Approval of Previous Minutes —

Meeting minutes from April 25, 2023. Cambrey Nguyen noted she was not listed in the attendance. Suzanne will update the attendance in the minutes. Motion to approve by Sam Brody. Motion passed unanimously.

Faculty Senate Report

Victor reported he had a transition meeting with the provost with the goal to introduce himself and the President-elect. Victor will attend the KBOR meeting on June 14. He reported this has been a transition period for him.

New Business —

Members reviewed the Faculty Senate Standing Committee Charges

First discussion was on the Faculty Compensation Committee Charge. Josh Arpin said that he was the chair in 2023 and could give an update on the committee. He reported not much was done this past year. The committee got the compensation data in late fall. The 2022 data came in March. This past year the committee focused on the standing charges. Josh said spent time the past year working to get an idea of the variables for an equity study for non-tenure track. They started with lecturers, as this is the largest group. Going into next year, the committee will have a survey to send to departments to get information on lecturers such as: compensation, participation and voting within the departments. The committee hopes to place more effort on the other charges with the changes implemented from the university and provost,

Question (Cambrey Nguyen). What does the committee do since AIRE and Human Resources are doing salary studies.

Answer. (Josh Arpin). We are not sure what kind of recommendations the committee will make until we gain a better understanding of roles. AIRE and HR are doing the overall analysis now.

Josh Arpin made a motion to approve the Faculty Compensation Committee charges. Sam Brody seconded the motion. All were in favor. Motion passed unanimously.

The next agenda item was the Faculty Right Board committee charge.

Victor shared the current charges, which had no changes from the previous charges, except for the date. A discussion followed. Suzanne explained that the committee chair did not have any changes to the charges, nor did they present any minutes or a final report for the year. The charges indicate the committee is to look at the procedures and rules for the appeals process. The committee did consider appeals in the spring. A suggestion is to have the board attend a meeting to report on their activities.

Cambrey made a motion to accept the Faculty Rights Board Committee charges. Kristin Villa seconded the motion. All were in favor. Motion passed unanimously.

The next agenda item was the Faculty Rights, Privileges, and Responsibilities committee charge.

Victor shared the committee charges with revisions from the previous chair. Number five was deleted. Cambrey commented that AIRE took over student evaluations. It is now not relevant. Cambrey commented that she brought up charge Number 6 with FRPR last year and there was no follow up. It is on syllabi and other teaching materials, the intellectual property of faculty. Becci Akin suggested pursuing number 6 further and connecting it to Jayhawk Global. She explained that Social Welfare, her unit, was one of the first to use Jayhawk Global. They were told that as they develop syllabi, they are open to give syllabi to whomever they please to teach the course. Clarification between Jayhawk Global and other courses need to be made. The committee report indicates the committee looked at the existing policy and deemed it to be adequate. Cambrey commented that the existing policy did not seem obvious that the materials belong to faculty. Josh explained in the business school they have templates in courses which are used for transfer credit reviews. This syllabus is shared. Sam commented that syllabi are used in the accreditation process. A discussion followed if they want to delete charge number 6 or add a new charge. A new specific charge should be created to determine if faculty are adequately informed of their intellectual property rights. Changes were made to the charges. Josh mentioned the committee has overlap with the Teaching Professor Ad Hoc Committee, of which he is a member. More information was added to the charge specifying the committee collaborate with various other committees dealing with non-tenure track issues. Josh inquired about the policy on changing grades. Caty Movich stated the Registrar’s office has a policy on withdrawals, but that is different. Kristin mentioned concerns raised about the absence policy which will be moved to an AP&P committee charge.

Kristin Villa made a motion to accept the FRPR charges. Cambrey Nguyen seconded the motion. All were in favor. Motion passed unanimously.

A discussion on the Research Committee charge followed. There were 143 responses to the recent research survey. Sam commented that there was more editorializing on these charges than others. A discussion followed about the necessity of the charge that was about the overall culture at KU.

Kristin Villa made a motion to remove the charge about the intellectual climate and culture. Becci Akin seconded the motion. Approved.

A discussion followed on if there should be a deadline for the committee to report on the data collected in the May survey. The charge was updated to reflect the committee provide a timely report.

Victor made a motion to approve the Research Committee Charge. Sam Brody seconded the motion. All were in favor. Motion passed unanimously.

Next on the agenda was review of the Restricted Research charge. There were no additions to last year’s charge. The charges are standard.

Becci Akin made a motion to approve the Restricted Research Committee charge. Cambrey seconded. All were in favor. Motion passed unanimously.

Next, there was a review of the Standards and Procedures for Promotion and Tenure charge. The co-chair inserted questions into the charge document, and these were discussed. One question posed by the co-chair is if the committee is to review any sections within P&T documents related to non-tenure track full time faculty (such as Teaching Professor, Research Professor, Professor of the Practice). There is a concern that unclassified academic staff have specific policies. The committee also had a question about who sends out a call to departments to forward their updated/revised P&T documents for SPPT to review. Kristin suggested we coordinate this through the office of faculty affairs. The committee can be charged with determining who holds the departments and chairs accountable for sending in the documents.

A discussion followed on the chair’s question on whether the committee is to review P&T document related to non-tenue track full-time faculty. There was curiosity why the committee had this question. Was it coming from a concern of lack of time or a concern that it was too different of a review? The committee had three reviews in the spring and each review took prep work before the meeting. Reviews were time consuming. If this committee does not review the non-tenure, who will? Becci said it would be in their purview to review these. Kristin stated there are things in the Unclassified Academic Staff promotion guidelines that are against university policy. No one has reviewed this. It makes sense to have this committee review everything. Accountability for documents was discussed. The committee reviews the documents, sends them back to the department with suggestions, receives the changes, and forwards the final documents to the Office of Faculty Affairs and the department. A technical update was made that addresses the past and current name of the Faculty Affairs Office. The SPPT committee is an advisory review committee and not a policy making committee. Cambrey questioned if this needs to be addressed since we are asking them to review guidelines for non-tenure P&T. Kristin expressed that though they are not a policy making unit, they can report to a department that the unit may not be matching University policy in their documents. Charges are approved at the first Senate meeting, and we can send the revised charges to the chair to review prior to that. Kristin said we could state in the charge “this includes both tenure track and non-tenure track where policy exists.”

Victor made a motion to approve the Standard and Procedures for Promotion and Tenure Charge. Sam Brody seconded the motion. All were in favor. Motion passed unanimously.

Victor motioned to move to a closed session to discuss committee appointments. Kristin seconded the motion. Motion passed. Moved to closed session.