  Should we be looking at more options for giving grades?  He would like to have more discussion on this issue.  

Term of Senate service -- We currently have terms of service for senators at two years.  Should terms be longer?  Should there be three-year terms.  This would provide a little more continuity.  This will be something to consider.  

Paul Layer will be traveling to Kotzebue and Nome in early November.  

Occupational Certificates of Completion -- These would be programs that would not require Board of Regent's approval.  They would be set up to provide professional training in a number of areas.  We are looking at credit requirements such programs would have to have and whether the minimum would be either 16 or 9 credits.  These certificates would be approved at the President level, not the Board level.   

Transferability of general education requirements between the MAUs  -- This is another issue that may come up this year.  Our general education requirements are the Core, which is different from UAA and UAS.  

B.	President-Elect's Comments - Shirish Patil

Shirish Patil indicated that he would like to look at all the faculty across the colleges/schools to actively participate in the Senate affairs.  If they have any issue that they would like to the Senate to address they should communicate either through the senators or through him or Paul Layer.  They will be open for those types of communication.  Most of the work of the Senate gets accomplished through the committees.  

Shirish will be attending the CNSM convocation.  He is looking forward to working with everyone throughout the year.  

Shirish recently attended the Faculty Alliance meetings.  One issue they have been following is the Faculty Liaison position.  They are also looking at members serving on various statewide councils. 

V	A.	Remarks by Chancellor S. Jones   

Chancellor Jones extended his personal invitation to the UAF convocation on Thursday, September 29.  It will be his state of the university address.  It will be a look ahead and a quick look back.  It will be mostly where do we want to take UAF and how do we jointly and collaboratively get there. 

One item he will be talking about is the "cruel paradox" of high oil prices.  We are looking at oil at unprecedented prices and that has resulted in talk of a $1.5 billion surplus for the state of Alaska.  Even as that raises the tide for the state, this university has a big deficit as a result of those high prices.  If we project the remainder of FY06, we are looking at a $3.6 million hole where fuel costs are in excess of what was budgeted.  $3.6 million represents a fatal blow to us if we don't get relief via a state supplemental budget appropriation during this next legislative session.  All of our incremental fuel costs are attributed to fuel oil, which is 3.5 times more expensive per BTU than natural gas, which UAA relies upon.   And we have 31 percent more heating degree-days. 

Chancellor Jones felt that Orientation was a great weekend event.  He heard good comments from students and parents and everyone else involved.  He was very pleased with what he saw and heard.

Museum -- On Saturday, September 10th there was a great ribbon cutting ceremony at the museum.  Last Saturday was the opening of the Metropolitan Museum of Art traveling exhibit with American Impressionists artists.  

Thompson drive -- Chancellor Jones asked for impressions of the drive.  He felt that terrific covered it and that it was an incredible state of the art cold weather engineering stretch of road.  

The Board of Regents meets tomorrow and Wednesday.  Three items of importance on the agenda include: 1) supplemental budget, 2) FY07 Operating and Capital budget.  We are going for the largest request ever.  It is in large measure to cover fixed costs over which we have no control.  That includes salaries, fringe benefits (PERS/TRS), and the increased utility costs.  Keeping us at the status quo is a record request, plus we are going to add in another $10M request for targeted program expansion and research support.  On the capital side for UAF includes the Biological Science Facility.  Also, we are asking for funding to complete the virology lab.  And the third request is for completing the museum, that is the $4.5M needed to complete the current contract.  Finally, we are asking for initial funding to implement the new campus wide master plan, which would call for the renovation of Wood Center, Constitution Hall, Lola Tilly, etc.  

Another item that will come up at the Board of Regents meeting is the request to modify the senior tuition waiver.  He is pretty certain that Hamilton will ask that the age be increase to social security age.  He is also talking about shifting from a full tuition waiver to charging 50%.  

	B.	Remarks by Provost P. Reichardt	

Provost Paul Reichardt introduced the new Dean of the College of Engineering and Mines, Richard Williams.  He has agreed to serve on the Faculty Senate representing professional schools.  

Paul Reichardt spoke on his attached summary report on promotion/tenure and faculty reviews.  Vagueness appeals to be the most problematic problem.  We have a number of units that don't have local unit criteria.  And the second part of vagueness is when unit peer committee are less than clear about the reasons for their recommendation.  What he needs to know is the significant or impact of publications.  

