North Georgia College & State University

Faculty Senate Meeting: 10 March 2005

Senators present: Susan Ayres, Stuart Batchelder, Toni Bellon, Frank Corotto, Barry Friedman, Robert Fuller, Ahmad Ghafarian, Willie Gordon, Elaine Hummel, Scot Irwin, Elizabeth Lewis, Kevin Mace, Pete Oppenheimer, Greta Olsen, Judy O’Neal, David Potter, Bud Reiselt, Linda Roberts-Betsch, Andy Shaffer, Steve Smith, Ann Sumners, Derek Suranie, Jimmy Woods.

Senators absent: Catherine Chastain, Chris Jespersen, Matias Minambres.

Senators excused: Kaye Biddy, Ed Dickens, Marc Gilbert, Mariana Stone.

Visitors: none.

Dr. Linda Roberts-Betsch called the meeting to order at 12:40 pm.

Minutes for 10 February 2005. A motion was made by Dr. Bud Reiselt to accept the minutes for 10 February 2005. The motion was seconded by Dr. Batchelder. There was no discussion. The motion carried.

President’s Report - Dr. David Potter

Dr. Potter expressed gratitude that the faculty will soon get a break. He stated that Spring Break is timely. Dr. Potter noted that this is a busy time of year. It is the time of the legislative session. The budget for next year is on everybody’s mind. It looks like NGCSU will get a fair amount of new money because the formula is being funded fully. There has been talk in the Georgia system of taking some money off of the top of the new money to restore what was cut in the prior year. This would be a disadvantage to North Georgia because we would lose money to replace what other institutions had in place before this year. We would prefer all the new money to go to growth since that is what we’ve experienced. The Regents hold back 20 % of new money to support initiatives. We hope to get some funds from that 20 % to replace what we are going to lose because of the off-the-top money. We made some budget planning assumptions that, if we got about a 5 % tuition increase, which seems likely, we may get as much as 1.8 million dollars of new money. He asked the President’s Cabinet to bring forward a consensus list of requests on that. Dr. Potter mentioned that the senate will be pleased to see the support that we get for new faculty; we hope for as many as 10 new positions. Some money will address the workload issue for faculty and department heads and to shore-up our academic support unit. Also, we will set aside some money to strengthen library resources to prepare for SACS review and also to pay for staff support of the review process. Institutional effectiveness will be a big issue. We need to strengthen what we do there to prepare for SACS. A full-time position will probably go to work on that issue. It will be a good year if we get a piece of that 20 %. We’ll try hard to on that front.

On the capital side, we did get 21 million dollars for the new library and technology center. We will soon go into high gear on this project. The current plans are decent but need to be refined. This is a tremendous opportunity to create the library of the future. It will be focused on information technology as a base as well as having the text-based resources that we need to strengthen. A minor project fund we had hoped for was for the renovation of the Education Building. Unfortunately, the governor did not support any minors projects. We will have to backfill to keep it alive. The next minors project may be a significant renovation Barnes Hall. It is in dire need of renovation. We also have some significant needs in Memorial Hall. This will be a major problem for us. We are going to try to tackle those needs as well. The next big project will be a convocation center to take the pressure off of Memorial Hall.

President Potter noted that Dean Bob Michael asked to be relieved of the responsibility of leading the Quality Enhancement Plan. Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs Kathy Sisk will step in in his place. We also need to get the Vice President for Academic Affairs search completed. Board policy dictates that it must be a national search. The search committee has been organized. Dean Tom Fox agreed to chair the search committee. Judy O’Neal will represent the Faculty Senate. There will be a representative from each of the four schools; Dr. Robert Fuller represents the School of Natural & Health Sciences. Dr. Carmen Mas is on the committee representing Academic Support Programs. Mac McConnell represents the vice presidents. Dean Laura Whitaker-Lea represents Student Affairs. President Potter noted that the committee is dominated by faculty.

Dr. Potter stated that we are continuing planning for the Capital Campaign. Mr. Bruce Howerton is putting together a timeline so we can let the community know when we will move to the next steps. We will probably add a position in this area, or the Annual Fund, to strengthen what we do and free up Jeff Boggan to work with large donors. We hope to be working with some large donors as part of the first phase of the campaign. We also want to strengthen the range of our alumni efforts. We want to reach out more broadly to alumni. Most of our active alumni are those who were in the Cadet Corps. We want to reach out in addition to other alumni that also had good experiences here. We also are taking another initiative. He created a taskforce we are calling the Institutional Identity Taskforce. We have a clear idea of our mission as it pertains to our military side, but we have less clarity in terms of what we are trying to accomplish on the non-military side. The issue resonated with the Administrative Council. We need to have a more clear idea of who we are and who we want to be. We want to have a more accessible message to others about who we are. As a first step, President Potter asked the Institutional Identity Taskforce to design a procedure to involve the community, thus letting our constituents voice their opinions about what NGCSU represents. Dr. Bob Lyman is chairing the committee.

President Potter finished by stating that, while some things are underway, we are still identifying our needs. While there are many needs, there is also a great base to build on. We will make the best of our opportunities.

There were no questions for President Potter.

