MINUTES OF THE UT MARTIN SENATE MEETING
October 29, 1996
CALL TO ORDER
The second meeting of the 1996 Fall Semester was called to order at
3:20 p.m. by President Stan Sieber in the Boling Center Rooms
201-2-3. Present were 44 senators and 14 visitors.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES
The minutes of the September 24, 1996, meeting were approved as
distributed.
UNFINISHED BUSINESS
Dr. Ernest Blythe gave a brief report on the NCAA Self Study and
informed the senators that the process was drawing to a close. Copies
of the self study are now on reserve in the library. The university
community has been asked to review the self study; if anyone has
anything to add, or if there are questions, please contact Dr.
Blythe. An open hearing will be held on Thursday, October 31 at 3:00
p.m. All faculty are invited to come and sit with the committee and
make suggestions or comments.
President Sieber announced that the two recommendations sent to the Chancellor from the last senate meeting were approved. According to Dr. Blanchard, the recommendation that the Computer Center explore ways of extending general purpose lab hours through final exam week is in process. Sieber felt that the Senate should have a plan by the next Senate meeting.
REPORTS OF STANDING COMMITTEES
Budget and Economic Concerns Committee
Jim Nance was not in attendance. Jimmy Trentham, another member
of the committee, stated that there was nothing to come before the
senate at this time.
Undergraduate Council
Helmut Wenz presented and moved approval for the curriculum
changes from the School of Arts and Sciences as approved in their
October 1 meeting, with the packet coming as a motion and second.
Motion passed.
He also called the senators' attention to the last item -- regarding Multicultural Awareness -- in their minutes of October 1. The Council passed a motion to give the cultural awareness issue to the Blue Ribbon Task Force, so that they can look at the core courses for multiculturalism and come up with a recommendation to be presented to the Undergraduate Council by the end of this academic year and, hopefully, implemented next fall.
Graduate Council
Maurice Field presented and moved approval for the curriculum
changes from the School of Business as approved in their October 3
meeting, with the packet coming as a motion and second. Motion
passed.
Field also referred to the information item included in the senators' packet, which is a breakdown of the graduate enrollment for Fall 96 as compared to Fall 95.
A question was raised by James Johnson regarding the rule of waiving graduate courses over 6 years, and how many times it was been done in recent history. Johnson stated that there seem to be a lot of exceptions made for this rule. Field said he would check into the statistics for this, and it was agreed that this would be discussed at the next Graduate Council meeting. ("The time limit for the use of graduate credit toward a master's degree is six years from the beginning date of the earliest course applied toward the degree. Normally, this time limit may not be extended. In exceptional cases, courses taken beyond this period may be recognized by special written examination if given prior approval by the Graduate Council." UTM Catalog 1996-1997)
Instruction Committee
Jerald Ogg reported on two informational items from their October
8 meeting. The first item was Freshman Interest Groups (FIG); a
report on the progress of FIGs was presented to the committee by Dr.
Bob Smith who also discussed plans for next year's FIGs. The second
item was the requirement regarding the last 30 hours of course work
for students. The senators were encouraged to discuss this with the
members of the committee, and comment on this issue.
Library Committee
There was no report from the Library Committee.
Personnel Policies Committee
Frank Black informed the senators that the next meeting of the
Personnel Policies Committee will be November 12 rather than November
5. The committee plans to have hearings in January regarding tenure,
to revise the bylaws in February, and bring recommendations to the
senate in March.
Black also brought a short report from the committee with emphasis on tenure with regards to a probationary period for administrators and faculty, and to the language in the current Faculty Handbook regarding tenure and promotion (specifically 2.9.1).
There were no action items from this committee to come before the senate at this time.
Executive Committee
President Sieber reviewed the Executive Committee meeting report
of October 15. The Chancellor presented at that meeting an informal
list of 12 items brought up at the informal Open Faculty Meeting on
October 10, and requested any other areas of concern be brought to
her attention for comment and response. Additional areas of
discussion included parking and sexual harassment. It was noted that
the number of reports of sexual harassment has increased. A question
was raised as to whether it was student to student harassment or
faculty to student harassment, and the senators were told that
reports of both types had increased.
Sieber also reported on meetings he has been attending in Knoxville.
He, Jim Clark and Kay Durden attended The Counselors to the President meeting on October 14, 1996. Some of the items discussed were:
During the Board of Trustees meeting held October 24-25 the Faculty Senate Presidents from the UT campuses (TENNSENS) met with Charles Harding, members of the Board of Trustees and the Chair of TENNSENS. The main topics discussed were the issue of tenure, access to personnel folders and the personal information therein.
Since Charles Harding could not be at the Senate meeting, Sieber asked Chancellor Perry to report further on the Board of Trustees meeting held October 25. Chancellor Perry mentioned that President Joe Johnson had reported at the Board meeting that this fall's freshman class was the best in history for the University of Tennessee, the Capital Campaign is doing extremely well, and that the University, system wide, had made good progress with cost containment and reallocation. Making a surprise appearance, Governor Don Sundquist attended the meeting briefly and made brief comments about his concerns for higher education. He expressed his appreciation for the importance of Higher Education but added that the University needed to work harder at cost containment and cost cutting. He expressed concern about the formula and non-formula allocations and urged the University to consider privatization of various functions. In response to a question, he said he favored merit pay, but felt there was a need to look at tenure.
The Chancellor mentioned that UT Knoxville had a technology fee of $100 a semester, to be added to fees and tuition, approved by the Board of Trustees. The technology fee would be used to upgrade the computer facilities. Dr. Watkins stated that our students have indicated that they would not be opposed to such a fee in order to fund longer computer center hours, and upgrade the computer equipment available.
NEW BUSINESS
Dr. Johnson asked if there was a possibility that we (UT Martin)
could keep an attorney on retainer to look at things like the changes
in promotion and tenure policy. Sieber said that they would discuss
this at the next Executive Committee meeting.
ADJOURNMENT
Motion to adjourn was made and seconded; the meeting was
adjourned at 4:20 p.m.
Stan Sieber, President
Anna Clark, Secretary
kcrocker@admin.utm.edu