DRAFT - NOT YET APPROVED
NORTHEASTERN STATE UNIVERSITY
Minutes of Faculty Council Meeting
Friday, April 13, 2007

A.  Call to Order

The meeting was called to order by President John Yeutter in SL129.  There was ITV access at Muskogee, Broken Arrow and Tahlequah.

Council Members in attendance: Ernst Bekkering (Business & Technology), Jennifer Edwards (Liberal Arts), Harriett Hobbs, (Library), Rick Matzen (Science & Health Professions), Alan McKee (Optometry), Bill Rosener (Business & Technology), Thomas Salmon (Optometry), David Scott (Liberal Arts), Lallie Scott (Liberal Arts),  Dan Sisk (Science & Health Professions), Dawn Yonally (Education)

Council Members in attendance in Broken Arrow: Pam Cristol (),  Joan Wipf (Education)

Council Officers in attendance:  John Diamantopoulos (Vice President), Linda West (Secretary/Treasurer), John Yeutter (President).

Guests:   Laura Boren (Interim Dean of Students), Fritz Laux (Business & Technology)

Invited Presentations

[Council will set aside time at the first of each meeting to visit with President Williams, VP Academic Affairs Bigbee and/or VP Administration Cherry should they be able to attend.]

A. Committees and Standing Reports
     1. Minutes of March 2 meeting. 
Minutes of the March meeting were reviewed and corrections were made.  Hobbs moved to approve the minutes as corrected, it was seconded by Sisk.  The motion passed.

    2.  Financial Report
No change since last report.  The Council approved travel for the President of Faculty Council to the Regents meeting in Oklahoma City on April 14th.

B . New Business
    1.  Committee Assignments
   
       Names of faculty were suggested for the following committees: 
Parking
Curriculum and Education Policy
Faculty Development
Faculty Research
Publications Board
Strategic Planning
Student Conduct

    2.  Appellate Elections

We need workers for the election on Tuesday, April 24.  Hours are 8-5 in Tahlequah and 3-6 in Broken Arrow.  Yeutter will work the Broken Arrow election.  Officer elections will happen at the same time.

    3.    07-09 Officers

Names have been submitted for the election.  At this time some candidates are still considering running.

    4.  Administrator Evaluations

AAUP has discontinued doing evaluations.  Yeutter will set up one electronically.  He will use Survey Monkey and have a one week window for submissions.  He will use the same questions with President, 3 Vice Presidents, Dr. Bahr, Graduate Dean, Academic Deans and Director of Libraries.  He will report data in overall scores.  The questions have been submitted to IRB and Dr. Bigbee added a question.

    5.  Student Travel * See Below

Faculty travel guidelines for reimbursement exist.  There is no policy for reimbursement of student travel.  There was a proposal presented.  The next step is for Yeutter to take it to Dr. Bigbee.
          
C.  Old Business

    1.  Open Meetings Policy - retraction

          Feedback from the Chairs indicated that this would not be a good thing.  It has been tabled.

    2.  Administrative Restructuring Review
   
         There is a committee forming.  It is forming at the end of the semester and should start working in the fall.

    3.  Circle of Excellence

        The committee has finished its work and submitted:
       Teaching - Debbie Stansell
       Research - Renée Cambiano
       Service - Barbara Ray
The ceremony is April 26th at 3 pm in the Tower room.  Yeutter will take care of certificates for nominees.     

D. Other Business

      The RUSO meeting concerning the President will be covered by The Northeastern and the newspaper.

       We may not have a May meeting.

E.  Adjournment

The meeting adjourned at 5:00 p.m.


Submitted by Linda West, Secretary-Treasurer
8/7/07
--------------------------------------------------------------
*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).