ACADEMIC SENATE MINUTES

March 7, 2016

The regular meeting of the Academic Senate, held on March 7, 2016, was called to order at 3:07 p.m. by Bill Johnson, Senate President. The meeting was held in HSEB 1730.

Present: Ole Fischer, Sarah Hinners, Jeff Coles, Todd Zenger, Gary Lowder, Yongmei Ni, Janiece Pompa, A.K. Balaji, Robert Hitchcock, Sudeep Kanungo, Meredith Metzger, Edward M. Trujillo,

Denny Berry, Michael Cottle, Ning Lu, Lien Fan Shen, Kelly Bricker, Stacy Manwaring, Les Podlog, Reva Rauk, Lorie Gage Richards, James Anderson, Karin Baumgartner, Disa Gambera, Avery Holton, Anne Jamison, Lex Newman, Robin Craig, David Hill, Terry Kogan, John Bramble, Alicia Brillon, Luke Leither, Jill Moriearty, Jennifer Garvin, Michelle Hofmann, Antoinette Laskey, William Lowrance, Nicole Mihalopoulos, Christy Porucznik, Ravi Ranjan, Debra Simmons, Robert A. Stephenson, Frederick Strathmann, Marjorie Chan, David Dinter, Paul Jewell, Mollie Cummins, Andrea Bild, Jindrich Kopecek, Linda Tyler, Randy Dryer, Peter Alfeld, Yekaterina Epshteyn, David Goldenberg, Joel Miller, Dmytro Pesin, Thomas Richmond, John Sperry, Andrejs Treibergs, Frances Friedrich, Lori Kowaleski-Jones, Baodong Liu, Duncan Metcalfe, Lina Svedin, Norman Waitzman, Wade Cole, Jason Castillo, Patrick Panos, Mary Beth Vogel-Ferguson, Cindy Chen, John Muhs, Keegan Brown, Gaby Zumaeta, Anthony Oyler

Absent: Lyda Bigelow, Scott Schaefer, Melissa Lewis, Jeff Nielsen, Olga Baker, Leticia Alvarez, Orly Alter, Xiaoyue Liu, Joe Marotta, Steve Roens, Julie Metos, Adrian Palmer, John T. Langell, Maureen A. Murtaugh, Jody Rosenblatt, Scott T. Youngquist, Jordan Gerton, Michael Shapiro, Joan Brenner-Coltrain, Marley Arango, Daniel Barber, Chris Bell, Douglas Chan, Devin Daniels, Conrad Dean, Ambra Jackson, Aubrey Keaney, Jaycee Lynn Christensen, Andy Moyle, Julie Olaf, John Peterson, Ashlee Ruff, Amy Simonsen, Hannah Stinson

Ex-Officio: Robert Flores, William Johnson, Paul A. Mogren, Xan Johnson, David W. Pershing, Amy Wildermuth, Harriet Hopf

Excused with Proxy: Keith Bartholomew for Brenda Scheer, Matt Basso for Nadja Durbach, Randall Stewart for Maria Dobozy, Craig Dworkin for Chrisoula Andreou, Kathleen Nicoll for Thomas Cova, Cihan Bilginsoy for Nilufer Cagatay, Renee Dawsom for David Temme, Michael Deans for Katherine Kendall, Proxy for Margaret Clayton

Excused: Carrie Byington, Vivian S. Lee, Ruth Watkins

Others: Donna White

Approval of Minutes

There were no minutes for approval. February’s minutes will be available in the April meeting for approval.

Consent Calendar

The current list of appointments and resignations dated March 7, 2016 were approved without objection.

Request for New Business

No new business

Executive Committee Report

There was no Executive Committee report.

Report from ASUU

Anthony Fratto Oyler, ASUU Vice President, and Cindy Chen, ASUU Senate Chair, gave a report on ASUU’s activities. The ASUU Senate and Assembly recently passed legislation that would allocate yearly funds to the student food pantry. It was a formal change to the ASUU Constitution that added a line item to promote and keep the food pantry sustainable. The proposal will go to the Board of Trustees tomorrow. ASUU was also successful in their efforts to promote and advocate for mental health. They have increased the number of counselors on campus; the request was prompted by the fact that counselor usage at the U has increased 500% in the past 5 years with minimal staff increases in that same period. ASUU elections ended last week and the new administration will be taking office at the end of the month. On March 29 and 30, ASUU’s Diversity Board will hold the Conference on Diverse Excellence, with Director Spike Lee as the keynote speaker on the 29^th at noon in the Union Ballroom. “It’s on Us” Week, in support of sexual assault prevention, will be held the first week of April, and Mental Health Awareness Week will be held the second week of April.

Report from Administration

President David W. Pershing gave a report on the administration’s activities. He first addressed former presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s recent visit to the campus. President Pershing stated that Romney’s presence on campus was part of a standard forum held by the Hinckley Institute of Politics, and the University did not necessarily endorse or support Romney. President Pershing then addressed the legislative session, stating that there are only four more days left. He is expecting a 2% salary increase, a health benefit cost increase, $1.8 million for high demand commercial jobs in the state, $5 million in one-time funding for performance programs, and $1.2 million in one-time funding for the Huntsman Cancer Institute. President Pershing also mentioned that the University has received permission to build the Executive Education building for the David Eccles School of Business.

