The meeting was called to order by Vice Chair Mitchell at 3:03 p.m. in the College of Law, Room 146.

Professor John Warnock, Director of the graduate program in Rhetoric, Composition and the Teaching of English (RCTE) in the Department of English, alerted the Senate to disproportionate budget cuts resulting in under-funding and under-staffing that is affecting the excellence of the Writing Program, the Writing Center, and the English Department’s graduate teaching assistants. He asked Senators to remind those who make decisions about resource allocation to support writing in the University.

English Department Graduate Teaching Associate Samantha Sansevere, speaking for a number of graduate teaching assistants in the gallery, also addressed the fiscal undercutting of the Writing Program and respectfully asked the Senate for its support.

                Interim ASUA President Hertzog reported that she attended the Arizona Board of Regents (ABOR) meeting and met with student representatives from our sister institutions to discuss tuition proposals.  She also sent two UA Arizona Students Association (ASA) directors, Christopher Dang and Fernando Ascencio, to testify to the legislature for the Arizona Financial Aid Trust (AFAT) which passed. ASUA is gathering information from the Deans and students of colleges that are proposing differential tuition and program fees, and will publish its stand on those fees early next week.

GPSC External Affairs Vice President Paul Thorn spoke on behalf of GPSC President Elaine Ulrich who is ill today. GPSC will host the Graduate and Professional Student Appreciation Week beginning March 27. February 20 is the deadline for faculty to nominate graduate students for any of these four categories: 1) Best Dissertation, 2) Best Master’s project, 3) Outstanding Teaching Assistant and 4) Outstanding Research Assistant. The nomination form is online at www.gpsc.arizona.edu. GPSC will be mounting a survey this week for graduate students regarding access and needs in the student health insurance plan. GPSC is revising its internal election process for the President of GPSC. Vice President Thorn expressed support for the graduate students in English who will be harmed by the budget cuts in Rhetoric, Composition and the Teaching of English. 

Vice Chair Mitchell reminded the Senate that nominating petitions are still available for the primary election and are due this Friday at 5:00 p.m. The online polls will open at 8:00 a.m. on February 20 and will remain open until 5:00 p.m. on March 3.  Vice Chair Mitchell attended the ABOR meeting last week and heard the annual system-wide report on tenure and post-tenure review. The entering cohort of 1998-99 totaled 183, of which 63 left prior to tenure decision, four were dismissed for cause, four were denied and eight decisions are still pending totaling 105 faculty (under 60%) who did receive tenure. For those who remained until the tenure application process, 83.5% were granted tenure. Broken down by gender and minority, this number equals 87.5% female, 83.1% male, 84.6% minority and 83.1% non-minority. The most recent post-tenure review involved 2615 faculty system-wide and yielded 84.3% above satisfactory, 15.2% satisfactory and 0.2% unsatisfactory. The unsatisfactory attracted the Board’s attention; the administration at Arizona State University (ASU) is identifying under-performing faculty to help improve performance. Vice Chair Mitchell thanked Regent Boice and the Board for the successful presidential search process and he thanked Provost Davis for his intercession on behalf of involving shared governance leadership in the candidates’ forums.

Provost Davis explained that the state has approved an annualized General Salary Adjustment of $1650 for faculty, staff and professionals who are state employees to be deployed March 11, 2006. For UA, this adjustment will begin on March 13 because the technical and labor-intensive details make it too arduous to initiate the adjustment with just two days remaining in a new pay period. The administration will soon release a description specifying the employees and exclusions that the $1650 general adjustment applies to. UA’s policy and practice has always been for the Principal Investigators to provide the same adjustment to those UA employees who are totally or partially funded by soft money. A second component involves a 2.5% (of the salary pool) adjustment which is intended to be deployed in relationship to performance measures for state agencies, but the universities are allowed to be discretionary. Vice President for Campus Life Saunnie Taylor chairs the Workgroup on Compensation and Benefits which will be meeting very soon in an expanded form to understand the money available and the constraints, and then develop a plan relating to the distribution of this 2.5% as performance or market. This plan must be ready for approval by ABOR at its March meeting but may not be implemented until June 1, although it will be retroactive to March 11.

