The mission of the Northeastern State University Faculty Council is to promote communication and cooperation among the faculty and between the faculty and the administration.

The Faculty Council will meet at 3:00 PM on Friday, April 13, 2007 in
SCI LAB 129, BA Library Conference Room and SYN 141
[We usually set aside time at the first of each meeting to visit with Administrative Officers should they be able to attend] 
A. Committees and Standing Reports
   1. Minutes of 03/02/06  meeting (available online)
   2. Spending Report
B.  New Business
   1. Committee Assignments
   2. Appellate Elections
   3. 07-09 Officers
   4. Administrator Evaluations
   5. Student Travel (see below)
C.  Old Business
   1. Open Meetings Policy - retraction
   2. Administrative Restructuring Review 
   3. Circle of Excellence
D.  Other Business
Adjournment by 5:00 p.m.

Next Meeting, (if necessary) Friday,  May,4 2007, 3pm


Student Travel Issue
We recently had a situation in our department where 4 of our graduate students had no institutional means to apply for travel funds to present research at a regional conference. Currently our funding for GAs/graduate student travel is ad-hoc and has no institutionalized mechanism. Basically those who want funding are reduced to special pleadings to the VP or the various college Deans. In this particular case, the VP was able to offer some funding support (thank you Professor Bigbee). 

I would like to propose that we establish a university mechanism for funding travel for graduate students similar to what currently exists for faculty. I think it should be a separate account/budget. The existing committee (Faculty Development Committee) should serve to review both faculty/graduate student requests. The composition of the committee could be revised to have a graduate student representative (if desired).