New Business

No requests for new business

Notice of Intent

Lincoln Davies and Randy Dryer presented the proposal for five new graduate-level certificates, from the College of Law. They mentioned that the certificates will help students with job placements and the University’s peer schools have similar certificate programs.. Motion was made by Randy Dryer and seconded by Lorie Richards to immediately move the proposal to the Debate Calendar. Motion passed unanimously. Motion was made by Linda Tyler to approve proposal and forward to the Board of Trustees. Motion seconded by Randy Dryer. Motion passed unanimously.

Nancy Lombardo and Pat Hanna from the Senate Ad hoc Faculty IT Committee presented a proposal to revise Policy 6-002 (governing the Senate and its committees) to replace the ad hoc committee with a permanent Senate committee. The committee has been working with Dan Bowden, Chief Information Security Officer, and Steve Hess, Chief Information Officer, and has considered recommendations made by the consulting firm Deloitte. They discussed a proposal for a permanent committee called the Senate Advisory Committee on Information Technology. This committee would incorporate faculty interests more often. There was a discussion about whether the committee should be a University committee or a standing Senate committee. Standing Senate committees require membership to be voted on by the Senate. The ad hoc committee recommended that the members of the standing committee be selected with the advice of the Academic Senate Executive Committee. It was stated that the Senate Personnel and Elections Committee, and Executive Committee together can nominate candidates with specific criteria in mind, and the full Senate will then be able to vote for the members—so that it can be a Senate standing committee, while still ensuring that candidates for membership are well qualified. This would be the same process already used for the Senate Advisory Committee on Budget and Planning. Motion was made by Randy Dryer and seconded by Lorie Richards to immediately move to the Debate Calendar. Motion passed unanimously. Following the motion, it was clarified that the proposal is for a revision of Policy 6-002, to add this new committee along with the existing nine standing committees of the Senate. There was a discussion about the last sentence of the proposed language within the Policy, under the section labeled “Faculty Members,” which read: “A slate of candidates will be identified and will be voted on by the Academic Senate as a whole, rather than as individual candidates.” Senator Norm Waitzman pointed out that having such a provision would be inconsistent with the fundamental principles for Senate election of members of Senate standing committees. Policy Liaison Bob Flores observed that the troublesome sentence apparently had been added to the proposal very recently after he had already vetted the proposal to ensure it was in compliance with general principles for Senate committees, and the sentence was inconsistent with what had been agreed to at the Executive Committee meeting. Bob recommended that the new sentence be struck from the proposal, and explained that with that sentence removed, the Policy would provide that faculty members of the committee be elected by the Senate through normal Senate election procedures, after a slate of nominees is developed jointly by the Executive and Personnel & Elections committees. . Motion was made by Jim Anderson to approve and forward to the Board of Trustees the proposal as presented, except with the above discussed sentence removed. Motion seconded by Randy Dryer. Motion passed unanimously.

Debate Calendar

Michael Barber and Alexi Crabb presented the proposal for the new Construction Engineering BS degree. It would be an accredited degree through the College of Engineering. The new degree introduces eight new courses to the Civil and Environmental Engineering departments. There would be a probation period for the degree until the first graduate. The state legislature approved three new faculty hires for the degree, two of them being career-line faculty. Motion was made by Jim Anderson to approve the proposal and forward to the Board of Trustees. Motion seconded by Sudeep Kanungo. Motion passed unanimously.

Ty Dickerson presented the proposal for the Global Medicine Graduate Certificate. The certificate would only be available for M.D. students. All of the requested letters of support were included in the proposal. Motion was made by Jim Anderson to approve the proposal and forward to the Board of Trustees. Motion seconded by Randy Dyer. Motion passed unanimously.

Two Senate Resolutions honoring members of the University community were proposed and approved by unanimous consent.

Senator Terry Kogan read the Senate Resolution honoring the late John Morris, long-time faculty member, Vice President and General Counsel.

Senator Bob Hitchcock read the Senate Resolution honoring Thomas N. Parks, soon to be retiring as Vice President for Research and long-time faculty member.

Information and Recommendations Calendar

The following items were presented for the information and recommendations of the Academic Senate:

Kelly Dries and Brian Burton, Associate Directors of Career Services, and Stan Inman, Director of Career Services, gave an update on the services offered through their office. They stated that there is a career services representative that works with students in each college in order to cater to their needs. They also offer to set up career pathways for individual classes so they may directly talk to students. Career Services representatives are also available to make classroom visits. The office has also hired a new internship coordinator to work on increasing job and internship opportunities. There was a discussion about global jobs and internships and their accessibility, and the Executive Committee had requested a short summary of Career Services’ resources that course instructors can include in their syllabi.
Melissa Rethlefsen and Nancy Lombardo presented the Eccles Health Sciences Library Council Charter, which has received final approval of the Senate Executive Committee. Melissa and Nancy stated that their charter is closely mirrored on the Marriott Library’s charter.
Donna White was available to answer questions about the following Reports of five reviews conducted by the Graduate Council.
- Seven-year Academic Unit Reviews on (i) the Department of Biomedical Informatics and (ii) Department of Human Genetics. After a senator pointed out that in one of the Reports there was a listing of an internal review committee participant who had in fact ultimately not participated in that review–Donna stated that she will be correcting the report by removing that person’s name from the committee description. .
- Three-Year new program Review on MS in Geographic Information Science
- Three-Year new program Review on PhD in Occupational & Environmental Health
- Three-Year new program Review on Doctor of Dental Surgery
John R. Park Teaching Fellowship

Adjournment

Meeting adjourned at 4:24 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Wogai Mohmand