Faculty Senate Minutes, October 14, 2022

Faculty Senate Meeting
for October 14, 2022

time: 10:00 a.m. LSF 002

Minutes

1. Determination of Quorum
   • Quorum determined at 10:09
2. Call to order
   • Meeting called to order at 10:10
3. Approval of the agenda
   • Lee Artz motioned to strike the removal of term limits as it was already passed at the previous meeting.
   • Seconded by Joan Dorman
   • Motion approved by voice vote
   • Motioned for approval by the chair
   • Approved by voice vote
4. Approval of the Senate minutes from September 9, 2022
   • Motioned for approval by Ralph Cherry
   • Seconded by Tony Sindone
   • Approved by voice vote
5. Remarks by the Senate Chair
   • Introduction of Parliamentarian, Tony Elmendorf
6. Remarks by the Chancellor
   • The Chair recognizes the Provost
     1. The Provost said he would deliver the Chancellor’s remarks as he could not make it to today’s meeting due to prior obligations.
     2. The Provost said he understands the room in which today’s meeting is taking place is not conducive and said he would work together to figure out a better seating arrangement.
     3. The Doctorate of Technology degree has been officially approved by HLC on October 7. Soft start in the spring. The real launch of that will begin next fall.
     4. The Provost said he will be following our meeting with the Westville Committee upon request for more regular meetings with that particular group. Westville faculty will be receiving an invitation to convene and continue discussion. The meeting will not be campus-wide.
     5. The faculty was thanked for use of Early Alert system. 76% of faculty participated, best response so far. Anytime we can mobilize two thirds of everybody to participate in an effort is a great success. The Senate Secretary has received hard copies of what the early alert system was and what the outcomes were of that from the spring semester. The fall semester outcomes will be shared when that information is available. There were 21,000 early alerts completed by the faculty. 12% of the students were identified at risk. Everything from not coming to class regularly did not submitting assignments. As mentioned before, we have a closed loop strategy now so there are efforts to reach out to those students, contact them, encourage them to speak with the faculty members in the class. Or, if they were Financial Affairs or Student Affairs related, they have been directed to speak to the right office.
     6. Vaccination recommendations sent out by Safe Return Task Force on September 13.
     7. Midterm grade recording is open currently and will close on November 4. This is the actual midterm grade process.
     8. The Provost has shared with Senate Leadership information about enrollments across the campus community. Institutional Research prepared that information.
        1. David Nalbone questioned a previous claim from the Chancellor that, both statewide and nationally, our enrollment declines are on par with what we are seeing. The data provided does not seem to support that. We seem to have over a five-year trend, the highest five-year drop, and the headcount, the second highest drop across the state. No data was provided on national trends. D. Nalbone asked the Provost to comment on this data discrepancy on behalf of the Chancellor. The Provost said he could not speak on behalf of the Chancellor and asked the Secretary to pull up the data slides to present to the Senate. The Provost said the five-year loss in enrollment for us is about 30%. However, our one-year loss is now not the highest in the state. He said he could not comment on national enrollment trends. It does differ across the United States. Areas like Florida, Texas are growing. Most of the institutions in the Midwest are struggling for enrollments.
        2. The Provost explained the data from the Enrollment Slides, benchmarking against our regional competitors. Our largest declines in enrollment did occur shortly after unification, 2017 is still calculated in that information. Our one-year average, you all are aware that we have a record incoming freshman class this year, which helps suppress that. The second slide shows information about Indiana schools except for the two flagships, PUWL and IU Bloomington. The only two schools in the state that posted positive enrollments over that period were West Lafayette and Bloomington, which are growing at double digit rates.
        3. We have also been significantly impacted since COVID-19 began and a loss of our graduate population. We are getting a bigger market share of our domestic students locally which is why we have a great incoming freshman class. Due to the recruiting efforts going on we went from 800 to 900 international students down to 180 International Students and that they are returning this year. Anticipate three to five years for us to get back to the international student population that we had in the past. Some of them said spent years in terms of having experience or special training. Under what conditions would you would be provided? Would a faculty member face constraint on not being able to teach in the way that they would like to teach? The Provost said the modality of courses should be determined overall by department chairs. making decisions about what is in the best interest of their programs. Our limitations really come in the form of adding new courses that are online.
     9. Ralph Cherry asked about limitations in distance learning. Colleagues have raised concerns about what the limitations might be if they choose to teach in this distance education mode. We still can offer online courses, there is not a limitation on that other than we run the risk because we do not have our programs registered with or approved by the Higher Learning Commission to offer programs online. We are further limited by rules set out by the Indiana Commission for Higher Education about what proportion of online courses can exist within a program before it is considered an online program. We had an exemption during COVID for two years that allowed us to put whatever we wanted in an online format. That is when a lot of faculty took the time to go through training. We were operating mostly as an online campus for about a year and a half. Those exemptions have run out, which means with the exception of the two nursing programs, and one program in the College of Technology, we are not authorized to deliver