FC Minutes October 20, 2017
Introduction
Meeting Date: October 20, 2017.
Meeting Location: CoBE Conference Room 101.
In Attendance: Jan Ray, Lari-Anne Au, Steve Herman, Tom Dewitt, Linda Connelly, Amy Saxton, Leng Chee Chang, Phillipe Binder, Doug Mikkelson, Shelby Wong, Jim Beets, Seri Luangphinith, Katherine Young, Armando GarciaOrtega, Kim Furumo, Kekoa Harman, Vladimir Skorikov, Kirsten Mollegaard, Celia Bardwell-Jones, Showan Rahman, Steve Colbert, Yumiko Ohara, Shugeng Cao, Allen Shih, Emily Low, Vester Boomer Robester, Marcia Sakai, Ken Hon, Bruce Matthews.
Recorded By: Linda Connelly (Prepared by Tracy Thornett)
Call to Order: 3:00 PM
Adjournment: 4:45 PM
Topic: FC Housekeeping
Report:
Review of FC minutes from September 15, 2017
Edit to agenda – Add Board of Regents campus visit on February 22, 2018.
Action: Motion to approve the minutes; motion was seconded and approved with 16 votes in favor, 0 opposed, and 1 abstained.
Topic: FC Chair Report
Report:
Jan Ray reported on:
ACCFSC meetings – Philippe attended September – reported on 2 items:
a. CC within system had program change by admin without consulting faculty, re-confirm BoR policy that faculty need to be consulted.
b. UHM are engaging in review of Gen Ed system
– admin appointments ex-officio to standing committees.
– right to be present and vote – suggested liaison rather than ex-officio.
– could use exec session to not have present.October meeting – see Jan’s list on Agenda for report.
- Action: FC to vote on standing committee membership (see below).
Topic: FC Standing Committee Reports
Report: Curriculum Committee (Linda)
-178 course proposals and 28 prog proposals
-First meeting October 16th, second meeting November 13th
All other committees: No additions to already published reports
Curriculum and Graduate Council (Shelby)
-Curriculum: There was a system meeting. Starting from Fall 2018 UH will make all Calculus numbers across system match. Therefore, UHH will be changing our numbers in order for all 10 campuses to match system.
-Graduate Council: Working on an appeals process for each program. Also working on clarifying administrative duties for graduate division after staff member retirement.
WASC
- New program review dashboard was presented.
- Search UHH website for IRO. – pick first link. – UHH data sets, program review, put on full screen. – all elements needed for program review are in appendix C. – select department on left.
Senate chair reports
- CAS – survey sent out to Humanities and Social Sciences on new college models – shared results with CAS, ongoing discussion on re-org.
- CAFNRM – working on resolution on allocation of resources (new business), challenges of less faculty due to retirement, trying to figure out this for the future.
- CoBE – no report.
- KHUOK – college celebrating 20 year anniversary, will have commemorative events.
- DKICP – no chair yet.
Chancellor’s Professional Development Committee (Leng Chee)
- Met and reviewed proposals. Proposals scored and some letters will go out.
- There were some questions on some proposals that need to be answered.
- There may be funds left so please send in proposal if you have ideas.
- Need another faculty member for this committee – meets once a month.
Action: Contact Jan if interested in serving on Chancellor’s Professional Development Committee
Topic: Old Business
17-18-001 Motion for the Development of a New, Updated Strategic Plan
Report: Reviewed motion (see attachment). BOR policy was checked. There does not appear to be a conflict.
Action: This motion was approved with 17 votes in favor, 0 opposed, and 0 abstained.
17-18-002 Motion for the Approval of Wording for Incompletes Policy
Report: Steve Herman revised policy to make undergraduate and graduate incomplete policies look similar. Ran draft by Misaki and Graduate Council (see attachments). Policy sent to Academic Policy Committee for review.
Action: Will review policy at next meeting.
17-18-003 Motion for Changes to Distance Learning Policy
Report: Kirsten made suggested changes. No further discussion.
Action: This motion was approved with 17 votes in favor, 0 opposed, and 0 abstained.
Topic: New Business
17-18-008 Request for the Creation of the DKICP Faculty Senate Executive Committee for Representation on the UH Hilo Faculty Congress
Report: No discussion.
Action: This motion was approved with 15 votes in favor, 0 opposed, and 2 abstained.
17-18-004 Motion to Request Policy for Unregistered Students Attending UH Hilo Classes
Report: Some unregistered students have been allowed to attend class. There is no policy available for when issues arise. Discussed motion. Consensus was that more information is needed.
Action: Steve motioned to table, Phillipe seconded. This motion was tabled with 16 votes in favor, 0 opposed, and 1 abstained.
17-18-005 Motion to Accept Two New Campus-Wide Advanced Placement Tests for UH Hilo Credit
Report: Reviewed motion. Mahealani provided information about the AP courses. Mahealani says students would get 3 credits of Lower Division Elective. She also gave background for motion. In short, it is a recruitment effort. She described the specifics of how the courses are evaluated and provided handouts/links to further information. Academic Policy Committee is reviewing for consideration. Will provide recommendations at next meeting.
Action: Steve motioned to postpone, Amy seconded. This motion was postponed with 17 votes in favor, 0 opposed, and 0 abstained.
