Present: L. Alpert, B. Altmann, E. Campbell, S. Clark, S. Cohen, D. Conley, J. Dawson, J. Earl, W. Gatimu, P. Gilkey, J. Grzybowski, E. Housworth, B. Jenkins, L. Blake Jones, S. Kohl, C. Lachman, E. Luks, R. McGowen, M. Paris, C. Phillips, L. Robare, N. Savage, J. Schombert, P. Southwell, F. Tepfer, J. Terborg, M. Weiner

Excused: C. Brokaw, L. Dann, R. Davis, M. Epstein, C. Gary, K. Helphand, G. McLauchlan, D. Merskin, P. Mills, R. Moore, G. Moreno, M. Nippold, N. Tublitz, T. Wheeler

Absent: M. Dixon, M. Hibbard, R. Kellett, S. Kolwitz, D. Levi, A. Schultz, G. Waweru

CALL TO ORDER

Senate President Peter Gilkey called the regular meeting of the University Senate to order at 3:05 p.m. in 177 Lawrence.

APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES

The first order of business was to approve the minutes of the February 9, 2000 meeting. The motion to approve the minutes was unanimously approved.

STATE OF THE UNIVESITY

Report from President Gilkey. President Gilkey drew attention to the packet of materials distributed to senators at the meeting, indicating they were available for the senatorsí perusal and that virtually all are posted on the senate web page (http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~uosenate/senate.html) see http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~uosenate/dirsen990/report8Mar00.html. Among the informational items were several letters, one from a faculty member regarding the proposed building of a new basketball facility and one from a student concerning the Student Programs Finance Committee, a time schedule for the library serials cancellation project, and a notice indicating that comments and evaluations regarding the administrative review of Provost John Moseley will be accepted until March 15, 2000.

Special meeting of the University Senate. President Gilkey announced that he has called a special meeting of the senate for March 29^th to talk about budgetary matters. He noted the timeliness of the meeting in that deans and department heads are starting to work now on recommendations for distributing salary increments, notice of which will be given by mid-June for disbursement in November 2000. At the meeting, the Senate Budget Committee will focus on three resolutions regarding faculty compensation it plans to put forth for discussion and action: Resolution US99/00-12, to approve a statement of principles, Resolution US99/00-13, to approve a final version of the SBC White Paper, and Resolution US99/00-14, to endorse implementation guidelines. In addition, the president noted the likelihood that US 99/00-7, regarding disbursement of salary increases based first on COLA, also would be discussed at the March 29^th meeting. President Gilkey urged everyone to attend.

Upcoming senate topics. President Gilkey indicated that he expects to receive Resolution US99/00-9, an affirmation of community standards, in the next few days, the essence of which arises from work of student interns last summer. Finally, two motions from the Senate Ad Hoc Committee on Committee Structures will be coming up at the May meeting.

Report on the Faculty Survey. President Gilkey introduced Ms. Patty Gwartney, sociology and Director of the Oregon Survey Research Laboratory, to give an overview of the findings from the telephone survey of instructional faculty regarding faculty compensation and budget issues. Details of the survey are available on the web page listed (http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~osrl/facatt00/UOFAOPEN.htm), but in general, Ms. Gwartney indicated that the sample of 260 tenure related instructional faculty, with a response rate of just under 70%, was quite representative of the total population. The report summarizes the results for five broad categories: profile of respondents, whether or not they had awareness of the Senate Budget Committee White Paper previously circulated to faculty, job satisfaction, principles and criteria for faculty compensation, and a comparison of the mailed-out survey with the telephone survey.

Comparisons were made across academic rank and by schools and colleges. Among the findings, Ms. Gwartney noted that job satisfaction was less for faculty in social sciences and in education. Further, the greatest faculty support is for those principles and criteria on faculty compensation that refer to across the board, cost of living raises that are linked to Oregonís actual cost of living increases, and merit increases based on faculty excellence in performing their duties. However the results for these two mechanisms, cost of living and merit, vary substantially by gender, school or college, tenure status, and academic rank. Regardless of the plan used to implement salary increases, some faculty members likely will not be completely supportive. The mailed-out survey went to tenure related instructional faculty (675 persons) and had a 43% response rate. Significantly more women returned surveys than men proportional to the population. Significantly fewer in the natural sciences returned surveys, and significantly more in the humanities, yielding a sample not as representative of the population as the telephone sample. Despite the population differences between the two samples, overall results for compensation criteria and principles were nearly the same. President Gilkey thanked Ms. Gwartney for her diligence and hard work.

Interim report from the Senate Budget Committee (SBC). President Gilkey asked Mr. Wayne Westling, Senate Budget Committee, to provide an update on their activities. Mr. Westling reported that three documents are nearly completed will be posted on the web page prior to Spring Break for perusal and discussion. The three documents include: (1) a basic statement of principles relating to faculty compensation, anticipated to be in force for a long time; (2) a revised version of the White Paper taking into account the feedback from the meetings and the survey results; and (3) the first stage of implementation, dealing with the first year and the distribution of the 5% increase due for next fall.

UNFINISHED BUSINESS

Committee on Committees election. President Gilkey noted that the Committee on Committees was shy one member. A motion from the Senate Executive Committee nominates Mr. Richard Sundt, art history, for the committee. Mr. Sundt was elected by unanimous hand vote.

