May 15, 2007

The first Senate meeting for the year. Officers were elected, and the members broke into sub-committees to elect officers and set a preliminary agenda for the year.

September 5, 2007

At the first meeting of the academic year the chair reviewed the role of the Senate and the obligations of its members. The principle business was a debate on proposed recommendatiosn to the academic articles made by an ad-hoc committee of the Senate. Motions were approved for recommendation to the academic council. These included changes in the composition of search and review committees for appointment and renewal of the Provost and the Dean's of the Colleges; extending the notice periods for instructors and one year Assistant Professors from three months to six; requiring that notification and explanation of tenure denial for all faculty comes in writing from the President or Provost depending on who is ultimately responsible for the decision (President for T&R faculty; Provost for Research Faculty. Library Faculty and Special Professional Faculty).

October 3, 2007

Denise Murphy, Director of Compensation and Benefits, made her annual visit to the Senate to explain changes in benefits and take questions. Concerns about the efficiency and accuracy of claims processed by Meritain emerged and will be discussed further by the Benefits committee. We continued with debate on proposed revisions to the academic articles. Motions approved recommend the retention of Faculty through the appeal processes in denails of re-appointment where the Provost has determined that there is merit to the appeal; changes in the composition of the academic council to include a Research Faculty representative and making the ex-offio members from Senate eligible for committee service; establishment of a formal proceedure for investigating and redressing violations of the academic articles.

November 7, 2007

The meeting was devoted to developing the agendas of the four standing committees for the year. Academic affair: review ongoing changes to the TCE's and their use in tenure and promotion, Evalaute the report of recruitment of Catholic Faculty and related issues. Administrative affirs will likewise evaluate Catholic Faculty hiring. Both committees will collate a set of discussion points to be used in a meeting with Provost Tom Burish and Professors Bob Sullivan and Susan Ohmer. Benefits will investigate problems with benefits claims with Meritain, Faculyu compensation and the case for a Faculty club to replace the defunct university club. Student affairs will investigate the sharp cost increases in course packets and the relationship between the Senate and the representative student bodies.

December 12, 2007

The Chair began the meeting by reporting on the status of the Academic Articles revisions recommended by the Senate to the Adhoc committee of the Academic Council. Father Jenkins has indicated that he will not be responsible for writing letters explaining tenure denial and this revision is thus amended to require the appropriate Dean to write such a letter. The new Faculty Senate website is now online thanks to the work of Vice Chair Mark Dehmlow. It includes archived listservs to facilitate internal discussion among the Senators. The discussion then moved the issue of recruiting Catholic faculty. An adhoc committee to investigate the possibility of an anonymous survey on this issue reported that such as survey was possible and a pilot survey will be circulated to all Senators before the Christmas break. The Senate then moved into executive session to provide a free and more open discussion with our guests Provost Tom Burish, Father Robert Sullivan and Professor Susan Ohmer. Provost Burish began with a short address on this issue and this was followed by extensive question and answer session. Notes were taken for internal use but no minutes will be made public.

January 30, 2008

The chair reported that the new Faculty Senate newsletter is ready to go out. It will be sent to all the faculty through the faculty total listserv. It is webpage based newsletter with brief summaries of recent activities. It is intended to be continued at a frequency of no less than onece per semester. Professor Keith Rigby was elected to be the Senate representative on the Campus Life Council. Professors Judy Fox and Seth Brown reported on the results of the pilot survey on recruiting Catholic Faculty. The survey had been amended in meetings of the Administrative affairs committee and the academic affairs committee according to the comments already received. The Senate then vetted the survey question by question paying particular attention to neutrality. The Senate then approved the entire survey for circulation to the Faculty.

February 27, 2008

The Chair reported that the revisions of the Academic articles proposed by the Senate and others had now been completed and approved by the Academic Council. The Senate offered the most substantial revisions and many but not all were accepted. Most significant was approval of a proceedure to require Deans to provide written explanation on tenure denial. Also adopted were recommendations on termination notificiation for Special Professional Faculty, a proceedure for dealing with violations of the academic articles and changes in the composition of the Dean's search and review committee to include a student representative. The Senate newsletter has been received favourably by the Faculty. Professor Seth Brown then presented the first results from our Survey on the recruitment of Catholic Faculty. The response rate was excellent with nearly 500 participants. Senators were then assigned to read and review the extensive comments for each question. It was noted that the Emeriti had not received the survey and this will be rectified. It was decided not to circulate the numerical results to the Faculty at this point. Rather we will prepare a report on the survey including reaction to the CROCF report for the March meeting. We will then follow this with a position paper on the enterprise of hiring Catholics faculty for the April meeting and may decide to submit resolutions to the Academic Council at this point. The position paper will be a public document.

March 26, 2008

The meeting focussed on bringing the Senate studies of the issue of Catholic hiring towards a conclusion. Judy Fox presented a summary report on the survey written by an Adhoc committee. Since the previous meeting the committee has also met with survey experts to review the methodology used. Their concerns were highlighted in the report so that Senators may factor them into their evaluation. The report included a quantitative analysis of the questions including correlations and a one paragraph summary of the many comments associated with the questions. A number of trends and concerns clearly emerged. An adhoc committee was convened to draft the position paper to summarize these trends and make recommendations. The committee that reviewed the surbey agreed to draft an evaluation of the CROCF report.

April 9, 2008

The position paper on Catholic hiring was presented to the Senate. It contains a two page summary of the trends and concerns and five possible recommendations. An extensive discussion ensued and comments were gathered. It was agreed that the adhoc committee that drafted the report would reconvene, evaluate these comments, and edit accordingly. Likewise the evaluation of the report on the CROCF recommendations was presented and discussed. The Senate will vote on these documents at the next meeting.

April 16, 2008

Julian Velasco presented the revised position paper. A number of amendments were proposed and debated. An amended document was approved for public dissemination. Judy Fox presented the revised evaluation of the CROCF recommendations. It was debated and some small amendments approved. The amended document was approved to be circulated to faculty but not made a public document as the CROCF report itself is confidential to faculty. The Senate voted to keep the raw results of the survey confidential to the Senate. Reasons cited were confidentiality of individuals in smaller units who responded, concern that it would be misinterpreted as an accurate scientific survey of faculty opinion whereas it was intended a anonymous input to inform Senate discussion, and recognition that in rigidly maintaing individual anonymity there was the possibility of multiple completion or non faculty involvement. Demographics seem to indicate that such abuse was negligible however. The concerns and trends captured in the survey are reflected in the reports which use the suvey as one component of the study.