President Likins commented that the search for President-designate Robert Shelton was a model process which Regent Boice spent almost a year preparing for and conducting. The very large search committee still did not include everyone who felt he or she ought to have a voice in the process, so Regent Boice made time to attend personally many additional meetings so that everyone could have a voice. The Regents then made a decision that was not foregone by any means. President Likins believes that Dr. Shelton possesses a personal orientation that will enable him to understand quickly and begin leading the UA. Turning to the budget, President Likins described the budget request  process. In August and September the three universities submitted a budget to the governor which was not in any way constrained by the Regents. Despite the fact that the governor didn’t support every request, it is by far the best budget he has seen during his time here at UA. In this next phase of the process, the presidents will advocate to the legislature to support those elements that the governor has endorsed, as advised by the Regents. One element that survived the governor’s budget is $10M for key personnel. President Likins hopes to convince the legislature to support some of the decision packages requested which would invest in the Humanities, despite the continued requests for technology, pharmacy and water-related disciplines. Another package involves academic outreach for UA beyond Tucson. President Likins said that UA’s private fundraising efforts continue, even though Campaign Arizona has officially ended. This past December, benefactress Beverly Rogers (wife of James Rogers whose name graces UA’s College of Law) donated six $25K fellowships for Creative Writing.

Senator Witte asked why the administration has decided not to administer the entire salary adjustment across-the-board, as the Senate has voted to do at least twice for minor salary adjustments. She believes this would eliminate the need for an elaborate plan and would help to deal with the internal brain drain. Provost Davis responded that he believes the 2.5% funds intended for merit/market salary increases need more discussion among shared governance groups including the Senate, the Strategic Planning and Budget Advisory Committee (SPBAC), the Staff Advisory Council (SAC), the Appointed Professionals Advisory Council (APAC) and the academic deans. The Compensation Workgroup, of which Chair of the Faculty Howell is a member, will meet about this item on Tuesday, SPBAC on Wednesday, and the Deans on Friday, and Provost Davis is interested in meeting with SAC and APAC leadership as well. Vice Chair Mitchell suggested Senators email their concerns and suggestions to Chair Howell.

Senator Witte asked how and when the administration will meet the needs of UA’s outstanding English department, not with private fundraising, but with money from the core mission. She personally provides a $1000 to an undergraduate poetry contest and recently added the Milton Marathon to her list of donations to support this area of excellence that seldom receives praise. Provost Davis responded that he does not need to be persuaded about the excellence of RCTE and the Creative Writing program. His annual deliberations with the Dean of Humanities always includes a discussion about the fundamental investments (recruiting new faculty, foundations) that need to be made in the college. These discussions always involve trade-offs such that Provost Davis often receives a bill for temporary instructional costs. The same holds true for College of Social and Behavioral Sciences. Provost Davis hopes to stabilize the instructional dollars overall that are invested in the College of Humanities unless there are changes in enrollment so that he doesn’t receive requests for greater investments into the temporary instructional budget. This dynamic is challenging and there are internal issues that need resolving; the impasse is significant.

Senator Garcia asked what percentage the Regents would find acceptable for the “unsatisfactory” category in the post-tenure review report, and whether the 0.2% statistic includes the “needs improvement” category. Vice Chair Mitchell said that one particular Regent suggested that 25% is a figure used in the business environment, but he doesn’t expect that ABOR will mandate such a figure. The main concern is the quest for sustained excellence and how we describe satisfactory and unsatisfactory. Vice Chair Mitchell deferred the question about “needs improvement” and said he will make the complete report available to the Senate. Provost Davis reminded the Senate that the Regents are looking at system-wide data that involves 3000 to 3500 faculty, of which only five were designated as unsatisfactory. About ten years ago the Regents were considering abolishing tenure, and UA’s then-Chair of the Faculty John Schwarz worked tenaciously with faculty leaders at the sister institutions to develop a Post-Tenure Review process in order to remove that threat and give the Board confidence in the universities’ checks and balances.

Senator deWinter asked whether graduate assistants might expect any raise from the state’s general adjustment funds. Provost Davis said he won’t be able to answer that question until the meetings he described earlier have taken place.

                Senator Kiefer asked whether there is anything hopeful regarding the crisis in English that he might report to his colleagues. Provost Davis responded that conversations are in progress but he doesn’t want to give false hope to the faculty in the English Department.

