UNH Faculty Senate
Summary Minutes from 2 April, 2001
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UNIVERSITY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
2000/01 FACULTY SENATE
APRIL 30, 2001 - MINUTES SUMMARY
I. Roll - The following Faculty Senate members were absent: Becker, Denis, Draper, Halstead, Hiller, Macieski,
McCann, Morgan, and Reardon. Excused were Afolayan, Shippee-Rice, Smith, Trowbridge and VonDamm.
II. Communications with the President - The senate chair thanked President Leitzel for her participation with and
her support for the Faculty Senate this year. The president highlighted a number of student accomplishments, including
a prize-winning student play which was performed in the Kennedy Center and also the presentations which will be
given this weekend by students from the UNH undergraduate research centers. The president added that 2,400 to 2,500
students will graduate this May and that next year's freshman class will be about 2,600 students. The university
is expected to sign an agreement shortly with Barnes and Noble to operate the campus bookstore.
The New Hampshire House of Representatives has passed budget bills on to the state senate. The bills include funds
for a five-percent increase in the university's operating budget for each of the next two years and a capital budget
of one hundred million dollars over six years. That would include enough funding for renovations of Kingsbury Hall
and Murkland Hall. The Kingsbury Hall renovations will take as much as a year to design and three to four more
years for the renovation work.
III. Communications from the Chair - Regarding today's senate agenda, the senate chair said that he will add a
report on the senate's Campus Planning Committee. The senate chair announced that the responses to the senate referendum
were very positive. Ninety-two percent of the faculty who responded said that they are satisfied with the Faculty
Senate as constituted by the constitution, and 74.6 percent are satisfied with the role of the Faculty Senate in
providing shared governance. The referendum had a twelve-percent response rate. The chair discussed some of the
comments from the referendum, passed around a list of the comments, and said that they are available for faculty
review at the senate office.
IV. Minutes - The senate minutes for the last meeting were unanimously approved, with a modification to change
the next-to-last sentence of item V to refer to "national AAUP policy" rather than to "the union
contract".
V. The Tally Program - The senate chair said that he met today with the provost, the chair of the senate's Academic
Affairs Committee and Curt Givan for a discussion on the Tally Program, including concerns about faculty privacy
and special-technology computers. The provost said that there is no intention to read documents on faculty computers.
He added that the university has the right to read email but does not do so. The provost also offered that there
could be faculty oversight and review of any future changes in the Tally Program. Faculty members could refuse
to allow Tally to be put on their current computers, but every new computer bought with university funds will contain
the Tally Program. Also, the Tally inventory will be used to assign future computer replacements and upgrades.
Faculty expressed concerns that the replacement funds for computers will not be adequate and that intentions not
to do something could change. Faculty also feel that the program is of little advantage and considerable potential
disadvantage to them and that the labor costs for Tally's installation onto all faculty and staff computers would
cost a great deal of money which could be better spent elsewhere. A professor said that the administration plan,
to provide money for replacement only of computers containing the Tally Program, sounds like blackmail. A motion
was made and seconded that the Faculty Senate strongly opposes the adoption of Tally or similar programs now or
in the future. An ad-hoc committee will write a rationale for this motion. The motion passed unanimously
except for one abstention.
VI. Alumni Association - Drew Conroy, the Faculty Senate's representative on the Alumni Association, said that
the association has met three times this academic year. The Alumni Association will soon have a new legal status,
that of an independent subsidiary at the university, and will pay its way in the near future, including staff salaries.
Currently the university provides funds for the UNH Magazine and will continue to do so for some years, but later
the magazine may be purchased through membership dues in the association. The group is establishing a strategic
plan in order to better serve the alumni and the university. The priority objectives are to help recruit and retain
quality students while enriching their experience, enhance the university image, keep alumni connected to the university
and the university to the alumni, offer lifelong professional development and career enhancement opportunities,
assist UNH with financial stability, maintain connections through university events and sports, and foster a more
collegial community.
VII. Part-time Faculty and Faculty Title Changes - A draft had been written to modify faculty nomenclature definitions,
in order to promote clarity and consistency between UNH departments. Current eighty-eight-percent faculty may be
grandfathered in on a case-by-case basis, but the new rules would apply to all newly-hired teachers. The draft
is posted on the vice president of academic affairs' web site, as are the answers to frequently asked questions
about this issue. The draft has been presented to the deans, the Faculty Senate, the department chairs and others
for input and will go to the chancellor and the Board of Trustees in the next few months. A professor asked if
the draft indicates that part-time clinical faculty could advance to tenure-track positions but part-time teaching
faculty could not. Another professor asked what status affiliate faculty who occasionally teach a course would
have. Also, how many eighty-eight-percent faculty are there at UNH now? These professors were asked to forward
their questions and concerns to the provost.
