Faculty Senate Minutes

February 13, 2008

Officers attending: Nick Reeder, President; William Boyko, Vice-President; Susan Callender, Secretary

Senators attending: Nolan Long, Amanda Romero, Eric Kraus, Moez Ben-azzouz, Dave

Stover, Tom Singer, Jim Shimko, Georgann Enright, Cindy Schoonover

Senators not attending: Luis Gonzalez, Derek Allen

Others attending: Gary Honnert

Nick called the meeting to order at 2:30 p.m. in room 7342

1. Approval of Minutes

Minutes for the Faculty Senate meeting of January 30, 2008 were approved with

revision.

2. Gary Honnert, Director of Internal College Communication summarized a number of

his responsibilities in this new position.

3. President’s Report

Nick reviewed some of the points discussed in the senate officers’ biweekly meeting

with Dr. Grove. Dr. Grove will schedule a meeting with the Retrenchment

Committee. There was also a discussion on how to assess the learning success of

online courses that traditionally require live laboratory training. Dr. Grove noted

that faculty as a group was generally under represented as volunteers for the levy

campaign. Some discussion followed.

Nick contacted Cindy Beckett, Chair of the Faculty Performance Review Revision

Committee; she agreed to provide senate with a regular update on the committee’s

progress.

4. Distance Learning Report

Jim Shimko, Eric Kraus and Moez Ben-azzouz discussed the survey distributed by

the external review team for Distance Learning. It was stressed that input from

faculty expressing their concerns about any facet of Distance Learning is very

important. Two examples of faculty concerns are the reduction of proctored exams

and whether departments, in some instances should be allowed to professionally

decide if a particular course should be taught online. Senators were asked to contact

their constituents and encourage them to share their concerns. Moez commented on

various troublesome areas in the external distance Learning report.

The meeting adjourned at 4:10

The next Senate meeting will be February 27, 2008 at 2:30 in room 7342