The meeting was called to order by Vice Chair of the Faculty Robert P. Mitchell at 3:05 p.m. in the College of Law, Room 139.

Present:  Senators Bergsma, Bruce, Christenson, Conway, Cuello, Cusanovich, Dahlgran, D. Davis, O. Davis, DeSorda, Effken, Engel, Foley, Garcia, Green, Howell, Jones, Knutson, McKee, Mitchell, Mitchneck, Mosher, Mutchler, Neish, Pintozzi, San Martin, Sarid, Schlager, Shelton, Silverman, Slugocki, St. John, Strittmatter, Ulreich, Willerton and Witte. Robert Sankey served as Parliamentarian.

Absent: Senators Aleamoni, Burd, Cromwell, Estrada, Gruener, Hildebrand, Jenkins, Joens, Mountford, Nolan, Pavao-Zuckerman, Ranger-Moore, Ruiz, Sander, Smith, Songer, Spece, Sterling and Weinand.

Holly Altman and Jaime Gutierrez from the Office of Community Relations provided information about and encouraged Faculty Senators to participate in the UA Cares Campaign.

ASUA President Tommy Bruce assured the Senate that despite difficulties with Zona Zoo passes at the football game on Saturday, students are still excited about UA athletics and changes are in place to streamline the pass admissions for this week. ASUA is working to pilot a Web Registration waiting list. Another ASUA initiative is an academic advising mentorship program to add a resource for academic advisors enlisting both current and retired emeritus faculty. The ASUA’s new “opt in/out” text messaging service called “Mobile Campus” will provide students with an opportunity to receive text messages about clubs, events, classes canceled and so on. President Bruce is working with GPSC President Neish to survey the students about tuition and with President Shelton and the administration to be as collaborative and as informative as possible about the tuition setting process.

GPSC President Catherine Neish explained that GPSC surveyed graduate students in all colleges about their workloads and the analysis and executive summary is posted on the GPSC website. GPSC hopes to work with faculty to address some TA’s and RA’s concerns such as a lack of mentorship, ensuring that salaries are commensurate with workload and that graduate students are receiving a livable wage. GPSC hosted 500 graduate students at the14^th annual graduate student orientation in August.

Vice Chair of the Faculty Robert Mitchell advised Senators that it will meet in Law 140 for October and November. The December through May meeting location is yet to be determined. Two special elections are currently underway for replacement college representatives in the College of Medicine and Fine Arts. Volunteers are needed to fill out the rosters of the Academic Personnel Policy Committee and the Student Affairs Policy Committee, which are still lacking some Senator- and general faculty members. Senators should have received a new Faculty Governance handbook which includes a faculty governance org chart, a new parliamentary procedure chart, and the revised Faculty Constitution and Bylaws. Faculty officers are working with Senate legislative liaison John Hildebrand, who is on sabbatical this term, to find ways for UA faculty senators to work with and be more visible to state legislators, as per Senator Green’s request last Spring. The Senate Executive Committee has asked Undergraduate Council and ICPC to revisit the issue of eliminating the conflict between college commencement ceremonies and the last day of final exams, as per Senator Burd’s request last Spring. The Senate’s Task Force on General Education was appointed, is chaired by Senator Dahlgran and did meet at least once in May.

Vice Provost for Instructional Programs and Initiatives Jacqueline Mok extended greetings from Provost Sander, who is attending the AAU Provosts’ Retreat. She explained that Provost Sander has been in position since late May and he has effected a number of changes in that office. He is employing two communication strategies to help inform the campus about these changes in a more transparent way. The “Provost’s Bulletin” is an administrative leadership tool that is sent out early every week to deans, department heads, Cabinet, SPBAC and the Senate. Beginning Sept 26, Provost Sander will initiate a Provost’s Open Dialog in the Student Union Kiva at noon. The Provost and his Team Provost will be available to answer questions. The intent is to host two of these meetings per semester. Dr. Mok announced that two internal searches are getting underway for a Vice Provost for Enrollment Management/Dean of Admissions, and for a Vice President for Instruction/Dean of University College. These search committees will be chaired by Dean Comrie and Vice President Vito, respectively.

