ATTENDEES: Davis, Dean, Eberhart, Honeyman, Mehta, Parker, Romberger, Santi, Voorhees, and Thiry

APOLOGIES:  Christiansen, Mitcham, and Wolden

GUESTS: Arthur Sacks – Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs

COMMENTS FROM GUEST:

1. Arthur Sacks – Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs
   1. Banner software will cost CSM between $4.4M and $4.6M. It will replace the current FRS, SIS, and HRS software. The administration decided to purchase this software now because of the opportunity to divide the cost between several higher education institutions.

ANNOUNCEMENTS AND COMMENTS:

1. The Faculty Distinguished Lecture will be presented on February 23, 2005 at 4:00 pm. Marvin Kay, Emeritus Professor of Athletics, will present the lecture entitled, “Mines Athletics and Academics, Then and Now – and How!”

2. The Senators suggested that Romberger invite the administration or our state legislators to address the faculty on March 30, 2005.

3. The Registrar will be invited to the next Senate meeting to discuss concerns with the electronic submission of grades.

APPROVALS:

1. The minutes of the January 18, 2005 Faculty Senate meeting were approved.

COUNCIL AND COMMITTEE REPORTS:

1. Research Council – By acclamation, the Senators agreed that Parker chair the Research Council for the remainder of this academic year.

2. Committee on Committees – Thiry announced the following committee assignments: Dennis Readey will serve on the Budget Committee replacing Eileen Poeter and Vaughn Griffiths will serve on the Faculty Handbook Committee replacing John Spear who is on sabbatical. The following have agreed to serve on the Readmission Committee – Christian Debrunner, Craig Simmons, Tonya Lefton and Candy Ammerman.

   The Committee plans to distribute the committee interest form in March. There are four Senators whose terms will end in May. The Committee is seeking nominations for these vacancies from those departments that are not represented on the Senate – Mining, Geophysics, Physics, Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, and Liberal Arts and International Studies.

3. Committee on Evaluation – Davis presented the following minutes from the Evaluation Committee December 6, 2004 meeting:
   
   Committee on Evaluation Minutes
   Meeting of December 6, 2004, 8:00 AM, EH217

   In Attendance: Graham Davis (Chair), Graeme Fairweather (DD/DH representative), Cigdem Gurgur, Arthur Sacks (ex officio), Dendy Sloan

   Regrets: Michelle Moorman (student representative), Barbara Moskal

   Visitor: Luis Garza (representative of Graduate Student Association)

   Agenda Item 1: Corrections/Adjustments to Minutes of 11/15/04 - None.

   Agenda Item 2: Action Items from Meeting of 11/15/04

   G. Davis contacted Ann Walker and Mike Dougherty to see whether there are any institutional requirements that the responses to the proposed open-ended survey questions be stored by the University for any length of time. The response from both was that if the surveys were being used for evaluation of faculty, they would have to be stored either in hard copy or in electronic form. The surveys would need to be kept until at least 3 years past the faculty member’s date of tenure. Hardcopy storage would require departments and divisions to store the 5,000 to 7,000 pieces of paper generated each semester (assuming tenure track faculty will be receiving 1/3rd of the 15,000 – 20,000 evaluations filled out each semester). Assuming a normal 6 year tenure clock, this would entail storage, on a rolling basis, of up to 200,000 pieces of paper. G. Davis has contacted Derek Wilson of Computing and Networking with a request that the cost of scanning and electronically storing the survey results be estimated. A. Sacks will obtain an estimate of printing costs for these new surveys.

   The issue of moving to an on-line evaluation system was again raised, with its implications for how the open-ended surveys might be collected and stored.

   Luis Garza will be joining future meetings of the Committee as a non-voting guest, representing the CSM Graduate Student Association.

   G. Davis is in the process of tracking down the forms that were used in the past for faculty evaluations of administrators.

   Agenda Item 3: Comments on the Ultimate Proposed Revisions to the Core Questions on the Faculty Evaluation Forms (FEFs)

   In its last meeting in Spring 2003, the Committee on Evaluation came up with a new set of proposed core questions for the FEFs. This set was sent to the Department Heads, who suggested some modifications. Graeme Fairweather delivered a revised set of 10 questions to this sitting of the Committee for final approval. The 10 questions are listed below.

   After some discussion, seven of the questions survived as proposed, two had minor wording changes for the purpose of clarification (in italics), one new question was added (in bold), and one question remains in need of further clarification (in bold italics):

   1. The teaching methods used in this course are effective

   2. The instructor explains the material clearly

   3. The instructor is accessible during office hours

   4. The instructor creates an environment that fosters student involvement in the learning process

   5. The instructor demonstrates a positive attitude toward helping students

   6. Work required is appropriate

   7. This instructor facilitates student learning

   8. Graded work reflects content taught of the course

   9. The grading policies for this course are fair

   10. Based on your responses above, how would you rate the overall effectiveness of your instructor?

   11. The course goals were clearly stated and met

   Student responses to this list of questions were thought to be of interest to the instructor and to DD/DH’s and Promotion and Tenure Review Committees. It was also felt that the students were for the most part qualified to knowledgeably answer these 11 questions.

   A. Sacks mentioned that he would like to see an additional question about the nature of the peer group in the class. He also felt that question 9 was likely to be answered in terms of fairness of grades, rather than fairness of grading policies.

   G. Fairweather thought it would be useful to ask the student their expected grade in the class.

   L. Garza suggested that the overall course be evaluated, but there was some concern by Committee members that this provided little value, as the evaluation of the course would depend largely on whether it was populated by students for which the course was part of their major. In addition, it was felt that overall course evaluation was routinely obtained from the student exit interviews that each department conducts.

   Question #6 needs clarification, and G. Davis is to try and come up with a more precisely worded question.

   There was no discussion of Agenda Item 4, Integrity of the Faculty Evaluation Process, and Agenda Item 5, Other Business.

   Agenda Item 6: Action Items for Next Meeting

   B. Moskal will identify the need for duplicate questions for survey calibration, and if needed, the statistical analysis that would need to be provided as part of the Scantron output. She will also investigate the merits of moving to a median vs. mean reporting standard, and whether outliers (high/low response, for example) should be included in the tabulated results.

   G. Davis will continue the search for the instrument used in the past for faculty evaluations of administrators. He will also get clarification from the Senate as to the purpose of the evaluations.

   A. Sacks will report back on estimated printing costs for the new open-ended survey questions.

   A. Sacks will propose an additional question for the FEF concerning student peer evaluation.

   G. Davis will work to clarify question #6.

   G. Davis will contact Chip Romig in Computing and Networking regarding his knowledge of on-line faculty evaluations being conducted at University of Nebraska, Lincoln.

   There being no further business, the meeting adjourned at 9:00 AM.

4. Faculty Affairs Committee – Dean informed the Senate that a subset of this committee is hearing a graduate student appeal. Dean will communicate to the committee Sacks’ concern that a decision be made in a timely manner.

5. Readmissions Committee – The Committee had a full two day schedule before the beginning of the semester according to Thiry. At a future Senate meeting, Thiry will report on the interaction between the admissions office and this committee.

6. Handbook Committee – Romberger reported the Handbook Committee is focusing on the description of non-tenure track faculty positions as stated in Sections 4, 6 and 8 of the Faculty Handbook.