April 6, 2016

FACULTY SENATE MINUTES
April 6, 2016

Present: John Allen, Dean Astumian, Erik Blomberg, Jason Bolton, Dick Brucher, Mauricio da Cunha, Farahad Dastoor, Paula Drewniany, Michael Grillo, Scott Johnson, Sara Lindsay, Grant Miles, Patti Miles, Sidney Mitchell, William Nichols, Clint Relyea, Thomas Sandford, Michael Scott, Howard Segal, Kathryn Slott, Andrew Thomas, David Townsend, Shihfen Tu, Clayton Wheeler, President Susan Hunter, Jeff Hecker, Jen Bonnet (PEAC), Piper Black (Grad Stud Gov)

Absent: Bob Bayer, Tony Brinkley, Sandy Butler, Sudarshan Chawathe, Laura Cowan, Scott Dunning, Thane Fremouw, Amy Fried, Jason Harkins, Zhihe Jin, Leonard Kass, Jordan LaBouff (away spring), Robert Lilieholm, David Marcinkowski, Brian Olsen, Michael Peterson, Charles Rote, Jonathan Rubin, Deborah Rogers, Mary Shea, Allan Smith, Owen Smith, Mona Therrien, Tim Waring, Mark Wells, Carol Kim, Peter C. Altmann (CEAC), Austin Madden (Stud. Gov.)

The meeting was called to order at 3:20 pm

I. Welcome, Announcements and Comments:
Mike Scott asked President Hunter to sponsor a year-end reception; she said she’d be happy to do it.

Mike introduced Jack Cosgrove who will be attending Faculty Senate meetings for Athletics.

At the next elected members meeting Brian Doore has been invited to speak.

II. Approval of Minutes
March 2, 2015
Approved

III. Committee Reports
BOT Rep – Patti Miles

No report.

Academic Affairs – Michael Grillo
There are five motions under New Business. In May there may be one or two additional motions.

Constitution & Bylaws – David Townsend
The committee met with the University Teaching Council regarding adjunct faculty participating in Faculty Senate. The topic will be tabled until fall.

Mike Scott commented that the Honors College, being a college, should have representation in senate.

Research & Scholarship – Scott Johnson & Mauricio de Cunha
No report.

Finance & Institutional Planning – Grant Miles & Jonathan Rubin
No report. One comment: people should go to budget meetings so they’re aware of what is going on. The budget presentations can be viewed on President’s webpage.

University Environment – Tom Sandford & David Townsend
There is a first draft of recommendations on classrooms. There will be a meeting with other groups before the report is complete. The committee hopes to have the report ready for fall.

Library Advisory – Robert Rice & Howard Segal
The committee met last week. Renovations of the Darling Center library are underway, discussions regarding the effect of the UMaine, UMaine Machias cooperation on the library, and the Hath Trust database will be added to the catalog for easier access. Repairs to the air conditioning in the library are being looked at.

Service & Outreach – Jason Bolton
The committee is moving forward with simplifying how information is delivered to Jen O’Leary.

Committee on Committees – Michael Grillo
It was announced that the Provost’s Council on Advancing Women Faculty Committee would need one member from each college. The meetings will begin in the fall. Provost Hecker stated recommendations could be taken now.

Program Creation & Reorganization Review – Sid Mitchell
No report.

General Education – David Townsend.
The committee will be drafting resolution language to accept the Maine Community College Block Transfer agreement.

Ad Hoc IT – Michael Scott & Patti Miles
No report. The committee will meet tomorrow.

Ad Hoc Shared Governance – Michael Grillo
Michael deferred to Provost Hecker regarding progress of colleges creating bylaws. Provost Hecker stated that he has given an April 15 deadline. Mike Scott asked senators if they’d met with their deans and if they had any insights from the meetings. Several had met and thought those meetings were positive.

Reports of Faculty Members on Committees of the Administration
No report.