President Shelton thanked the faculty and student leaders for their support in his first year and this summer and he looks forward to his second year. President Shelton told the Senate that the University’s community relations with the city and county are strong The UA’s challenge will now be to build the “downtown area” Science Center and Arizona State Museum branch within the constraints of the $130M the city has allocated. Other projects in the early discussion stage include building student apartments and professional residences in the downtown area. He emphasized that a totality of plan is most important, rather than to build things piecemeal. Turning to the budget, President Shelton reminded the Senate that in the first month of his presidency last year, he decided not to allocate $9.6M in recurring funding, as a first step toward eliminating the $25M historic shortfall in the recurring budget. This year the Deans and departments heads have worked very hard to cut another $10M out of the permanent state budget. With those cuts totaling $19.6M, some additional savings and a very generous state budget, the $25M shortfall has been eliminated.  Barring any unforeseen cuts coming from the state, he does not see any reason to make additional cuts in FY09. He hopes to continue with an increasingly transparent annual budget process and cautioned that deans and department heads will be scrutinizing their budgets to allocate every expenditure optimally, every year. At the end of September, President Shelton will be submitting to the Regents a very aggressive budget request to the state which asks for about $75M. One line item that he is asking for and intends to fight for is $13M increase for faculty salaries. He cautioned that the state may have a more difficult year as collections are down about $200-250M. The state’s economy is still strong relative to the country. He is very pleased with the reorganization in the Provost’s Office and he asked Senators to send nominations for the two critical searches to him or to Dean Sander. President Shelton announced that Stephen MacCarthy has joined the campus as Vice President for External Relations and Chris Vlahos is the new Alumni Association director. Together they are working with Jim Moore and President Shelton to promote the University of Arizona and stay connected to the Alumni. President Shelton also acknowledged Melissa Vito’s promotion to Vice President for Student Affairs; Francisco Marmelejo’s duties as Assistant Vice President for Western Hemispheric Programs have been expanded; and Karen Francis-Begay has been appointed to full-time Special Assistant to the President for American Indian Affairs. He reassured the Senate that even with all the reorganizations of the Provost’s Office, there are no more people with vice-president or vice-provost in their title today than when he arrived. President Shelton noted that the most important appointment he will make at the UA will be the Executive Vice President and Provost position. Vicki Chandler is chairing that search committee; R. William Funk & Associates has been selected as the search advisory group; and they have identified about 93 nominations. He urged Senators that if they know of strong candidates here or elsewhere, please send those names to him. Finally, he turned to one of his priorities for this year: to convey to this state’s residents and leaders how important this University is. He wants to convince legislators to fund this university based on quality, not just size. His emphasis this year is on people, gaining endowed chairs for faculty and endowed scholarships for students. UA has a strong, respectable fundraising program, but it cannot reach our goals without significant growth. Jim Moore, Stephen MacCarthy and Chris Vlahos will be instrumental in that effort and in informing Arizonans that we are number One.

Senator Ulreich asked whether there has been any improvement in shifting permanent funds to areas of permanent responsibility. President Shelton alluded to the practice of withholding centrally some significant resources to be allocated later for teaching, especially in areas where the teaching load has shifted or grown.  This amount is currently at $13.5M, a sum that is far too great, in his opinion, and he is hopeful that the Provost’s Office will begin permanently allocating about half of this money in Spring 2008 so that deans and heads can plan appropriately for Fall.

Senator Effken asked whether there will be any follow-up on the TA workload survey.  GPSC President Neish responded that the executive summary addresses this question. She added that GPSC hopes to conduct two additional surveys and work toward implementing some of the recommendations.

The minutes of May 7, 2007 were approved.

