Meeting Minutes
ACADEMIC SENATE
March 5, 2018
Call to Order
The regular meeting of the Academic Senate, held on March 5, 2018, was called to order at 3:02
pm by Senate President Margaret Clayton. The meeting was held in the Moot Courtroom of the
College of Law.
Present: Sarah Hinners, Elena Asparouhova, Shmuel Baruch, Brian Cadman, Annie
Fukushima, Darryl Butt, Lauren Liang, Rajeev Balasubramonian, Sudeep
Kanungo, Hanseup Kim, Ken Monson, John Regehr, Frank Sachse, James
Sutherland, Denny Berry, Laurel Caryn, Michael Chikinda, Bo Foreman,
Stacy Manwaring, Jim Martin, Susan Naidu, Nelson Roy, Alex Terrill,
James Anderson, Eric Hinderaker, Anne Lair, Lex Newman, Randy Dryer,
Terry Kogan, Tom Lund, John Bramble, Luke Leither, Brandon Patterson,
Julie Barkmeier–Kraemer, Pinar Bayrak–Toydemir, Nadia Cobb, Julio
Facelli, Per Gesteland, Antoinette Laskey, Nicole L. Mihalopoulos, Kalani
Raphael, Brad Rockwell, Debra Simmons, Ravi Chandran, Jessica
Wempen, Linda Tyler, Ann Engar, Joel Brownstein, Tommaso de Fernex,
Yekaterina Epshteyn, Dragan Milicic, Jon Seger, Jennifer Shumaker–
Parry, Gunseli Berik, Sheila Crowell, Baodong Liu, Sharon Mastracci,
Duncan Metcalfe, Kathleen Nicoll, Zhou Yu, Mary Beth Vogel–Ferguson,
Joanne Yaffe, Micah Smith, Valerie Guerrero, Emina Tatarevic, Jacob
Lopez, Elizabeth Pohl, Trevor Annis, Nathan Ong, Michael Stapley,
Kaitlin McLean, India Kozlowski, Zach Berger
Absent: Brenda Scheer, Shundana Yusaf, Robert Allen, Nitin Bakshi, Jeff Nielsen,
Todd Zenger, Olga Baker, Mark Durham, James Winkler, Leticia Alvarez,
John Funk, Chuck Dorval, Winston Kyan, Ning Lu, Sean Lawson,
Maureen Mathison, Mia Hashibe, Ken Johnson, Shaji Menon, Diego
Fernandez, Lauren Clark, Susanna Cohen, Andrea Bild, Dmytro Pesin,
Adrienne Cachelin, Nicholas Gochnor, Chandler Dean, Chase Peterson,
Ailien Luu, Summer Mikkelsen, Abigail Stover, Ananya Roy
Ex Officio: Margaret Clayton, Bob Flores, Xan Johnson, Paul Mogren, Tom
Richmond, David Pershing, Ruth Watkins
Excused with proxy: Melonie Murray, Gema Guevara, Ilya Zharov, David Goldenberg, Pearl
Sandick, Korkut Erturk, Melanie Barber, Carley Herrick
Excused: Alberta Comer, Lorris Betz, Sr., Katharine Coles, Patricia Hanna, Amnon
Schlegel, Thomas Winter, Sara Simonsen, Donald Blumenthal, Sarah
Bush, Kim Korinek, Jason Castillo
2
Others: Emily Beard, Lauren Perry, James Barber, Christine McMillan, Chris
Lewis, John Conboy, Doug Bergman, Norm Waitzman
Approval of Minutes:
The minutes dated February 5, 2018 were approved with a motion from Jim Anderson and a
second from Xan Johnson.
Consent Calendar:
The Consent Calendar items dated March 5, 2018 were approved unanimously.
Executive Committee Report
Tom Richmond gave an update on the activities of the Executive Committee. He noted that some
files came in late, including the Faculty Matters spreadsheet with a number of administrative
appointments, included in the Consent Calendar.
