MSU-BOZEMAN FACULTY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES
February 17, 1999
PRESENT: Young, Sherwood, Burgess, Kommers, Neff, Yost for Leech,
Benham, Howard, Duncan, Larsen, Harkin, Nehrir, Mooney,
Weaver, Amend, Locke, Lansverk, Gedeon, Jelinski, Richard
Smith, McKinsey, Martell, Monahan, Prawdzienski,
Butterfield, Scott.
ABSENT: Paterson, O'Neill, McDermott, Anderson, Robert Smith, Jost,
Cherry, Cutler, Griffith, Cash.
The meeting was called to order at 4:10 PM by Chair Peter Kommers. It
was determined a quorum was present. The minutes of the February 3,
1999, meeting were approved as distributed.
Chair's report - Peter Kommers.
- Regent Dick Roehm has been invited to tomorrow's UGC Steering
Committee meeting to give some clarification of the draft
regents' planning document. If he is unable to attend, Peter
will try to get some clarification over the phone.
- Concern has been expressed that only five sabbaticals were
granted this year, although there were more applications
submitted.
- An explanation by the administration is that the funds no
longer go as far as they did, because of faculty raises.
- It appears there needs to be a dedicated reserve for
funding sabbaticals.
- The original intent of sabbaticals was not that they be
competitive grants but that they be a respite and
opportunity for faculty to regenerate.
- Funding of sabbaticals and sabbatical policies need to be
discussed further.
- Faculty Council was well-represented at the presentation of
Teaching Excellence Awards February 16. Bill Neff, Jack
Jelinski, and Ron Larsen received awards.
- Forums for interim Provost candidates will be held the week of
March 8-12. Applications are now being received for the
position.
Faculty Affairs report - Ron Larsen.
- Four changes to the Faculty Handbook are being proposed by
Faculty Affairs. Faculty have been notified of the proposed
changes. The full text of the changes may be found at
http://www.coe.montana.edu/che/FAC_sp99.
- Today's discussion will be considered the first reading of
these proposals and they will be voted on at the February 24,
1999, Faculty Council meeting and will then be forwarded to the
administration.
- Section 254.01 - University Promotion and Tenure Committee
Membership: delete "Dean of Graduate Studies" and add to the end
of the paragraph, "An administrator for academic affairs (e.g.,
Vice Provost for Academic Affairs), designated by the Provost,
shall serve as chair of the committee, without vote."
- Section 603.02 - Philosophy (Review of Faculty) - Add "student
outcomes and" to last sentence of Teaching: "This document
challenges faculty and administrators to adopt rigorous
strategies for the assessment of student outcomes and teaching
performance, including peer, student and self-evaluations."
- Section 1132.03 - Approval of Faculty and Staff
Consulting/Avoiding Conflicts of Interest - Add "an average of
...during the contract period" to A. so the last sentence reads,
"Faculty members will use annual leave or leave without pay for
consulting activities that take them away from the university or
their university assignments for more than an average of one work
day per week during the contract period."
- Appendix A. Faculty Handbook Amending Procedure - Change the
15-day notification for Faculty Handbook changes to 10 days.
First sentence of A. Amendments Proposed by Faculty Council
would read, "No less than 10 days before Council takes action to
approve an amendment for proposal to the administration, Council
shall make know the text and a concise statement of the reasons
therefore, ..."
Wrap-up UPT Discussion.
- The current Faculty Handbook policies provide for procedural
review at all levels of P&T except for the department P&T
committee. Procedural review is mentioned at the preliminary
level, only. All levels currently provide for "substantial"
review, although it appears to be applied differently at
different levels.
- Faculty Affairs proposes different levels of "substantive"
review at different levels. A detailed preliminary
substantive review would be done and reviews would become
less substantive up the line.
- The UPT Committee would deal with conflict resolution, as
necessary.
- It is proposed that the President be removed from the
review process. He would become the first level of appeal
for all MSU campuses.
- Consideration may be given to putting the department head
and dean back into the department and college committees.
During discussion, it was pointed out that this model was
used at one time at MSU. The department head and dean were
removed from the committees because it was felt they had too
much influence as part of the committees.
- Grievance procedures must be considered along with P&T
procedures. Current Grievance procedures (Faculty Handbook
Section 1300) were approved in 1994, prior to adoption of current
P&T procedures. "Substantive" was not defined, but it is stated
the grievance process will consider policy and procedures. The
grievance process if not able to overturn a P&T decision and can
only send it back if the committee thinks policy or procedure has
not been followed.
- The grievance process should not become a parallel UPT process.
- Concern was expressed that the current grievance process gives
a lot of discretion to the Chair of Grievance Hearings. The only
outcome of the Grievance Hearings Committee can be re-review by
P&T committees which have already reviewed the case.
- Members of the UPT Committee see all university cases, the
Grievance Committee sees just the one being grieved.
- Redefinition of "independent and substantive" is important.
Higher reviews should be linked to earlier reviews. However,
each review is in a way "independent" because information from
earlier reviews is added. At the same time, each review is
"dependent" upon the earlier reviews.
- It was suggested the possibility of removing a level of review
so all colleges would have the same number of levels should be
considered.
- Jack Jelinski moved forwarding these P&T issues to Faculty
Affairs for further discussion. The motion was seconded and
carried.
The meeting was adjourned at 5:00 PM.
Joann Amend, Secretary
Peter Kommers, Chair