Academic Senate Youngstown State University Youngstown, Ohio  44555

Note:  The next meeting of the Academic Senate is scheduled for December 7, 2005, at 4:00 p.m. Please submit agenda items and cover sheets for the October Senate meeting to Bob Hogue by noon on November 28, 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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Minutes of the Previous Meeting:

Minutes of the September 14, 2005, meeting were approved as posted.  To view the minutes, go to <http://www.www.ysu.edu/acad-senate/minsep05.htm>. 

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

As is my custom, I will consolidate my several reports.

1. The Ohio Faculty Council met in Columbus on October 14, 2005, and both Dr. Paul Sracic and I attended as YSU delegates. At this meeting we reelected last year’s officers – John Cuppoletti, Cincinnati, chair; David Witt, Akron, vice chair; and Rodger Govea, Cleveland State, secretary – for new one year terms. One main item of business was a discussion of the agreement by Ohio public university presidents on a resolution regarding student due process rights. The presidents, through their organization, IUC – the Inter-University Council, agreed that each institution should have a grievance process wherein students can have their grievances addressed fairly. This action was taken in order to remove from legislative consideration a bill that would have mandated such a process. As a follow-up to this resolution, there will be a meeting at YSU on November 9 th at 1:00 p.m., including the president, provost, vice president for student affairs, general counsel, president of student government, myself, and possibly others, to discuss whether YSU complies with the IUC resolution. This meeting could result in a request to one or more committees of the Senate being asked to consider new or changed policies affecting our students for presentation to the full Senate later this school year.

The OFC meets next on November 18. The agenda includes an official from the Ohio Civil Rights Commission.

I remind you that YSU maintains the web site of the OFC as a service to the faculty across the state, thanks to the generosity and cooperation of Bob Hogue, James Sacco, and Joan Bevan on our campus. You can access the OFC web site from our Senate web site. Among other information that you will find on the OFC web site is a roster of members. If you need information about a particular campus, you may find it helpful to e-mail one or both of the OFC delegates from that campus.

On behalf of the OFC, I compiled data from the fifteen campuses showing faculty salary increases for 2005-2006 on the various public university and medical school campuses and whether the faculties of these institutions pay a share of the insurance premium. I confirmed my data with at least two sources on every campus. I placed copies of my report on the sign-up sheet table and you may also access this report on the OFC web site under “Special Reports.”

2. I want to thank all the faculty who convened the organizational meetings of the various Senate committees in recent weeks so that these committee could undertake their business. An up-to-date roster of Senate committees is available on the Senate web site. Several elections are still in process or have concluded very recently, so you may find a vacancy here and there, including two on the Senate Executive Committee. I believe that Elections and Balloting will have a report on this matter today.

3. An allegation of professional misconduct has been received by Joseph Edwards, chair, Professional Conduct Committee, and he has sought a clarification under the Professional Conduct Policy, which is Board of Trustees Policy 9006.01, as to whether his committee should proceed to investigate this allegation. Under Section III.B.2 of this policy, the chair of the Senate, the president of the university, and the provost of the university are to meet to decide such a matter by majority vote. That meeting is scheduled tomorrow at 11:00 a.m. in Tod Hall. Meanwhile, the university’s general counsel is continuing to investigate whether any laws may have been violated in this case.

4. You will recall that in my role as Senate chair, I requested the President Sweet to appoint a committee to study the labor-management climate on campus and to make recommendations to improve it. A subsequent resolution of this body, proposed by Student Government, urged Senate efforts to improve the labor-management climate. Dr. Sweet, as you know, has appointed such a committee and it has begun its work. Provost Robert K. Herbert will report more about the panel later in this meeting.

This concludes my report. I will be happy to respond to questions or comments. Thank you.

 

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Charter & Bylaws Committee:    No report.

Elections & Balloting Committee:  Annette Burden reported: Ballots for Chair are due this Friday by 5 p.m. Counting of ballots will take place Monday afternoon in the Mathematics Department conference room. Also, there are still 5 at-large vacancies from the College of Education. We put out requests for nominations, but none have been received so far.

Unfinished Business:   None.

New business:   

The report from Paul Kobulnicky has been postponed until the December meeting.

Dr. Robert K. Herbert, Provost, reported on the Labor-Management Panel: President Sweet has convened the panel to consider the state of labor-management relations on campus. I will be chairing the panel. Other members of the committee are Eugenia Atkinson, Jim Graham, Attorney Dennis Haines, Dr. Jim Morrison, Attorney John Pogue, and Dr. Tom Shipka.

The panel is considering four broad questions, as outlined in my memo to the YSU Community on October 24. We have had several organizational meetings and several meetings at which we interviewed selected employees. Because of the importance of the interviews, we have decided not to impose a time limit on interviews. The sessions will be neither recorded nor transcribed. The panel will receive visits from the YSU Admininstration, followed by YSU employees, followed by the general public. Those being interviewed may come as a group or as individuals. Meetings are held on Friday morning. We are not sure that the work can be done by the end of December, due to length of the interview process. Everyone should have received a letter containing an invitation to submit thoughts via paper or via e-mail at labrpanl@ysu.edu.