NEW BUSINESS

Fall 2000 Preliminary Curriculum Report from the Committee on Courses. President Gilkey introduced committee chair Paul Engelking, chemistry, to present the preliminary curriculum report for winter term 2000. The report had been previously distributed to senators and, hearing no corrections or items for discussion, was approved by the senate. Mr. Engelking further noted that the M.F.A. in Dance has been approved; such program or degree approvals will be added to future curriculum reports not as part of the report for approval (this is done by the state board), but as a matter of information.

Discussion on linkage between contact hours and credit hours for 100-299 courses. Mr. Engelking brought up an issue for which the Committee on Courses sought guidance from the senate regarding the linkage between the number of contact hours and credits for course numbers 100 ? 299. The committee has received at least one course proposal in which the department requested four credits and indicated that the course would be meeting for three hours per week. Mr. John Nicols, chair of the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) Curriculum Committee, provided some historical context for the issue regarding the switch from the three credits to four-credit model. At the time of the change to four credits, significant reservations were expressed fearing inflated credit hours without proportional amounts of increased work required. The thinking was that at the lower division it would be appropriate to have a link between number of hours spent in class and the number of credits awarded, but that in upper division courses numbered 400 or higher there may be sufficient amounts of extra work outside of class to justify giving more credits than the actual class contact time. Mr. Engelking interjected that currently there are less than a dozen lower division level four-credit courses that only meet three hours per week.

Senator Paul Simonds, anthropology, reminded the senators of a statement generated by the then Curriculum Committee that he chaired which said effectively that lower division courses would be four hours contact for four hours of credit, with very rare exceptions that had to be fully justified. Upper division courses could be justified with substantial additional reading and other types of work that were substantially equivalent to the extra one hour of credit. Mr. Engelking agreed the statement is the current understanding of the Committee on Courses. Mr. Nicols noted that the College of Arts and Sciences has always required an explanation of the additional work required, even in upper division courses, and they have been routinely approved. However, he is unaware of any follow-up on this requirement; rather, the assumption is that the faculty do indeed assign additional work.

At the lower division level over the last few years there has been movement to make all writing classes four credit hours with three contact hours, again, with the assumption that there will be additional writing required to justify the additional credit hour. What was once a rarity is becoming the norm, as in the last two years an increasing number of requests from departments to have a fourth hour of credit have made no attempt to justify the fourth hour. Those requests have been denied. Mr. Nicols continued to say that in almost every department on campus there are at least some courses at the lower division level that are group satisfying and multicultural, with four credits and three contacts hours with very little is done to create situations for that fourth contact hour. The argument comes down to equating one credit hour with contact time and finding a way to articulate what the additional work means. In CAS, almost all the courses that are group satisfying and four credits are requiring substantial justification for the fourth credit. The point was made that no other OUS institutions with the same course numbers have four credits ? the question is whether our courses, when compared with those in other institutions, would stand up to the workload.

In further discussion, Senate Vice President Earl asked if the Committee on Courses plans to revisit all courses for the four credit hour vs. three contact hours issue, to which Mr. Engelking replied that only new course proposals or those with changes are being reviewed. There simply is not enough staff time and resources to review all courses in the catalog. Senator Suzanne Clark, sociology, stated she believes it is good policy to ask for justification on the additional credit and that we need to rely on professional ethics of the faculty to ensure that the work is there for the fourth hour rather than devising a vast monitoring system. Mr. Engelking indicated that the Committee on Courses looks for rather extensive justifying documentation from the department explaining what the student must do for the extra hour of credit. Submitting a prospective or actual syllabus for the class that shows the work outlined is another method of justifying the additional credit. Senator Jim Schombert, physics, recommended that departments use a template suggesting what is acceptable for a four-credit course. Senator Conley remarked about the tension between workload and quality control of courses, and the increasing difficulty of factoring in the growing technologically based aspect of courses.

Vice Provost Davis stated that the UO was asked by an OUS board member about a year ago to justify our course credits compared to SOUís course credits, suggestion that the UO might be allocated more money for fewer credits. Although this issue is somewhat diminished now, the UO must have good internal processes in place that account for the extra hour of credit. She further noted that this criticism applied to lower division courses primarily as applied to awarding credits to students transferring from community colleges into the UO, compared with SOU, with credits that didnít match up the same for both institutions.

Mr. Nicols suggested that the Committee on Courses advise department heads that they need to monitor themselves on the four-credit courses issue and report periodically, and also that they need to articulate better the new devises available to justify the additional hour of credit. Vice President Earl responded that he both agreed and disagreed with points in the discussion. He remarked that there is no real standard that determines what a credit is, that we donít know how much work constitutes a credit. Whereas it is easy to measure a contact hour, it is hard to know how difficult a course is. Because all teachers differ, there is a strong subjective element in what constitutes a credit. This involves areas of academic freedom and he would like to rely much more on professional expertise than see is a more elaborate monitoring system.

With the discussion winding down, Mr. Engelking thanked the senators for their comments. The committee will continue requesting substantial documentation justifying a fourth hour of credit when there is not a fourth hour of contact and will look for syllabi that clearly show the extra effort necessary.

In other business, President Gilkey recognized Senator Jereme Grzybowski, ASUO, who gave notice of motion for US99/00-7 regarding a licensing code of conduct for UO merchandise. President Gilkey also asked that Vice President Duncan give a report at the April meeting of the senate regarding the ad hoc committee which has been discussing this matter.

ADJOURNMENT

With no other business at hand, the meeting adjourned at 4:00 p.m.
 

Gwen Steigelman
Secretary