those as online programs. With Purdue’s acquisition of Kaplan and the formation of Purdue Global we are now limited in what new programs we can develop in that space. The Board has indicated that they want Purdue Global and Purdue Online to be the single source of delivery of a lot of the online content. We can still run online courses, and we will still run online courses. As a matter of fact, we are currently running about 11% of our programming online across the university. We are limited in our ability to develop new online programs. And because all of our existing programs are approved by the Higher Learning Commission and the State Commission as in-residence programs we are going to have to focus on those programs with select online offerings in support of those programs. We have gone on a couple occasions now to ask the system to be able to add additional programs, most notably we went and asked to put cybersecurity as an online program. Purdue Global already offers cybersecurity as an online program. We will not be able to duplicate that resource by having our own. Dean Latif is currently working with Purdue global to come up with some joint program that we might be able to run with them. We still can run online courses. We need approval to develop new programs in the online space. Purdue Online and Purdue Global have veto power on our ability. The same applies to Fort Wayne. They are struggling in the same way trying to adjust to our new online entity.
     10. Diane Spoljoric asked about the IU footprint in Michigan City.
         1. The Provost said he has heard of this but does not have enough details to speak on it. He said he will look into it for addressing next month. He said Lilly is one of the entities that has changed their funding formula a little bit to emphasize diversity in the campuses. We obviously are the most diverse campus in the Purdue system and amongst the most diverse campuses in the state of Indiana. And we happen to occupy one of the most diverse regions in the state of Indiana, which means a lot of the big schools are starting to actively seek students that normally we would have considered our students coming into this campus. It is not actually restricted to IU although they publicly announced that they intend to recruit heavily in Michigan City. University of Alabama Birmingham is also recruiting actively in our region now as well.
     11. A question was asked about the R drive going defunct and asked if the deadline could be extended.
         1. The Provost respectfully asked that the question be directed to the respective standing committee who would then refer the question to VCIS, Tim Winders.
         2. Tony Sindone said their committee would reach out to Vice Chancellor Winders for that information.
     12. Unfinished Business:
         • Proposed model for salary adjustments associated with promotion
           1. On November 9, 2021, the Provost submitted to the Budget Committee a different way to think about raises at the time of promotion. Historically, we do not have any voice in how our raises are determined, raise at the time of promotion, and senior promotion as well. We received indication of a flat amount from West Lafayette. Between 1920 and 2021, West Lafayette decided through their business office and reduced that by 3%. So people coming up in 2021, and 2122, received about 3%, lower, we started looking at that I asked Vice Chancellor Turner to ask business services, if we would be able to develop our own model. I looked at about seven or eight other institutions, both Union and nonunion, and a lot of them use a percentage-based model, it’s easy to calculate. I sent a proposal to the budget committee for recommendation, for feedback, on whether we could adopt a different model. And my proposal is here, this was sent to the Senate almost a year ago now, that we consider moving to a different model that is percentage based. One of the challenges as I saw it at the time was while we have had compensation increases of one form or another, they have not always impacted the recurring annual budget. By going to a percentage base model it allows us to catch up a little bit as faculty are promoted and would help us prevent some of the compression and even inversion that we’ve experienced in the past by providing slightly higher increases, particularly in those high demand areas where we’re spending a lot of money to recruit in quality faculty. Also, these models were set up when the average starting salary across the university was a bit lower. And so I looked at what the starting salaries were, the median, and the average across all colleges, and we are now hiring people in at a rate, originally I had proposed 9%, which is common. After discussion with Paul McGrath, we changed that to 10% for both promotion and senior promotion. The Budget Committee in particular professor Scipes was on that committee and was concerned about the Humanities that they might not benefit from this model. The intent was not to punish some and reward others, but to create more money in our budget going to faculty lines. I compromised on the position and said, what if we use the model that would use the value West Lafayette communicated or 10% whatever is higher at the time of the promotions. And so at that point, I think the committee still did not approve it. But that is a concession I’m willing to make. I believe that in our current arrangement that we can convince business services in West Lafayette to allow us to have our own model for this campus, it would be unique in the Purdue   Had we employed this over the past two years more total money would have gone to the tenure and tenure-track faculty at the time of promotion.
           2. The Chair asked how address this in form of a motion.
           3. The Parliamentarian said the document presented could be put in the form of a motion by a member from the floor and then upon being seconded, could easily be considered for approval by the Senate. It is certainly within the prerogative of the Senate to consider anything that it wishes.
           4. Tony Sindone clarified that this was discussed in the Budget Committee and thanked the Provost for coming to a compromise. The debate within the committee was inconclusive.
           5. Tony Sindone motioned to approve the proposal as stated by the Provost.
           6. Seconded by Ralph Cherry
           7. Approved by voice vote.