IV. Announcements and Updates from the Administration

Provost Hecker thanked faculty that participated in the greeting of accepted students and families. There were 1,450 people on campus with approximately 600 prospective students. There is one more accepted student day coming up.

Tomorrow from 3:00 – 4:30 there is an Academic Affairs Faculty Forum, the topic is a proposed model for The Center for Innovation, Teaching and Learning. Looking for feedback with a goal to launch in the fall.

UMSystem Program Integration round two programs are: English, Math, Chemistry, Physics, Biology, and Social Work. Reports will be presented to the System CAO’s with steps to move forward. There will be an ability to comment until the end of April. The CAO’s will review and meet with the Chancellor who will make his decision.

V. Questions of the Administration

Q. What is the progress for hiring a Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs? The wording states “The System’ s academic portfolio, with the authority to initiate and/or approve new academic programs and program changes, consolidations and closures.” It sounds like it’s what the senate’s job is.
A. The ad is out with a timeline of filling the position by the end of May. There will be an opportunity for public forums. Regarding the job description, those are the duties but the one        pointed out does raise concern. There would be a process on each campus to create new programs.

Q. Does this mean that as the UMaine Chief Academic Officer you’d report to the Vice Chancellor     for Academic Affairs.
A. Both Provost Hecker and President Hunter stated no.

Q. If the System is not accredited how can they create programs?
A. They won’t create programs but will look at areas that may have demand for programs to grow     enrollment etc.

Q. Does the Chief Academic Council need a CAO to make those decisions?
A. Probably
President Hunter stated the CAO is sometimes more traffic cop than anything. The CAO needs  academic experience, a background in academics and administration so they speak the same
language.

Q. Is this a huge change from when Dr. Breece and President Hunter had the position?
A. It’s more an evolution.

Q. Can Provost Hecker give a brief update on capping enrollment?
A. Provost Hecker stated that he’s waiting for the last list but 14,400 completed applications were received, last year there were 12,300. It’s clear that projections needed to be looked at based on the large numbers. Many places like New Jersey, had a 3 times increase in applications and growing. UMaine is trying to improve the pool of accepted students. There are 2,150 incoming students, budgets built on 2178 but the largest estimate was 2,800, which would be difficult to handle with current dorm space and classrooms. In addition to the 14,000 completed applications, there were 1400 incomplete. In the past, a phone call would be placed as a reminder to submit missing information, that’s no longer done. Any application completed after March 11, 2016, will be offered a spot on a waiting list. Around May 6, those students will be notified if they’re admitted. Of the 1400 incomplete applications, about 200 are from Maine. Students on a waiting list will be offered admittance to any other UMaine campus.

Q. How is it determined if students go to other campuses, do they choose the campus?
A. Yes, it’s their choice. Five of the other campuses were happy to accept those students.

Q. Many students are admitted to one program but graduate from another.
A. For instance, data from engineering shows some admitted to that program but graduate in other disciplines. If the level of applications remains high, projections can be made for criteria for programs with less capacity as opposed to those with more capacity.

Q. What will the deadline be next year and will we be able to pick the best students?
A. Provost Hecker said administration will be working with colleges and departments on that.

Q. Heard last week that it is likely SAT scores will go down?
A. There are three factors contribute to that, the size of the Honors College will be reduced, engineering capped enrollment for three programs, and a mistake in admissions, 110+/- letters to  some students that had been rejected but the letter said accepted. All of those have an effect on the overall SAT score.

VI. Old Business
None

VII. New Business

The letter below is asking for clarification on process and will be going to the BoT.
Letter from Senate Presidents:

Dear Board Chair Collins,

The strength of the University of Maine System (UMS) derives from the strength of its campuses, and the strength of each campus derives from the strength of its faculty. The System, like each campus, is a partnership with its faculty. So the success of the UMS’s efforts to respond to the fiscal, economic, social and educational realities of the 21st century depend on the strength of this partnership; i.e. on shared governance. For our faculties, who own the academic curriculum, any response must preserve the quality of all aspects of academe and the culture of each campus. Crucial to ensuring the efficacy of any response, faculty throughout the System must be deeply involved in all aspects of academic transformation. The determination of how best to conduct the academics of academe has always been the responsibility of faculty. The faculty are the curricula; it’s our job and our expertise.