Dean of Libraries report: Dean Carla Stoffle thanked the Senate for the invitation to report on the State of the Libraries. She thanked the administration for protecting the Library’s information budget and the students for supporting the library with their student fees. The UA Library is ranked 34^th among the 120 largest research university libraries and is 31^st in size of all public university libraries. One of the primary projects has been to make the library resources available anywhere anytime, at least virtually. The library continuously assesses and focuses on the campus’ educational and research needs, identified with the Library’s on-line customer satisfaction survey, individual surveys, focus groups, the Library report card and usability studies. The common themes are more space and more on line. The Library has adopted the statement, “The Library as a Learning Place” which refers to the Library as the out-of-classroom space on campus for learning and research, quiet study, group work, and practice with using the high technology presentation resources. The Library’s webpage is also being improved. Dean Stoffle provided Senators with numerous handouts and slides that demonstrate increased levels of use as well as the Library’s due diligence in allocating resources optimally and transparently, and in providing accountability for those resources and for the student library use fees. Other cost- and space-saving measures include increasing study carrel space, providing check-out laptops, adding lockers for graduate students, increasing on-line instructional modules, purchasing electronic materials which amounts to half of the library’s budget, purchasing electronic back files, compact shelving, fundraising efforts, video-streaming to eliminate DVD or audio-tapes, interlibrary loan to the desktop, participation in library consortia, and digitizing collections and special collections. Next year, the library will pilot a project working with faculty volunteers to find online references that could be used to build free textbooks. Nevertheless, the library continues to face budget reductions and will cut 1500 serial subscriptions. About $4.6M would restore the Library’s budget to its level of six years ago, and another $1M is necessary to maintain and add buying power for additional resources for new programs as the campus expands. Staff and faculty cuts are also being employed as cost cutting measures and have resulted in a reorganization of the Library. Dean Stoffle assured the Senate that the initiative for federally-funded research to be made available online with open access would not endanger peer review. This measure has passed the House and Senate and is now in committee, which is attempting to overturn it. Senators’ questions and concerns included: 1) How does UA’s library budget compare with our peers. Dean Stoffle responded that our peers’ budgets are growing, while the UA’s is not. The UA’s drop from 26^th to 34^th over six years is a reflection of investment. 2) What was the total income received from the student library fees last year? Dean Stoffle responded that the student fees provided about $446,000 last year, and that amount is expected to double this year. This money is not included in the Information Access Budget because the library fee agreement with the students calls for this money to be targeted for new needs and services for students, not for making up deficits.

Senator Andy Silverman reminded the Senate that for several years, the UA has been a member of the Coalition on Intercollegiate Athletics (COIA), a coalition of 55 Division 1A faculty senates, which includes seven of the PAC-10 schools. The purpose of this coalition is to create a national faculty voice on intercollegiate athletics (ICA) and the occasional clash between ICA and the educational mission and goals of the universities. COIA has been meeting regularly and working with the NCAA to bring about changes to reform ICA. Senator Silverman attended a COIA meeting this past May to finalize a draft document which proposes 28 recommendations to better integrate ICA into the academic missions of the universities. Reforms are proposed in four areas: academic integrity and quality, student-athlete welfare, campus governance of ICA, and fiscal responsibility. Of the 28 proposals, 27 of them can be implemented locally; some are already policies; some may not apply; and some need to be reviewed. Senator Silverman asked the Senate to consider how it wants to deal with these proposals. Senator Howell asked whether the responsibility for reviewing these proposals falls on the Faculty Athletics Representative (FAR). Senator Silverman responded that most of COIA’s concerns have not been directly related to the FARs, whose main responsibilities are to make sure student-athletes are academically eligible. UA also has an Intercollegiate Athletics Committee (ICAC) that is advisory to the President. Earlier COIA proposals have gone to ICAC but the Senate has never received any feedback from that group. Senator Howell suggested that as a member of COIA, we have endorsed these proposals in principle. Senator Silverman believes that the UA may not have an obligation to implement each one of the proposals, but we should review them with the Athletic Department and see which proposals need to be implemented on campus. Senator Garcia commented that there is a committee headed by John Taylor and Doug Woodard that has been looking at the academics as well as the culture of athletics on campus. Senator D. Davis suggested bringing the COIA proposals to an Intercollegiate Athletics self-study committee that President Likins commissioned two and a half years ago. Presiding Officer Mitchell asked whether Senator Silverman might talk with UA’s Athletics Director, Jim Livengood; the FAR, Jory Hancock, and Senator Green, who sits on the ICAC, to determine which of the 28 proposals we can check off as already being done or simply not applicable.