8. New Business:
   • Senate release budget requests
     1. The Chair asked the Provost to explain contingencies of course releases.
        1. The Provost said the practice has been for the Senate to work with the deans and department chairs to identify releases for the Faculty Senate. Faculty Senate has a budget, which historically they have used to provide instructor replacement cost to the departments and colleges to secure those releases. Over the past two years, we’ve had some challenges. We do not provide automatic release for Senate leadership. The Provost said he has communicated his willingness to have a conversation about that but Senate as an independence governance body also has their own budget. He said it is his view that that it is the Senate’s responsibility to work for five releases, they are not compulsory at our institution. He said he believes the two busiest jobs in the Senate are the Senate Chair and the Chair of the Curriculum Committee. He said he is willing to have a conversation future forward about making those automatic releases. But that has not been our past practice. It is not necessarily ubiquitous amongst institutions of higher ed. It is sometimes common to see two automatic releases for both semesters for the Curriculum Chair and the Senate Chair. The model that we have created allows more people to be released, but the Senate has to negotiate those with the beans and chairs.
        2. Ralph Cherry asked about course releases for the Chair of Grade Appeals, which has traditionally received one as it is a time-consuming position. The provost agreed and said there has never been a compulsory release provided. Senate has provided either reimbursement to the faculty, or they have secured a release for that position.
        3. The Chair questioned why no one receives automatic releases for these positions, stating that it interferes with our understanding of faculty governance. The Chair said we have got to separate the cost for the releases from the fact that we need the releases. If the Senate decides to give a release to somebody who is chair of the Curriculum Committee and the Senate wants to pay for it, why would there be other criteria? And why do the other criteria overweigh the right of the faculty to elect their own leadership and put them in positions where they can function?
        4. The Provost said they have looked through the AAUP handbook provided by D. Nalbone. He said there is no expectation of governance providing funding or releases, we developed a unique model four or five years ago, under Provost Mueller, that provided Senate with a discretionary budget which they could do those things. He said he is willing to have a discussion with the Senate Leadership or the Senate, about if we wish to make some of those releases compulsory. I’m willing to have that discussion, but it would change the dynamic of giving Senate their own discretionary budget. For example, Fort Wayne provides two releases for faculty year again, this the Chair of the Senate gets automatic release and the curriculum chair gets automatic release their Senate does not have a discretionary budget. So, the other duties are assumed as part of the responsibilities of the faculty that fall into those other responsibilities. There is no expectation at any university that the Provost is aware of that faculty are automatically to be compensated or released for faculty governance duties.
        5. The Chair asked where the current model came from.
           1. The Provost said it was negotiated before he was in this position where Senate was given the discretionary budget,
        6. Kenny Kincaid said they were the first Grade Appeals Chair after unification and they remember clearly having this conversation with Provost Mueller. As they looked at the Bylaws it seemed like it was guaranteed that Grade Appeals would get a release. One of the things Provost Mueller pointed out was that these are issues that are not just about faculty, they are university issues, especially with respect to lawsuits. K. Kincaid argued that Grade Appeals is so important that it should be compensated along with the other two positions mentioned
        7. The Provost said the explanation is that the Senate has a discretionary budget that they decide how to use. There is no expectation of any releases for any of these positions in the Senate Bylaws. He said he is willing to have that discussion with the mutual awareness that, because we will be providing replacement costs for that instruction, it would change the nature of the unique arrangement we have, where Senate has, under their own discretion, a budget where they can make decisions. That is somewhat of a unique model.
        8. The Chair said the budget was set up at a time when the cost of a release was $2,500. We are now finding out from the Provost that some of these releases are going to cost the Senate $3,500. By moving to this budget model, we have actually cut back on the number of releases that we are able to offer.
        9. The Provost said this is because the colleges have salary schedules, arguing that as budget reductions have been made across the university, they have held firm on the Faculty Senate budget.

