Executive Committee Meeting
Boulder Faculty Assembly
Minutes
October 6, 2003
Attending:
Barbara Bintliff, BFA Chair
Stein Sture, Vice Chair
Bill Waite, Academic Affairs Committee
Andy Cowell, BFA Academic Technology Committee Chair
Jerry Peterson, At-Large Board Member
Uriel Nauenberg, former BFA chair
David Guenther, BFA Administrative Services Committee Chair
Dipankar Chakravarti, Minority Affairs Committee Chair
Rodney Taylor, At-Large Board Member
Mel Branch, BFA Faculty Affairs Committee Chair
Marguerite Moritz, BFA GLB Affairs Committee Chair
Martin Walter, BFA Student Affairs Cmte Chair
Gail Ramsberger, Arts and Sciences Council Chair
Bill Kaempfer, Assoc. VC for Budget and Planning
Stephanie Martin, UGGS/UCSU Legislative Council
Basim Mahmood, Tri-Exec Representative
Guest Speakers:
Jack Burns, Vice President for Academic Affairs
Michel Dahlin, Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs
R L Widmann, English
Media:
Jeff Dodge, Silver and Gold Record
Sarah Jane Wilton, Colorado Daily
Kate Larsen, Boulder Daily Camera
Not Attending:
Greg Carey, Secretary
Cathy Comstock, BFA AAP Committee Chair
Lori Seward, BFA Committee on Women Chair
Bob Hohlfelder, Budget and Planning Committee Chair
Mark Dubin, BFA Libraries Committee Chair
Tom Mayer, Communications Committee Chair
Mike Preston, BFA Intercollegiate Athletics Cmte Chair
Clayton Lewis, Faculty Compensation and Benefits Cmte Chair
A meeting of the Boulder Faculty Assembly Executive Committee was held on Monday, October 6, 2003 in UMC room 425. Chair Barbara Bintliff presided. The meeting convened at 3:30 p.m. and adjourned at 5:00 p.m.
A. Approval of Minutes
MOVED by Stein Sture and seconded by Rodney Taylor that the minutes of September 29, 2003 as amended be approved.
B. Chair's Report
Chair Bintliff reminded everyone that President Hoffman would be delivering her Fall Forum presentation on the Boulder campus, UMC room 235, on Monday, October 13, 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. The Executive Committee meeting has been cancelled for that day. On other campuses these forums have produced good attendance and lively discussions; Bintliff urged committee members to bring questions and thoughtful comments to this forum. Faculty, staff and students are all welcome.
Bintliff copied all committee members on her letter sent October 1 in response to comments made by CCHE Director Tim Foster representing CU as deficient in the retention and graduation of minority students and student athletes. Bintliff thanked Lou McClelland and Christie Yoshinaga-Itano for providing helpful data and statistics to counter these comments. CU has always been at the top of all the QIS measures which has been verified by CCHE’s own data. Bintliff suggested that the committee ask guests Jack Burns and Michel Dahlin how the BFA could work to obtaining better and more reflective measures when communicating with the CCHE.
When Chancellor Byyny came to speak to the full BFA Assembly in September he mentioned the need to develop a set of faculty expectations of students. A committee has been organized to develop these policies with the support of the chancellor and provost who has mentioned it will be useful with both the recruiting and admissions processes. The Chair said it will be beneficial to have a statement setting forth faculty expectations regarding students on the Boulder campus. The committee’s work will run parallel to that of the Faculty Affairs committee working to clarify faculty rights, duties and responsibilities. Bintliff asked the Executive Committee to approve the membership of this special committee: William Wei, David DiLaura, Sam Fitch, Bob Schulzinger, Fred Denny, Jeff Mitton, and Darna Dufour. Bintliff will be serving ex officio and Nauenberg will chair the committee. Bintliff asked for a motion from the Executive Committee to approve this committee roster. Branch so moved and Sture seconded. A vote was called and the vote was unanimous in support of the committee’s membership.
Kaempfer reported that Michael Grant and Susan Kent are putting together a memo in the form of an alert to faculty about cheating in the electronic age. Bintliff was aware of this memo to the Council of Deans with the intent to distribute it to faculty as a reminder that exams should be proctored, and that Grant has issued an email alert outlining the new electronic means of cheating: text messaging on cell phones, using picture phones to send exam pages, as well as the time-honored methods of placing notes in your hat. Ramsberger told the group that Pepsi cans are one of the newest vehicles for cheating.
In other campus news, Deborah Jin from NIST and Physics was named recipient of the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship.
C. Special Report
Chair Bintliff introduced Vice President of Academic Affairs Jack Burns and Associate Vice President of Academic Affairs Michel Dahlin. Burns began by stating that the interactions with CCHE have seen positive improvement in the past three to four months due to personnel changes. Long-standing issues are being worked through with a spirit of flexibility not seen in the last few years, while other issues are “melting away.” Dahlin told the group that this new attitude has meant that the changes at CCHE have allowed people to do what they think is right on a number of issues, specifically in some areas like teacher education and the general education transfer core, where the positions taken had been very unreasonable. Taylor asked if this flexibility could lead to the possibility of more professional graduate degrees in a shorter period of time and was told that Requests for Proposals should now take 60 days to process. Sture asked how enterprise status would change our relationship with CCHE. Burns replied that the desire seems to be to combine or merge the enterprise system with vouchers to allow all of higher education to go into enterprise status and that the CCHE would work collaboratively with CU. Peterson pointed out that at Tim Foster ‘s last visit to the BFA he implied we weren’t attracting and keeping minority students. This misinformation was countered efficiently by Bintliff’s letter of October 1, but what could be done to counter this kind of misleading data for the future? Burns replied that Bintliff’s letter was the best way to deal with such myths and that by bringing the facts forward to correct the record was to take the rational and most effective way to correct the record. Branch asked if the CCHE were preoccupied with the proposed Academic Bill of Rights, and Burns replied that Foster has stated publicly that the CCHE will not address this issue as it is political and does not merit discussion at Council level. Nauenberg stated that Foster has indicated he still supports Quality for Colorado, and Burns replied that the CCHE does regard CU as the flagship university for Colorado and that the constant desire to improve the quality of it teaching and students is present. Walter stated that a number of “non-Republican” qualified academicians have been dismissed from CU over the years and challenged those present to find the same to be true for Republican faculty on campus.