Report on the Revised Promotion and Tenure Policy - Dr. Linda Roberts-Betsch

Dr. Roberts-Betsch began by noting that the Board of Regents approved our proposed revised Promotion and Tenure policies at their February 1 meeting. The board provided no feedback. Dr. Roberts subsequently asked department heads to provide their P & T standards and expectations by the end of spring semester. Once the departmental expectations are submitted, an oversight committee will be appointed. The Faculty Senate should consider making a recommendation to her concerning the composition of that oversight committee. The oversight committee will then review the departmental expectations to ensure consistency with university-level policies and also ensure similarity across disciplines, taking into account that disciplines will vary in their expectations. She would like to get the new policies in the Faculty Handbook this summer so they could be used by faculty applying for promotion and tenure this year.

Report on the Staff Council’s draft shared leave policy - Ms. Laura Mullins

Ms. Laura Mullins introduced herself. As well as working for Linda Roberts, she is also the president of the Staff Council. The Staff Council is working on a shared leave policy. It would be a policy used by employees who cannot work for long periods of time due to chronic illness and who run out of sick or annual leave. University employees would be able to donate their leave to the sick employee. The policy is still being revised. It is available on the n: drive where faculty and staff may look it over. She asked that senators look at the most recent version (there are two) and provide her with any feedback. As the policy currently reads, an employee who requests leave can request up to 160 hours three times per fiscal year. If it is not used it reverts back to the donor. A committee will approve who gets the leave. The committee will include someone from payroll, someone on the staff (perhaps from the Staff Council), and a faculty member (perhaps from the Faculty Senate). Committee members will serve a one-year term. Voting will be via email. Decisions will be made by majority vote. This would not be a leave pool in which you can just throw in your money. There must be a real person in need. Laura finished by again asking the senators to look over the policy on the n: drive and provide her with feedback.

Senator Woods asked if the Board of Regents would allow such a policy. Ms. Mullins responded that the board allows a shared leave policy, just not a leave pool. President Potter asked if you can donate either sick leave or vacation leave. Ms. Mullins responded yes. Senator Woods asked for clarification, vacation leave? The answer was yes. Laura went on to mention that one cannot donate so much leave that one would have less than 120 hours remaining. Also, one cannot donate all one’s remaining leave upon retirement. Laura described the policy as “bare bones,” as simple as possible with as little paperwork as possible. Senator Elaine Hummel inquired as to who will approve the policy. Laura Mullins said it would go to the Faculty Senate and the Staff Council. Ultimately, the Staff Council would recommend it to the President.

Report from the Committee on Committees- Senator Judy O’Neal reported in Senator Bob Orwig’s absence

Dr. O’Neal reported that the Committee on Committees needs to replace Dr. Elizabeth Combier on the Academic Activities Committee and the Committee on Committees. Dr. Bud Reiselt was proposed to fill both positions since he was going to be placed on both committees next year anyway. The motion did not require a second. There was no discussion. The motion carried.

Senator O’Neal went on to propose five names to serve on the Student Board of Review and Grievance Panel. Those were Mr. Michael Marling de Cuellar, Dr. Ann Sumners, Mr. John Kruger, Dr. David Morris, and Dr. Marc Gilbert. No second was required. There was some discussion as to whether four names were required or five. Linda Roberts thought five. CEO Fuller noted that if five is too many then one can resign. There was no further discussion. The motion carried. CEO Robert Fuller congratulated the Committee on Committees for doing a great job while having to deal with many issues.

Announcements

CEO Fuller noted that the Senate’s last meeting for the semester is next month on April 14^th. We did approve the bylaws change that drops the summer senate meeting, but it needs to be voted upon by the faculty to be approved. That will probably not happen until fall semester. We are therefore still having our summer senate meeting, June 9^th if he recalled correctly. New senators will attend next month’s meeting only to vote for new officers, along with the other senators who will serve next year. He invited senators to consider running for CEO or Secretary. The Committee on Committees will recommend a parliamentarian. Senator Woods noted that the Senate could seek administrative approval of the Senate-approved bylaws change, pending faculty approval, such that a senate meeting this summer would not be required. CEO Fuller noted that the senate could discuss the issue at the April meeting.

Senator Scot Irvin announced that Dr. Frank Fearon has had two MRI’s with no sign of disease. The Senate applauded.

Senator Barry Friedman announced that he just visited the State University of West Georgia and discovered that their name is being changed. They will be the University of West Georgia. They are happy as clams. They are delighted with the name change. Meanwhile, we are stuck with an unwieldy name. He wondered if we could become the University of North Georgia. CEO Fuller noted that President Potter already mentioned charging the Institutional Identity Committee. They met. The issue of changing our name was raised, along with many others. CEO Fuller also noted that, according to Bob Lyman, Georgia College & State University is changing their name back to Georgia College. The reasoning is that they are changing their focus to be the liberal arts college of Georgia. They want to be very good at that and that’s all they want to be. The climate in Atlanta may be appropriate for a name change. Senator Friedman asked if the Faculty Senate should get involved in expressing an opinion. CEO Fuller responded that the issue could be placed on the agenda for the next meeting.

There was no other business or announcements.

CEO Fuller adjoined the meeting at 1:10 pm.

Respectfully submitted by Frank Corotto