Carol Gold indicated that the CBA spells out very clearly what it is the responsibility of faculty members to include in the files.  The Deans and administration can put more in.  Paul Reichardt indicated that the deans need to monitor the files for completeness.  The CBA and our past practices do allow for addition of materials that are relevant to comments. Paul indicated his appreciation for faculty who serve on these campus-wide committees.  

UA has reorganized the way we deal with education on the military bases.  Up until the late 1990s we had responsibility at Ft. Wainwright and Eielson.  Then it organized under one point of contact and the responsibility for military education in the state was assigned to UAA.  Now that organization has been dismantled and replaced with a geographic approach.  UAF now has responsibility for education for the military in the northern part of the state.  That includes Fort Wainwright, Eielson Air Force Base and Ft. Greeley.  We have designated TVC as the focal point for the delivery of those programs.  TVC was chosen because they have been involved in the workforce development courses and programs that have been offered on the military bases.  A coordinator remains at statewide.  

Process Technology – At the April Board of Regent's meeting we put forward a couple of programs under the auspices of Process Technology.  What came out was that a faculty member at Kenai Community College has been designated the lead faculty member for the Process Technology area.  Those programs will be done in collaboration with a statewide consortium of employers.  There is a fine line between collaboration and messing with our own programs.  There are tremendous advantages to organizing and collaborating some things.  It's also clear that we need to hear from the employers upfront as to what they expect of our graduates.  There were questions about whether this KCC faculty member would have veto power over which faculty we chose to teach the classes at TVC.  There are a number of areas where we have elements of that tension.  Paul urged the Faculty Senate to keep attention on these programs.  

Sharing Scholarship – A portion of the BP Phillips money has been set aside for this program.  There are a variety of things that can be funded.  One is for our faculty to travel to other campuses to share their expertise.  Another possibility is to get groups of faculty together who share common interests and challenges, such as the historians, mathematicians, and composition faculty.  Another area to think about is visiting speakers/scholars.  Jared Diamond, author of Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, will be visiting in February/March.  That visit is being funded out of the Sharing Scholars fund.  Statewide is looking for ideas.  Suggestions can be submitted to either Craig Dorman or Paul Reichardt.  

VI	Governance Reports 

	A.	Staff Council - Maya Salganek

Maya Salganek indicated that Staff Council met last week.  Internal changes include a reviving of the Rural Affairs Committee thanks to Bernice Joseph.  We have 12 new members representing the various rural campuses and other departments within the College of Rural and Community Development.  Staff Council members will be making an effort to create a bigger presence for the annual fund-raiser at the end of the year for the Carolyn Sampson Memorial Scholarship fund.  The ad hoc committee on Performance Based Budgeting has been at a stand still for the last six months.  This has been rolled into the Staff Affairs Committee.  Staff Council will have a calendar for 2006.  Issues Staff Council is dealing with include:  

1)  Wellness Plan.  This is a new program that will roll out in a couple of weeks.  This is a $3 million program.  It is the only opportunity we may see in lower health care costs.  The term being used for this program is a long-term behavior modification program.  Need to encourage people to join the program and fill out the health risk appraisal form.  The information will not be viewed by anyone from the university.  They are trying to do a health fair.  

2) Senior tuition waiver.  They have discussed the senior tuition waiver and decided not to pass a motion.  Staff Alliance is looking at a new benefit put into place that would protect staff tuitions waivers after retirement. 

3) On-line elections.  Once again Staff Council is looking at on-line elections.  The process is very different from Faculty Senate.  Everything is run through the Governance Office.  It is very arduous and times consuming to figure out who are still working in what unit, what units have merged together, and which units have separated.  This would simplify the process.  

4) Supervisor training.  Last year statewide was willing to look into the issue.  Statewide was going to hire a faculty member from Southeast to do an analysis of what was going on system-wide for supervisor and staff training. This did not take place.  They were waiting for this analysis before making recommendations.   Part of the goal for supervisory training was to have a common point of reference.  Everyone would start on the same page and have similar understanding in terms of what expectations are and requirements for different staff positions.  