Bintliff thanked Burns for coming to the meeting and Dahlin remained for the discussion on the Uniform Grading Policy. At this time she acknowledged R L Widmann who was also present for the grading policy discussion.
D. Committee Reports
Andy Cowell announced that his committee, Academic Technology, will be meeting on Thursday with members of ITS to discuss paper printing and classroom support issues, and that if anyone had specific concerns they should send them to Cowell before the meeting.
Bintliff pointed out that the draft policy has been worked on for about eighteen months at the Faculty Council level by the EPUS committee (Education Practices and University Standards), and R L Widmann chairs that committee. The pilot course forgiveness program on the Boulder campus was the main impetus behind the revisions to the Uniform Grading Policy. Bill Waite of the Academic Affairs Committee has reported on areas where there have been significant changes to the existing policy, and today’s task was to make recommendations to be brought forward to the full BFA Assembly on Thursday, October 9. The Academic Affairs committee brought a report on the draft Uniform Grading Policy, no second was required and open discussion on the draft report proposal could begin.
Beginning with the first draft change states that, “No change in the Uniform Grading Policy will be adopted unless it meets with the approval of a majority of the schools and colleges.” The statement from the current policy reads: No change in the Uniform Grading Policy will be adopted unless it meets with the approval of a majority of the voting faculty in at least 80 percent of the academic units on all four campuses. As the Academic Affairs Committee points out, the wording eliminates voting by the faculty. Dahlin’s comments on this statement state that there is no intention to make this other than a faculty vote and she has proposal’s new language to read: No change in the Uniform Grading Policy will be adopted unless it meets with the approval of a majority of the schools and colleges as determined by a vote of the faculty in each school and college” Discussion followed as to whether or not the language change was clear, necessary, and met the concerns of the committee. Recommended changes to the language will be taken back to the EPUS committee and Faculty Council by Widmann.
A vote was taken that the full BFA endorse the Uniform Grading Policy first change with our provision that faculty voting be explicitly mentioned using the following language: No change in the Standard Grading System (Uniform Grading Policy) will be adopted unless it meets with the approval of a majority of the voting faculty in each of at least 80 percent of the academic units, schools and colleges of the University.
A vote was taken and all were in favor of taking the provision to the full BFA.
There was discussion on the proposal that the unit vote percentages change from 80 percent to 50 plus 1 percent. Waite reported that his committee was opposed to the change from 80 percent to 50 percent, and it was pointed out that a two-thirds vote is required for a super majority.
A straw vote was taken to decide on support for fifty percent plus 1 versus a number higher than 50 percent, with the higher percentage of two-thirds approved.
A motion from the Executive Committee recommending the particular clause be changed to a two-thirds majority was brought and seconded. It was then recommended and so moved that the Executive Committee recommend to the BFA Assembly that Faculty Council reexamine the percentage needed for amending the Uniform Grading Policy and the BFA recommends a two-thirds vote instead of a fifty percent plus 1 after extensive discussion.
Dahlin proposed new language to clarify the course forgiveness section: Any policy on course forgiveness shall apply only to the campus whose faculty develop and adopt it and shall apply only to the students enrolled in the schools and colleges participating in the campus programs. Waite argued that “campus” is not the appropriate grouping for a grading policy. Taylor pointed out that a campus is an academic unit because it is accredited, and if accreditation as the presupposition as to what constitutes the definition of an academic unit, then campus is such a unit. Widmann pointed out that the use of the word “campus” was in an effort to standardize and make consistent the policy language used from campus to campus.
The Executive Committee moved and seconded that they would like to recommend to the full BFA that the word “campus” be allowed to remain in the policy text as written. A vote was taken and the motion carried.
The last issue was raised concerning the addition of the policy on course forgiveness. The proposal to the Uniform Grading System states that: course forgiveness may be offered by an individual campus and any policy on course forgiveness shall apply only to the campus whose faculty develops and adopts it and shall apply only to the students enrolled on that campus. Dahlin proposed the committee consider a friendly addition to the statement: only the students enrolled in the schools and colleges participating in the campus program in an effort to clarify which students. Widmann pointed out that problems can occur if a student transfers between schools within a college and if there is a disparity between the school policies, the student cannot necessarily retake the course. After discussion on this point, Bintliff asked that the focus turn to whether or not the committee allows the policy to exist rather than focusing on process which is more of a campus issue. A motion was made to adopt the language as written in the proposal on course forgiveness to recommend the endorsement of the full BFA. Nauenberg so moved and Taylor seconded. There was no further discussion on this issue. A vote in favor of recommending adoption of the proposed language as written was taken and the motion carried.
E. Next Meeting
The next regular meeting of the Boulder Faculty Assembly Executive Committee will be Monday, October 20, 3:30 to 5:00 p.m. in UMC room 425 as the October 13 meeting has been cancelled.
The Chair thanked everyone for attending and the meeting was adjourned.
Respectfully submitted by Martha Shernick, BFA Administrator
BFA Executive Committee Minutes Archive | BFA