Request for New Business
No new business
Report from Administration:
President Dave Pershing gave an update on the recent activities of the U’s administration. It is
his last Senate meeting as university president. He said that incoming president Ruth Watkins
believes strongly in faculty governance and will continue the close relationship between the
Senate and administration. President Pershing is still working closely with the legislature; the
session closes on March 8. His tentative news is positive; he thinks the U will get at least 2
percent compensation increases, as well as funding for the student growth request, completion
initiative request, and workforce funding request. He also thinks the U will receive permission
for the new undergraduate housing complex on campus. Finally, he said faculty should not be
worried if they are in the middle of the RPT process, as he and Ruth are working closely to
ensure that nothing slips through the cracks in the leadership transition.
Report from ASUU
Zach Berger gave an update on the recent activities of ASUU. He talked about ASUU’s primary
initiative this year to increase funding and awareness for student mental health. They have
proposed a new student fee for mental health funding, which will go before the Board of
Trustees soon. He showed a video that the Utah Student Association created to promote student
mental health issues on campus. He also noted that ASUU is rewriting its constitution and
bylaws, to ensure they are in accordance with U policy. He also asked faculty to promote student
participation in ASUU elections between March 12–15.
Notice of Intent
No items of intent
Debate Calendar
Others: Emily Beard, Lauren Perry, James Barber, Christine McMillan, Chris
Lewis, John Conboy, Doug Bergman, Norm Waitzman
Approval of Minutes:
The minutes dated February 5, 2018 were approved with a motion from Jim Anderson and a
second from Xan Johnson.
Consent Calendar:
The Consent Calendar items dated March 5, 2018 were approved unanimously.
Executive Committee Report
Tom Richmond gave an update on the activities of the Executive Committee. He noted that some
files came in late, including the Faculty Matters spreadsheet with a number of administrative
appointments, included in the Consent Calendar.
Request for New Business
No new business
Report from Administration:
President Dave Pershing gave an update on the recent activities of the U’s administration. It is
his last Senate meeting as university president. He said that incoming president Ruth Watkins
believes strongly in faculty governance and will continue the close relationship between the
Senate and administration. President Pershing is still working closely with the legislature; the
session closes on March 8. His tentative news is positive; he thinks the U will get at least 2
percent compensation increases, as well as funding for the student growth request, completion
initiative request, and workforce funding request. He also thinks the U will receive permission
for the new undergraduate housing complex on campus. Finally, he said faculty should not be
worried if they are in the middle of the RPT process, as he and Ruth are working closely to
ensure that nothing slips through the cracks in the leadership transition.
Report from ASUU
Zach Berger gave an update on the recent activities of ASUU. He talked about ASUU’s primary
initiative this year to increase funding and awareness for student mental health. They have
proposed a new student fee for mental health funding, which will go before the Board of
Trustees soon. He showed a video that the Utah Student Association created to promote student
mental health issues on campus. He also noted that ASUU is rewriting its constitution and
bylaws, to ensure they are in accordance with U policy. He also asked faculty to promote student
participation in ASUU elections between March 12–15.
Notice of Intent
No items of intent
Debate Calendar
3
Stuart Culver presented a proposal for a new interdisciplinary minor in Medical Humanities.
Medical Humanities is a growing field nationally, and there are graduate programs in which U
undergrads would like to enroll. Additionally, it is an area of prominent research for Humanities
faculty. The proposal is targeted at students with career aspirations in health professions and
medicine–– to this end, it is articulated to mesh with the LEAP and Block U programs for pre–
health students–– as well as students in fields such as communications and philosophy, to provide
a cross–disciplinary approach to the growing field. Motion was made by Joanne Yaffe to approve
the proposal and forward to the Board of Trustees. Motion seconded by Jim Anderson. Motion
passed unanimously.
Information and Recommendations Calendar
The following items were presented for the information and recommendations of the Academic
Senate:
Vice President Ruth Watkins, and Mark Winter of the Office of Budget and Institutional
Analysis, gave a report on the University’s use of information from Academic Analytics.
