Faculty Senate Minutes

April 5, 2006

 

Call to order: Nick Reeder called the meeting to order at 2:32.

 

Officers attending: Nick Reeder, Vice President; Linda Pastore, Secretary

 

Senators attending: Marsha Wamsley, Derek Allen, Mohamed Ali, Tom Singer, James Houdeshell, James Brooks, Mark Echtner, Amanda Romero, Moez Ben-Azzouz

 

Senators/Officers not attending: Cindy Beckett, Jennifer Barr, Charles C. Williams, Art Ross

 

Others attending: Dona Fletcher

 

1.  Approval of Minutes

Amended with changes to the Retrenchment Committee

 

2.  Officer’s Report

Vice President’s Report

Nick Reeder:

Instructional Council Meeting of March 10

Instructional Council approved proposed revisions to the Administrative Withdrawal Policy (Faculty Handbook Section 2.11.6) and rejected proposed revisions to the Office Hours Policy (Faculty Handbook Section 2.4.4).  After rejection of the Office Hours proposal, Instructional Council approved a motion directing Academic Policies Committee to revise the policy further in an attempt to address concerns.

 

Board of Trustees Meeting of March 14

The Board of Trustees heard, among many other items, a report from the Finance Committee outlining the College’s current and projected financial situation.  Among other things, the report recommended that “to return to past levels of College growth and development, the College needs state funding to increase by 2%-3% annually, the next levy to rise to 3.0 mils, tuition to increase 3%-6% annually, and enrollment to increase 2%-4% annually.” The report also noted that “to remain aligned with the Dayton region, and to meet current and future needs, Sinclair will need to add new educational programs and institutional support functions,” but at the same time, “Sinclair will most probably have to eliminate other educational programs and lower-priority support functions.”

 

 

 

Candidates for Assembly Elections

Current candidates for the Assembly’s Spring Elections are Jackie Myers for Vice President; Jim Brooks for Secretary; Laurel Mayer, Karl Hess, and Colleen Whittington for Leadership Council Rep; and Charles C. Williams and Shari Rethman for Ohio Faculty Senate Rep.

 

Survey Tool on my.sinclair.edu

Thanks to assistance from Kathy Kaiser, the “Faculty Senate” organization on my.sinclair.edu now has all 1222 full-time and part-time faculty enrolled. Kathy has cautioned that such a large number of users enrolled may lead to performance problems.  Senate’s Vice President recommends that Senate use this tool to solicit input from faculty on a selected issue and to foster communication among faculty.

 

Date for 2006-2007 Fall Conference

The College’s President and his office have agreed not to hold Fall Conference on August 31, 2006.  Fall conference will be moved to Friday, September 1, 2006, and the Faculty Learning Day will be Tuesday, September 5, 2006.  This will result in classes being held on just eleven Tuesdays in Fall Quarter, rather than twelve.

 

Proposed Information Security Policy

Senate reviewed the draft for the Information Security Policy.  After a brief discussion, Senate did not have any recommendations to be added to this draft.

A motion was passed to send this document forward.

 

Feedback forms from March 31 Leadership Summit

Dr. Johnson requested that Senate provide feedback regarding the Leadership Summit held March 31.

The following motion was passed:

Senators will review items for the Sinclair Leadership Summit and forward the note sheets to the Secretary by April 12.  The Secretary will compile the note sheets into one document.

 

Senate will discuss this document at the next meeting on April 19. 

Discussion should include:

1.  What we learned that would help faculty

2.  Defining issues that should be a focus for Senate

 

3.  Committee Reports

 

Retrenchment Committee

Jim Brooks reported that the committee’s first meeting will be on Friday, April 12.

 

4.  Special Orders N/A

5.  Unfinished Business

 

Recommendation Regarding Facility Names

The following motion was passed:

Senate would solicit faculty response through an on-line survey.  There will be (3) items:

1.     Facility Names: Renaming the Book Store and Teleports

2.     66 Hour Cap work load

3.     An open-ended question: What would you like Senate to work on in order to build a stronger, more representative Senate?

 

6.  New Business

 

Moez Ben-Azzouz brought forth the following recommendation for discussion.

 

Recommendation regarding changing the “Overload Pay Schedule”

 

Rationale:

Currently, the Overload Pay Schedule follows the following rule:  All overload pay earned in the quarter will be paid in full on the first scheduled pay after the last day of classes in the respective quarter (Section 2.4.5 Faculty Handbook).  After discussing the current Overload Pay Schedule with my constituents, I have come to realize that the majority would rather have their “Overload Pay” paid in two parts, one in the middle of the quarter and the other at the end of the quarter.

 

Recommendation:

Faculty Senate recommends the following change to the Overload Pay Schedule:

Overload pay earned in the quarter will be paid in two parts, one half to be paid after the 5th week of the quarter, and the other half to be paid after the last day of classes in the respective quarter.

 

Senators were asked to discuss this proposal with their constituents. This proposal will be discussed at the next Senate meeting on April 19.

 

 

 

Adjournment: Meeting adjourned at 4:05

 

 

Submitted by Linda Pastore

Approved by Senate: April 19, 2006