December 5, 2016

Dec 05 2016
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Meeting Minutes

ACADEMIC SENATE MINUTES December 5, 2016 Call to Order The regular meeting of the Academic Senate, held on December 5, 2016, was called to order at 3:04 pm by Xan Johnson, Senate President. The meeting was held in the Carolyn Tanner Irish Humanities Building, room 109. Present: Sarah Hinners, Brenda Scheer, Robert Allen, Elena Asparouhova, Brian Cadman, David Plumlee, Alberta Comer, Olga Baker, Mark Durham, Yongmei Ni, John Funk, Chuck Dorval, Mathieu Francoeur, Sudeep Kanungo, Xiaoyue Liu, Ken Monson, Edward M. Trujillo, Denny Berry, Michael Chikinda, Ning Lu, Joe Marotta, Melonie Murray, Stacy Manwaring, Jim Martin, Julie Metos, Nelson Roy, James Anderson, Karin Baumgartner, Disa Gambera, Eric Hinderaker, Lex Newman, Adrian Palmer, David Hill, Tom Lund, John Bramble, Alicia Brillon, Luke , either, Julie Barkmeier–Kraemer, Julio Facelli, Per Gesteland, Mia Hashibe, Katherine Kendall, Antoinette Laskey, Nicole L. Mihalopoulos, Ravi Ranjan, Frederick Strathmann, Ravi Chandran, Paul Jewell, Lauren Clark, Sara Simonsen, Lynn Hollister, Donald Blumenthal, Joel Brownstein Tommaso de Fernex, Yekaterina Epshten, David Goldenberg, Pearl Sandick, Michael Shapiro, John Sperry, Andrejs Treibergs, Adrienne Cachelin, Thomas Cova, Duncan Metcalfe, Paul White, Zhou Yu, Edmund Fong, Joanne Yaffe, Lauren Adams, Caroline Li, Zach Marquez, Robert Coffman, Rachel Petersen, Carley Herrick, Jake Knight, Kyndle Pardun, Connor Roach, Jack Bender Absent: Shundana Yusaf, Adam Meirowitz, Jeff Nielsen, Todd Zenger, Hanseup Kim, Michael Cottle, Susan Naidu, Nadja Durbach, Avery Holton, Sean Lawson, Terry Kogan, John T. Langell, Brad Rockwell, Robert A. Stephenson, Andrea Bild, Linda Tyler, Randy Dryer, Dmytro Pesin, Thomas Richmond, Jennifer Shumaker–Parry, Wade Cole, Korkut Erturk, Baodong Liu, Mary Beth Vogel–Ferguson, Madison Day, Ashley Wilcox, Zach Zundel, Edwin Lin, Caleb Hoffman, Jake Tschirhart, Anthony Minjarez, Sabrina Hancock, Franco Jin Ex–Officio: Bill Johnson, Robert Flores, Xan Johnson, Paul Mogren, Margaret Clayton, David Pershing Excused with proxy: Dianne Harris, Rajeev Balasubramonian, David Dinter, Lina Svedin, Jason Castillo Excused: Vivian Lee, Leticia Alvarez, Ruth Watkins, Les Podlog, Nadia Cobb, Maureen Murtaugh, Thomas Winter Others: Steve Ott Approval of Minutes The minutes for October were approved with a motion by Jim Anderson. Motion passed unanimously.