Academic Analytics is a data service that allows comparing performance of disciplines at
the U with those at peer institutions across the country. The default comparison group is
institutions that offer PhD programs across the country, but the comparison group may be
narrowed to other groups, such as the AAUP or the Pac–12. The data is only related to
scholarship (not other work of faculty). The primary indicators are faculty count, article
count, award count, federal grant dollars, and citation count. There were significant
increase in all categories between 2015 and 2016 at the U, particularly in federal grant
dollars and citation counts. In that same time period, the U moved past eight institutions,
including Oregon State University, Indiana University, and University of Arizona. Ruth
emphasized that the University will only use this service to make comparisons at the
department level (i.e., comparing performance of a department at the U to a similar
department at another institution), and never to judge the performance of individual
faculty members for RPT or other types of performance reviews of faculty. She also
noted that, once in a while, the system does err by conflating individuals with similar
names. Additionally, Academic Analytics does not capture some factors, but these factors
are excluded across the board (affecting analysis of all institutions). Finally, she noted
that Academic Analytics is more useful in some fields than in others (for example, it does
not capture creative activity, and is thus less useful in the fine arts). It was clarified that
the citations count only includes citations of articles published within a recent timeframe.
Mark Winter then gave a live demonstration of the functionality of the system. The
system may be used to facilitate faculty recognition, as well as peer institution
comparison benchmarking. There is a Collaborations mechanism, that shows the
strongest networks of collaboration across campus. There is also a Research Portal, which
allows for a search of faculty members across the country doing research in a certain
field. There is also a filter that allows searches for individuals that have any affiliation
with the University of Utah (or any other institution). The data is currently accessible to
deans and department chairs, so any data requests should be routed through those
Stuart Culver presented a proposal for a new interdisciplinary minor in Medical Humanities.
Medical Humanities is a growing field nationally, and there are graduate programs in which U
undergrads would like to enroll. Additionally, it is an area of prominent research for Humanities
faculty. The proposal is targeted at students with career aspirations in health professions and
medicine–– to this end, it is articulated to mesh with the LEAP and Block U programs for pre–
health students–– as well as students in fields such as communications and philosophy, to provide
a cross–disciplinary approach to the growing field. Motion was made by Joanne Yaffe to approve
the proposal and forward to the Board of Trustees. Motion seconded by Jim Anderson. Motion
passed unanimously.
Information and Recommendations Calendar
The following items were presented for the information and recommendations of the Academic
Senate:
Vice President Ruth Watkins, and Mark Winter of the Office of Budget and Institutional
Analysis, gave a report on the University’s use of information from Academic Analytics.
Academic Analytics is a data service that allows comparing performance of disciplines at
the U with those at peer institutions across the country. The default comparison group is
institutions that offer PhD programs across the country, but the comparison group may be
narrowed to other groups, such as the AAUP or the Pac–12. The data is only related to
scholarship (not other work of faculty). The primary indicators are faculty count, article
count, award count, federal grant dollars, and citation count. There were significant
increase in all categories between 2015 and 2016 at the U, particularly in federal grant
dollars and citation counts. In that same time period, the U moved past eight institutions,
including Oregon State University, Indiana University, and University of Arizona. Ruth
emphasized that the University will only use this service to make comparisons at the
department level (i.e., comparing performance of a department at the U to a similar
department at another institution), and never to judge the performance of individual
faculty members for RPT or other types of performance reviews of faculty. She also
noted that, once in a while, the system does err by conflating individuals with similar
names. Additionally, Academic Analytics does not capture some factors, but these factors
are excluded across the board (affecting analysis of all institutions). Finally, she noted
that Academic Analytics is more useful in some fields than in others (for example, it does
not capture creative activity, and is thus less useful in the fine arts). It was clarified that
the citations count only includes citations of articles published within a recent timeframe.
