Academic Senate Youngstown State University Youngstown, Ohio  44555

February 4, 2004

Note 1:  Please submit agenda items and cover sheets for the next Senate meeting to Bob Hogue by noon on Friday, February 20, at the latest.  Provide both a hard copy and a disk or electronic copy of your report and cover sheet in Word or rich text format.  A downloadable cover sheet is available at the Academic Senate web site [hit "cancel" if asked for a password]:

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Major topics presented/discussed and reports attached: 

Senate Executive Committee report; Ohio Faculty Council report; Report from the College of Engineering and Technology; Report from the Academic Programs Committee.

• Passage of Resolution Recommending Study of Summer Teaching Opportunities for all Full-Time Faculty.

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Tom Shipka, chair of the Academic Senate, called the Senate to order at 4:06 p.m.

Minutes of the Previous Meeting:

Minutes of the November 5, 2003, meeting were approved as posted.  To view the November minutes, go to <http://www.www.ysu.edu/acad-senate/minnov03.htm>. 

Senate Executive Committee (SEC) / Report from the Chair:  Tom Shipka, chair of the Senate, reported:

1. The Executive Committee met between fall and spring semesters to identify potential members of an ad hoc committee pursuant to a motion approved by the Senate on November 5, 2003. The purpose of the committee is to study the policy approved by the YSU Board of Trustees approving a waiver of searches in some instances. I regret to report that most of the persons identified and later contacted have declined to serve. Unless other individuals come forward with an interest in serving, this study is not likely to be done. Those who are interested in serving should contact me.

2. The YSU Board of Trustees approved a Professional Conduct Policy at its meeting on December 17, 2003. This policy is a revised version of the one approved by the Senate last academic year. Revisions in the Senate-approved version were made in response to suggestions from a variety of members of the campus community by a review committee consisting of Tom Maraffa, Bege Bowers, Jim Morrison, Sandy Denman, and myself. There is a link to the full text of this policy, which is numbered 9006.01, on the Senate home page, thanks to our Senate secretary, Bob Hogue. The policy is titled "Professional Conduct of Faculty, Department Chairpersons, and Professional/Administrative Employees." After the approval of this policy by the Board of Trustees, I drafted proposed changes in the Senate Bylaws, particularly Bylaw 6, "Appointed Chartered Committees," to accommodate the new Senate standing committee created by this policy, and sent them to the Senate Charter and Bylaws Committee for review. Charter and Bylaws has completed their review and made several changes in my proposed draft. Charter and Bylaws will offer this Bylaw amendment to the Senate at our March meeting on Wednesday, March 3, 2004. The full text of the amendment to Bylaw 6 which Charter and Bylaws are proposing will be available on the Senate home page in the next few days. Please review it carefully prior to the March meeting.

3. Late last spring Dr. Tony Atwater, Provost of the university, asked me to meet with officials of The Youngstown Club to explore the possibility of a special YSU membership in The Youngstown Club at reduced rates. The Youngstown Club is an elegant dining and social club on the 4th and 5th floors of the Commerce Building on Federal Plaza East downtown. Negotiations were completed recently and a memorandum of agreement between YSU and The Youngstown Club has been signed. Through this agreement YSU hopes to strengthen its links to the downtown, preserve a downtown landmark, and provide opportunities for YSU faculty, staff, and benefactors to meet, dine, and socialize. Through this agreement The Youngstown Club hopes to expand its membership beyond its current 600 members and produce additional revenue.

Under the agreement, the YSU membership in The Youngstown Club is available to YSU full-time and part-time active and retired employees, current and former YSU trustees, and YSU benefactors at designated giving levels. A one time $30 application fee is charged but the standard $250 initiation fee is waived. Dues for YSU members are $30 per month compared to the standard dues of $150 per month. YSU members will have no monthly spending minimum compared to a monthly minimum of $30 for standard members. YSU members may authorize use of their membership by others, including a spouse, domestic partner, or child.  Tours of The Youngstown Club can be arranged by phoning 330-744-2177. Distribution of brochures and application forms to employees and others who are eligible for the YSU membership will begin in the next couple of weeks as soon as a new batch is printed. Under the agreement, individuals who have standard memberships in the Club may not convert them to YSU memberships and YSU members are ineligible to vote or hold office in the Club.

I want to thank President Sweet, Provost Atwater, and Vice President Habat for the roles that they played in facilitating this new opportunity for members of the YSU family.

4. The chair of the Senate has the good or bad fortune to serve automatically or by appointment on a variety of campus committees. I have sought the help of Senate vice chair Chet Cooper, Charles Singler, and Jim Morrison to help me cover some of these committees and I want to thank them for their help and service.

5. One committee that I am serving on is the Alcohol and Tailgating Committee. This group has met only twice and I have encouraged it to pick up the pace so that we can have a coherent, legal, and publicly supportable policy when season tickets and tailgate passes go on sale. The committee is pursuing several courses of action simultaneously, including legislative changes, to assure that we have a backup plan if the legislation is not secured within the short time span.

 

Gabriel Palmer-Fernandez asked if the $30 monthly rate would stay the same for a while.  Dr. Shipka replied that the rate can change, but the Youngstown Club would have to give us at least 30 days notice of a rate change.

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Ohio Faculty Council (OFC):   Tom Shipka reported:

A new web page of the Ohio Faculty Council has been set up by Bob Hogue and James Sacco of YSU. The URL is www.ysu.edu/facstaff/ofc/. Bob Hogue is the custodian. There is a link to this web page on the YSU Academic Senate web page. I have asked OFC delegates to arrange for links on their Senate home pages to the new OFC web page. The Ohio Board of Regents has also created a link to the OFC web page on its web page. The OFC expresses its gratitude to Bob Hogue and James Sacco for their expert assistance in transferring this web page from Miami University and updating it.

