February 24th, 2004 –Faculty Senate Minutes

 

I. At 3:33 p.m. the meeting was called to order.

 

II. Roll Call: All present except for: Bob Brownbridge, Brian Caster, Scott Grim, Gudrun Hoobler, Mark Perlman, Judie Rhoads, Mark Van Steeter, Dovie Trevino and Zenon Zygmont.

 

Ex-Officio Members:  WOU President Conn

 

III. Minutes from last meeting were approved at 3:35 p.m. with no corrections.

 

IV. Reports from the Presidents

 

A. Senate President Janeanne Rockwell-Kincanon started her report by announcing the decision of the Executive Committee to add its name to the individuals paying tribute to former Senator Len Hannon for his contributions to public higher education in the state. He is to be awarded a special plaque and a dedication of the SOU's library in his name.

 

Last year Faculty Senate approved a revision to the Curriculum Proposal form that allows the Deans to get earlier notification; the new form approved by the Curriculum Committee would come as an attachment at the March 9th Meeting of Faculty Senate.

 

The Director of Admissions, the two Deans, the Provost, and the Division Chairs (together with the Senate President) will be attending a meeting at Chemeketa Community College on March 15th. The center of this meeting would be the discussion of WOU's partnership with this institution in terms of joint programs and joint enrollment.

 

B. President Conn's Report

President Conn shared a handout with fast facts on Western Oregon University's enrollment, retention, and affordability.  Currently WOU's student population (92% from Oregon) is just over 5,000 but it is projected to rise slowly with demand, and to reach about 6,000 by the year 2009. WOU's retention rate is at about 70% for freshmen and from 40 to 55% total graduation rate. President Conn also handed in a committee assignments sheet of the Oregon Board of Higher Education for 2004-2005. A draft of the Outline of the Excellence in Delivery and Productivity Committee was circulated by Senator Bob Turner. This committee is chaired by Chemeketa's President Gretchen Schuette and it is supposed to complete its recommendations by March 9th 2004.

 

C. The ASWOU president Jeremy Quintanilla was not present at this meeting as he was away for a conference.  Gary Blankley was present and he reported on ASWOU's work in progress for the Governor's Food Drive. He also mentioned that ASWOU is considering some changes to its constitution and it is gearing up for elections in spring.

 

V. Reports of Committees

 

A.  John Rector was present at the December meeting of the WOU Foundation. He emphasized that this is a private non-profit corporation associated with WOU. He reported that much of the meeting was taken up with information provided by volunteers about the Foundation's financial status. The Foundation seems to be in relatively stable financial state with the growth for 2003 measured at about 9.36%. The total assets for 2003 were just about $7,000,000.

 

It was suggested that the Foundation needs to be kept informed about changes instituted into the curriculum. Furthermore, new materials from our academic units need to be presented to the Foundation in an attempt to keep their outreach efforts to the general public current. Finally, it was proposed that the Faculty Senate representative inquires into the possibility of presenting small projects that need funding or kernels of seed ideas to the Foundation.

 

B. This item was postponed for after VII because of scheduling difficulties.

 

Shirley Lincicum, the Library faculty representative to the Academic Services Committee (AISC), prepared and presented the Senators with comments about this committee. AISC has been having some difficulties establishing a chair, quorum, and suitable goals and tasks to accomplish during the year. Campus issues and trends concerning technology and information resources and some potential roles for the AISC were also presented. The Senators met this document with an active discussion and because of time constraints, a motion was carried (with one abstention) to present this document to each Division for discussion and to invite Bill Kernan and Gary Jensen to the March 9th meeting of the Senate.

 

VI. Consideration of Old Business

 

There was none for this meeting. 

 

VII. Consideration of New Business

 

A.  Dean Rosselli led a focus group discussion "Community Conversations" on K-12 education in Oregon. She showed a short video "Our Schools Our Future" and then the Senators had small group discussions centered around a number of questions about public education and its funding. Finally, there was a short discussion about our role in outreach both on and off campus, teacher training, and attempts to change funding policies.

 

VIII. Reports of IFS

 

There was no IFS report at this meeting.

 

 

IX. A motion to adjourn was approved around 5:15 p.m. after a 15 minute time extension had been approved and used up.