Mark Winter then gave a live demonstration of the functionality of the system. The
system may be used to facilitate faculty recognition, as well as peer institution
comparison benchmarking. There is a Collaborations mechanism, that shows the
strongest networks of collaboration across campus. There is also a Research Portal, which
allows for a search of faculty members across the country doing research in a certain
field. There is also a filter that allows searches for individuals that have any affiliation
with the University of Utah (or any other institution). The data is currently accessible to
deans and department chairs, so any data requests should be routed through those
4
individuals. Finally, Ruth noted that academic analytics will be critical to the U hopefully
receiving an invitation to join the Association of American Universities (AAU).
Bill Johnson, as interim committee chair, presented a report from the Senate ad hoc
committee on faculty review of administrators. The committee, which started its work in
2015, has surveyed units across campus and found that administrator reviews are not
erformed consistently across units, solicitation of faculty/staff/student input is uneven
across units, constituent faculty/staff/students are sometimes unaware of reviews, and
solicited input from constituent groups is not provided back to the groups following the
review. The committee also reviewed policies and practices at other institutions in the
Pac–12, and explored the possibility of U faculty participating in administering the
collection of faculty/staff/student constituent input for reviews, and then providing
information back to those constituent groups following the review. Included with the
committee’s report was the committee’s in–concept proposal for a new Senate committee
that would play a limited role in administrator reviews, by collecting constituent input to
be used for conducting mid– and full–term reviews for deans and department chairs across
campus. One aspect of the proposal is for senators to serve as the college representatives
on the committee. In response to a question, Bill noted that reviews of directors of
centers, institutes, and bureaus are not included in the proposal at this point, but would
likely be included at a later phase if/when the process is established. After several
senators rose and spoke in favor of further exploring such a proposal, a ‘straw poll’ vote
was conducted to gauge interest in moving forward with the proposal–– a majority of
senators expressed support.
Sharon Aiken–Wisniewski gave a report on the activities of the Senate Advisory
Committee for Academic Policy. It has considered the issue of the policy related to final
exams, that sits within Policy 6–100. The primary issue is related to final exams being
held at times other than the designated exam time during final exam week (e.g., most
commonly during the last week of regular classes for the semester). The committee has
surveyed peer institutions, and is considering the definition of what constitutes an
“exam.” The committee is considering proposing a University Rule in conjunction with
Policy 6–100 to clarify what constitutes an “exam” and thus what should fall within finals
week, as well as what culminating experiences might fall during the last week of classes.
Randy Dryer, as chair of the Senate Personnel and Elections Committee gave an update
on preparations for the upcoming annual Senate elections, and the faculty committee
interest survey. He encouraged faculty from Mines & Earth Sciences, Nursing,
Education, and Law to fill out the survey, due to low response rates to date. The survey
will close on March 9, and voting for Senate standing committee membership for 2018–
2019 will occur electronically between April 9 and April 20. Election results will be
announced at the final Senate meeting on April 30.
Bob Flores, as Senate Policy Liaison, gave an update from the Institutional Policy
Committee regarding new guidance documents. He noted that the U’s Regulations
website catalogs all of the regulations for the institution. He noted that there is a category
of regulation, called “guidelines,” to assist members of the U community in adhering to
policy. There are two new guidelines that merit special attention. First, new Guideline 1–
individuals. Finally, Ruth noted that academic analytics will be critical to the U hopefully
receiving an invitation to join the Association of American Universities (AAU).
Bill Johnson, as interim committee chair, presented a report from the Senate ad hoc
committee on faculty review of administrators. The committee, which started its work in
2015, has surveyed units across campus and found that administrator reviews are not
erformed consistently across units, solicitation of faculty/staff/student input is uneven
across units, constituent faculty/staff/students are sometimes unaware of reviews, and
solicited input from constituent groups is not provided back to the groups following the
review. The committee also reviewed policies and practices at other institutions in the
Pac–12, and explored the possibility of U faculty participating in administering the
collection of faculty/staff/student constituent input for reviews, and then providing
information back to those constituent groups following the review. Included with the
committee’s report was the committee’s in–concept proposal for a new Senate committee
that would play a limited role in administrator reviews, by collecting constituent input to
be used for conducting mid– and full–term reviews for deans and department chairs across
campus. One aspect of the proposal is for senators to serve as the college representatives
on the committee. In response to a question, Bill noted that reviews of directors of
centers, institutes, and bureaus are not included in the proposal at this point, but would
likely be included at a later phase if/when the process is established. After several
senators rose and spoke in favor of further exploring such a proposal, a ‘straw poll’ vote
was conducted to gauge interest in moving forward with the proposal–– a majority of
senators expressed support.
