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Faculty Senate Minutes

University of North Carolina at Wilmington

President Lynne Snowden called the meeting to order at 2:30 p.m.

Roll Call

Absent:  Baker (Budget Ctme.), Dumas (Ec.& Finance), Earney (Acct. & Bus.Law), Elikai (Acct.& Bus.Law), Galbraith (Mgt.&Mktg.), Hadley (Grad. Sch.), Hall (Finan.Aid Cmte.), Halls (Earth Sci.), Hayes (Ed.Sch.), Hines (St. Affairs Cmte.), Howe (Mgt.& Mktg.), Jansen (Art & Theater), Kermani (Cur.Studies), Luetze (Chancellor), McCarthy (History), Olsen (Comm. Studies), Parish (Bookstore Cmte.), Parnell (Library), Rice (Sp. Studies), Rockness (Bus.Admin.), Sandell (Soc.Work), Sargent (Art&Theater), Sigler (Ec.& Finance), Walker (Admissions Cmte.), Wray (Prod.&Dec.Sci.)

Approval of Minutes

The February minutes were approved.

Special Order of the Day

        1. Executive session: nominations for honorary degrees were voted on.

        2. Pat Comeaux and Dick Veit were nominated for the position of Faculty Assembly delegate. 

Individual Reports

1. Provost John Cavanaugh:
   • Thanked the faculty for our cooperation in dealing with the snowstorm.
   • Mentioned that the NCAA basketball game will be televised at 12:30 on Friday, and may be broadcast on a big screen in Trask Auditorium.
   • Informed us that the State Labor Department will require SBA employees to make up the time for the snow days, despite UNCW's intensive lobbying to interpret that time as an emergency situation (similar to the hurricane).
   • Noted in response to questions that the contract for the new classroom building has been let, and that actual work on the building should begin within 30 days.
      
2. President of the Senate Lynne Snowden:
   • Requested faculty who are members of Phi Beta Kappa to serve on a committee that is being formed to bring a Phi Beta Kappa chapter to UNCW. Interested faculty should contact her for further details.
   • Thanked the chairs and members of Senate committees for their work during the year, and reminded them that reports are due at the end of the year, in time for inclusion in the April minutes.
      
3. Faculty Assembly Representative Ken Gurganus:
   • Noted that the next meeting of the Faculty Assembly is on April 7, and any faculty who have concerns should contact Pam Comeaux or himself.
   • Noted that there will be discussion at that meeting of the Capital Equity campaign. 
   • Passed out copies of a questionnaire regarding issues facing the UNC system from Gretchen Bataille, the new Senior VP for Academic Affairs at General Administration. Faculty who wish to be part of the UNCW faculty responses to the questionnaire may respond to it directly, or email their responses to Ken at gurganus@uncwil.edu by March 27 for a joint response.

Committee Reports

1. The Faculty Senate defeated the following graduation requirement proposed by the University Curriculum Committee, which would have been inserted into the UNCW Undergraduate Catalogue immediately before the Required Oral Communication Competency (p. 89 of the 1999-2000 catalogue):

   REQUIRED COMPUTER COMPETENCY

   The university requires all students to develop competency in basic computer skills prior to graduation. Students in each major must satisfy the requirement of computer competency as specified by that major. (Motion 00-8-13, defeated)

   Discussion raised a number of  issues, including whether the requirement would represent a meaningful certification for graduates, if there were not a minimum threshold of specified competency skills; whether the proposed competency requirement would impose an obligation specifically on the departments, which they did not yet have; and whether the university should wait to insure computer competency until the students were already in their major. 

    

2. The Senate passed the following resolution from the Financial Aid Committee and University Advancement Committee:

   Whereas, UNCW seeks to attract students of the highest academic quality,

   And whereas, scholarship funds often impact top-quality students' decisions about which academic institution to attend,

   And whereas, the vast majority of scholarships allotted to incoming  UNCW students are at least partially need-based, with few solely merit-based,

   Therefore, be it resolved, that it is the sense of the Faculty Senate that the  UNCW Division of University Advancement should seek to develop new funding directed toward the provision of solely merit-based scholarships for incoming students.  (Motion 00-8-14, passed)

    

3. The Senate passed following motion from the Evaluation Committee:

               The following changes ( deletions, additions ) be made to selected portions of Appendix J of the Faculty Handbook. 

   Appendix J

   Guidelines for the Administration, Use, and Interpretation of the "Student Perception of Teaching" (SPOT) Evaluation

   Revised by the Faculty Senate, Spring 2000 1999

   A. Administration

   2.  SPOT shall ordinarily be used by all instructors in all courses every semester   including summer sessions.  Paper versions of SPOT will be used in traditional classroom settings and online courses will use an online version of SPOT.  Recognizing, however, that some courses rely heavily on specialized, non- classroom learning experiences (e.g., field-based; hospital-based; laboratory-based; performance-based), exceptions may be established at the departmental level by mutual consent of a faculty member and the appropriate chairperson.  In such cases, some method of student evaluation shall be implemented by the department chairperson.

   4.  Administration of the paper SPOTs instrument  shall be delegated to an individual other than the instructor.  That individual may be a student or another faculty member.

   5.  A brief standardized statement of instruction shall be presented  read to each class prior to the administration of SPOT.

   6.  During the administration of the paper SPOTs instrument , the instructor shall leave the classroom and its vicinity.

   8.  Following administration of the paper SPOTs instrument, the evaluation forms shall be sealed in an envelope and returned immediately to the departmental office.  Department chairpersons will keep these secure and will forward them for processing.  (Motion 00-8-15, passed)

Old Business

        None. 

New Business

1. The Faculty Senate voted to substitute the following motion from Richard Veit of the English Deparment for Motion 00-8-16, the Resolution on Teaching Grammar submitted by the Department of Biological Sciences. The Senate then passed this motion: 

That the Faculty Senate Steering Committee shall appoint an Ad Hoc Faculty Committee with appropriate representation from across the disciplines to examine programs that have been successful in improving writing across the curriculum in other institutions and report back their findings to the Faculty Senate, with a preliminary report on their activities by the April meeting. (Motion 00-8-17, passed)

Discussion: there was considerable, sometimes strained, discussion on these motions, including presentations by members of the Biology and English departments. Among the issues that were raised relating to the substance of the motions: whether UNCW students are becoming worse, or better writers; whether there are too many students who do not become sufficiently proficient writers during their UNCW education, the causes of this, and who is primarily responsible for correcting this problem; that this is a matter of general university concern and requires the commitment of the whole university community; that there is "no easy fix" to this problem, and that time will be needed to formulate a good policy; that departments need to learn how to enable students to apply writing skills learned in a different context (e.g. the comp course) in their own disciplines; what research in composition shows to be the best methods of teaching composition, and the relation of those methods to teaching spelling and grammar; steps taken by the English department to address teaching composition, and to train instructors who teach it.

Announcements

        None.