RSCC Faculty Senate Minutes

Friday, October 23, 2009, 2:15p

Room T-203, Roane County Campus

I. Attendance:

President: Bill Schramm

Secretary: Jean Trentham

Parliamentarian: Don Windham

Past President: Pat Wurth

Allied Health: Teri Gergen, Karen Feltner, Lesha Hill

Humanities: Ralph Monday, Sarah Thomason, Curtis Currie

Library: Ollie North

Mathematics and Sciences: Kathy Arcangeli, Steve Ward, Jill Denton

Nursing: Marcia Shloush

Social Science, Business, and Education: Don Lanza, Casey Cobb, David Rath

II. Faculty Senate President’s Report:

A. Bruce Fisher, RSCC Representative to the Sub-Council, is at the meeting today. A report from him will be sent out to the FS members via e-mail will be presented at a later date.

B. The Vice President Search Committee interviewed seven candidates and narrowed the list to four and then to three names to pass on to President Goff, who has asked for input from everyone on each of the three final candidates after the open forums with them.

C. The 5-year Strategic Planning Committee still needs representatives should any FS members be interested.

D. The dates for two of the Faculty Senate meetings for Spring Semester 2010 have changed. The March 26 meeting has been moved to the Roane County Campus since this is the Academic Festival day and most faculty members will be on the RC campus. The April 23 meeting has been moved to the Oak Ridge Campus.

III. Identity Theft Issue:

Danny Gibbs explained that the theft was of a PDA with an attached flash drive that contained the Roane State information. The item was taken from an unlocked car in a gated community. The several days’ time between the theft and the notification of the theft was to avoid impeding the police investigation and to see if the device could be recovered. There is a high degree of probability that the person who has the device does not know what it is. Recommendations were made for all to file a 90-day credit monitoring alert, a "Fraud Alert", as well as keeping an eye on bank accounts, etc., and to notify the school of any suspicious activity. It is being considered that the school will offer services to students and employees to add additional protection. Information will be forthcoming via e-mail.

IV. Minutes of the last meeting on September 25, 2009:

The Minutes of the last meeting were approved as amended: Item VII/Academic and Curriculum Council members-- Karen Feltner is the representative from Allied Health and Peggy Hilliard is the representative from Humanities; Bill Schramm will represent the Social Science, Business, and Education Division as well as representing the Faculty Senate. Item IV/Sub-Council Report—Bill Schramm rather than Ralph Monday gave the report for Bruce Fisher.

V. Old Business:

A. The office hours’ policy is ready to be reviewed by the entire Faculty Senate and discussed at the November meeting.

B. Sarah Thomason thanked everyone for their help with the SACS reaffirmation process for Roane State. She reported that the SACS Committee was impressed with the whole plan.

C. Ralph Monday expressed appreciation from the Senate and the entire College to Sarah for her wonderful work already done on this project as well as her continuing efforts.

D. Reorganization Plan:

1. Paperwork about Comments prepared by the Humanities division regarding the impending reorganization process of the academic areas of the College was shared with the FS members to review and to be further discussed at the November meeting.

2. The re-organization is on hold now until the new Vice President is on board. The Committee charged with this has not met nor studied anything yet.

3. Originally, the plan was to save money, but that appears to have changed. It now appears to have more layers of bureaucracy which is most likely to cost more money. The re-organization plan was announced during discussions of budget concerns. It was pointed out that when a review of academic operations is initiated, a better understanding of the goals of reorganization will be required. The question was stated, “If this doesn’t save money, why make these changes?”

4. Bill Schramm said he would get additional information about this to share with the Senate

E. Salary Adjustments:

1. It has been some time since a salary cost of living adjustment increases have has been made and the amount of salary from purchasing power of a salary from 2000 has dropped to declined by about -8% in buying power in 2007. A formal motion was made, seconded, and passed:

“The Faculty Senate of Roane State asks the Administration to consider the implementation of the current salary equity plan.”

2. Discussion arose about the current hiring freeze. Why are people being hired during this freeze? Another formal motion was made, seconded, and passed:

“The Faculty Senate asks the Administration to clarify the hiring freeze at Roane State and to explain which positions are affected and which ones are not.”

VI. New Business:

Discussion of the IDEA Room was held with many issues being raised particularly about the mail system and how student papers are being handled. Graded work should not be left in the room and available to all students who have access to not only their graded work but also to other students’ graded work. The lack of proctors for short (e.g., 15-minute) quizzes is a real disadvantage as is the poor proctoring that is being done. These problems were discussed in light of the substantial amount of cheating that is going on in these IDEA Room classes.

The equipment in the IDEA Room is better, but it is essential that better methods be found to be able to teach the classes correctly. It appears to be a lack of communication and coordination between and among the various areas of responsibility and authority (who is responsible for doing what chore).

It is an academic issue not being controlled by Academics. A suggestion was made to invite Cathy Martin to come to the Faculty Senate meeting to discuss some ideas of coordination so that the classes in the IDEA room will be better controlled.

A Faculty Senate Committee was developed to study this issue. Members are Pat Wurth, Jill Denton, Curtis Currie, and Casey Cobb.

VII. The meeting was adjourned at 3:40p.

Minutes submitted by Jean Trentham, Faculty Senate Secretary 2009-2010