Sharon Aiken–Wisniewski gave a report on the activities of the Senate Advisory
Committee for Academic Policy. It has considered the issue of the policy related to final
exams, that sits within Policy 6–100. The primary issue is related to final exams being
held at times other than the designated exam time during final exam week (e.g., most
commonly during the last week of regular classes for the semester). The committee has
surveyed peer institutions, and is considering the definition of what constitutes an
“exam.” The committee is considering proposing a University Rule in conjunction with
Policy 6–100 to clarify what constitutes an “exam” and thus what should fall within finals
week, as well as what culminating experiences might fall during the last week of classes.
Randy Dryer, as chair of the Senate Personnel and Elections Committee gave an update
on preparations for the upcoming annual Senate elections, and the faculty committee
interest survey. He encouraged faculty from Mines & Earth Sciences, Nursing,
Education, and Law to fill out the survey, due to low response rates to date. The survey
will close on March 9, and voting for Senate standing committee membership for 2018–
2019 will occur electronically between April 9 and April 20. Election results will be
announced at the final Senate meeting on April 30.
Bob Flores, as Senate Policy Liaison, gave an update from the Institutional Policy
Committee regarding new guidance documents. He noted that the U’s Regulations
website catalogs all of the regulations for the institution. He noted that there is a category
of regulation, called “guidelines,” to assist members of the U community in adhering to
policy. There are two new guidelines that merit special attention. First, new Guideline 1–
5
002 is a convenient template for preparing meeting minutes of university meetings. The
Office of General Counsel developed the template, to give people a better idea of what
information minutes should include, how detailed they should be, etc. Second, new
Guideline 6–001A provides information for how academic departments should prepare
their now–required Curriculum Management Plans (which have become required
following the most recent reaccreditation of the U). These and other guidelines are
available through the University Regulations Website at
https://regulations.utah.edu/info/policyList.php
New Business
No new business
Open Discussion
The following remarks were made during the Open Discussion portion of the meeting.
Kaitlin McLean, Science– Kaitlin, the student senator from the College of Science,
commented about a potential future proposal that would remove the student vote in the
RPT process. She said that students are passionate about this topic, desire to know the
motivation for the potential change, and are proud to have student voice in the RPT
process and do not wish for it to be taken away. Bob Flores responded to this comment––
explaining that as Senate Policy Liaison he has been representing the Senate in meetings
of a Task Force that has been developing the proposal. He said that the proposal will
almost certainly be coming forward to the Senate in the near future. The proposal will
include a change regarding how departments engage student input in the process of
conducting reviews of tenure–line faculty members for RPT decisions. As it now stands,
student input is received through student advisory committees (SACs) within each
department; the new proposal would no longer require that student input be brought
through that mechanism, but would allow departments flexibility in designing systems
through which they would solicit and take into account student feedback during faculty
review processes. The existing Policy states that SACs have a vote in the series of votes
in the RPT process, and that its negative vote (or any other one negative vote) has the
power to send the case to the University Promotion and Tenure Advisory Committee
(effectively to an appeals process). The proposal will include removing this potentiality.
Bob said the task force has sought more student feedback in this process, and is working
with ASUU to ensure that students are involved in the remaining stages of this process.
There was further discussion from the floor. Toni Laskey asked how often the SAC votes
are contrary to the votes of the rest of the department, and was concerned about whether
negative SAC votes indeed indicate pertinent problems with the faculty member being
evaluated. Joanne Yaffe noted that the proposal is not to remove student input, but to
reorganize and preserve student input. She also noted that many cases that come to
UPTAC have a dissenting SAC vote, or a dissenting vote from part of a SAC (i.e. the
graduate or the undergraduate part); in these cases, UPTAC takes the student input very
seriously and ensures it is heard. Zach Berger said that students feel there have been
barriers to their ability to provide their input and feedback to this process and proposal.
