Approval of Previous Minutes —

Meeting minutes from October 3. Victor Gonzalez asked for any corrections to the minutes previously distributed. Hearing none, the minutes were approved.

Guest Speaker Presentation —

Kevin McCannon, Chair of FRPR, joined to discuss the committee charges. Kevin said the committee needs clarification and direction on the charges. The first is the charge on the ad hoc committee. Has there been any movement on this committee? Victor sent a message to Amy Mendenhall to ask her. Faculty Affairs is the group who will let us know about the ad hoc group. We also had questions about the intellectual property charge. Becci Akin recalled a discussion in June and it was about syllabi. If faculty create a course and syllabi, can the university use it, or is it intellectual property? How does this information get to faculty and what is the information? This is what the committee can work on. Faculty have questions and confusion about who owns the property. Have guidelines been communicated to faculty? Who handles this? The committee should discuss and come back to Governance for the next steps on communicating to faculty.

Kevin said the last question is what is going on with faculty affairs with teaching professors, etc, committee. Kevin was on the committee last year and Lou Mulligan has left. Kevin checked with Amy Mendenhall, and she said it was on hold. Does Governance have any more information? Josh Arpin said he has an update from his dean who is on the committee. It is in the works to get this started up again. It is still on the radar, but Josh is not sure when it will start again.

Kevin said on the committee’s AI question, they reviewed existing policy. The committee agrees that there is sufficient policy for this already. University wide guidelines on this would be helpful.

Faculty Senate Report

Victor participated in the searches for the deans of engineering and music. The recommendations were submitted to the Provost.

The faculty senate presidents are working on guidelines for choosing two faculty from each university. KBOR will award one for tenure and one tenure track from each institution. This will be done in July. Victor will share the guidelines with Faculty Senate and University Senate soon. Though not finished, they are looking for faculty who have excelled in service and research. KBOR is looking for a Vice president for career affairs and they are seeking advice from the Council. The interviews will be in the next couple of weeks.

Victor reported they worked on the survey for faculty on excused absences. Victor said he got feedback from biology faculty. They reported they had a good understanding of the policy.

University Senate Report

Kristin added that a survey on the excused absence policy will go out to students soon. Governance had a few comments about the survey itself, such as word phrases. Moving forward, we can discuss modifications. Kristin received a message from Ani Kokobobo about a concern with the revised core, and the elimination of the social responsibility component. Ani wrote a petition about changing the code with this ethics requirement. Jon Brumberg should come and speak with the senates. The petition proposal will have to go through University and Faculty Senate because it is recommending a change in the CODE. It will have to go through University Senate, then goes through Faculty Senate. The proper steps are to go through University Senate first. Then it goes for a 21-day review. This will be on the agenda in the spring.

Victor asked if everyone received the survey from governance or their dean. Becci said she received it from Governance and then an added email from her School with a note to pay attention to the message.

There was a question if there were any details on the recommendation of ethics course in the petition. Right now, ethics is suggested, but not required. The petition would make it a requirement. More discussions will be needed on what this looks like. This would be like the capstone requirement. The suggestion is to add 3 hours for ethics. We can have further discussions to define this.

New Business —

Nisha Fernanda, chair of the Standards and Procedures on Promotion and Tenure (SPPT), has a question, but she could not attend today. Nisha has a question about reviewing the procedures from each department. In the past, Governance reached out to the departments with a message from the Chair. We need to update this in the charges to continue with this procedure. A suggestion was made to “Governance will send out a “call to submit” on behalf of the chair to all departments about the FSRR Section 6.3.8 requirement.”  Behalf. Kristin made a motion to accept the change. Becci seconded the motion. Motion approved.

The other question Nisha had was on the reviewing the guidelines on positions such as teaching professors, etc. It is confusing to the committee. Previously, we added the word “if university policy exists” to the charge.

This now goes to the faculty senate for final approval.

Next discussion was new business from Colin Rouse who joined to discuss KU Core. Colin is associate dean for faculty affairs in Music. He has concerns about the way things are happening with KU Core. He served on UCCC before. He came before the senates to talk about the procedures. Then, all decisions were driven by faculty, and not administration. Recently Colin got news about CORE 4.1 and 4.2.  This transition is not working the way it is supposed to. Colin is concerned he is learning about this before the reps on UCCC. Victor asked for comments. Kristin asked how Colin felt about the decision was made. Colin said the decision is devastating. This removes the School of Music from Core 4.1 and 4.2.  The Provost would like to exclude the Schools. Currently, Colin needs clarification on that. He is more concerned about the procedure. Kristin suggested that Jon Brumberg come to Faculty Senate to discuss this. Victor said this will be on the agenda for the next Faculty Senate meeting.

Kristin Villa announced that she gave notice to her department that she will be leaving the University the first of next semester. Kristin is going to a research focused position nearby.

Meeting adjourned.