                Senator Cusanovich asked whether the historical line about “as soon as is economically feasible” will apply to giving salary adjustments to employees on grants and contracts. Provost Davis responded that it is his understanding that the University will proceed in this matter as it has done in the past.

Senator Mountford clarified for Senators that the impasse and internal issues in English involves the fact that the Department has been asked to hire faculty for RCTE and CW using temporary hiring budget funds designated for the Writing Program. This budget cutting affects all students and the English Department does not believe it is appropriate and is taking a stand against it.

The minutes of January 30, 2006 were distributed electronically and also in hard copy at today’s meeting on Senators’ desks and were approved.

Senator Gruener requested that item number 2 be removed from consent agenda. Consent agenda item number 1 [Motion 2005/06-40] as forwarded by the ICPC and detailed at the end of these minutes was approved with one abstention. Concerning item number 2 [Motion 2005/06-41], implementation of the Arizona Leipzig Joint International Ph.D. with a major in Transcultural German Studies, Senator Gruener said he strongly supports this program, but did not see any mention of its funding. Instruction and Curriculum Policy Chair Willerton said there is some indication of the funding in the electronic documentation that accompanied this item. Although this item received fairly strong support from the ICPC, the committee also raised concerns about where the funding will come from in an era of focused excellence, and how the two programs differ. The essence of this program is that it essentially doubles the number of faculty working with our graduate students with relatively minimal resource commitment. The two universities’ programs are very complementary. Dr. Mary Wildner-Bassett, German Studies Department Head, explained that six external fellowships totaling $97K are committed for 2007. Motion was approved unanimously.

Instruction and Curriculum Policy Chair Willerton introduced the adoption of the revised graduate certificates policies and procedures document as a seconded motion [Motion 2005/06-42] from the ICPC and invited Associate Dean Dianne Horgan of the Graduate College to join him at the podium. He explained that a variety of graduate certificates are coming forward to the Senate for approval, and several legitimate questions and concerns have been raised about the relationship between graduate certificates and degrees. Dozens of units have been issuing certificates for quite some time, and the Graduate College identified a need to develop more rigorous standards and to standardize such certificates by taking them through the shared governance review by Graduate Council, ICPC and the Senate. To that end, Associate Dean Horgan composed guidelines and criteria for graduate certificates, which the ICPC and the Senate saw in 2004, although those two groups never formally approved them. These guidelines have been employed for the past year in reviewing graduate certificates. ICPC has since requested and received a template for any graduate certificates to allow ICPC members to look at these widely varied documents to be certain they meet the criteria. Chair Willerton further explained that certificates vary from degrees in that they are not second-rate degrees nor are they watered-down, but that clear firewalls exist in that a graduate certificate is a very different beast than a degree. Associate Dean Horgan explained that nationally, over 20,000 graduate certificates were awarded by our peer institutions last year. Certificates primarily consist of existing courses as opposed to a workshop. UA currently has about 12 approved certificates. Certificates are meeting the needs of approximately 1000 non-degree-seeking students who are enrolled at UA at any given time. Senators’ comments and questions included 1) Are options offered? Dean Horgan explained that a concentration or emphasis cannot be offered because of the small number of units a certificate requires. 2) Does “fast-tracking” graduate certificate approvals seem contradictory to the careful and deliberative review process? Dean Horgan responded that this process isn’t that fast—it’s a relative term, but it is, for example, faster than a program review which requires planning proposal and implementation proposal. Graduate certificates fulfill the need to be responsive to workplace needs and to technological development and they don’t require ABOR approval. 3) Will you limit the number of certificate-seeking students in a class so that there will always be more degree-seeking students in a class? Since any senior or non-degree-seeking student is free to walk into a class, whereas certificate students must be admitted to the Graduate College, this process will actually provide more control rather than less. 4) There is a concern about dilution of graduate level instruction. How will you monitor the effects of these certificate programs? The departments have to admit the students, and they must meet a 3.0 GPA, so the departments will monitor, not the Graduate College. 5) Will certificate credits count toward a degree? It will depend on how a department defines a certificate. Some programs find that the certificates are an effective recruiting tool for first generation or minority college students and accept some courses, but the limit of maximum duplicate credits is twelve. Associate Dean Horgan explained that these guidelines were adapted from the “Best Practice Recommendations” for the National Council on Graduate Schools. 6) Are these resident programs? Some of these courses are resident and some are offered online. The Ph.D. in Nursing is offered primarily online with the residency requirement being met by bringing students to campus for a several weeks each year. 7) Using certificates as a recruiting tool for minority or first generation college students may or may not be a good thing. What is the breakdown of minority versus non-minority students who are on certificate-tracks and on degree tracks? Dean Horgan explained that there is no way to gather the date for these statistics until the certificate process is formalized. ICPC Chair Willerton commented that during his graduate study in Political Science at the University of Michigan, he earned a graduate certificate in Russian and East European Studies, which enhanced his marketability. Associate Dean Horgan reminded senators that graduate certificates are not just post-baccalaureate; some of the first certificates approved were a post-Master’s in Nursing and a post-M.D. for Clinical Research Trials. 8) The certificates are great for the community but ICPC needs to do a careful examination regarding the number of crossovers with degrees and the possible dilution effect of certificate students on delivery in graduate courses. Dean Horgan comments that allowing non-degree students into graduate courses seems like more of a problem. 9) Are graduate students who are enrolled in a certificate program eligible for financial aid? Yes, these students are eligible for federal financial aid. Senator Garcia moved to postpone this motion until the next meeting to allow ICPC to gather more data and to clarify these rules. Motion died for lack of a second. ICPC Chair Willerton remarked that he isn’t sure when such data about certificates might be available. Graduate College Dean Andrew Comrie, speaking from the gallery, stated that he shares the same concerns as Senator Garcia, but there is currently a lot of activity in place with the existing certificates and it would be difficult to track this data. Furthermore, non-degree-seeking students are, by their very nature, not “trackable.” He suggested that ICPC revisit this concern after some period of time. Senator Burd thanked the Graduate College administration and the ICPC for trying to systemize and standardize graduate certificates and would support this motion.  Vice Chair Mitchell called for a vote. Motion 2005/06-42 passed with one opposed.