VIII. Academic Standards and Advising - This committee has agreed that it will send a memorandum to the Faculty
Senate stating that ASAC will notify the pertinent faculty member about any change in a student's grade or registration
status. The committee will put its policies and procedures in writing, the Faculty Senate will be able to review
ASAC's monthly reports, and ASAC will meet twice a year with the senate's Academic Affairs Committee. ASAC does
not change letter grades to another grade, but sometimes a grade is removed and the registration status is changed
to a withdrawal. A professor asked about the right of faculty to appeal changes. The senate chair said that he
had asked the provost about that issue and that the provost does not want to be the court of last appeal but rather
would like ASAC to work with the faculty member towards an agreement. That should be stated in ASAC's written policy.
Victor Benassi will work with the senate's Academic Affairs Committee to draft a memo on ASAC's policies.
IX. Evaluation of Faculty Service - In the senate motion which established the University Curriculum and Academic
Policies Committee, there was a clause on course reductions for the members of that committee; but the president
did not accept this clause. However, UCAPC has met very little this year; and therefore the senate's Research and
Public Service Committee has decided that there is no justification to discuss this issue further at this time.
In addition, the Research and Public Service Committee chair said that the intellectual property issue will be
dealt with via collective bargaining and is no longer a charge of his committee.
X. Student Affairs Committee - Copies of the final report of the Student Affairs Committee were distributed at
the senate meeting. The committee has reviewed two issues: obscenities on student evaluations of faculty and student
privacy in Blackboard courses. In both cases the committee felt that there was no widespread sense of grievance
and that no action by the Faculty Senate is needed.
XI. Library Committee - The chair of the Library Committee said that the university library is doing its strategic
planning now and would like input from the faculty senators and from the senate's Library Committee. Inflation
of the cost of journals is about twelve percent per year, and the library is working with the provost to search
for possible ways to fund journal purchases.
XII. Campus Planning Committee - This committee feels that the university's Space Allocation, Repair and Renovation
Committee (SARRC) manages these matters reasonably well considering the university's lack of resources. The UNH
Advisory Committee on Lands and Property and the UNH Lands and Property Use Committee have determined that allowing
soccer fields to be built on part of the Moore Fields would not displace significant academic or research activities
and that the agricultural uses could be accomplished on other nearby lands, with the modification of some equipment.
The senate's Campus Planning Committee has reviewed plans to modify the use of Huddleston Hall and has approved
the idea of moving the faculty/staff "Oak Room" dining facility from the second floor to the main floor
of Huddleston Hall. This move would provide more flexible space in a location closer to the kitchen. The senate's
Campus Planning Committee will continue to monitor the activities of the university's Transportation and Parking
Committee, which has made recommendations to the president on handicap parking, winter parking ban, residential
parking permits, and an origin-and-destination study on transportation flow and facilities usage. Most UNH buildings
are in serious need of renovation, which would now cost about $141 million dollars to accomplish. Faculty are asked
to provide anecdotal, descriptive evidence of how this deferred maintenance affects the quality of the students'
educational experience.
XIII. Communications from the Vice Chair - The vice chair thanked the chair for his leadership and commitment to
the Faculty Senate's role in shared governance and presented the chair with an engraved gavel in token of the senate's
appreciation for his hard work this year. Thanks were also extended to the senate's program assistant.
XIV. Adjournment - Today's meeting of the 2000/01 Faculty Senate was adjourned.
UNIVERSITY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
2001/02 FACULTY SENATE
APRIL 30, 2001 - MINUTES SUMMARY
I. Roll - The following Faculty Senate members were absent: Becker, Black, Chandler, Churchill, Denis, Draper,
Elmslie, Franzosa, Frierson, Halstead, Merenda, Miriam, Morgan, Nicovich, Pollard, Reardon, Rodgers, Seavey, Swartz,
and White. Excused were Shippee-Rice, Smith, Trowbridge, and VonDamm.
II. Election of Officers - The Agenda Committee nominated a slate of officers for next year's Faculty Senate, and
this slate passed unanimously. The 2001/02 Faculty Senate chair will be Dan Reid, with Barbara Krysiak as vice
chair and Edward Hinson, Bill Stine and Tony Tagliaferro as at-large members of the Agenda Committee.
III. Communications from the Chair - On behalf of the Agenda Committee, the senate chair welcomed the new senators
and asked them to work actively in the shared governance of the university, in order to assure that faculty have
a strong role in institutional decision making and that academic integrity and excellence are its guiding principles.
The chair asked each senator to suggest issues which should go before the faculty and, as soon as senate committee
preference information is sent out, to let the senate office know which committee would benefit most from the senator's
involvement and expertise.
IV. Open Mike - A senator asked that the senate get regular feedback from the Transportation and Parking Committee.
The senate may hold meetings this summer for small groups of senators, in order to get to know each other and to
discuss issues which should be dealt with by the senate in the coming academic year. A senator suggested that faculty
should review the strategic plan and the faculty nomenclature changes.
V. Adjournment - The meeting was adjourned.
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