November 2017

Faculty Senate Meeting

Lamar University

November 1, 2017

Spindletop Room Mary and John Gray Library

Presiding: Vivek Natarajan, President Faculty Senate

Attending:  Arts and Sciences: Judy Smith, Christian Bahrim, Tom Sowers,  Kami Makki, Sanaz Alasti, Garrick Harden, Gina Hale,  Lisa Donnelly, Gretchen Johnson, Pat Heinzelman, Michael Beard, Yasuko Sato, J.P. Nelson, Jennifer Daniel, Joseph Kruger, Martha Rinker, Cheng-Hsien Lin, Ted Mahavier; Business: Tim McCoy, Purnendu Mandal, Karyn Neuhauser, Seokyon Hwang; Education: Connie Ruiz, Anna Nguyen, Dorothy Sisk, Janice Kimmons, Vanessa Villate, Belinda Lopez, Engineering: Nicholas Brake, John Gossage, Xuejun Fan, Fine Arts and Communication: Nandu Radhakirshnan, Zanthia Smith, Vinaya Manchaiah, Bryan Proksch, Nicki Michalski, Library: Michael Saar, Mark Asteris  College Readiness: Melissa Riley, Lamar State College Port Arthur: Mavis Triebel

Absent: Arts and Sciences: Stacey Knight, Ozge Gunaydin-Sen, George Irwin, Maryam Vasefi, Business: James Slaydon, Education: Ken Young, Isreal Msengi, Engineering: Gleb Tcheslavski, James Curry, Communications and Fine Arts: Sherry Freyermuth, Cheri Acosta

Call to Order: 3:30 pm

Guest Speaker:

• Kenneth Evans, President of Lamar University
  • Gave a re-cap of his speech from fall convocation
  • Discussed Hurricane Harvey and its aftermath. There were 1700 students in the dorms when the storm arrived. Elaborated on the pitfalls of the storm and the contributions to the relief effort by Lamar University and the Montagne Center that served as a relief shelter. He commended Chartwells on their response in providing food and water to campus residents and refugees during the recovery period.
  • Building Updates:
    • Since its opening, the Reaud building is serving as an active meeting center. Several meeting rooms are available within the building. There is also a very nice reception area within the building that is beginning to be used on a more regular basis.
    • The Innovation and Conceptualization Building is open and is currently working on helping to develop startup ventures.
      • Most recently a Farmer from Silsbee who developed a new Fertilizer that was discovered to also have a primary effect on mold remediation. The University is working with the farmer to help get a patent for the product. Interest in the product has been overwhelming and from as far away as China.
    • The remodeling of the Library is slated to be completed December 1, 2017
    • The Setzer Center remodeling has experienced a number of set-backs in completion. Due to re-open in February 2018.
    • The new Science Building is scheduled to be completed in November 2018
  • SACS Reaffirmation: As a result of the aftermath of the storm, SACS has granted the University a one year extension on the actual survey. Dr. Evans has asked for a second year extension but have not heard back from SACS.
  • Discussed the Smith-Hutson $1, 000,000.00 Scholarship program
  • The University Foundation has set aside $100,000 dollars to help faculty and staff recover from Harvey. Link to applications in the development process.
  • If a University employee invents something, LU has a patent committee to help with the process involved in registering new products.
  • The University will celebrate its Centennial year in 2023.

Approval of Minutes: October 4, 2017

• Michael Beard made a motion to approve the minutes as written
• Gina Hale Seconded
• Unanimously approved.

