Faculty Senate Minutes, November 13, 2020

Purdue Northwest Faculty Senate Minutes

November 13, 2020

Via Zoom

Voting Senators Present: Ali Alavizadeh, Amlan Mitra, Anne Edwards, Anthony Elmendorf, Anthony Sindone, Cheryl DeLeon, Chien-Chung Chen, Colette Morrow, Dave Pratt, David Kozel, Diane Spoljoric, Geoff Schultz, Hairong Zhao, Harvey Abramowitz, Joan Dorman, Julia Rogers, Kenneth Kincaid, Khair Al Shamaileh, Kim Scipes, Lee Artz, Libbie Pelter, Lin Zhao, Magesh Chandramouli, Maria Garcia-Verdugo, Marianne Curia, Maureen Mascha, Michael Connolly, Michael Mick, Michael Pelter, Michael Roller, Mohammed Errihani, Neeti Parashar, Omer Farook, Pitparnee Stompor, Ralph Cherry, Robert Kramer, Robert Merkovsky, Sheila Rezak, Shengyong Zhang, Shoji Nakayama, Thomas Roach, Vanessa Quinn, Wei He

Voting Senators Absent: Angela Schooley, LaVada Taylor, Lin Zhao, Michael Zimmer

Non-Voting members present:  Thomas Keon, Chris Holford, Saul Lerner, Diana Underwood, Oriana White

Guests: 

Barbara Mania-Farnell, Bir Kafle, Catalina Rodriguez, Catharine Olsen, Cathy Gillotti, Catherine Murphy, Colin Fewer, Daniel Wilbur, Elaine Carey, Geoffrey Barrow, Emily Hixon, Feng-Song Wang, Heather Bowers, Jai Agrawal Jennifer Williams, Jonathan Kuhn, Jonathan Swarts, Joy Colwell, Kathy Tobin, Keyuan Jiang, Lisa Goodnight, Lisa Hopp, Megan Murphy, Nicoleta Tarfulea, Pam Saylor, Raida Abuizam,   Richard Rupp, Rachel Smith, Rebecca Stankowski, Sherry Ray Kenady, W. T. Evert Ting, Yohlunda Mosley

1. Determination of quorum.
2. Call to order.
3. Approval of the agenda.
4. Approval of the minutes from October 9, 2020.
   • Remarks by the Senate Chair (L. Pelter). Pelter began by thanking the senators for voting on Qualtrics to pass FSD 20-09 Some faculty had concerns about this.  Students do need to be made aware of this and how it may impact their programs.
   • Pelter mentioned that students are experiencing Zoom fatigue and asked all faculty to reach out to their students
   • Pelter stated that the IBBM budget model will allow us to be more responsive to community and students’ needs. Pelter encouraged the senators to ask questions about this model and why the leadership feels that this is an important change for the university.
   • Pelter yielded the rest of her time to SGA president Oriana White.
     • SGA is working toward electing a student trustee to the Board of Trustees. Students should contact Oriana White to find out more information.  The information was also shared with all senators via email.
     • SGA is organizing a “Cram Jam” (final exam study sessions) There will be extended library hours, and the Tutoring Center and Writing Center will hold virtual and in-person sessions on December 6-9 from 2:00-7:00 pm on both campuses.
     • Kozel asked if students were feeling more overwhelmed this semester. White was not sure if this is the case. Some students are over committed because they felt they could do more if they were virtual, and found out that was not the case.
     • Kincaid asked if students had reported problems with connectivity on campus He also asked if students had mentioned that the vending machines on campus are empty. White stated that she and others have been kicked off of WiFi in some areas of CLO and Porter. Students have also noticed that the vending machines are empty.

