College of Arts & Sciences: James Armacost, Raymond Doe, Jennifer Fowler, Pat Heintzelman, B. Garrick Harden, Jennifer Huff, Sharon Joffe, Cheng-Hsien Lin, Jane Liu, J.P. Nelson, Melissa Riley, Yasuko Sato, Cengiz Sen, Jenifer Thedford, Sujing Wang
College of Business: Ashraf El-Houbi, Tim McCoy, James Slaydon, Ricardo Tovar-Silos, Kelly Weeks, Xiao Zhang
College of Education and Human Development: Tom Harvey, Eunjin Kwon, Daryl Ann Borel
College of Engineering: Clayton Jeffryes, Chun-Wei Yao
College of Fine Arts & Communication: Alan Brincks, Xenia Fedorchenko, Lilian Felipe, Brielle Frost, Millicent Musyoka, Eric McCluskey
Library: Poornima Gunasekaran
Call to order
3:31 p.m.
Taylor’s Minute – Reviewed items. 3% raise: some money will be allocated to faculty for inversion and compression.
Slaydon asked about a cost-of-living adjustment in addition to merit raise.
Weeks stated raises must be merit based in Texas (after Taylor asked audience)
University is in good shape. Legislative session keeps him up at night. Great opportunities in Texas, but higher education is struggling across the country. Lamar has best percentage increase in formula funding. Renovations are on the table. Lamar is doing very well.
Donation allows floor of Montagne Center to be replaced, other changes to help student-athletes.
Kelly Weeks – 3% raise is very appreciated. If a Dean takes part of the raise from faculty without academic criteria, that is a problem. President and Provost need to be aware of that/discuss it.
Slaydon – F2.08 fairness is a problem in the College of Business.
Slaydon – Are we still only hiring instructors? Is it only the College of Business?
Nursing Senator - Problem retaining nursing faculty.
President Taylor – There is a policy to promote instructors to Assistant Professor. Provost can answer the question in more detail.
CH Lin – Are there updates on renovations of campus buildings?
Taylor – Number one priority, utilizing space we have. Wants external group to tell us priorities.
Registrar David Short – Every future term, the deadline will be the Monday after commencement. Please do not send students to registrar; let them know that grades will post after deadline. In the future, final grades will roll at the deadline. Each course has an associated waitlist now. Students can get on the waitlist if a class is full. Short is working on a trigger to automatically notify advisors when a student drops.
CH Lin – future meetings will be run more efficiently. We will try to limit chair reports to 2 minutes.
HR will hire a specialist for HR-related grievances. Branches – Title IX, HR, Ombuds.
Preparing future leaders is important. Members are encouraged to participate in Robert’s Rules online training. Interested members should email Cheng-Hsien about this opportunity. Need more people to know how to effectively run a meeting. The first 15 senators to express interest in taking a course on Robert’s Rules will have their training sponsored by LUFS.
None of the dates for a special session received a quorum of respondents saying they would attend. Dr. Lin chose April 20 because the largest number of respondents said they could meet on that day.
Would members like to have a Faculty Senate retreat on May 4 (no class that day) 11:00a.m.-3:00p.m. or 4:00p.m. with lunch provided. The retreat would be on campus, and we would invite some faculty leaders to talk about the senate missions, meeting effectiveness, etc. No one is currently invited, but he is working with Pat to determine who to invite.
We are running elections for committees and councils and for senate seats. Faculty need one year of full-time service to vote, three years of full-time service to serve on a university committee.
Met on March 22 through Teams, and did not have a quorum. Discussed ChatGPT verbiage that needs to be added to the syllabus. Came up with language and sent to Dann Brown. Came up with a motion of verbiage to add to syllabi. Talked about rolling of grades and invited David Short to discuss rolling of grades with us. Wrote academic calendar resolution, and it was emailed out for a vote of the
committee. Melissa read the motion verbatim. Will send the calendar resolution to Dann Brown. Melissa read the motion on ChatGPT/AI verbatim. She explained that should be added beginning fall 2023. Matt Hoch seconded motion. Pat Heintzelamn explained the distinction between regenerative and generative. Sujing Wang said that ChatGPT is generative; the language of the motion was changed; Matt Hoch seconded that motion as well.
Sharon Joffe expressed concern about “supplemental resource” verbiage. Melissa Riley accepted a friendly amendment to remove the supplemental resource language.
Heintzelman said that Provost Brown was enthusiastic about making all of a student’s work be original work.
G. Harden seconded amended motion.
CH Lin read some policies on AI from other institutions. He emphasized that some universities are open to the new technology and others are looking to shut down.
Motion passed unanimously.
Met on March 22. They discussed the grievance policy and finalized it. Emailed the final version to Cheng-Hsien and Amy Jones. Added a section to address informal grievances. Concern of some faculty: informal grievance policy in formal grievance policy draft.