• Curriculum Documents Approval

BIA – 32000 – Spreadsheet Modeling and Decision Analytics

BIOL – 42600 – Senior Capstone

CS – Computer Science major, BS

CS – 12300 – Programming I: Java

CS – 12400 – Programming II: C++

PSY – 49200 – Internship in Psychology    

1. Motion to approve by the Vice Chair
2. Approved by voice vote

9. For Action:
   • FSD 22-01 Removal of Term Limits
   • FSD 22-08 Resolution to Confirm Flexibility in Order of Courses
     1. Lee Artz said the Curriculum Committee accepts this idea. They agreed that this will help with scheduling. For instance, in our own department, when we have communication 114. And all of the sections are done in the fall, it really is difficult for the chair of our department to make assignments, both the TAs and to adjuncts. The only concern that the curriculum committee had, and this was expressed to the Provost, is that nothing in the order will affect the curriculum major, or the program that the curriculum applies to. What order they are taken in is not the key thing. The key thing is that requirements for the major have been met. And it certainly aids in scheduling faculty assignments.
     2. The Provost said the problem was that we have really well-defined flows through all of our programs. Five major General Education courses in almost all plans of study, including undecided and undeclared, are all listed in the first semester. We asked for the Senate to consider allowing the student, instead of taking comm 114 if those sections that are full, then they would simply be advised and placed into the same course in the subsequent semester that will allow us to smooth our enrollments over the five most common Gen Ed courses with the understanding if those were to create a prerequisite problem, they would still need to be taken sequentially. For most of our students, they’re taking those to satisfy a general education requirement, not a programmatic requirement. He said that because this is a curriculum issue, he wanted to be clear that the Senate had the power to make that happen. The challenge it creates for us it appears in the first semester of planning a study and we do not offer it to the student. We subject ourselves to the state’s guaranteed course, meaning we would have to offer it to him in the second semester for free. This will allow us and Jen to smooth over most of these courses over the first year and should not disrupt the other academic programs.
     3. Motion to approve by Tom Roach
     4. Approved by voice vote
   • FSD 22-05 Promotion &Tenure Document
     1. Motioned for approval by Tony Sindone
     2. Seconded by Rob Hallock
     3. Approved by voice vote.

