Faculty Senate Minutes

Meeting – November 28, 2007

Pellissippi Campus, Faculty/Staff Dining Room

3:30 p.m.

 

I.  Call to Order 

 

Meeting was called to order by Mark Fuentes at 3:30 p.m. Senators in attendance: Wanda Scarbro, Mary Monroe-Ellis, Mark Fuentes, Nina McPherson, Ken Swayne, Donnie Thomas, Dave Vinson, Denise Reed, Mae Jean King, Sami Ghezawi, Dave Gilbert, Susan Thomas, Lawana Day, Anita Maddox, Anne Kinggard, Caroline Best, Daryl Thomas, Judy Fethe, Yolanda Sankey, Garry Pennycuff, Kathy Byrd, Jane Stribling.  Guest present:  None

 

II. Approval of Minutes – Mark Fuentes

 

Minutes of the Oct. 24, 2007, meeting were approved with no changes.

 

III. Officer Reports

 

Secretary – Nina McPherson had no report.

 

Communications – Ken Swayne had no report.

Appreciation to Ken was expressed for sending the Oct. 24 minutes in two Word formats.

 

TBR Representative – Dave Vinson had no report.

 

President – Wanda Scarbro

Information from her meeting with Dr. Wise:

As previously announced through email, the college will not make any changes to the start time for classes for fall 2008.

Dr. Wise wants feedback on whether faculty would be interested in receiving a weekly or bi-weekly email from him containing information from publications he reads or meetings he attends.

Dr. Wise also wanted to know whether faculty would be interested in meeting throughout the year for in-service activities rather than just in the fall.  They would be small group activities such as the high performance workshops that were held a couple of years ago.

Dr. Wise thinks that in-service activities help develop more cohesiveness. (More on in-service in Section V, Unfinished Business)

 

IV. Committee Reports

 

Adjunct Faculty – Jonathan Morrell/Jesse Wilkerson had no report.

 

Rules – Don Thomas had no report.

 

Nominating Committee – Nina McPherson

An email will be go out soon soliciting nominees for the President Elect position.  A representative from each academic department is requested to be on the nominating committee.  Currently members are Anne Kinggard, Don Thomas, Mary Monroe-Ellis, Garry Pennycuff, and Dave Vinson.

 

Promotion/Tenure – Anne Kinggard

Anne reported that the process is on track.  Fifteen faculty are applying for promotion and two are applying for tenure.

 

Faculty Emeritus – Mark Fuentes

Mark reported that he had met with Dr. Edwards.  Mark will call a meeting of the sub-committee to work on revisions to the policy.

 

V. Unfinished Business

Delivery of in-service:  Various issues and options of presenting in-service were discussed.  Although there have been some outstanding presentations and some topics have been especially helpful, there was concern that we are essentially parroting what we have always done.  Some questioned the need for two days of in-service at the beginning of fall semester, an especially busy time for faculty.   Dr. Wise questioned President Scarbro as to whether Faculty Senate would like to plan in-service; the answer was no.  Some topics, such as D2L and Banner, are germane to all faculty, but others are not.  A motion was made by Don Thomas and seconded by Anita Maddox to establish a subcommittee to address inservice and registration issues; the motion was unanimously approved.  Members of the subcommittee are Don Thomas, Anita Maddox, and Mae Jean King.

 

Efficacy of online courses in general:  Faculty still have concerns about the college’s online courses.  There are questions about the college having competing agenda. The administration’s continuing push to have more online courses appears to be at odds with the college’s efforts to increase students’ socialization skills and increased engagement with their education.  Questions arose as to whether the ground course and the online course are the same course if they are significantly different in presentation and content.  Examples discussed were the speech, foreign language, and art history courses.  There are concerns that students are enrolled in online courses who do not have the computer literacy skills to be successful in the courses.  Many of the students in the online courses take them for convenience because they also are enrolled in ground courses.   Faculty think that students have the perception that the online courses are often easier.  President Scarbro will contact Dr. Yarbrough about success figures and statistics about online versus face to face courses.  General education is currently be assessed by the state; this will include the online courses.  Weaknesses will be identified in that assessment.  The college’s program reviews should also identify weaknesses. 

 

VI. New Business – No new business

 

 

VII. Discussion

Content of Advisor Training Sessions: Faculty were concerned about the content of the sessions.  Seemingly some of the information discussed was incorrect although the handout was correct.  Many faculty felt that MapWorks should not have been included in the sessions, and some felt the sessions should only be required for new faculty.  Perhaps faculty who have been here for several years would only need to be given information about changes.

 

Possibility of Student Perceptions Completed Online:  The possibility of doing the perceptions online is being investigated by Dr. Wise but probably will not happen until Fall 2008 at the earliest.

Faculty will be involved in the decision.  Many voiced opposition to such a proposal unless the course being evaluated was in a computer classroom setting.

 

Appropriate Contact People for Priority Registration:  A list of contact people will be available for Spring 2008 registration.  Melanie Paradise is the interim registrar and is the main contact person for now.

 

Other discussion topics brought up at the meeting:

The process to approve flyers for distribution was discussed.  Bob Boyd developed a flyer for an English course that is offered at the Magnolia Avenue campus.  He submitted the course to his department head for approval.  After that it was sent to Cheryl Slayden for approval.  It was reworded at that point, without informing Bob of the changes.  The information in the flyer was not changed due to any mistakes, it was only reworded.  President Scarbro will investigate the process.

 

The Natural and Behavioral Sciences department questioned the representation on the nominating committee and asked that their department have a representative.  Garry Pennycuff volunteered to be on the committee, which will meet this request. Members on the committee are:

            Nina McPherson – Library Services

            Anne Kinggard – Liberal Arts

            Mary Monroe-Ellis – Mathematics

            Don Thomas – Liberal Arts

            Garry Pennycuff – Natural and Behavioral Sciences

 

Don Thomas filed a complaint with Dr. Wise concerning the faculty advising schedule at the site campuses.  Faculty with offices at the site campuses were told to schedule all of their hours for only the drop/add schedule.  A motion was made by Dave Vinson to support this complaint; motion was unanimously passed.

 

VIII. Announcements – No announcements

 

Next meeting will be at January 23, 2008, at 3:30pm at the Magnolia Avenue Campus.

 

IX. Adjournment

 

The meeting adjourned at 4:45 PM.