Academic Personnel Policy Committee Chair Larry Aleamoni and Chair of the Committee on UHAP, Constitution and Bylaws Jennifer Jenkins introduced a proposed change to UHAP Section 3.12.08, “Appeals to the President, which comes as a seconded motion [Motion 2005/06-43]. APPC Chair Aleamoni explained that APPC was asked to look into concerns expressed by faculty grievance committees regarding extraordinary delays in the denial of tenure appeal process. APPC noted that virtually every step of the promotion and tenure process has a timeline except for the President’s response to an appeal of denial of tenure. Several appeals in recent years have extended well into and beyond the faculty member’s terminal year, so APPC is recommending tightening up this phase of the appeal process and building in some fairness to the faculty member by adding the phrase, “within three months of notice of appeal” to the end of the first sentence in the third paragraph of UHAP Section 3.12.08. Senators’ comments and questions included the following: 1) How did the committee decide upon three months, which seems like a fairly long time? Chair Aleamoni said the committee felt that this was a reasonable amount of time that would still allow the President to gather whatever additional information is needed and to refer the appeal back to the department or college committees to put it back through the P&T process, yet still allow the faculty member to receive feedback early enough to make a decision about his/her future. 2) Three months is too long: the longer the timeline, the harder it is for a faculty member to have choices and exercise options. 3) Three months is a time limit that is actually do-able; hastening the appeal would not allow the time necessary for personnel to conduct a thorough review of the process. 4) Going from twelve months to three months is a significant improvement. Provost Davis remarked that he has sensed a shift in the frequency of tenure denial appeals, which were a non-issue during the time he served as Vice Provost for Academic Affairs from 1986-89. Now it seems that nearly every negative decision is appealed and eight or nine appeals a year require time to be properly considered. Furthermore, the Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure hearing process that considers appeals after the President issues his response is not a short process, either. 5) Is an appeal to the President a prerequisite for going to CAFT? Yes.  6) What about the last sentence of the first paragraph of Section 3.12.08, which states that, “The President’s review shall be limited to the record compiled under Section 3.12.07? If no new information can be obtained, why does the review take three months? Chair Aleamoni said the information that the APPC gathered about this process indicated that the President or his staff would need at least three months to gather information and to refer back to the committees if needed. Senator Howell said she believes the sentence refers to a review of the process, not of the dossier. Senator Howell called for the question [Motion 2005/06-44]. Parliamentarian Sankey reminded senators that there is no debate on this motion and a two-thirds vote is necessary to close debate. Vice Chair Mitchell called for a show of hands, which indicated that the motion failed 15-15-0. Senator Mitchneck clarified and Provost Davis affirmed that the President’s review is of the process only; however, some senators still believe that sentence in the first paragraph is misleading. Noting that the amount of time for this item had elapsed, Vice Chair Mitchell postponed this item to the next meeting. Senator Howell suggested referring this item back to the committee. Secretary Jenkins asked whether that would be the APPC or the Committee on UHAP, Constitution and Bylaws. Since no one was certain, she and APPC Chair Aleamoni agreed to make this determination.