002 is a convenient template for preparing meeting minutes of university meetings. The
Office of General Counsel developed the template, to give people a better idea of what
information minutes should include, how detailed they should be, etc. Second, new
Guideline 6–001A provides information for how academic departments should prepare
their now–required Curriculum Management Plans (which have become required
following the most recent reaccreditation of the U). These and other guidelines are
available through the University Regulations Website at
https://regulations.utah.edu/info/policyList.php
New Business
No new business
Open Discussion
The following remarks were made during the Open Discussion portion of the meeting.
Kaitlin McLean, Science– Kaitlin, the student senator from the College of Science,
commented about a potential future proposal that would remove the student vote in the
RPT process. She said that students are passionate about this topic, desire to know the
motivation for the potential change, and are proud to have student voice in the RPT
process and do not wish for it to be taken away. Bob Flores responded to this comment––
explaining that as Senate Policy Liaison he has been representing the Senate in meetings
of a Task Force that has been developing the proposal. He said that the proposal will
almost certainly be coming forward to the Senate in the near future. The proposal will
include a change regarding how departments engage student input in the process of
conducting reviews of tenure–line faculty members for RPT decisions. As it now stands,
student input is received through student advisory committees (SACs) within each
department; the new proposal would no longer require that student input be brought
through that mechanism, but would allow departments flexibility in designing systems
through which they would solicit and take into account student feedback during faculty
review processes. The existing Policy states that SACs have a vote in the series of votes
in the RPT process, and that its negative vote (or any other one negative vote) has the
power to send the case to the University Promotion and Tenure Advisory Committee
(effectively to an appeals process). The proposal will include removing this potentiality.
Bob said the task force has sought more student feedback in this process, and is working
with ASUU to ensure that students are involved in the remaining stages of this process.
There was further discussion from the floor. Toni Laskey asked how often the SAC votes
are contrary to the votes of the rest of the department, and was concerned about whether
negative SAC votes indeed indicate pertinent problems with the faculty member being
evaluated. Joanne Yaffe noted that the proposal is not to remove student input, but to
reorganize and preserve student input. She also noted that many cases that come to
UPTAC have a dissenting SAC vote, or a dissenting vote from part of a SAC (i.e. the
graduate or the undergraduate part); in these cases, UPTAC takes the student input very
seriously and ensures it is heard. Zach Berger said that students feel there have been
barriers to their ability to provide their input and feedback to this process and proposal.
6
He worries that the proposal is too vague and allows too much departmental discretion in
solicitation of student feedback; he wants to see more concrete manners in which student
feedback will be considered. Ravi Chandran asked about the scope of the problem; Bob
Flores said that student feedback provided through the SAC mechanism has often been
ill–prepared and unreliable, and had too much weight in a major decision for a faculty
member’s career. Another student requested that faculty senators reach out to the student
senators from their colleges to seek their input on the proposal. Julio Facelli requested a
detailed rationale from the task force when it brings its proposal forward.
Adjournment
Meeting adjourned at 4:40 pm.
Respectfully submitted,
Maddy Oritt
He worries that the proposal is too vague and allows too much departmental discretion in
solicitation of student feedback; he wants to see more concrete manners in which student
feedback will be considered. Ravi Chandran asked about the scope of the problem; Bob
Flores said that student feedback provided through the SAC mechanism has often been
ill–prepared and unreliable, and had too much weight in a major decision for a faculty
member’s career. Another student requested that faculty senators reach out to the student
senators from their colleges to seek their input on the proposal. Julio Facelli requested a
detailed rationale from the task force when it brings its proposal forward.
Adjournment
Meeting adjourned at 4:40 pm.
Respectfully submitted,
Maddy Oritt