While implementation of System-wide responses requires strong, centrally organized execution, the best, i.e. the most effective and efficient, solutions to our shared problems is to use the unique capacities of our shared governance structures. Leveraging the talents and collective intelligence of the faculties of the UMS demonstrates our commitment to a shared mission. We believe the mechanisms of shared governance will improve mutual understanding and respect between faculties and System administration.

Toward that end, we propose a very simple mechanism for achieving higher yield returns on continuing efforts to bring about effective change for a more efficient, sustainable university system. We request that the Board of Trustees (BoT) put into place a synchronous notification system whereby the faculty senate of each campus is provided information in a form as complete as possible concerning proposed or pending academic policies in a timely fashion. By “in a timely fashion” we mean more than that notification arrives at the earliest possible convenience from the System. We also mean that notification comes with enough time for each faculty senate to present the proposal or pending policy to our respective faculties for input and feedback prior to any implementation or acceptance of the proposal/policy by the BoT. The notification mechanism should be a formal process, with a chain of custody protocol preserving authorized transmission, both from System to campuses and from campuses up the administrative chain to the System, including the Chancellor and BoT.

This mechanism would provide a good faith effort to significantly improve System-to-Faculty communications with minimal resource use. It would also respect faculty throughout the System as active participants in shaping the academic destiny of the System. A system for uniform, authorized notification would support the ability for faculty to respond, support, and above all, plan for our common future.

We look forward to your response.

Respectfully Submitted,

Comments: Should we specify what is meant by timely fashion? Mike Scott thought bringing attention to the fact that it appears there is no process. Information comes from many different avenues.
Provost Hecker thought the letter was a good idea.
Positive tone is good in the current climate.

Vote: Approved
 

University of Maine Faculty Senate Motion on
Committee Memberships and Lines of Reporting

Introduction
As the University of Maine System has pursued centralization, they have increasingly placed active members on Committees of the Administration of the University of Maine. This mix of membership confuses committee foci and reporting, for they conflate the UMSystem and the University of Maine as being one and the same.

Motion
The University of Maine Faculty Senate moves that Committees of the Administration must include only voting and ex-officio participants from the University of Maine community. Each committee may invite in specialists from across the UMSystem, but only as discussants. Where the UMSystem has changed the reporting lines of several University of Maine Administrators to answer directly to the UMSystem, this motion asks that we define University of Maine participants as those whose purview remains focused on University of Maine responsibilities.

Comment: What about ex officio participants, people of the community, etc. Michael Grillo commented, that’s fine to have those people on a committee but they don’t vote on UMaine policy. It was proposed to table the motion to iron out issues.

Vote: Tabled

           

University of Maine Faculty Senate Motion on
Undergraduate Degree Residency
Requirements
6 April, 2014

Introduction
At the 13 November, 2013 Faculty Senate meeting, the Senate revised the University of Maine Degree Residency Requirements. The requirements posted by the Office of Student Records at http://catalog.umaine.edu/preview_program.php?catoid=67&poid=8907 currently state that for graduation with an undergraduate University of Maine degree, students must:

earn a minimum of 30 credits originating from the University of Maine campus at the 300 level or higher over any year of study.*  There are two exceptions to this policy:

Students who have already completed three or more years at the University of Maine (minimum of 90 credits of University of Maine courses) when, in the opinion of the student’s academic program faculty in consultation with the student’s dean, there is sufficient and valid reason to complete the senior year elsewhere

Students who have completed a minimum of three years of work at the University of Maine and who have been admitted to an accredited professional school of medicine, dentistry, veterinary medicine, or divinity.  With the approval of the academic program faculty in consultation with the student’s dean, these students may qualify for the appropriate bachelor’s degree at the University of Maine upon receipt of the professional degree.

