NORTHEASTERN STATE UNIVERSITY

Minutes of Faculty Council Meeting
Friday, December 5, 2008

Call to Order

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

Council Members in attendance: Sarah Brick Archer (Library), Ron Cambiano (Education), Denise Deason-Toyne (Business & Technology), John Diamantopoulos (Science & Health Professions), Jennifer Edwards (Liberal Arts), Brian Kaney (Science & Health Professions), Amy Aldridge Sanford (Liberal Arts), Tom Salmon (Optometry), Dan Savage (Liberal Arts)

Council Members in attendance in Broken Arrow:   Buster Hall (BA), Pamela Louderback (Library), Rick Williams (Education)
Council Members in attendance in Muskogee: 

Council Officers in attendance:  Craig Clifford (President), Lallie Scott, (Vice President), Linda West (Secretary/Treasurer).

Guests:  Martha Albin (Human Resources), Dalton Bigbee (VP Academic Affairs), Jym Brittain (CTL), Sue Catron (Business Affairs), Sheila Collins (Library), Kristopher Copeland (Liberal Arts), Mark Giese (Assessment), Martin Venneman (Science & Health Professions)

Invited Presentations

[Council will set aside time at the first of each meeting to visit with President Betz, VP Academic Affairs Bigbee and/or VP Administration Cherry should they be able to attend.] - Minutes are listed in agenda order, topics were covered in a different order in the meeting.

Dr. Sheila Collins, Executive Director of Libraries was introduced to the group.  She invited faculty to contact her if there is anything the library can do for them.

A. Committees and Standing Reports

    1. Minutes of  11/7/08 meeting

         Deason-Toyne moved that the minutes be approved.  The motion was seconded by Archer and the motion passed.

    2.  Spending Report

          The completed Circle of Excellence plaque will be hung in the Library on Monday at 3 pm.  Other college plaques are ready.  The ones for Business and Technology will be stored until after the renovation.

B . Old Business

    1.  General Education Task Force - Update (Sanford)

               The group is currently relating course back to general content areas.  They are going back to focus groups for questions.  In January, they will meet again to come up with a proposal by Spring Break.

    2.  Evaluation of Online Courses - Two packages being examined (Clifford/Bekkering/Brittain)

           The evaluation is currently taking place, Dec. 1-9.  Reminders will be sent out to online students.  They want a 17% completion rate for the trial.  Passwords will be available for Deans, Chairs and the faculty to see the results.  There was a comment made that with a blanket review of all courses, a faculty member may be evaluated in more classes than there tenure status requires.  Brittain responded that Faculty Council had requested that all online classes receive evaluations.

    3.  Conflict of Interest Policy - Draft Update (Albin/Clifford/Deason-Toyne) - New Version

          Albin stated that the final draft has been submitted to the President's Cabinet.  It contained input from FC representative Deason-Toyne and Yeutter.  The Cabinet may have revisions and should be done by February or March.

    4.  403B - Albin/Catron

         Albin presented an overview of the reasons for the changes to 403B plans for employees.  Due to federal law changes the University had to be in compliance by January 1st.  The RUSO schools enlisted a firm  (Gallagher) to help find an agency to serve the whole systems' needs.  21 companies submitted RFPs, four were invited to give presentations.  Lincoln was agreed on by all as the best choice.  RUSO plans to review this choice every five years.  In the whole system, there are 1600 participants and 1200 of them currently use TIAA-CREFF.  Older, legacy accounts can stay where they are and are not involved in this change, but they  will not receive any new money.

         There will be a visit the first week in February from the Lincoln representative.  Gallagher will visit next week to give a better overview of the process.  The deciding group had representatives from faculty and administration and included Yeutter and Cundiff if faculty have questions for them.

    5.  Selection of Department Chairs - (Clifford/Bigbee)

         Dr. Bigbee reported that he had not noticed whether the new policy had been followed recently.  Since Chairs are on a three year cycle, he will address this with Academic Council at that time.

    6.  Faculty (Only) Forum/Tahlequah on January 13 at 2:00-3:30 p.m., Tower Room, BA Forum TBA - (Clifford)

Topics: Study Days, Office hours, Enrollment caps in face to face and online courses, Online evaluations, Etc.

The BA meeting will be Jan. 21 from 3-4 pm.

       Concerning the office hours, a proposal was presented by Garland/Deason-Toyne with changes for the Faculty Handbook. 

C.  New Business

    1.   Resolution of Need for Facilities Maintenance (Resolution attached)

          A resolution was presented to Faculty Council.  After discussion, J. Edwards moved to approved, Savage seconded and the motion passed.

    2.  Office Hour Proposal for Faculty Handbook (Garland/Deason-Toyne) (Proposal attached)

           The Faculty Handbook revision was presented.  After discussion, it was decided to use email to communicate with all delegates.  We will table the proposal in order to circulate before voting.

       3.  Department and College Restructuring Task Force
      
            Clifford will talk to Yeutter to see what was done in the previous Council.

       4.  Circle of Excellence Committee appointments (Clifford)

             Committee appointments will be coming soon.  Also, the brick will be engraved soon for all the past winners not yet on the the walk.

D. Other Business

       We will be electing new officers next semester.

       Future meetings are planned for Jan. 23, Feb 6, Mar 6, April 3 and May 1.

Announcements:
      
       Remember the University Assembly next Tuesday in the Net Auditorium.

E.  Adjournment

The meeting adjourned at 3:49 p.m.

Next meeting January 23.

<>Submitted by Linda West, Secretary-Treasurer
1/20/2009