In November the OFC met with Dr. Katherine Canada, Project Director, the Governor's Commission on Higher Education and the Economy. In the wake of rumors that the Commission was being told that the public universities do not cooperate or collaborate with one another and do not discontinue any programs, the members brought lists of examples of collaboration between and among the public universities and lists of discontinued programs to the meeting and presented them to Dr. Canada. She, in turn, relayed them to Attorney Richard Pogue, chair of the Commission, who acknowledged receipt of them in a letter to me which included a comment that he and his colleagues on the Commission were surprised, to say the least, at the dozens and dozens of instances of collaboration reported in everything from joint programs to shared grants to shared faculty to consortia. Atty. Pogue had been scheduled to attend the November meeting but had to cancel due to a last minute business emergency.

The OFC meets again on Friday of next week. Atty. Pogue will attend this meeting, as will Dr. Canada from the Governor's Commission and Mr. Thomas Noe, chair, Ohio Board of Regents. Mr. Noe is also a member of the Commission.

At the meeting next week we will also have reports from the OFC Legislative Committee on the so-called Defense of Marriage Act recently passed by the Ohio General Assembly and revisions in the law governing the State Teachers Retirement System which are passed or pending. Paul Sracic from YSU will be involved in these reports.

The Ohio Board of Regents is planning a third annual conference on general education early this summer and I have asked the organizers to consider including a presentation by Dr. William Jenkins of our campus in the program.

College of Engineering & Technology:   Dean Cynthia Hirtzel reported on developments and news from the College:

Dean Hirtzel has been at YSU about a year and a half and is happy to report that the College is alive and well. All of the College's Bachelor's degrees are accredited by ABET. This is good news. Many companies hire only graduates from ABET-accredited universities. All programs are strong. The Materials Engineering program is in process of being reworked. Delphi recently contributed a scanning electron microscope. This is a rare opportunity for our undergraduates; it provides a resource for learning that crosses disciplines. Materials Engineering also is concentrating on advanced manufacturing. The college is collaborating with Parker-Hannifin on a hydraulics program.

Other collaborations include meeting with local industries, resulting in new programs to meet needs of the power industry, etc.

Looking to the future, to the digital age: As of 12/31/2006, all analog TV stations are scheduled to cease operations, and digital TV will be used exclusively.  Partly as a result of that move, a new Telecommunications Engineering program has been developed in conjunction with the College of Fine and Performing Arts..

Students are the focus in the College. Internships and co-ops are provided. Third Frontier Internship Grant resulted in 36 new internships for students.

Articulation agreements with other universities, including Kent/Trumbull, already exist, and others are being explored.

Dean Hirtzel asked how many have toured the Engineering Building? A few raised their hand. She encouraged anyone interested to call the Dean's office if they would like to tour the building..

Dean Hirtzel stated that she is very proud of the students in Engineering & Technology. She read one letter from a company (Cattron in Sharpsville) who has hired some one of our graduates and was very pleased with the quality of those hired.

Charter & Bylaws Committee:  No report. 

Elections & Balloting Committee:  No report.

Unfinished Business:   None.

New business:

Jeanette Garr, At-Large Senator from the College of Engineering & Technology, submitted the following "Resolution Recommending Study of Summer Teaching Opportunities for All Full-time Faculty" for consideration by the Academic Senate:

Whereas Article 4.6 in the Agreement between Youngstown State University and the YSU Chapter of the Ohio Education Association governs summer teaching at YSU,

Whereas the implementation of Article 4.6 has resulted in denying summer teaching opportunities to some full-time faculty for extended periods,

Whereas all full-time faculty who wish to teach in the summer and who are qualified to teach specific courses should have an opportunity to teach such courses,

Therefore, be it resolved that the Academic Senate at YSU recommends to the administration and the YSU Chapter of the OEA that they meet soon to explore ways to enhance summer teaching opportunities for full-time faculty who wish to teach in the summer but who have been denied the opportunity to do so.

Dr. Garr moved that the Academic Senate adopt this resolution.  The motion was seconded.  Discussion followed.

Dr. Garr then presented justification for the resolutions, a summary of which is attached (see Attachment 1).

Gabriel Palmer-Fernandez noted that the resolution speaks in terms of "faculty who have been denied" summer opportunities and wondered if that was the correct terminology.  Dr. Garr replied that some departments either offer no courses, or if they try to offer them, the minimum enrollment is not met and the class is canceled.

Dean Cynthia Hirtzel stated that the College of Engineering and Technology had studied this matter and found that the "magic number" of enrolled students does not always need to be 15 for a summer course to be profitable, based on the subsidy for courses.

Jim Morrison asked if this going to create a committee to research something that won't happen. He noted that in 35 years of service at the University, he has never seen a case where faculty have turned down a second opportunity for summer teaching. He questioned whether the faculty would really support this.

Dr. Garr replied that some faculty may feel that skipping a second summer assignment is a matter of doing what's right.

Tom Shipka stated that the resolution is just the first page of the handout distributed by Dr. Garr, and the second page provides some of her justification for proposing the resolution.  If the resolution is approved, it just recommends that the union and administration meet to explore ways to enhance summer teaching opportunities.  Dr. Shipka noted that Dr. Garr had contacted him about the resolution a few weeks ago. He stated that since summer opportunities are covered by the Collective Bargaining Agreement, if the Academic Senate pushes too hard to involve itself in the process, it could result in an unfair labor practice.

A vote was then taken on the motion to adopt the resolution: Motion passed.

 

Adjournment:  The Academic Senate adjourned at 4:41 p.m.