UNH Faculty Senate

Summary Minutes from 19 April 1999

I.  Roll - The following Faculty Senate members were absent:  Afolayan, 
Bornstein, de la Torre, Draper, Grenier, Gross, Macieski, Miller, Naumes, 
Niman, Pugh, Wang, Williams, and Zsigray.  Absent as work to rule were 
Brinker, Carr, Coon, Echt, Garland, Krysiak, McNamara, Reardon and Zunz.  
Excused was Crepeau.

II.  Communications from the Chair - The Faculty Senate chair said that 
today the president is attending a special meeting of the trustees 
regarding review of the structure of the university system.  An outside 
consultant may be hired to advise on this matter.  The Agenda Committee 
will meet with the trustee subcommittee on April 27, and there is also an 
open session with the subcommittee from 2:15 to 3:00 on that day.  The 
trustee subcommittee expects to make its recommendations by July 1.  Vice 
President for Financial Affairs Candace Corvey has reported on the 
renegotiation of the funds charged to the university by the university 
system offices.

The recently proposed Endeavor Program as proposed by the provost's 
office will not be implemented.  Instead, students will be admitted as in 
the past; and those most in need will be given special advising support. 
 
The second edition of "Faculty in the News" has been printed and was 
distributed in the Faculty Senate meeting.  Mark Rubinstein's office 
helped pay for the publication costs.  "Faculty in the News" will be 
distributed to faculty, legislators and some alumni groups.

The members of the 1999/2000 Professional Standards Committee will be 
Professors Jack Yeager, Karen Conway, Susan Walsh, David Lane, Thomas 
Fairchild, Kristine Baber and Harvey Shepard, with the new Faculty Senate 
vice chair being the chair of the committee.  Also, a slate of officers 
will be prepared shortly for the 1999/2000 Faculty Senate.

III.  Minutes - The minutes of the last senate meeting were approved 
unanimously.

IV.  University Curriculum and Academic Policies Committee - Deborah 
Winslow moved and Bernadette Komonchak seconded that the University 
Curriculum and Academic Policies Committee be established as described in 
the proposal sent with the senate agenda.  There are individual school 
and college curriculum committees, but they are not standardized and are 
not set up to deal with university-wide curriculum issues.  Decentralized 
budgeting may lead to more frequent times when colleges might want to 
take actions which would affect other colleges.  The Academic Affairs 
Committee has been in touch with other universities which have dealt 
recently with these issues, and those institutions recommended that a 
university-wide curriculum and academic policies committee be established 
before any change to decentralized budgeting occurs.

The committee members should have overlapping terms.  The committee 
should look for ways to monitor the general quality of education at UNH. 
 
The committee would only review college decisions that were called into 
question and would mostly deal with inter-college concerns.  The new 
committee is not envisioned as an appellate court for persons who may be 
dissatisfied with a decision in their college.

The University Curriculum and Academic Policies Committee has six 
charges.  The second charge was modified by the Faculty Senate to state 
that the committee would:

Monitor policy changes and apparent trends that affect or have the 
potential to affect academic quality.  Possibilities might include 
monitoring average class sizes, grading norms, credit hour allocation, 
and use of temporary faculty.  The UCAPC may also hear complaints in 
these areas and make recommendations for their resolution.  The committee 
has the authority to obtain data directly from the university's Office of 
Institutional Research.

The organization section of the motion was amended by the Faculty Senate 
to state that:

1. The UCAPC will have a Chair and a Vice Chair who shall be elected for 
one-year terms by the UCAPC from among its members.  Both the Chair and 
the Vice Chair must be faculty members.  The Chair (or in that person's 
absence, the Vice Chair) shall preside at all meetings of the UCAPC.

2.  Each faculty member of the UCAPC shall normally be given a one course 
reduction in teaching load in the third year of his or her term.  The 
Chair will be given a one course reduction in teaching load for each year 
of service as Chair.

3.  Only the faculty and student members of the committee shall be voting 
members.

4.  The UCAPC will communicate all decisions both to the Vice President 
for Academic Affairs/Provost for executive action and to the Faculty 
Senate in a timely way.  In addition, at the end of each academic year, 
the committee will provide the VPAA/Provost with a copy of its report to 
the Senate.  [Please see the preamble of the Constitution of the Faculty 
Senate.]

It is expected that the funds for course reduction will be supplied by 
the administration.  Since the first couple of years for this committee 
will be especially labor intensive, the Faculty Senate chair will ask for 
course release for those members of the new committee who will start out 
with one or two-year terms.

The motion's first line under membership was changed to:  The UCAPC will 
consist currently of 15 members.  The motion as amended was passed 
unanimously.

V.  Open Mike - Concern was expressed about highly-qualified freshmen who 
have chosen to transfer to other universities.  The senate could ask Mark 
Rubinstein to give us a report on retention and on what kinds of students 
are leaving.  Faculty Senators would also like a report from Bob Mennel, 
the head of the Honors Program.

Faculty discussed ideas for having a constructive meeting with trustees 
regarding the reorganization of the system offices.  A professor said 
that the motion which the Faculty Senate has already passed about support 
for the system offices should be communicated to this trustee 
subcommittee.  Also, the university had an accreditation review which 
made recommendations about university governance; and we should point out 
those paragraphs to the subcommittee as well.  Before the university 
system was created, Keene and Plymouth Colleges had their own trustees 
and approached the legislature for funds separately from UNH.  Perhaps 
the university system could have an executive director whose main 
responsibility would be dealing with the legislature.  Concerns were 
expressed about duplication of effort in the system and about 
inappropriate competition between parts of the system.

The UNH undergraduate catalog is being recalled in order to change the 
cover to a more traditional design.

A faculty member said that he has a letter from the AAUP attorney
discussing the legality of the university president's addressing
faculty about matters that are under collective bargaining.  This
letter will be distributed to the senators, and the issue could be
discussed with the president at the next senate meeting.

VI.  Adjournment - The meeting was adjourned.