*An academic department may require that some minimum number of courses be completed within that department to earn a University of Maine degree in that discipline.  These departmental residency requirements are noted in the description of each academic program elsewhere in this catalog.

Since these requirements were implemented, the Division of Life Long Learning has asked for an exception for the Bachelor of University Studies degree because several of their students have transferred in prior learning experience at the three- or four-hundred level. According to their administrators, these students would find the need to take typically around fifteen extra credits to meet our current requirements discouraging, leading them to not complete their UMaine degree.

Motion
The Faculty Senate adds a third exception to the current University of Maine Degree Residency Requirements.

With the unanimous approval of their tenure-stream Faculty members, approval by their Department Chair, their College’s Academic Council, and the Undergraduate Program Curriculum Committee, degree granting programs may design and implement exceptions to the minimum of thirty credits originating from the University of Maine campus at the three-hundred level or higher over any year of study. These exceptions must be established as stated departmental policy, published in the University of Maine catalog.

Vote: Approved

 

University of Maine Faculty Senate Motion on
University of Maine System Multi-Campus Degree Programs
Introduction
The University of Maine System has encouraged Multi-Campus Degree Programs in which participating campuses would issue their individual degrees using shared curricular requirements. For example, at their May 2015 meeting, the Board of Trustees approved the creation of a Bachelor of Science degree in Cybersecurity at the University of Maine at Fort Kent, the University of Maine at Augusta, and the University of Southern Maine. Given the vision of the UMSystem One University initiative, we should expect more of these collaborative programs to evolve.

Motion
The Faculty Senate at the University of Maine welcomes the expanded possibilities that Multi-Campus Degree Programs offer students across the UMSystem. To ensure academic quality, the Senate requires that the University of Maine have tenure-stream Faculty or full-time, on-going appointment Instructors and Lecturers in the specific discipline in which this campus participates in these shared degrees. Should the University of Maine cease to have any of these Faculty members in the core discipline of the multi-campus degree, it needs withdraw from that arrangement. it needs to develop a plan to invest in the on-going faculty positions needed to support these programs, or develop a schedule for withdrawing from the arrangement. Without tenure-stream Faculty or full-time, on-going appointment Instructors in each participating discipline, we cannot in any meaningful manner develop, implement, and assess the curriculum and degree which would bear the University of Maine’s name.

Comments: Provost Hecker said the intention is good but he’s uncomfortable with one sentence, that was ultimately amended.

Vote: Approved with amendment (in bold)

 

University of Maine Faculty Senate Motion on
Proposed UMSystem Academic Quality Indicators
6 April, 2016

Introduction
As the University of Maine System considers its One University initiative, which depends on a concerted coordination among the faculty within each discipline of each mission differentiated campus, we need a set of Academic Quality metrics that will help us assess what each campus has to offer potential multi-campus programmes as well as shared curricular and equivalent courses in general.

Motion
The Faculty Senate of the University of Maine endorses the general concept of the University of Maine System’s development, collection, tracking, and analysis of Academic Quality Indicators, for particularly with the many proposals for changes within the UMSystem, we need metrics to monitor their effects on academic quality.

We call upon our President and Provost to request supportively the Chancellor’s Office adopt the metrics below so that the UMSystem can assess the effects of any changes on the academic qualities of the seven campuses. Having reviewed a November, 2015, draft document of indicators proposed by Chief Academic Officers of the campuses, we ask that indicators stay sharply focused on Academic Qualities alone. While the CAO’s proposal notes many laudable measures, it includes far broader scopes, viz., finances, living environments, student perceptions of academic challenge, employment placement, etc., all of which lie outside of measurable Academic Quality. For instance, measuring job placements and median salaries has no relationship to many disciplines, and looks in a limited way to graduates’ first jobs, but not the positions they’ll hold over the arc of their careers. Likewise, student retention, while an important metric, depends on a broad variety of factors well beyond the scopes of Academic Quality. Should the CAOs want to track other data beyond Academic Quality metrics, we encourage them to do so, but not to confound them with these clear measures. The Faculty Senate recommends that we stay focused on clear academic measures, tracking numbers, in the areas noted below. Most of these data are readily available through IPEDS, each institution’s annual reports, and various accrediting organizations.