17-18-007 Motion to Develop Guidelines for promotion for Instructors (Per the New UPHA Collective Bargaining Agreement)
Report: New UPHA collective bargaining agreement includes in-rank promotion process for I-2 faculty. FC recommended that University-wide guidelines be created, distributed, approved, and submitted to VCAA before the end of spring semester. It was suggested that the University-wide guidelines be generated first and then they could be sent to individual units to make their guidelines. This issue only applies to 4-year colleges, and each college will develop its own UHM, UHWO, and UH Hilo. Ultimately, the final agreement on guidelines is between Chancellor and UHPA, but admin would like faculty to initiate and develop the guidelines. This is the criteria and how the faculty will be evaluated that have yet to be developed. UHPA want this ready for Fall 2018.
Action: Motion for an ad hoc committee to develop the guidelines was approved with 17 votes in favor, 0 opposed, and 0 abstained.
17-18-009 Request for the Formation of an Ad Hoc Committee to Develop Guidelines and Criteria for the Transition from Instructor to Assistant Professor
Report: Motion discussed. There was a question as to whether this needs to be different from the requirements for hire at Assistant Professor level. These vary by job posting and MQs. There is also a lack of clarity as to when instructors can or should be able to do this. UHPA contract provides guidance, however, we don’t have a clear mechanism. There was discussion about if instructors are promoted through this mechanism, then would they go through the same process with regards to expectations and tenure for Assistant Professor? There is a need to clarify standards for this promotion and consider how this compares with a process whereby a national search would have been carried out for the same position. There was no timeline suggested from UHPA.
Action: Friendly amendment - Jim Beets – change “transition” to “promotion” – accepted by Chair.
Friendly amendment - Jim Beets – add “tenure-track” before Assistant Professor – accepted by Chair.
Motion was approved with 16 votes in favor, 0 opposed, and 1 abstained.
17-18-010 Request for the Appointment of a Distance Learning Liaison
Report: UH Hilo is not being represented at state-wide meetings. Liaison would be responsible for this.
Action: Motion was approved with 17 votes in favor, 0 opposed, and 0 abstained.
Draft Resolution on Allocation of Resources
Report: Armando – CAFNRM Rep (Armando)
Working on a resolution for next meeting regarding allocation of resources – will hand out at next congress meeting. This is in response to Senator Kahele’s request. FC members asked to hear current draft. Armando read current draft. Kevin Hopkins clarified: Asking legislature to oversee BoR to make suggested changes. Question as to what is needed from FC? Answer is that Rep would like FC to join in resolution with CAFNRM, or to express their own concerns on the record. There is a concern that faculty members are not speaking up for fear of negative consequences for promotion and tenure. It was noted this is a long-standing problem with our administration. There was concern expressed that not addressing this could have negative consequences for legislature funding.
Suggestion: FC should have the Budget Committee.
There was a clarification on committees – FC Budget Standing Committee is separate from the Long Range Budget and Planning Committee. It was suggested that the FC budget committee should be meeting with admin to express the views of congress even though there is no longer a Long Range Budget and Planning Committee. It was also suggested that UH Hilo follow AAUP policies on faculty involvement in budget process. There was an open call for a Committee Chair for the FC Budget Standing Committee.
Decision: Armando and Kekoa will work together to re-form the committee, report back next time The resolution discussion continued. It was suggested that FC reps should take the draft resolution document back to their Senate to get feedback. Armando agreed to send draft to Jan who would send to the reps to get feedback from their unit and will bring feedback to Nov 17th FC meeting.
Action: Call for a Committee Chair for the FC Budget Standing Committee. Armando and Kekoa will work together to re-form the committee, report back next time. Armando will send draft to Jan. Jan will send to reps for feedback. Jan will bring feedback to FC meeting on November 17 2017.
Topic: Vox Populi
Report: Ken Hon – overview of current budget status:
$70 million comes into the university annually. $20 million goes to scholarships and utilities. Of the remaining $50 million – academic affairs gets $35 million, $10 million goes to Pharmacy who manage themselves (less money taken from their tuition that goes to scholarships), and $24.5 million goes to the rest of academic affairs. Of the $24.5 million, it was asked for 6-8% reduction from
Deans and Directors but got requests that were 10-15% more so now need to bring down to within budget. The PRIORITY – student retention and working on addressing this. UHH is losing sophomores. There are more leaving than we are bringing in as new students. If we want to be in better budget shape then we have to grow. Ken is happy for anyone to make an appointment to come to discuss this
with him and would also like to talk about ways to recruit/retain more students. If we don’t make budget work then UHH would have to shut down. The goal is to be clear and transparent but there is a lot of back and forth to make it work at the moment. Admin have figured out the course schedule and the budget will be completed by next week. Ken congratulated colleges – COBE and CAFNRM – who rearranged to allow additional budgets to go to other units. There was a question about the Reserve fund – Answer: there is $15 million but we need to be prepared for emergency situations (e.g. natural disasters) OR we can only take money out of this for one time only events. The bottom line is that UHH has to generate more students and positive growth. It is likely that the budget will drop again next year. There was a request for $200K from the legislature for peer mentoring and embedded advisors within the units.
Action: None.
Topic: Adjournment
Report: None.
Action: Motion to adjourn; motion seconded; all in favor.