5) PERS/TRS and the ORP program.  Staff Council will continue to look at what is happening at the state level.  

6) A legislative mixer will take place sometime in late October.  

Jane Weber asked about the Wellness Program.  Chancellor Jones indicated that he heard about the program at the Staff Council meeting.  Maya indicated that this was to be an opportunity for us to get healthier as a community, to make positive changes so that our health care costs would go down.  The idea is that there is suppose to be a 1:5 ratio for every dollar put in, the university puts in five in increased health care costs.  They are expecting a 70% return of the forms and yet only giving us a two-week window to fill them out.  In addition, it will be based on the Premier Blue Cross number, so if you have opted out through the new UA Choice plan, you will not be eligible.  It's very critical that we become informed about the program and take charge of this locally.  

Liz Brown asked that the legislative mixer be coordinated with the next Faculty Senate meeting as it will be a face-to-face meeting.  

	B.	ASUAF - Joe Blanchard

Roman Kitaysky and Sarah Byam, chair of ASUAF University Relations committee, attended the meeting.  Joe Blanchard is traveling to the Board of Regents meeting.  The ASUAF Senate meets on Sundays at 5:00 p.m. and Roman encouraged faculty to attend.  

ASUAF Senate is at full strength.  They have a lot of big plans for this semester.  One is a join effort with the Army Reserve Officer Training Corp to provide relief legislation for Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.  They are fully committed to supporting the senior tuition waiver.  They are involved heavily in the recycling program and a blood drive.  

Shirish Patil indicated that the Fairbanks North Star Borough Public Transportation Advisory Commission had scheduled a Public Hearing on Wednesday, September 21 to discuss the borough buses not coming to Wood Center.  That meeting has been cancelled and a Public Hearing will be rescheduled later on campus.  

The following report was submitted as a handout.  

ASUAF President Joe Blanchard’s Faculty Senate Report

First off I would like to apologize for my absence to your meetings. I want Faculty Senate to know the importance I feel communicating to the other governances is to the success of our missions for our groups. My mission to represent the students before the Board of Regents has lead to my absence but I hope to be at future meetings.

I also want to remind the representatives of Faculty Senate that they are invited to the ASUAF Senate meetings held every Sunday at 5:00 pm. If you are interested in attending please call Senate Chair Frymark at extension 6031 for the exact location although most will be in Conference Room E&F of the Wood Center

A lot is happening in the first few weeks of the school year. Students from all across Alaska are making travel arrangements to Anchorage to voice their complaints against the climbing tuition prices at the Board of Regents meeting next week. As well as concerns toward the regents decision to meddle in such positive programs as the Senior Tuition Waiver.

I have hired most of my cabinet and appointed almost all of the 9 vacant seats in the ASUAF Senate as well as motivated students to join numerous campus committees to help the decision making processes.

Our recycling program took a big hit when we had to shut down glass recycling temporarily but our aluminum, printer cartridges, and shopping bags are still going strong. The news on paper recycling’s revival has got our governance excited, plus talks with the Borough Mayor Jim Whitaker show promise this October as he has invited ASUAF to participate in talks for a Comprehensive Recycling Plan and Facility he wants drawn up by December. So in conclusion great things are on the horizon for recycling this year. 

We apologize for some of the outdated material on our website but my returning System Services Director and soon to be hired Web Design and Graphics Director should change that real quick and soon we should have some updated and interactive material. We already have some exciting plans for updates and changes.

Also Organizing Director Sven Gilkey has set up some tentative dates for the Blood Drives that ASUAF and the Blood Bank will host. Now that the Blood Bank has a Fairbanks headquarters we will be seeing more frequent blood drives up to 6 this year so we hope to see plenty of staff helping to save lives.

The ASUAF Senate has many pieces of legislation offering assistance to those afflicted by Hurricane Katrina and in the next week or two could be matching funds raised by ROTC and buying tickets to the Comedy show to hand out for free for students, since the proceeds of the tickets go to efforts to rebuild after Katrina.

If you have any questions about some of the mentioned items please contact me at extension 5896 or e-mail me at fypres@uaf.edu 

	C.	GSO - Susan Hazlett

Was not available.