Faculty Senate President Report

• Norman Bellard will be the guest speaker for the December meeting to discuss the South Park Redevelopment Project.
• There will also be a Christmas Party at the December meeting. If you have any suggestions for appetizers to be served, please let Vivek know soon.
• Also considering recognizing former past Senate Presidents at the party.
• Vivek, James, and Mavis attended the Texas State Faculty Senate Meeting in Austin. They met with the Chancellor of the TSUS system as well as many other key people. The next meeting will be in February 2018.
• Old Business:
  • The F2.08 committee brought forth their recommendations regarding the F2.08 process that has been in flux for many years.
  • Concerns were raised:
    • The criteria seemed to be more geared toward only tenure track faculty
    • How to enforce application of the criteria between departments and colleges.
    • Due dates for completion of F2.08 reviews should occur in a timely manner. Some departments did not get last year’s final F2.08 back until August.
    • Each department should develop criteria for both tenure and non-tenure track faculty based on a point system.
  • Due to the number of questions being raised and suggestions for further revisions, the F2.08 Recommendations were referred back to the committee. If you have any additional comments or concerns regarding the proposed changes please e-mail Nicki Michalski at michalski@lamar.edu.
• Faculty Senate Committee Chair Reports:
• Faculty Salary Equity: James Slaydon
  • No report
• Academic Issues-Melissa Riley and Nicki Michalski
  • The committee is working closely with Zanthia Smith in looking at the SACS Self-study portion 3.75 in relation to the conduct of the Faculty Senate.
  • Problems have been encountered with the development of a standardized syllabus template. Current on-line server will not support a customized document. Distance Education looking at alternative servers to facilitate the process.
  • Question was raised that some sections of the faculty handbook are still highlighted in red. Do these areas still need to be voted on to finally approve the full faculty handbook? The committee will check into it to see if they can be voted on during the December meeting.
• Faculty Issues-Jennifer Daniel and Ken Young
  • The information on the Piper award has been sent out three times but only had two initial applicants. With Dr. Evans and Brian Sattler’s assistance now have 13 applicants which will be reviewed.
  • Working on getting a Faculty Ombudsman position developed. Have looked at a variety of other schools who have such programs in order to develop a proposal for having one at LU.
  • Also, looking at developing a wellness program for faculty and staff.
• Budget and Compensation-Tom Sowers
  • Committee Meeting will be held next week in the Social and Behavioral Science building-more details to follow.
  • Committee will meet next week in the Political Science Conference room at 3:30 PM
• Distinguished Faculty Lecturer: Dorothy Sisk and Mark Asteris
  • Committee by-laws were reviewed that the committee should include the chair, vice chair, a department chair, a Dean from a College, a student, a citizen at large member as well as one representative from each of the respective Colleges within the University.
  • Suggestions have been made of how to improve the flow of the event. One such suggestions was to have the lecture in the Spindletop Room with dinner to follow in the outer reception area but that would severely limit attendance.
  • The committee is also looking at helping prospective candidates with filming their video essay that should accompany the application. It was noted that media services has portable video equipment that could be used for this purpose.
  • Next meeting will be held on Wednesday November 29, 2017. Time and place to be determined.
• Research and Development: Faculty Developmental Leave (FDL): Nicholas Brake
  • Meetings to review applicants for developmental leave will be held on Wednesday November 15 and November 29, 2017. Time and place to be determined.
  • The on-line application for Faculty Developmental Leave is now fully functional.
  • Deadline for submission of applications was extended to November 13, 2017.
• Emerging Strategic Issues Task Force- Purnendu Mandal
  • Planning to have a meeting soon.

New Business:

• By way of a reminder, Vivek discussed the schedule for Senate and various committee meetings help during each month.
  • The Meeting of the full Senate membership is scheduled for the first Wednesday of every month
  • Various Committee Meetings should be scheduled for the second Wednesday of every month.
  • The executive board generally meets with Dr. Evans and Dr. Marquart on the third Wednesday of every month.
  • The executive board generally meets on the fourth week of every month. However, the November meeting of the group has been canceled.
• An announcement was made that if anyone was present and had not signed up for a committee, they needed to do so in order to finalize committee memberships soon.
  • All Chairs of committees were asked to check the composition of their various committees for accuracy. If there were changes that need to be made to the listing please send them to Judy Smith, Secretary of Faculty Senate (smith@lamar.edu) as soon as possible as to what changes need to be made.
  • Any members who would like to look at the committee roster are also welcome to come check it.
  • If you were unable to attend the meeting please contact Judy Smith to sign up for a committee. The standing committees include:
    • Budget and Compensation: Tom Sowers, Chair
    • Faculty Issues: Jennifer Daniel and Ken Young, Co-chairs
    • Academic Issues: Melissa Riley and Nicki Michalski, Co-chairs
    • Faculty Research and Development Leave: Nicolas Brake
    • Emerging Strategic Issues Task Force: Purnendu Mandel, Chair
    • Distinguished Faculty Lecture Series: Dorothey Sisk and Mark Asteris, Co-chairs (committee has enough members at this time)

Adjournment:

• There being no further business
  • Joe Kruegar motioned to adjourn
  • Kami Makki seconded
  • Meeting adjourned 4:40 pm.
    • Respectfully Submitted:

Dr. Judy Smith

Attachments:

• F2.08 recommendations

Statement and Recommendations from the F2.08 Revision Task Force

Upon investigation of the current F2.08 process and its implementation, the task force has accrued the following information:

• For the most part, the faculty feel that their work is being satisfactorily represented by the current system.
• The faculty do not support the implementation of an additional committee at the department level for the purpose of peer review of the F2.08 document on an annual basis.
  • They believe this is the responsibility of the department chairs.
  • They note there is already an appendix attached to the document for the tenured faculty to sign off on the evaluations of untenured faculty members. There are many departments where this portion of the document is not being implemented, and that needs to be addressed rather than adding another layer to the process. Perhaps moving the signature page up with the other signatures will encourage completion of the form.
• There is agreement that the primary issue is a lack of quantifiable criteria for evaluation. While every department is supposed to have clearly delineated guidelines, there are a significant number who either do not have criteria or have not revised them in many years.
• Many faculty members stated that they are not made aware of the spread of the evaluations in their departments despite the fact that such information is supposed to be made available on a yearly basis. They do not want to know names in connection with scores, but the distribution of scores would help them to determine areas for improvement.
• Although some deans were interested in adding new parts to the F2.08 form (e.g. a section wherein a faculty member assesses their impact on their discipline), the faculty did not support this suggestion.

Therefore, the task force makes the following suggestions:

• Each department needs to draft new criteria for evaluation. We recommend a point system wherein faculty members can clearly determine how many points they have accrued during the evaluation period. Each department will establish guidelines to convert these points to the 1-5 ranking system tied to exemplary, high, adequate, marginal or unsatisfactory performance which are used for determining merit.
• Departmental criteria should be reviewed and revised at a minimum of every five years.
• Department chairs should receive training in faculty evaluation.
• Each department should distribute their criteria to all new faculty members within the first semester after hire.
• The F2.08 form should include, at the end of the research/creative activity section, a running total of amount of research/ creative activity required for tenure and what has been accomplished. This should be based on the departmental criteria (i.e. number of publications, number of shows staged, number of conference presentations, etc.)
• There needs to be a mechanism in place to encourage departments to actually review and revise their standards. A suggestion has been made to withhold travel funds if a department does not have approved standards by a specified deadline.

We are attaching examples of potential criteria to which point values or rankings could be assigned. These examples are not intended to be all inclusive. Departments should add or adjust for their own discipline. Departmental faculty should work together to determine point values and/or the relative weight of items.

Example Guidelines for Annual Evaluation of Teaching Effectiveness (point-based system)

ACTIVITY                                                                                                                             Point value         Awarded

Satisfactory completion of assigned course duties

Letters of recommendation

Service on Masters comprehensive exam committees

(Theses and dissertations count in research)

Chairing of Masters comprehensive exams

(Theses and dissertations count in research)

Course/curriculum design or redesign

Collaborative course design or team-teaching

Effective leadership and management of online courses

Continued reflection, innovation, and redesign in courses

Demonstrated improvements in student learning outcomes

Leadership in student learning

Student success resulting from your teaching/advising

Positive Online Course Evaluations

(with narrative contextualization)

Peer observation of teaching with

letter of support or classroom observation instrument

Mid-semester feedback and description of adjustments made

Advisee/student letters and comments about your mentorship

Scholarly teaching

Participation in professional development opportunities (re: teaching)

Investigating and assessing innovative teaching strategies

linked to SoTL research studies

Nomination for or receipt of teaching awards

(receipt of award counts more than nomination)

Teaching philosophy and evidence of implementation

Example Guidelines for Research and Creative Activity Annual Evaluation (point system)

ACTIVITY                                                                                                             POINT VALUE                    AWARDED

Publication in national/international journal (peer reviewed)

Publication in regional journal (peer reviewed)

Publication in state journal (peer reviewed)

Publication in popular press periodical

Publication of book, chapter or essay

Publication in conference proceedings

Due to the length of publication schedules, submissions should also be included/evaluated with higher points being assigned once the piece has been published

Presentation at national/international conference

Presentation at regional conference

Presentation at state conference

Presentation at local conference

Presentation to public interest group

Completion of major creative undertaking

(e.g. film, painting or sculpture series, orchestral score)

Submission to festivals/competitions/etc.

(Acceptance counts more than submission)

Awards won at festivals/competitions/etc.

(placing and honorable mentions also count)

Selection for public presentation of creative work

Grant writing (submission and award count; award counts more)

EXAMPLE GUIDELINES FOR SERVICE ANNUAL EVALUATION POINT SYSTEM

ACTIVITY                                                                                             POINT VALUE                    POINTS AWARDED

Community activity (volunteer work)

Leadership in community group

Leadership in disciplinary organization

Membership in disciplinary organizations

University committee membership

(Committees which meet frequently awarded

more points)

Office held in university committee

College committee membership

(Committees which meet frequently awarded

more points)

Office held in college committee

Departmental committee membership

(Committees which meet frequently awarded

more points)

Office held in departmental committee

Sponsorship of student groups

Recruiting activity

Representation of department at university events

(Graduations, view day, orientations, etc.)