Faculty Senate Minutes

Meeting – March 21, 2007

3:30 p.m.

I. Meeting was called to order by Mary Monroe-Ellis at 3:30 p.m. Senators in attendance: Ashley Boone, Rick Bower, Bill Brewer, Lawana Day, Judy Fethe, Mark Fuentes, Sydney Gingrow, Catherine Harper, Maggie Jenkins, Anne Kinggard, Jonathan Lamb, Mary Monroe-Ellis, Rick Patton, Garry Pennycuff, Paul Ramp, Wanda Scarbro, Bob Stern, Anne Swartzlander, Donnie Thomas, Dave Vinson.

II. Minutes were approved.

III. Officer Reports:

a. Secretary: no report

b. Communications Officer: no report

c. TBR Representative:

- Faculty forums project: The first year topic is advising and shared governments. The first forum will be held on April 19 from 11:30 – 4:00. An email will be sent to all TBR faculty senate presidents to share with faculty.

d. President:

- Report from Learning Council: Dr. Haddock and Dr. Wise had their interviews for VP Academic and Student Affairs. Dr. Tanner withdrew her name for the position. There is a new MMR requirement for full time students. Students will have to begin showing proof of their second dose of MMR before they can be registered as full time students. If a student graduated from high school in 1999 or after, we will not have to check for proof of the second vaccination.

IV. Committee Reports:

a. Adjunct Faculty: no report

b. Student Scholarships: A record of $9,106 was made at this year’s book sale. There are still a bunch of books left for next year’s sale. The break down by campus is $1151.25 at Blount County, $926.11 at Division Street, $211.55 at Magnolia Avenue, and $6817.09 at Hardin Valley. Approximately $2000 was from book buyers.

c. Rules: The rules committee met the hour preceding the faculty senate meeting.

d. Evaluation: no report

e. Nominating Committee: no report

f. Promotion/Tenure: Peer reviews went well. All notebooks have been sent to the Interim VP of Academic and Student Affairs.

g. Faculty Emeritus: no report

V. Unfinished Business:

Faculty Senate Constitution Changes: The rules committee discussed the following changes to be voted on at the April and July meetings.

Article IV.C.1: strike the line “rotating off after the two-year term is completed.”

Change of title: To be consistent throughout the constitution, change references

to the “faculty senate president” to “president of the faculty.”

Officers: Clarification needs to be made on how nominations should be done.

VI. New Business:

How “Teacher of the Year” was processed: There was only one nomination for outstanding adjunct faculty and only three nominations for outstanding full time faculty. Currently the process is under the Employee Development Committee. The following motion was made:

The president of faculty senate request of the president of PSTCC

that the outstanding adjunct and full time faculty awards come

under the procedural guidance of the faculty senate.

The motion passed with 19 in favor, 0 against, and 1 abstention.

Setting Goals for Next Year: The faculty senate began discussion on goals for the upcoming year. So far the goals include:

1. Roll back of the temporary enlarging of the maximum class size.

2. Reopening the Division Street campus in summer terms.

3. Look at equity of support services at all campuses.

4. Possible solutions to short term office space issues.

Advising: This year advisor training sessions are being presented in a different way. With scheduling, faculty members pointed out that it would be good to be notified

earlier of when these sessions would be scheduled.

D2L: There will be no general session orientation for students. However, there will be an orientation that they can complete online.

VII. Announcements:

There was a wonderful article in the News Sentinel about the Variations Choir’s trip to France over spring break.

The next meeting will be on April 25 at the Pellissippi Campus. Dr. Paula Short from TBR will be attending.

VIII. The meeting was adjourned at 4:35 p.m.