Consent Calendar The current list of appointments and resignations dated December 5, 2016 were approved with a motion by Jim Anderson and second by Paul White. Motion passed unanimously. It was called to attention, with a round of applause, that included on the list is the announcement of the retirement and appointment to emeritus status of Ed Trujillo, a current member of the Senate in attendance today, who has served the Senate in many capacities over a lengthy illustrious career on the faculty, including multiple terms as chairperson of the Senate Advisory Committee on Diversity. Executive Committee Report Mardie Clayton said that everything seen by the Executive Committee in its previous meeting would be seen by the Senate today. Request for New Business No new business Report from Administration David Pershing gave an update on the U administration’s activities. The Utah football team will be playing Indiana University in the Foster Farms Bowl. In other PAC–12 news, the University of Washington football team, which won the PAC–12 Championship, was selected to play in the College Football Playoffs. In other news, U administration is working on the run–up to the legislative session. Senator Vickers has become Senate Co–chair for Higher Education; he is a U School of Pharmacy graduate. The U’s focus for the upcoming legislative session is on compensation, market demand funding, and the $50 million request for the Medical Education Discovery Complex. President Pershing also noted that they are starting to see undergraduate applications for next fall, and the number of applications is much higher than at this point last year. Other assorted news items included that finalists are being interviewed for the position of Chief Design Officer, and a $99 million dollar replacement of the campus heating system is now underway. Report from ASUU Jack Bender gave an update on ASUU’s recent activities. ASUU has extended its deadline for legislative candidates (for Assembly or Senate) to file; the new deadline is January 20, 2017 at 5 pm. Notice of Intent No Items of Intent Debate Calendar Dale Spartz, Jeff Herring, Wendy Poppleton, Kris Arko, and Sarah Sherer (of the main campus and hospitals & clinics Human Resources offices) presented several policy changes related to faculty and staff benefits and leave. Significant aspects of the changes include: changes to hospital and clinic staff taking health–related leaves of absence; changes to leave as an ADA reasonable accommodation for someone with a disability; broadening of definition of “immediate family” to match other university policy; change in terminology from “exempt”/”non–exempt” categories of employees to “salaried”/”hourly” categories; and vacation
time for faculty on 12–month appointments and administrative officers with 25 days of accrued vacation per year can now roll over (up to 10 days of vacation time) into the next year. Discussion on this proposal included a question and answer about the adequacy of the extent to which staff employee representatives had been consulted about and able to participate in formulating these changed regulations. It was explained that the role of the Institutional Policy Committee, which tracks all proposals for revising regulations, includes ensuring that the University Staff Council (elected representatives of staff) is consulted on proposals such as this, affecting benefits for staff employees. Motion was made by Jim Anderson to approve the proposal and forward to the Board of Trustees. Motion seconded by Nicole Mihalopoulos. Motion passed unanimously. It was explained that not included in today’s proposal is a set of changes to regulations on retirement benefits for faculty members, including various privileges for emeritus retirees. That set of changes was initially set by the Executive Committee to be included on today’s agenda, but was then pulled back to be further refined, and will be brought to the Senate in the near future. Sarah Projansky presented a proposal for a new Master of Arts in Teaching degree, from the College of Fine Arts. Nationwide, there are many similar degree programs, but they are usually generic in terms of subject area. This would be the first program nationwide with a focus on Fine Arts. It is an interdisciplinary program, drawing on faculty from across the college. It is an online hybrid course, requiring mostly online work with two summer–intensive on–site programs. The program is expected to appeal to community arts educators, licensed teachers who desire more education in arts teaching, as well as applicants nationwide, due to the unique nature and format of the program. Motion was made by Joanne Yaffe to approve the proposal and forward to the Board of Trustees. Motion seconded by Sudeep Kanungo. Motion passed unanimously. Information and Recommendations Calendar The following items were presented for the information and recommendations of the Academic Senate: David Hill presented the Senate Personnel & Elections Committee’s findings with regard to campus store–related University committees. The existing Campus Store Advisory Committee, which the P&E Committee has historically been responsible for recommending faculty members to serve on, was formed when the provision of course materials was mainly the responsibility of the campus store. Course materials have changed, with respect to type of materials, delivery, and how they are provided to students. When SVP Watkins came to the U, she put together a task force to analyze course materials provision, with an eye to keeping costs down. Part of the study led to the creation of an ad hoc committee on course materials– the Course Materials Services Team. The work of the Campus Store Advisory Committee has been taken over by this ad hoc committee. The P&E Committee voted to recommend to President Pershing that the Campus Store Advisory Committee be eliminated as a University committee, and that the Course Materials Services Team be formalized, in particular to help shore up faculty representation and keep costs low. The recommendations will now be moved to President Pershing. Erik Brunvand presented the University Teaching Committee’s recommendations for the Distinguished Teaching Awards. The award comes with a $5,000 salary raise. Fifteen candidates
were considered, and four were selected: David Morton, Jordan Gerton, Kristen Keefe, and Rebecca Utz. New Business No new business Adjournment Meeting adjourned at 3:45 pm. Respectfully submitted, Maddy Oritt