A) Tenured Faculty, tenure-track Faculty working to tenure, full-time non-tenure stream Faculty, and Adjuncts per degree granting college
B) Number of Faculty with terminal degrees in the subject they teach by degree granting college
C) Faculty numbers at each rank by degree granting college
D) Percentage of Student Credit Hours taught by tenure-track Faculty, by full-time Instructors, by Adjuncts, and by Graduate Students
E) Ratio of Students to Faculty
F) Juried publications, exhibitions, presentations, and other peer evidence of scholarly activity by degree granting college
G) Competitive research grants, recorded in dollar figures and actual numbers of grants
H) Number of significant awards and honours by degree granting college, as measured by external evaluators, including accreditors and honour societies
I) Student research successes and professional advancement
J) Student performance measured according to discipline by suitable accrediting agencies, GREs, LEAP metrics, and other appropriate metrics, etc.
K) Peer and student evaluations of Faculty
L) Discipline-specific accreditation
M) Academic Resource Support, in Libraries, Research Facilities, and Classrooms, measured according to the standards of NEASC and each discipline’s accrediting agency

The Faculty Senate asks that these metrics be recorded each year and made public, so that as the UMSystem makes significant changes, we can track their effects on Academic Quality at all seven campuses.

Motion: Approved

 

Unified On-Line Response Motion
Faculty Senate Academic Affairs
6 April, 2016

Introduction
On 17 November, 2015, The UMSystem Board of Trustees gave “conceptual approval of the institutional collaborative model” of the October iteration of the Unified On-Line Report. They also directed “the Chief Academic Officers to seek further input from the faculties of the seven universities and provide recommendations to the Presidents’ Council on the implementation of academic oversight and a process for honouring campus-based shared governance of online programs.” (http://staticweb.maine.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/November-2015-Board-Actions.pdf?846a82 , accessed 10 March, 2016) The Faculty Senate Academic Affairs Committee had previously responded to the United On-Line Report identifying a series of problematic issues at the 4 November, 2015 meeting. Several other UMS campus Senates have responded, as have the Chief Academic Officers across the UMSystem. The Chancellor’s Office will accept comments through our Administrators through mid-April.

Motion
The Faculty Senate of the University of Maine asks our President, Dr Susan Hunter, and Provost, Dr Jeffrey Hecker, to represent supportively the Faculty Senate’s concerns about the Unified On-Line Report to the Chancellor’s Office, and underscore to them the need for willing Faculty participation for any academic offerings. We ask that our President and Provost then communicate back to the Faculty Senate the responses they receive in their dialogues with the Chancellor’s Office, and how these concerns will be acceptably addressed.

The Unified On-Line Report raises many concerns, primarily in its recommendations that would usurp Faculty control of curricula and any sense of Shared Governance at the individual campuses and across the UMSystem. It also creates costly, redundant administrative structures at a time when the UMSystem can least afford them, and has no means of assessment in terms of its cost effectiveness, maintenance of academic quality, and improving success in serving our students. Specifically, the Faculty Senate notes:

• The Center of Excellence in Digitally Enhanced Teaching and Learning would create a new entity that by-passes the established shared governance of each campus in its control of its curriculum. Particularly, empowering a proposed Associate VCAA for Distance Learning to “oversee and manage the collective online assets of the seven universities” would undermine the Faculty control of their curricula, diluting programs to serve an unfocused, general constituency at the expense of those whom the different universities specifically serve according to their campus’ unique mission. Seeking to “Collaborate with the campus Chief Academic Officers, the System Chief Information Officer, and the System Chief Financial Officer to make needed changes to System policy, technology, and budget in order to support the success of online programs” makes no effort to balance on-line learning with traditional classroom learning, including hybridized courses, and research.
• We do not need a new fleet of administrators, especially a new cadre who would operate outside of current lines of reporting. Creating multiple reporting lines for the Executive Director of Lifelong Learning at UMaine, the Executive Director of University College at UMA, and the Director of Online Teaching and Learning at USM, and their units would only cause entanglement, confusion, and tensioned dynamics, which would undermine the necessary willingness for Faculty to participate in on-line learning. Empowering a new Associate VCAA for Distance Learning who would only seek “the advice and counsel of the Chief Academic Officers and the Distance Learning Advisory Council” undermines each campus’ shared governance in academic affairs. Even if the proposed Distance Learning Advisory Council were to include Faculty in its “cross-functional representation of stakeholders”, it would divide campus Faculty into two camps, those invested in on-line learning and those dedicated to hybridized and traditional in-class learning, which would undermine departmental and campus curricula control, and weaken our abilities to serve our seven unique missions.
• Any attempt to “streamline the governance process for development of new online programs ensuring an appropriate balance of governance for online with traditional campus-based governance” usurps the shared governance between Faculty and their Administrators on each campus, in UMaine’s case, our College Academic Councils and the UPCC.
• The report empowers a new VCAA for Distance Learning to “Eliminate unnecessary duplicate online programs” with no mention of the role of Faculty and Shared Governance in how duplications would be identified, and how decisions would be made on eliminations. Any such winnowing would prevent campuses from serving their unique missions with their specific student constituencies. It would also create a climate of competition, most likely on the basis of cost-competitiveness, which would prevent the healthy collaborations among Faculty members from different campuses that the UMSystem has otherwise sought to support.
• Discipline specific accreditation does not extend to multi-campus offerings as described by the United On-line document. This proposal will endanger the standing of many strong, well-focused, accredited programs at the University of Maine.
• The document continually emphasizes the need for a common platform, with only once considering that different disciplines necessitate different pedagogies, which should drive platform choices. Rather than following the expediencies of the UMSystem’s IT Center, on-line learning needs focus on the best platforms appropriate to each discipline. Arguments that diverse platforms frustrate students seem particularly suspect in an era when students routinely engage in very diverse social connectivity platforms without any problems.
• In its focus on on-line teaching alone, the proposed structure fails to consider how new digital tools have created new research possibilities. This compartmentalization dangerously separates teaching from research, undermining particularly our successes of increasingly engaging undergraduates in academic research.
• While creating cross-campus teams for Faculty development, instructional design, library services, and all might sound efficient at first blush, it fails to take realities into account, of the very different needs of campuses highly differentiated by their unique missions, academic cultures, and student constituencies.
• The proposal mentions assessment only in terms of courses and general practices, with no consideration of how the UMSystem would evaluate the success of the Unified On-Line structure itself. We have distinct concerns that the proposal would dismantle proven models, with no means of assessment of its having provided improved on-line learning and any cost savings.

We ask for your timely response in addressing these critical issues.

Comments: If academic quality is taught by non Umaine faculty to be counted as a requirement for a Umaine degree, who decides if an online course meets Umaine criteria?

It would be the Umaine department. If a course is taught by any other campus the UMaine department can say it is not equivalent.

What if it’s not UMaine faculty? Michael Grillo said that’s the firewall being set up with this motion.

Vote: Approved

 

Elections of Officers for 2016 – 2017
Results: Voting three uncontested positions, President, Vice President, and BOT Rep separate, then voting for Secretary between Kathryn Slott and Grant Miles.

Vote for President, Vice President, BOT – approved
       Vote for Secretary – Kathryn Slott 8
                                            Grant Miles 15

President – Mike Scott
Vice President – David Townsend
Secretary – Grant Miles
BOT – Patti Miles

Adjourned at 4:43 pm

Respectfully submitted,

Kathryn Slott

Prepared by Kim Junkins