VII	Guest Speaker

	A.	Ted Kassier, Senior Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs

Ted Kassier has been working with the Faculty Alliance over the past month.  He is hoping to meet with the UAA and UAS faculty senates as well.  There had been a search going on for the past year for a Vice President for Academic Affairs.  That search ultimately failed.  The desire to hire a VPAA was to instill academics as more of a driving force into statewide operations.  Craig Dorman has agreed to stay on, however, his focus is more on research.  What Ted brings to the statewide operation is a good deal of experience of what it's like to run the university at the campus level.  He also brings the background of an academic and faculty member.  He has been Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences for seven years and last year was Provost at UAA.  He has a handle on the reality of keeping the doors open, hiring faculty, scheduling classes and so on, at the campus level.  

Ted Kassier indicated that he would be working on a comprehensive academic plan for the system.  He knows a number of faculty at the various campuses.  There is a fine line and balance and a tension between trying to coordinate and fill in the empty spaces and attend to the statewide needs on the one hand and the separately accredited institutions that need to fulfill their destiny.  One of the things he will try to do is blend and meld the five-year plans of each of the three MAUs.  He will also work with Faculty Alliance and the Systemwide Academic Council (SAC).  It will be largely a liaison position.  There are a number of issues on the table with regard to promotion and tenure, post-tenure review, and areas where Regents' policy and university regulations might benefit from some revision.  Look at areas where the three MAUs face dichotomies in their mission.  Other issues include student success, academic freedom, and common start and semester dates.  

He is working to advance in a coherent and comprehensive way the university’s international agenda. Maintain relations and interactions with the Faculty Alliance.  He has conveyed the interest of the Faculty Alliance to being represented on the various councils and committees of the statewide system.  This gets faculty broadly involved.  Lynn Shepard is the chair of the Faculty Alliance and is also President of the UAS Faculty Senate has written to all the chairs to talk about participation.  

Paul Layer indicated that the idea of having members of the Faculty Alliance on the various committees is very important.  Other faculty that have expertise in certain areas may be interested in participating.   

Carol Gold expressed her delight to finally get an academic in statewide.  It has been a glaring lack for a long time.  As a faculty member she wondered about the direct appointment of the position and the time frame of the position.  Ted Kassier does not see statewide conducting a search for the position until next year.  How thing develop he can't say.  

VIII	New Business 

	A.	Motion on Committee Gender Representation, submitted by the Committee on the Status of Women 

Jane Weber indicated that the motion is straightforward and it is not asking for quotas.  Anumpa Prakash felt that it was not strong enough and there was no way to enforce it.  A motion was made to send it back to committee.  Carol Gold indicated that the motion asks that any committee appointed by the Faculty Senate have mixed representation.  Any committee elected has other issues and we can't guarantee the representation.  This motion is to remind people of the need to have mixed representation on their committees.  This is a statement of value.  Paul Layer indicated that the Senate President is asked to provide names for many committees on the campus.  He looks at this as a guideline to appoint people to committees and try to ensure this representation.  It is a statement of policy that the Senate is committed to.  The motion to refer failed by a vote of 8 yes, and 16 nays.  The motion passed with a vote of 17 yes, 4 nays, and 3 abstentions.  

MOTION:
=======

The UAF Faculty Senate moves that all Senate committees, including subcommittees and ad hoc committees, have mixed gender representation, and further, the Senate strongly recommends that all university-wide committees have mixed gender representation.

EFFECTIVE:  	Immediately

RATIONALE:  	Although women make up approximately 40% of the faculty, they are not always represented in University-wide committees.  To avoid the appearance of bias and to include more views, background and experience, the CSW believe that increasing mixed gender representation on committees will help to further integrate women into all levels of the university community.  This motion reaffirms that the university values gender equity.  