Vice President for Information Technology Sally Jackson reported on information technology investment. Last year UA spent $88M on information technology in all forms, hardware, software and personnel. The only portion of those expenses that she controls is what is spent through her own operating units, which is about $40M. She has been working with ABOR to tune the IT investments more closely to the core mission. She distributed a diagram showing the shape of IT investments. Core service investments are like “passive entitlements;” things that are available to everyone at the University regardless of whether or not a person chooses to receive it, such as the campus network, internet and internet 2 access, Net ID and email accounts.  The next level of investment is called “central contract services.” These provide services or support for things that units or individuals need or want at a competitive cost through a written agreement with CCIT or the Learning Technology Center or Workgroup and Network Consulting. “Discretionary local services” are up to the discretion of the unit. Some units do more local support, while some others can’t or choose not to.  Often an entitlement began as a discretionary service. Finally, “specialty resources” are so diverse but often represent very significant IT investment and are typically associated with one individual researcher or a department and are not shareable. Turning to the report she provided in senators’ packets, Vice President Jackson explained that this report was distributed to ABOR summarizing the status of expenditures for entitlements and central contract services. ABOR has been questioning whether these are any significant redundancies that could be done more effectively, efficiently, and economically by centralizing some of the things that are presently handled at the departmental levels. Vice President Jackson noted that departments are responsible for making the choices that are most cost-effective for them. She has studied the colleges’ IT expenditures carefully and finds it easy to explain them, but it is more difficult to explain why departments continue to spend money on entitlements, once the service has become so common that it is offered for free and passively, like email. Yet there are many dozens of email servers still running on our campus. The Regents want to know why the central email service can’t be made so attractive that units will give up their local services. It can, but it costs money and people have to work together to make this happen. For the March meeting, ABOR has asked for an analysis of what prevents us from centralizing IT expenditures more than we have. Some Regents feel that there is a great deal of resistance, but Vice President Jackson doesn’t believe this is the primary reason. She has observed that centralization occurs fairly effortlessly when the IT support organizations effectively size up the needs and provide cost-effective responses to those needs. Some contract services are now being offered more cheaply than can be done locally, because of an aggregation of demand, particularly among small departments. Desktop support, backup, and web posting are similar services that might be offered. Vice President Jackson asked for the Senate’s support in working with her. Senators’ questions and comments included: 1) Is there any method to optimize the University’s use of site-licensed software? Vice President Jackson said that CCIT tries to be responsive when it realizes a large number of licenses are being requested. 2) Have you studied the response time for local versus central desktop support? Vice President Jackson responded that centralized services should only occur where it is obviously beneficial and effective. Writing a contractual arrangement to specify desktop service response time is one way to establish this. 3) Heightened security issues may contribute to the resistance to centralization. 4) What about institutional repositories? The National Science Foundation and other agencies may require principal investigators to maintain research data locally. Vice President Jackson responded there the need to create reliable data storage for the future and to maintain the institution’s integrity as a broker of research.

Associate Dean Horgan agreed to defer her report to the next meeting.

Motion 2005/06-42 Seconded motion from the Instruction and Curriculum Policy to adopt the “Policies and Procedures for Official University of Arizona Graduate Certificates,” the “University of Arizona Format and Guidelines for Graduate Certificates” and the “Approval Routing for Graduate Certificates.”

Motion 2005/06-43 Seconded motion from the Academic Personnel Policy Committee to approve a proposed change to UHAP Section 3.12.08, “Appeals to the President, by adding the following phrase, “within three months of notice of appeal” to the end of the first sentence in the third paragraph of UHAP Section 3.12.08. Motion postponed.

Motion 2005/06-44 Seconded motion to end debate on Motion 2005/06-43. Motion failed.