Faculty Policy Council
Abbreviated Draft Minutes
February 11, 2008

Members Present: Jean Crockett, Rick Ferdig, David Miller, Elizabeth Yeager, Sondra Smith, Diane Ryndak, David Quinn, John Kranzler, Bernie Oliver, Edil Torres-Rivera, Ester de Jong
Members absent: Ruth Lowery, Stephen Pape
Non-Members Present: Dean Catherine Emihovich, Jade Coutts

Meeting began at 2:05 pm.

Yeager asked for a motion to approve the agenda. The motion was approved and seconded. The agenda was unanimously approved.

Motion to approve minutes. The motion was approved and seconded. The minutes from January were approved.

Dean’s Report
UF Budget- there are no updates currently because the meetings are all tomorrow. Updates from Jane Adams will possibly be announced after the meeting. The summer budget was received and it cannot carry forward. The chairs have been informed about their summer school offerings and have been given roughly about the same budget that they had last summer. Faculty members have submitted 5 proposals for additional courses and these faculty will be contacted at a later date. These courses are hoped to attract new students through distance education and to encourage students to take summer courses. There was a special funding meeting for renovations for Norman Hall and it is moving forward. The ELC is not going to part of the proposal. There are some renovations monies that have been received so that money might be used to renovate space on the third floor. Currently there are 3 classrooms that are assigned to the ELL program and the college is asking that those classrooms on the third floor be reassigned back to the College of Education. These classrooms would likely be relocated near Turlington.

Action Item – COE Tenure and Promotion Rotation Plan
The ad-hoc committee (John Kranzler, David Miller, and Elizabeth Yeager) drafted a proposal. A motion to approve the proposal was made and it was approved and seconded. The X’s refer to and it was stated that the X’s on the proposal are the selected departments where voting will take place during the current year. The representatives would be from a college wide vote and those two people would continue and the other departments would have elections in the years following. Each elected person would serve three years. Current members will continue to serve through this year. The three-year commitment was decided ultimately to prevent small mistakes that would not likely be made by long-term serving committee members. The proposal was approved and will now be part of the policy effective Fall 2008.

Discussion Item – COE policy on the GRE
The policy that was approved was sent to Thomasenia Adams and she sent a reply to Yeager. The parts of the policy that were approved included the introduction and the two sections on minimum requirements. The fourth and final paragraph was removed after the final vote. Education scores that would be used.

Discussion Item – Additional issues on T&P process raised by FAC
The ad-hoc committee created a document on T&P Criteria Revision and some of these things have been or are being discussed at the Chair meetings. The mentoring policy is fairly new and was approved last year.

Information Item – Upcoming FPC Elections
The voting system will be online and new FPC reps will be voted on. Names will be referred for UF Senate. The elections committee will be in touch with department chairs. Kara Dawson is heading up this committee. The COE needs to decide if they are electing two or three senators.

Information Item – Role of PKY in COE shared governance
Fran Vandiver (director at PKY) will attend FPC in March to discuss where PKY faculty want to be involved in COE shared governance.

Committee Reports

Curriculum Rick Ferdig

• The committee has moved electronic. Things are working out now but because it is electronic and it’s easy to send stuff back. A bunch of stuff has been return with minor mistakes. The CCC forms are more descriptive and they want a new form. The new CCC form will be sent out in the next few days. This is for undergrad and grad. The website will reflect these changes.

Budgetary Affairs Sondra Smith

• The committee sought information from the Dean Emihovich, Benson and Paul about current budget practices. They are now waiting for answers on what faculty want to know and how they want to be involved in budgetary affairs. The discussion is still ongoing. These two items are being asked within departments by the committee members. There should be a representative from each department. Jane Townsend (STL replacement for Tom Dana) and David Honeyman (EAP) missed the last meeting. Next meeting on February 25th. De Jong proposed reaching out to the faculty via email to get more responses and to give more information about the process. The committee created questions for certain parts of the budget process.

Faculty Affairs John Kranzler

• In the process of reviewing sabbatical applications. They are currently being ranked. The sabbatical is funded through the college or department level. Last year, the university was funding them but now it is through the college.

Lectures, Seminars, and Awards Ruth Lowery

• Ruth was not present and her alternate did not have anything to report.

Distance Education Task Force David Quinn

• Have not met. Nothing to report currently. Chris Sessums job is being redefined and the team is currently in flux. Those earlier discussions will continue once things settle.

Research Advisory Diane Ryndak

• The B.O. Smith recipients were announced. UFRF (March 3) and CRIF (April) research grant funding information is out.

Shared Governance Task Force David Miller

• Both surveys are moving forward. The dean survey has been slowed so she can make a statement. Crockett asked if information would be available. Yeager will follow up to see how results will be out and disseminated.

Technology Edil Torres-Rivera

• Times and meetings have been set for the committee. A hired consultant (Tues and Wed) is coming in. Three candidates for Uzma’s job have been selected for interviews. One is internal, two are external. They are looking for someone to work with faculty and are restructuring in DE to hire someone to work only with the budget. The DE workshops are 4:15 not 1:15 and one-on-one workshops can be arranged. The DE office is very busy and most courses that are being developed have been graduate level. The committee will meet 1 time per month and by next meeting they hope to have charges. There have been issues with how the DE money is generated and how much they make. It is not clear now.

UF Faculty Senate Report Jean Crockett

• There were three discussion items, three action items, and information items. The President talked about a reduction of $16 million between Jan-June but Spring money had been spoken for. There will be $48 million less next year in funding than this year. Reductions will start in July. The Deans have to propose cuts and those with minimal impact on academics will be favored. The Healthy Gators Initiative, which uses federal dollars to target a set of national health objectives designed to promote health and prevent disease in the UF community, was described. The Civil Safe and Open Environment Committee was put together (4 faculty members and 4 students) and this committee will look at the taser incident as well as 1st and 4th amendment issues. A report and recommendations will be made. A draft forum will take place to get feedback. Turf Grass Management has had a name change and the motion was passed. The language of the constitution was approved and will be updated to reflect T&P information. The meetings are 1 time per month (3rd R of every month 3-5pm).

Motion to adjourn. Motion approved and seconded. Meeting adjourned at 3:41pm.

Next Meeting: Monday, March 17, 2008 at 2pm