IX	Discussion Items 

A.	Occupational Certificates of Completion

Paul Layer spoke about the attachment concerning the Certificates of Completion.  Attached to the agenda is a memo from Dave Veazey to SAC and proposed changes to Regent's policy.  Right now we have Regent's approved Certificates.  This would be an Occupational Certificate that would not require Regent's approval.  There is some concern from other MAUs and some faculty at UAF that the original proposal, which was 16-29 credits, was acceptable and lowering it down to 9 credits makes it too broad.  This is something we want to look at in our committees this year.  It is intended to go to the Board of Regents in December.  Paul Reichardt indicated that the memo from Dave and the changes to the policy outline things.  There is some question about calling them certificates.  The 30 credit certificates for Regent's approval comes from institutional accreditation standards that says any certificate of 30 credits or more must be approved by the governing body.  For less than 30 credits as long as there is a designated approval process, you don't need approval by the governing body.  Paul Layer stated that this was a program for the Senate to consider and for people to think about similar types of programs.  TVC is thinking about programs that will fall under this category, so once this is approved they can move on it and establish such programs.  The Post- Baccalaureate Certificate has been approved and it is an opportunity for us to build up programs at UAF that would fall under this category.  There are several in the works, so we might be seeing them this year.  Curricular Affairs will be looking at the certificate program throughout this semester.  Paul Layer has asked Pete Pinney to provide some information about what they had in mind for these types of programs.  What he would like from the Senate is a statement of how many credits is appropriate.  Right now there is a discussion of the minimum of 9 or 16 credits.  That is the discussion at this point.  

X	Committee Reports

	A.	Curricular Affairs - Rainer Newberry 

Rainer indicated that in addition to the certificates programs that have been added to their agenda, they are dealing with the +/- grade issue.  The committee will need to gather campus-wide input.  They are also working on probation and disqualification policies.  Rainer submitted the following report as a handout.  

Curricular Affairs Committee         MINTUES      	
Monday Sept 12 2005           2-3  pm   Runcorn Room, Nat Sci Bldg
Present:   Anna Berge, Ataur Chowdhury, Katrin Iken, Joseph Thompson, Anthony Rickard, Tim Stickel, Gayle Gregory, Wanda Martin, Linda Hapsmith

1.  Need for revised meeting time this fall, due to conflicts with Carol Lewis’s schedule.  We agreed to either 12-1 or 3:30-4:30 on Mondays.  Carol would decide between them.  [Note: Carol prefers the earlier time (12-1).]

2.  Unfinished business from last Spring: 
A. Probation/disqualification requirements.  We need to tighten up the current requirements/policies, which are models of vagueness, add carrots (as well as sticks), and figure out better early warning signals.  Ataur will be pursuing with Tim the early warning aspects.  Joseph agreed to submit revised wording to deal with the vagueness.  We should get some advice and guidance from Deans before moving further on this.  Rainer agreed to ask our token Dean to bring this up at Dean’s Council meeting.  The key questions: what are the individual Dean’s current policies with regards to probation & disqualification, how far apart are they, how do the Deans feel about a uniform, but flexible policy?

B.  ‘Common Start Date’.  Tim Stickel, the UAF registrar, expressed the opinion that as far as he could tell the issue was dead, perhaps due to our strident objections last year.  Who knows what top-down, heavy-handed management will come up with next, but that one seems to be off the stove.   In the meantime, (a) it would be best if we created a long-term calendar of our own.  Tim will be presenting such shortly.  (b) We discussed last year that other dates would be more usefully uniform, e.g., last date to drop classes, financial aid dates, etc.  Tim also agreed to bring up this issue with the other registrars and see how they feel about it.  If they wish to go forward, then our next step would be to contact the equivalent bodies at UAA and UAS and see how they feel.

3.  New Business
A.  As an outgrowth of other questions, we have been asked to create faculty discussion and solicit consensus regarding +  - grades.   Basically, we need to work out a mechanism to contact deans and get them to pressure individual departments into such discussions and consensus.    The committee agreed on the importance of getting a real faculty consensus on this issue before moving one way or the other.  Rainer agreed to ask Carol Lewis to forward to deans a request that each department discuss the issue of +/- grades, consider several options (no change, change to +/- that ‘don’t count’, change to +/- that ‘do count’, and change to giving numerical scores (3.5, 4.0, etc).  

B.  Continuing crisis:  Curricular affairs committee is unlike other Faculty Senate Committees inasmuch as it’s 2 committees in one: curricular affairs and curriculum review.  The chair of curriculum review is a member of curricular affairs and reports back RE problems in the whole business.  Learning the ropes (as it were) takes some time and yearly turnover isn’t good for the University.  This year there are 3 continuing members and all the new ones will be on 2-year stints.  There’s got to be a way to create continuity without simply making some poor schmuck be chairperson over and over and over and over.
   A special concern expressed in this regard is Gayle Gregory’s imminent departure.

