Printable Version

Mānoa Faculty Senate Executive Committee
Minutes of February 9, 2009

Mānoa Faculty Senate Executive Committee
Monday – Feb 9, 2009; Hawaiʻi Hall 208
Present: SEC - Crookes, Crosby, Hilgers, Ross, Tiles, Wakayama
Absent: Keil (flight delayed)

2:00 Meeting with VC Ostrander

VC Ostrander reports that a detailed reorg plan is now under development, including contact with unions, and other firm content. He has identified nine core programs for the purposes of prioritization. He will work with the executive committee of PBRC (who will act as the unit director) to prepare the current prioritization documents.

Cancer Center. VC Ostrander will shortly meet with the search committee to give them the formal charge. He has also reviewed with a couple of Cancer Center faculty the process for setting up that committee.

The building will be the largest construction in State of Hawaii for next five years, and the current broad proposal can indeed be accomodated from cigarette tax revenues. (The final proposal is expected to be smaller, though.) Ground will be broken soon and certainly before the end of the calendar year. The building will be an LEED green-certified (perhaps at the “silver” level).

Immediately preceding lab buildings (JABSOM and SOEST) were in some regard appropriately designed for the period (before energy costs went so high) but on the other hand, had many real architectural design problems. This time there was a nationally-circulated RFP and a more rigorous outside- independent-oriented process, said the VC. He responded to SEC concerns by stating his expectation that this process, which is perhaps slightly more expensive and leans on established experience in the construction of lab buildings, is better than those previously. The search firm has placed some 15 cancer center directors across the country in recent years.

The VC reviewed with SEC his process for establishing this committee; SEC conveyed to the VC that some Cancer Center faculty had expressed concerns to them about this process. SEC will follow up these matters. The VC reiterated his understanding that the next time he approaches a search that involves a unit without an established faculty senate, he will use the main Faculty Senate and the SEC as a means by which to establish and vet the search process.

CAB may propose a unit that would chase institutional grants; the VC expressed interest in this possibility.

2:50 SEC meeting

1)         Approval of minutes of previous meeting. These were approved as amended.

2)         In the absence of the SEC Chair, there was no Chair's Report.

3)         Committee Reports

Liaisons for CAPP and GEC made brief informal comments on issues under consideration by their committees.

SEC discussed the possibility of having a meeting of standing committee chairs. This was tentatively scheduled for 3 pm Feb 25.

4)         Old Business

Minutes of the most recent Faculty Senate meeting are still under review.

           

5)         New Business

            Names for the ad hoc committee to oversee the finalization of the administrative structure of the Manoa Assessment Office have been decided on and will be forwarded to the VCAA’s office.

            a.         Resolution to Approve a Graduate Certificate in Entrepreneurship

Relevant documents have not yet arrived with SEC.

            b.         Request for assignment of MAC Liaison and Senators

CAPP and VCAA wants this committee to be formed immediately. However, this cannot be done until the beginning of the academic year, new senate elections, and new assignment of senators to all standing committees.

            In the interim, the SEC will recommend that the ad hoc committee add to its charge the review of the resolution establishing the MAC to see if additional guidelines and operating language might be needed so that the MAC can be fully operational in Fall.

            c.         Conversion to eCAFE (CAPP memo)

The conversion to an online version of CAFÉ was started by the previous VCAA Smatresk, and has been piloted. General opinion is that electronic student evaluations usually have a low response rate. However, there are exceptions, and where the faculty “incentivize” it the response rates may be higher than the paper, in-class rates, according to some.

The existence of an electronic version would not prevent departments from using a paper and/or essay version.

The paper version of CAFÉ costs $30k/semester, and its basis in paper scantron sheets etc is legacy technology which may not continue to be supported by the existing company supporting UHM. Even though other companies may be available, there is also consumption of student help resources etc. including the need to hand-input open-ended responses.

In order to have a high response rate, it may be necessary to put in a requirement that students submit evaluations before their grades will be released.

Several options, then, may be available in the future and departments may be able to choose whichever gets the highest response rate in their circumstances.

Update on VCAA Search: David Chin past SEC Chair, who is on the search committee for the VCAA position, clarified a few questions SEC had concerning the process of this search. As the search committee will be meeting on February 10^th, David will be sending the SEC an email with the responses to these questions.

SEC worked on the agendas for February 18, 2009 Faculty Congress and Faculty Senate Meeting.

Respectfully submitted,
Graham Crookes