Kelly Weeks – Welch: everything distance ed related must go through the Faculty Senate. He said unless it is passed by the Senate it cannot go forward.
CH Lin – Faculty should have major voice in distance education curriculum, and Welch agreed.
Kelly Weeks – we previously passed a motion about not combining DE and AP sections.
Jennifer Fowler – I sent that motion to Brenda Nichols when she was Provost. She acknowledged receipt of the motion.
CH Lin – a lot of our grievance policy is similar to Texas State University policy. Dann Brown does not like having an informal grievance process in the grievance policy. I have a meeting with him tomorrow.
Salary equity plan; they will be ready to meet with us next week. Invited CFO to committee to discuss what transparency means to us. Problems within colleges. Senators have asked committee to look into merit plans.
Matt Hoch – An issue of where you stand with respect to faculty turnover. Coming up with a general metric ends up giving high-merit people a small percentage of a merit pool. Can still get a merit raise with all 1’s.
Slaydon – aired concerns about fairness of salary adjustments within the College of Business. College of Business policy on this issue previously was not applied.
All four awardees received their emails.
Faculty Evaluation – Millicent Musyoka
Met before spring break. Faculty Climate Survey questions were finished.
CH Lin – Faculty Climate Survey will start next Monday, people will have three days to complete it.
Millie – Concerns across campus about the F2.08s and how they are implemented. Dann Brown will send documents to the committee to consider different alternatives to the F2.08.
Dr. Hoch explained the new Handbook preamble, and he and Dr. Lin displayed key language from the proposal on the screen for the members to view. Hoch explained the difficulty with MAPPs at the present time.
Sharon Joffe – may be a grammar error on the motion. Maybe change it to “accompanying” from “accompanied.” Friendly amendment accepted.
Pat Heintzelman – asked about notifying people about the new handbook.
Hoch – The new handbook is still a draft; the current handbook is the January 2019 handbook. Need to approve this so we can have a new handbook before MAPPs approved.
Second (Thedford)
Motion passed unanimously
Ad Hoc Committee on Human Resources Policy and Procedure – JP Nelson
Met March 26 – no quorum
Met April 3 – relevant
Job ad for HR investigator says the new employee will need to complete tasks within timelines
CH Lin – special meeting will be April 20
Pat Heintzelman – we need to endorse 1940 AAUP Principles on Tenure and Academic Freedom. She testified at the state legislature’s higher education committee to argue in favor of tenure. Texas State Senate will pass the bill. Anti-DEI bill says no faculty member can sit on a hiring committee for a university president. Pat is testifying at the state legislature. Will ask to email her proposal on incorporating AAUP principles into Lamar policy (Handbook or by-laws?). Lamar Foundation has endorsed AAUP principles. Lamar Foundation is separate from Lamar.
CH Lin – President Taylor and Provost Brown support adding AAUP principles to Handbook.
Jennifer Fowler – requesting Dr. Lin create an ad hoc committee of willing volunteers to review our charter, by-laws, and document passed in December. Suggest that ad hoc committee meet with Dr. Brown.
CH Lin – J.P. and Provost Brown discussed by-laws. J.P. can share the letter from Provost Brown. Provost Brown and Emily Ardolino say that we cannot have a legislative body, and Faculty Senate cannot resolve grievances (grievance policy is determined by TSUS).
Motion to remove Dean Dan French (Ashraf A.) as Dean of College of Business, James Slaydon (second). Discussion: CH Lin and Kelly Weeks debated whether they can vote on the motion today. Kelly Weeks asserted it is old business and we can vote today. James Slaydon said there was a fairness issue with F2.08s, Dean said you could not get above a 4.0. Evaluations are not fair and equitable according to Slaydon. According to Slaydon, Dean French publicly shamed Kelly Weeks at last May’s meeting. Tim McCoy: Dean French opened the May meeting by accusing Kelly Weeks of creating a hostile work environment in the College of Business; embarrassed by meeting. James Slaydon: people called in to HR; grievance was filed against Kelly for a hostile environment in the meeting, and the grievance was filed before the meeting. Slaydon: heard nothing about Dean’s evaluation. James Slaydon’s chair has been acting chair for 3 years. Enrollment is up and faculty are down.
Kelly Weeks: no chance of promoting yourself within the college. Directors and chairs are all appointed. Some positions with stipends are advertised as positions for which Ph.D.’s may not apply. Kelly Weeks: I was hospitalized with a heart issue after meeting. Filed a police report for a violent attack.
16 yea 1 nay 9 abstentions – the motion passes.
Pat – NEA did a financial analysis of Lamar. Guy out of Ohio who did it said that the university’s finances are good. Texas economy is doing well too. Reports used as sources are not audited and Texas does not require that.
James Slaydon – proposing to change Dean’s Evaluation procedures.
Heintzelman – senators should stay until 5:30 p.m. if that is the time the meeting ends. Motion that members should be required to stay until the end of the meeting.
Slaydon (motion); Fowler (second)