Manoa Faculty Senate Minutes of May 7, 2008

Minutes of the Faculty Senate

May 07, 2008

Faculty Senate Members Present: Anna Ah Sam, Chizuko Allen, Mary Ann Antonelli, David Bangert, Bruce Barnes, Andrea Bartlett, Shana Brown, Steven Brown, Lonny Carlile, John Casken, Catherine Chan-Halbrendt, Nathan Chang, Bei-Huan Chao, Meda Chesney-Lind, David Chin, Ross Christensen, Jerome Comcowich, Bryan Cook, Robert Cooney, Graham Crookes, Sandy Davis, Sheri Fong, Patrick Henry, Vilsoni Hereniko, Thomas Hilgers, Susan Hppensteele, Judith Inazu, Jean Johnson, Alan Katz, Wendy Kawabata, Beverly Keever, Klaus Keil, Carol Kellett, Mike Kirk-Kuwaye, Justin Levinson, Jason Maddock, John Madey, Julienne Maeda, Richard Manshardt, Matt McGranaghan, Luciano Minerbi, Paula Morelli, Martin Oishi, Katsuhiro Ota, Maryann Overstreet, Aspy Palia, Martin Rayner, Karol Richardson, Kelly Roberts, David Ross, Ilia Roussev, Dave Sanders, Magi Sarvimaki, Jane Schoonmaker, Bruce Shiramizu, Gay Sibley, David Stegenga, Grieg Steward, Nancy Stockert, Eric Thau, Mary Tiles, Russel Uyeno, Lei Wakayama, Roy Wilkens, Jean Young, Sylvia Yuen, Ivica Zalud

Excused: Rhonda Black, James Cowen, Linda Cox, Martha Crosby, Shirley Daniel, Eric De Carlo, David Duffy, John Engel, David Griffith, Patrick Henry, Peter Leong, Courtnay Matsu, John Mayer, Robert McHenry, Katrina-Ann Oliveira, Lurana O’Malley, Scott Rowland, Elizabeth Wichmann-Walczak, Leven Wilson, Kelley Withy, Tricia Wright

Absent: Kimberly Binsted, Milton Diamond, Jimmy Efird, Donna Fukuda, Rosanne Harrigan, Lilikala Kame`elehiwa, Karl Kim, Spencer Kimura, Marcelo Kobayashi, Jeffrey Kuhn, Chin Lee, Marian Melish, Thanh Truc Nguyen, Stephen Olsen, Robert Paull, Todd Reed, Paul Schroeder, Anna Wieczorek

Chair David Chin called the meeting to order at 3:18 p.m.

1.      Approval of the April 16, 2008 Meeting Minutes: Hearing no requests for corrections or clarifications, the minutes were adopted.

2.      Chair’s Report

a.  Meeting on Shared Governance. On April 23, 2008, a meeting was held with the Mänoa administration, SEC, and the Chairs of all Standing Committees. As a result of this meeting, we have a reaffirmation of shared governance by the administration. In addition, we will be working together to do the following: 1) create a complete list of existing campus committees, 2) commit to better communication, 3) better documentation of agreements and decisions, 4) hold an annual meeting with all parties to discuss shared governance, 5) establish long term goals, and 6) maintain budget transparency via the VC of Administration’s website.

b.  Year-End Report. The accomplishments of the Senate included: 1) electronic elections of the new Senators and SEC, 2) Senate has regained a seat in the Chancellor’s Management Executive Team, 3) CAB has become the budget advisory committee to the VCA, 4) the simplification of the tenure/promotion process, 5) external review process initiated for COPR, 6) the Faculty Senate Charter has been signed, 7) strengthening of shared governance on this campus, and 8) establishment of the assessment office. The challenges for the future include, assuring a process for budget prioritization which includes the voice of faculty, continuing vigilance on shared governance, and improving the external review process for COPR.

3.      Committee Reports:

a.  General Education Committee. Jean Schoonmaker reported on the accomplishments of the GEC to approve over 800 diversification courses, establish a preamble for assessment, institute advising initiatives, handle articulation issues, support efforts to maintain reasonable teaching workloads, and establish a plan to handle a backlog of students who had not taken an FW course at UHM.

b.  Committee on Student Affairs. Al Katz reported on this committee’s issues and actions including the report on alcohol and drug use by students, the importance of campus threat notification, student retention, involvement of undergraduate and graduate students in their committee, course availability and dealing with challenging courses for students, and financial assistance.

c.  Committee on Research. Roy Wilkens reported on the continued conversation about Classified and Proprietary Research, discussions about transparency with the VCR&GE and Director of ORS. There will be work done to post the summaries of projects on the ORS website. In the future, issues about GMO and bioprospecting will emerge. ORS will be devolved to UHM by July 2008.

d.  Committee on Administration and Budget. Ross Christensen reported that CAB will be functioning as the Manoa Budget Advisory Group and has been meeting regularly with VCA Cutshaw to discuss the budget. Issues discussed were the Arts & Sciences reorganization, repairs and maintenance of UHM buildings, International programs, Moiliili Development, faculty housing, shared governance, and tenure on initial appointment for administration. CAB also conducted a survey of faculty regarding budget prioritization.

e.  Committee on Academic Planning and Policy. Susan Hippensteele reported that, although CAPP had a relative light workload, topics that were addressed were the process of reviewing certificate programs, enrollment management, program review, assessment, tenure on initial appointment, the waiver of the FW requirement for the backlog of students, approved the Graduate Certificate for Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance, and am currently working with the Academy of Creative Media on their BA degree proposal. She surmises that activity for this committee will be heavy next year.

f.  Committee on Faculty Service. Carol Kellett reported on the successful implementation of the electronic election system.

g.  Committee on Professional Matters. Andrea Bartlett reported on the committee’s actions on the policy on classified research, tenure upon initial appointment, workload of division and department chairs, and the dossier simplification project. The faculty handbook is still a work in progress and senators are invited to continue their input to the wiki site.

h.  Committee on Athletics. The committee evaluated the reorganization of athletics, acted on the motion to change the lyrics of the fight song, and the report on academic progress.

4.      Library Task Force Report. Sara Rutter reported on the state of the library.  The library received $2.4M as part of the supplementary budget. The library has fallen in ranking to 85^th (in the UHM Strategic Plan, the goal was to improve the library’s ranking from 65^th to 40^th in the ARL).

5.      Report on the Status of the Mänoa Assessment Office. The report was deferred.

6.      Resolution to Approve the Master of Science in Financial Engineering. Susan Hippensteele presented the resolution on behalf of CAPP. A discussion followed to clarify that seed money to start this program would be provided by a private grant, resulting in no additional cost to the institution. The resolution was unanimously approved.

7.            Resolution on Ensuring Transparency and Equity in Hiring Campus Leaders. Senator Bev Keever presented a modified resolution from that of last month to make the resolution refer to the process of hiring and remove references that were no longer timely. There was a motion to remove the background portion and eliminate many of the proposed recipients of the original resolution. As the Senate meeting was inquorate at the time of this vote, the updated resolution was supported as “the sense of the Senate.” 34 Senators approved, 1 opposed, and 1 abstained.

8.            New Business. None.

The meeting was adjourned at 5:05p.

Respectfully submitted,
Lei Wakayama and Graham Crookes

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