Meeting adjourned 3:10 pm as members started bolting.

******************

	B.	Faculty Affairs - Jon Genetti 

A report was attached to the agenda. Jon highlighted the topics they will be working on this year.  In addition, they will be looking at the PERS/TERS issue.  Paul Layer indicated that at the Faculty Alliance meeting he learned that UAS for student evaluations are doing an electronic version of it because there is no money to support the paper copies anymore.  They are finding it is a disaster because those students take time outside of class to fill out the course evaluations and they are just not getting the returns.  

	C.	Unit Criteria - Glenn Chappell 

No report was available. 

D.	Committee on the Status of Women - Jane Weber 

A report was attached to the agenda.  Jane reminded female faculty to attend the luncheon on Thursday, September 22, 2005. 

	E.	Core Review - Mark Box

The following report was submitted as a handout.   

Core Review Committee 

Jin Brown convened a meeting on 7 September in which a chair was elected and members discussed the language of the Table of Substitutions for transfer credits from institutions outside of the University of Alaska system.  After establishing its procedures for review of petitions, the committee will turn to the unfinished business of the Table of Substitutions.  The committee will meet again on September 28th.

Respectfully submitted, Mark Box

******************

	F.	Curriculum Review - 

The committee has not been form and has not met.   

	G.	Developmental Studies - Cindy Hardy/ Joe Mason

A report was attached to the agenda. Cindy Hardy indicated that Joe Mason did attend the meeting and took notes.  Cindy reviewed the topics they will be working on this year including selective admission at UAF.  

	H.	Faculty Appeals & Oversight - Larry Duffy

No report was available.  

	I.	Faculty Development, Assessment & Improvement – Lee Haugen 

A report was attached to the agenda.  Paul Layer will distill and distribute to the appropriate faculty group information on the grade inflation for the next meeting.  Our trends in average grades are in the middle of the road in terms of national averages for state and private institutions.  There is not a serious issue on this campus.  

J.	Graduate Academic & Advisory Committee – Cathy Cahill

A report was attached to the agenda.  A couple of items that came up at their meeting are 1) an evaluation of what our TA’s are getting paid.   The stipend is about 60-70% of what is the national average.  2) Faculty who have students that are having trouble with writing there is now a thesis writing assistance available through the Graduate School.  Students don't have to be international students to take advantage of this program.  3) Another issue is how committees deal with resignations.  If faculty have problems with students they are not allowed to resign from their committee.  The Dean will not sign paperwork where the whole committee resigns.  There will be a new change of committee form.  The process will be more open.  

XI	Members' Comments/Questions - 

Jim Collins asked Paul Reichardt about the increased costs of fuel.  How does the university plan to meet the cost in the short run prior to the supplemental request in the spring?  Paul Reichardt said that he had suggested to the Administrative Committee that they try to get Kathleen Schedler at one of the next Senate meetings to go through the whole situation.  A supplemental appropriation out of the legislature in February could certainly cover all of our problems for all of the present fiscal year.  In the increase, that the President propose the Regents' endorse, for our state appropriation for FY07 there is a big chunk for increased fixed costs which includes the fuel issue.  The question of what are the implications for programs is why he suggests that Kathleen Schedler speak to the problem.   

Roman asked what would happen if the legislature did not fund a supplemental request.   Paul Reichardt indicated that if worst come to worst we can spend our entire nest egg of funds and cover the fuel oil costs.  There is some centralized carry forward funds.  Based on our budget and practices in higher education, our nest egg should be twice that.  So we are low, but we can pay the bill.  However, we'd end the year broke.  It terms of next year, if we don't get a supplemental or a significant part of the increase, we would look very different than we do now.  There is no way we can pick up the balance through tuition.  

Paul Layer indicated that the next meeting will be a face-to-face meeting and will be held in the Butrovich building.  We will also do a Senate photo.  

XII	Adjournment

The meeting was adjourned at 3:00 p.m.

Tapes of this Faculty Senate meeting are in the Governance Office, 312 Signers' Hall if anyone wishes to listen to the complete tapes. 

Submitted by Sheri Layral, Faculty Senate Secretary.