CSM: Faculty Senate
Faculty Senate, Colorado School of Mines

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COLORADO SCHOOL OF MINES FACULTY SENATE MINUTES
October 5, 1999 - 2:00 PM
Coolbaugh House

ATTENDEES: Ely, Kidnay, Lu, Nickum, Ohno, Readey, Romberger, VanTyne, and Wendlandt

APOLOGIES: Griffiths, Klusman, E. Pang, and Underwood

VISITOR: John Trefny, VPAA

COMMENTS FROM GUEST:

  1. Trefny

    1. Trefny has designated Nigel Middleton to chair the Undergraduate Council. Trefny feels that this action is appropriate as a major part of Middleton's responsibilities as the Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs duties is handling undergraduate issues. Trefny will distribute to the Senators a list of this position's responsibilities. The Faculty Bylaws state that the chair of the Undergraduate Council will be the Vice President for Academic Affairs; therefore, the Faculty Bylaws will have to be changed to reflect this. VanTyne pointed out that the Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs is not listed as a member of the Academic Faculty. Ely and VanTyne will work on the wording to the Faculty Bylaws to reflect both of these changes.

    2. The student evaluation of teaching is a Senate responsibility. Trefny would like the Senate to look at the present evaluation system as it is costing CSM approximately $50,000 annually to administer it. Romberger pointed out that a new chair for the Evaluation Committee will need to be elected as the current chair, Klusman, is on sabbatical this semester. There are no other Senators presently on this committee.

    3. CSM will host the Faculty-to-Faculty Conference on November 5, 1999. Tim Foster will be the speaker. Trefny is taking reservations and will forward them to CCHE.

    4. Colorado Institute of Technology – Romig and Middleton are serving on committees that are looking into establishing this institute at the Lowry site in Aurora.

APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES: The September 21, 1999 Faculty Senate Minutes were approved as amended.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

  1. Van Tyne moved and seconded by Nickum to have Rex Bull be the Grand Marshal at the December Convocation and May Commencement. Motion passed unanimously.

  2. Romberger reminded Senators that several of them are liaisons to department/divisions.

COMMITTEE REPORTS:

  1. Executive Committee (Romberger) – Members of this committee are Senators, Romberger, Ely and Underwood and Department Heads: Eggert, Daniel, and Ross. This committee has not met this year.

  2. Councils of the Senate

    1. Graduate Council (Underwood) – This Council will focus on two issues this semester: (1) the TA pool and (2) graduate student registration.

    2. Undergraduate Council (Nickum provided this written report) –

      Nigel Middleton is now the chair for the Undergraduate Council.

      The Registrar's office questioned how to best handle advising holds with various departmental policies. The Registrar would like to publish the departmental policies in the tab schedule for spring registration to better inform the students. Committee members will take this issue back to their departments.

      On behalf of Dr. Romberger, Dr. Humphrey introduced a possible change to the membership of the Undergraduate Council to include a non-voting undergraduate student. The Council was in favor of this change and sent this issue to the Senate in order to change the by-laws and decide how this new member was going to be selected (ASCSM was suggested).

      The Council received a memo about the schedule of SYGN202. This course was initially intended for the sophomore year, but is being recommended by several departments to be taken in the junior year. Dr. Middleton informed the Council that this would be probably be an item that the Council would act upon during this academic year.

      Concerns were brought up about elective courses covering the Oredigger and the Prospector being staffed and operated by Student Life since the credit is given by LAIS. The Council will bring this issue up again during the year to see if these electives should be moved in their entirety to LAIS.

      After talking with students, President Bickert has relayed some of their questions about the absence of a progress grade for freshman chemistry since progress grades exist for calculus and physics. Since the meeting was almost over, this topic will be reintroduced at the next meeting.

    3. Research Council (Readey) – Gosink presented the status of the Institute for Advanced Systems and its study of transportation and the I-70 corridor. This group is not seeking Center status at this time. John Dorgan made a presentation for a center to be established in Polymer Science and Engineering that will cross departmental lines. Dean Romig wants to establish a committee to review centers and decide when centers should be phased out. Romig also suggested that any new centers have advisors who will be George Krauss and Norm Bleistein. The centers would have to pay them an advising fee. Readey gave a sub-committee report on how research funds are being spent. The sub-committee's findings concluded that the majority of salary support was for faculty salaries. Part of the reason for this is the 15-week CSM summer and the large amount of industrial research on campus. The committee felt that this practice is a drawing card for recruiting new faculty. An ad-hoc committee was formed to discuss (a) the requirement that graduate students must register for 15 credit hours and (b) graduate student resident/non-resident tuition. A committee is also being established to visit the issues raised at the Board of Trustees’ Retreat. Ohno is the Senate representative on the Research Council and he will give these reports at future meetings.

  3. Faculty Senate Committees

    1. Committees on Committees (VanTyne provided the following written report)

      1. The vote on Barbara Bath and Tom Boyd for the Readmissions committee was 11-0 in favor. There are now 12 faculty members on the Readmissions Committee instead of 10. Reduction to 10 will occur by attrition.

      2. Extension of terms for the Faculty Senate Committees needs to be addressed. With the By-law changes of August 1999, the tenure on the committees changed from calendar year to academic year. There is no mention of the transition terms. It is recommended that the terms of the present members be extended by 5 months (from January to May) for all committees.

      3. Distribution of the Faculty Senate Committee membership list should be made to all members of the faculty. It is recommended that the vice president for academic affairs distributes the membership list of the University Committees to all faculty.

      4. David Frossard wishes to address the Faculty Handbook Committee concerning the recommended change in membership for the Board of Student Publications (a University committee.)

        A motion to extend the tenure of the current committee membership five months was made VanTyne and seconded by Nickum. The motion passed unanimously.

    2. Faculty Affairs (Griffiths) – No report.

    3. Academic Standards and Policies (Kidnay) - No report.

    4. Evaluation - No report.

    5. Sports and Athletics (Wendlandt) – No report.

    6. Readmissions (VanTyne provided the following written report):

      The Readmissions Committee does not suspend students.

      For the spring semester there were:

      • 27 suspensions

      • 2 dismissals (third suspension)

      • 1 terminal dismissal

      • 38 probations

      • 9 continued probations

      • 17 double Fs

      During the August 1999 meetings of the Readmissions Committee:

      • 13 suspended students were readmitted

      • 2 suspensions were sustained

      • 1 student was readmitted for transfer purposes

      • 3 suspended ex-Mines students were readmitted

      • 17 double Fs were counseled

      • 5 students were counseled

      • 3 no shows

    7. University Committees

      1. Budget (Romberger) - CSM's current year budget was discussed.

      2. Handbook (Readey) - No report.

    8. Ad Hoc Committee

      1. Academic Salary Advisory Committee (Griffiths) – No report.

    The consensus of the Senators was to remove the Affirmative Action Council from the List of Committees. VanTyne will take this to the Committee on Committees.

    OLD BUSINESS:

    1. Calendar Committee – The proposed University Committee has gone to the Handbook Committee

    2. Student Code of Conduct – The Senators recommend that the second sentence in the Pledge be deleted. Romberger will send a statement to ASCSM that the Faculty Senate supports the Student Code of Honor and suggest that ASCSM continue to work on it.

    3. Revised Grading System – Romberger will write a letter to the Oredigger outlining the misconceptions that the students have regarding the revised grading system. Kidnay will meet with Dean Cheuvront to discuss this issue and report back to the Senate.

    The meeting adjourned at 3:50 PM

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