5. Remarks by the Chancellor (T. Keon)
   • Keon began by thanking everybody for their hard work during these difficulty times.
   • Keon yielded the rest of his time to Provost Holford.
   • Holford began by encouraging all faculty to refer struggling students who need additional support to the Dean of Students’ office, who can make appropriate contacts.
   • Covid Update: The campus has recorded 31 positive cases this week (one Faculty and 6 staff cases). Only one case appears to be from campus contact.  As 11/8/20, the communities surrounding campus are seeing rising COVID19 infection rates.   The College of Nursing had to make adjustments to their schedules.  Holford asked faculty to communicate with chair/dean when moving to online instruction
   • Spring enrollment is lagging to about 10% for Spring 2021.
   • Changes to the annual review process. In the past we uploaded into Blackboard, it will now be uploaded to Interfolio.  This will be beneficial to junior faculty, because they will not have to load their materials to two different platforms
   • The conversation about the proposed merger between COT and CES is postponed until December.  The CES faculty counsel will be conducting a new survey.
   • Holford announced that this has been a record year for sponsored programs. We are currently at $9.2 million in externally funded projects.
   • Scipes asked Holford about his level of support for the Westville Ad Hoc Committee. Keon stated that all recommendations will be reviewed and promised to give feedback on every suggestion
   • Kramer asked that there be special consideration in making certain Interfolio will not lock up due to increased activity on the platform.
6. New Business:

Curriculum Documents Approval.  Three documents were approved by the curriculum committee.  These were moved for action and were approved by the senate

7. Discussion Items:
   • (Vice Chancellor Turner) Incentive Based Budget Model-discussion and questions. (Information about this model can be found here:  https://www.pnw.edu/business-services/incentive-based-budget-model/ )
   • Turner’s presentation can be found at this link.
   • Senate questions on Turner’s presentation
     • Artz: Who is responsible for college accountability?  Is it just the dean?  Will there be various faculty councils?  How much transparency will there be?
     • Holford stated that one of the major changes is that some of the financial decisions which haven’t been transparent to the faculty in the past will now be visible. Faculty will see what the revenue generation looks like, and where the money is being spent. Faculty will have a recommend and advise role, but the Dean is fiscally responsible for the unit.
     • Elmendorf: How will the cost for service centers be calculated? 
     • Turner: Everything is driven by a formula.  As each dean and department chair begins to understand the methodology, they will naturally pursue ways to cut costs.
     • Sindone: Can you explain the space cost? 
     • Turner: One type of dedicated instructional space would be (for example) a chemistry lab that is only used by that department and college and is assigned space to that unit.  The square footage will be assigned as a space cost to the unit.  General instructional space such as classrooms that are used by a number of different groups and other space that is simply for the benefit of the entire campus goes into a space pool. The relative costs for those spaces are distributed by the proportion of credit hours being produced by the college. There is ongoing discussions on whether or not we should move to 65%-35% model with general space costs, because that’s how we distribute the revenue.
     • Holford: First, in the college of engineering and sciences, almost all of the programs have dedicated labs. In some cases, those dedicated lab spaces can’t really be repurposed for other things. The college will have to make a determination about how it covers essential spaces. The cost does not automatically get passed down to a department level, because that might not make sense in some colleges. Second, all administrative costs are not made up of administrative salaries. It’s distributed. For example, if we look in academic affairs, our Sponsored Programs Office, institutional research, academic advising, supplemental instruction testing all fall under administrative cost.  We might decide in some areas, we’re not spending enough money and that we’re spending an adequate or too much money in other areas and need to make adjustments.
     • Murphy: How does the university demonstrate its commitment to high quality graduate education within this budget model?
     • Holford: Most of our graduate programs do not make money. You support graduate programs for other reasons, such as reputation, advanced training, and, in some cases, training your own students. Colleges will need to make decisions about the level of support that they’re going to put into certain graduate programs. But it should be done with a recognition we are not supporting it as a money-making enterprise. The consequence of supporting graduate programs impacts other areas. Units have to make those decisions.
     • Murphy: Can you say something about “strategic initiatives”
     • Turner: The 2.5% subvention for strategic initiatives are used for things that would not be naturally taken on as a as a project or as an investment at the college level, because it’s it has an institutional focus.  We are not sure that it’s sufficient.
     • Holford: The subvention fund is a pool of funds that can provide start-up funds. For example, this year, we had to do criminal justice program and there’s going to be an initial investment to hire faculty members. In the past, we could only pull funds from other sources
     • Parashar: Can you give us a comparison to peer institutions?
     • Turner: We continue to try to do that. But if you do an across-the-board comparison, you may lose the value of it by not digging into the details of why are they different.   For example, between Fort Wayne and PNW, at PNW we operate two campus locations and (for example) we have two central power plants.  This would not show on a general peer to peer institution basis at a high level.
     • Artz: How does this model allow us to make choices that are really not budget choices? Sometimes it is not a matter of needing more money, but thinking about how do something that is more effective with the same money.
     • Turner: As part of that annual budget hearing, there will naturally be questions among those who are paying the bills. Accountability will have to be expressed during those annual budget hearings.  Offices that are underperforming will be held accountable for it.
     • Keon: the deans have been meeting more frequently with the senior leadership team and we frequently talk about the quality of performance. There is nothing that’s going to change in terms of the management structure. And the management structure still puts pressure on optimize performance in many ways. Because of the openness with this model, it will point to where we have performance problems that, in the past, may have been covered up just by the fact that you did just throw money at it, or you just gave it the same amount of money it had last year.
     • Kozel: Is all space treated equally?
     • Turner: Presently, but we expect that as we refine the model, we will begin to divide up space more precisely.   Some of the instructional labs are more expensive than the general-purpose classroom that were only lectures are delivered.
     • Holford: I anticipate that units will become more efficient in utilizing space and that units will be more likely to share space.