10. Discussion Items
    • Amendment proposal to the PNW Senate Bylaws
      1. Mary Morrow presented the document, explaining that the proposal if for a change in the purposes for the Faculty Affairs Committee. And it would be number four, which reads, “… periodic evaluation of academic administration.” Should be changed to “… periodic feedback for academic administration. Feedback will be confidential and provided to the administrative survey.”
      2. Dave Kozel suggested a modification, that the feedback should go to them and also to their immediate supervisor.
      3. Tony Sindone said that their committee is charged with periodically providing feedback for academic administrators. This has been done through a survey over the last several years. And the survey we determined last year was it had some positive points to it. But it was also flawed, because the survey itself was not really a true evaluation in the opinion if the committee. It became an opinion poll. One of the charges of the Faculty Affairs Committee this particular academic year is to redesign the evaluation to actually have a true evaluation. where those evaluations go, could be a matter of discussion.
    • FSD 22-04 Document SB1(abortion ban in Indiana)
      1. Karen Covington asked the purpose of the document.
      2. The Chair clarified the document was submitted by a faculty member and the Executive Committee wanted to afford them the opportunity to attend this meeting and explain.
      3. Karen Covington motioned to remove this item from the agenda
      4. Seconded by Meghan Mc
      5. Approved by voice vote
    • FSD 22-06 CES COT Proposed Merger
      1. Diane Spoljoric said the revisions have been agreed upon by the committee and the final version of the proposal as well as the survey results we were provided have been distributed for review. There are many mixed feelings and there may be more questions from the respective colleges. The resolution being that the committee, at this time, advises against the proposed CES/COT merger. They pointed out that administration, the Provost, reached out to the committee based on his reading of our original and we had very open and honest discussion. The Provost would like to meet with Ed Policy again to clarify, verify and amplify any types of questions or issues that we might want to bring, that we could bring back to the next discussion before we go for vote.
    • FSD 22-07 Resolution on University College
      1. Diane Spoljoric explained that Educational Policy Committee has been working for a little bit of time to hear the proposal of the creation of a University College. We have had discussion about it, we had Provost Holford and Dean Schwarz come speak with us at our last meeting. We came up with our resolution. The University College is going to be a college that will oversee the undecided, undetermined, as well as house the Honors College. And, as explained to us, it was almost more of a cross some t’s and dot some eyes type of situation, because it’s been operating as that. It is felt that the students in this category by no means are people that are not eligible. Academically, they could be stellar but they’re missing a course to apply for their major. Making a University College has a lot of advantages on paper and as far as a home that students will belong to. Who’s going to run it? There is going to be one dean over both. The dean at this time is Jonathan Schwarz, there will not be another hire of another Dean, or any other ancillary staff at this time. If things grow and go, that becomes a curricular issue and would get vented through programs. Ed Policy put up arguments, we asked questions, they came, they wrote our answers, they came and spoke to us. At the end of that meeting, we felt very comfortable unanimously recommending that we adopt the University College status at Purdue Northwest.
      2. David Nalbone said this is a fairly large institutional change. The committee certainly did its due diligence, and we thank the committee for that and asked the Senate for questions
      3. Dave Kozel said it is important to note here a question that came up on the creation of multidisciplinary programs. It might be an issue that some departments or colleges may consider, if two colleges or three colleges merge together on a program, there is a fear that in the process one college may override another in the creation of programs. It’s more for the administration of the undecided students that we have, which is a large number.
      4. The Provost said the Multidisciplinary Studies (MDS) was not intended to belong to any of the programmatic colleges. We currently have an MDS the only area to ever use it has been our business program. And they used it for the sports management degree program. That is the prerogative of the faculty to build programs within the MDS. Currently, it doesn’t reside in any colleges, so it sits not in any academic unit. And so part of the proposal was to move the MDS and here, the faculty that currently oversee GS191, actually have representatives, they have courtesy appointments from the five academic colleges, they’re the ones that are responsible for any bringing any curricular changes to the Faculty Senate. The housing of the MDS in here would not change that. MDS is still available to all of the academic colleges to build programming in and it still moves through the Senate approval process in the same way. What we’ve not faced and we would face in the future is budgetarily. If colleges jointly built a degree program together, we would have to have an MOU for how the finances for majors in that program were distributed.
      5. multidisciplinary studies, this campus has a multidisciplinary studies degree that allows different colleges or different departments to partner up to build programming.
      6. Ralph Charry asked, if we’re going to establish this as a degree granting College, which degrees will it be granting?
         1. Multidisciplinary studies would be the only degree.
      7. Lee Artz asked if this college is to develop its own requirements, like we have requirements in each of the colleges. Or, if in addition to Gen Ed, this college will not do that.
      8. The Provost said there are not plans for that, any program or curriculum process would need to come through this body for discussion. Nor do we have plans to have faculty in this college at all. The idea was to create an environment for the students that come in as undecided, undeclared. Currently, if a student is admitted to the university and they’re admitted directly into a degree program, what starts happening is they have a home, people start communicating with them, advisors start communicating. If they’re currently admitted at large, they don’t have an affiliation with any of the academic units. The MDS is creating an affiliation. In his capacity as the Dean, Jonathan would treat them just like they’re treated when they’re put in an academic program, welcome into the university welcome into the University College. The goal of the college is still the same, to transfer those students out into the programmatic colleges as quickly as possible. Again, we’re trying to work to address the disparity between students that come in affiliated with an academic college and those that do not, and we benchmarked on Texas Tech. They use their University College to welcome students to the campus as being part of the campus being associated with a college immediately. The goal is still the same, to get them to transfer out after 30 credit hours into a major.
      9. David Nalbone asked what percentage of students pass through this into a program?
         1. The Provost said the only approved MDS degree we have as in the College of Business, so those are still treated as COB students, because that’s the only college that’s using that program at all. This is particularly a problem on our Westville campus where more than a third, almost a half of the incoming freshmen on this campus are undecided. undeclared. They are not treated in the same way. And as a consequence, we believe they don’t persist at the same rate.
      10. David Nalbone asked if it was safe to say that until or unless an MDS degree is housed in this college, no students will graduate from this college, it will just be a waystation.
      11. The Provost said that is correct. Although we can certainly get them on a Gen Ed Plan of Study similar to the Liberal Studies degree if they had moved into that direction.
      12. Diane Spoljoric said the current document being presented has been revised and is different from the document previously distributed by the Secretary.
      13. Diane Spoljoric explained the revisions.

11. Reports from Chairs.
    • Curriculum (Lee Artz)
      1. It was clarified that Lee Artz has resumed his position as Chair of this committee.
      2. They have received 15 submissions after the deadline and they expect more after October 21, which is the next deadline for the curriculum committee to review submissions that can be brought to the November meeting. To be able to be received by the Curriculum Committee so that a proposal from the committee gets to the floor of the Senate by February,
      3. November 18 is the deadline for getting program proposals in the catalog and on the schedule for the fall of 2023.
      4. Continued monitoring for excessive course substitutions.
    • Ed Policy (Diane Spoljoric)
      1. Diane Spoljoric said they brought forth today the establishment of a University College, we had listened to Provost and Dean Schwartz and listening to the rationale. We also discussed as a committee, the merger, and we brought that discussion to you today. We will continue to entertain the merger and discuss further with the Provost
    • Faculty Affairs (Tony Sindone)
      1. Tony Sindone said the committee’s new focus will be redesigning and reevaluating the evaluation system.
      2. New resolution coming up about proper naming of department chairs. That will be brought up at the next meeting
      3. Working on delaying cancellation of H Drive.
         1. The Chair said they would like to have addressed that it would be a burden on a lot of faculty to have to make that transition. The things that we’re transitioning to, are there going to be as reliable as what we’re transitioning from? And is the inconvenience for the faculty outweighed by the inconvenience for the university if they maintain it?

• Gen Ed & Assessment (Cari Furst)
  1. Committee membership has been finalized. Meeting today to start reviewing those humanities and social science courses that fall under Gen Ed. There are some that do not have assessment data yet in Taskstream, so if you are responsible for any of those or know anyone who is please share with them the importance of getting that information in as soon as humanly possible.
• Nominations, Elections, & Awards (Meden Isaac-Lam)
  1. Revision of Standing Committees
     1. Standing committee list has been filled.
  2. Currently working on award eligibility requirements.
     1. Wording of the requirements for self-nomination in the Teaching award. Not in the same section of other documents. Revised for uniformity.

• Student Affairs (Michelle Spaulding)
  1. Michelle Spaulding said their committee worked with the Nominations Committee to refill Grade Appeals Committee and we’ve set a chair of the Student of the Month committee and that’s proceeding.
• IFC
  1. At the last PUWL Senate meeting, President Daniels reported that there were 68,000 applications to Purdue this fall. 9,000 first year students, 30,000 total undergraduate students
  2. It was also reported that IUPUI will be closed, that Indiana University will continue to be there but Purdue University will take two programs COT and Computer Science. Those courses will still be in Indianapolis but they will be an extension from West Lafayette. Very shortly there will no longer be an IUPUI.
  3. There was a discussion on the civics literacy proficiency credit. It was determined that they will not include attendance at Student Government, traffic court, and other similar less substantial civic lesson opportunities.
• Report from SGA
  1. SGA Chair David Bolton introduced themselves.
  2. They said SGA had a Student Safety Forum event in conjunction with University Police.
  3. Currently working on Winter Ball for December 1
  4. Renovation of Hammond Campus prayer room
  5. New members voted in today.

12. Open discussion (as time permits).
    • Lee Artz said
13. Adjournment
    • Meeting adjourned at 11:38