 

• • FSD 20-10 Grade submission deadline change for Fall 2020 Jennifer Williams explained that because W.L is on a different calendar and that President Daniels initiated holidays off.  The W.L. registrar’s office committed staying on to working on our grade files. They requested that it come to them by 8 PM instead of midnight.   The process of uploading grades from PNW to WL takes a few hours.  All of this needs to be done by December 23 or else we are waiting until January 4, which is really putting our students in a bad position if they have to make any kind financial aid.   MOVED TO ACTION AND APPROVED

 

8. For Information:
   • Proposal for the revision of GS 191 (D. Pratt) Pratt stated that progress has been made related to faculty oversight and control of the GS 191 sections. GS191 is designed for students who haven’t declared their majors yet.  The issue is that Gen Ed and Assessment has to evaluate all FYE courses.  It wasn’t clear who was in charge of these courses. Gen Ed and Assessment, working with Academic Affairs are developing a plan for more faculty control and oversight. The university is working on formalizing University College and perhaps the Dean of the Honors College will also be responsible for it.  The oversight of the courses will be handled by a faculty council that will be established with faculty representatives, in addition to an ex officio such as the director of student success and retention.

 

• • Westville Vision Ad Hoc committee (K. Scipes) Twelve people have met to discuss how to organize the committee and the decision-making processes. Members of the committee will include faculty from both campuses, staff, and staff organization representation from Westville. The next meeting will be on December 4, 2020

 

• • Report on the Teaching Portfolio Taskforce (C. DeLeon) DeLeon reported that Rachel Clapp-Smith has put together a committee to try to improve the teaching portfolio experience to make it more user friendly, because it is not going away.

 

9. Report from the West Lafayette Senate (V. Quinn)
   • The WL subcommittees were populated. Quinn is on Ed Policy.  Deadline to switch to Pass/no Pass and to change the Fall 2020 drop date were passed.  There was significant discussion regarding a proposal for a voluntary reading day on Election day starting in November, 2021.  This proposal was brought to Oriana White’s attention for consideration of PNWs Student Government.
10. Open discussion
    • Elmendorf stated that Nominations for outstanding faculty awards will be going out on November 15. If you feel that you or anyone else is outstanding in engagement, scholarship, or teaching your nomination will be passed to the chair of the committee, who was last year’s winner.
11. Adjournment

Committee room assignments: As has been the practice of the PNW Faculty Senate, standing committees will meet directly following the conclusion of the PNW Faculty Senate meeting.  These meetings will be virtual as long as the senate meetings are virtual.