President Shelton said he welcomes faculty involvement in the athletic program and this sort of activity is wise practice. His sense is that the COIA recommendations are very much on target and that most of these proposals are being adopted or are in place here at UA. . He suggested that the Senate could acknowledge that it endorses this document in principle and then bring it to the Athletic Director and the committee headed by Taylor and Woodard. Senator Garcia said this document ties in nicely with our NCAA recertification process currently underway. Dean Portney has been directing that review process and President Shelton said that, so far, the NCAA has not raised any questions about the UA’s ICA program, which is extremely rare. Senator Silverman explained that there is a real interest on the NCAA to look at these issues, particularly because Myles Brand, a former dean at UA, is the Executive Director of the NCAA, which is perhaps the first one ever to come from the academic side of the academy. Senator Effken asked if the financial proposals should be separated out from the overall process. Presiding Officer Mitchell said the Chair would entertain a motion expressing that the Senate supports the principle of these recommendations and would like to have a report from some group of knowledgeable reviewers. Senator Garcia suggested that Dean Portney from the NCAA review group, John Taylor and Doug Woodard would comprise such a review group, possibly along with someone from the self-study group whose membership includes Senator D. Davis and Senator J. Garcia. Senator Howell expressed frustration that three or four campus groups are all engaged in essentially doing the same thing and none of it is coordinated. We are never in a position to waste resources, so how do we foster a collaborative spirit regarding the time and effort of the people on these various committees regarding intercollegiate athletics? President Shelton suggested that the group Senator Garcia suggested is the right one because of its breadth, because of the formal NCAA review process, and because they have been looking at athletics for the last few years. Senator Jones moved [Motion 2007/08-7] that the Senate adopt the COIA recommendations in principle and ask that the appropriate group, whatever we decide that is, review the recommendations to see which we are currently complying with and for those that we are not complying with advise the Senate about which we might move to adopt and report back to the Senate at an appropriate time. Motion was seconded. Presiding Officer Mitchell asked whether the group would be Paul Portney, John Taylor and Doug Woodard. He suggested modifying the motion to ask Senator Silverman to work with President Shelton on identifying the appropriately knowledgeable persons or group to report back to the Senate. Senator Jones and the seconder accepted this suggestion as a friendly amendment. Senator Witte requested another friendly amendment to add that Senator Silverman should be an advisor to whatever that appropriate group is. Senator Jones and the seconder also accepted this suggestion as a friendly amendment. President Shelton clarified the motion to mean that he and Senator Silverman gather an appropriate group of individuals to review these recommendations and report back to the Senate about their status and how we might proceed. Senator Silverman agreed with that clarification. Presiding Officer Mitchell called for the vote. Motion passed unanimously.

Senator Wanda H. Howell opened the discussion regarding Student Retention by asking whether improving student retention necessarily involves reconfiguring, as articulated in the Committee of Eleven’s White Paper. This document has provided the impetus for this discussion. In preparation for this discussion, she reminded Senators of an email she sent them containing five general considerations: Academic preparedness; Enrollment, accessibility, tuition revenue; Quality of the undergraduate experience; Faculty roles; and The output. Regarding academic preparedness, there’s not a lot that faculty can do about this given the University’s Land Grant mission. UA faculty will always have to address students across a wide range of academic preparedness from the low end to the high end. The White Paper suggests tracking as a way to address this range without increasing admission requirements. Tougher admission requirements would no doubt result in better prepared students making the UA smaller and smarter, but faculty need to think about what we can do so that we don’t lose so many students all across the range. Graduation rates are a part of retention, of course. President Shelton indicated that UA is getting larger and smarter with this fall’s enrollment significantly shifting the Academic Index’ bell curve. P. Kohn confirmed that the UA declined to admit about 200 students with low Academic Index (AI), which means there are half as many least-prepared students in the freshmen class as there were last year. Expanded recruitment and marketing throughout Arizona and globally helped to attract more applications and to identify marginal students who were not a good fit for the UA. R. Kroc and P. Kohn added that modest growth with increasing quality is exactly what we ought to be doing. Senator Howell asked when the breaking point might come. The state is growing rapidly, so the UA’s paradigm related to academic preparedness, enrollment, accessibility and tuition revenue, may need to change. P. Kohn suggested that increasing retention and graduation rates won’t necessarily come just from admitting better-prepared students, but that changes to the Gen Ed curriculum and to the degrees offered might also be needed. He likes the theory of the separate tracks for students of varying preparedness as described in the white paper, but the administrative overhead and infrastructure to implement it may be difficult to achieve.

Senator Green asked what significant improvement in AI means. Is the question about statistically significant or academically significant? We might never agree on what the best AI number might be. However, for a goal of increased student retention, we could create a better predictive model with key variables that would help predict student retention and make changes as needed. R. Kroc said he has looked at many predictive models and confirmed that the AI is still the best predictive model of academic success at UA. President Shelton said that the midpoint of the AI bell curve moved by 10-20 points this year, which he believes is quite significant. Changes in Enrollment Management’s recruiting are largely responsible for the increase of 5000 applications. President Shelton also suggested that more flexibility in degrees, more interdisciplinary degrees, but not lower quality degrees may help, but that is the purview of the faculty. Senator Howell noted that there are political and logistical considerations regarding total enrollment numbers, and one of the considerations is how to integrate UA South relative to access and growth, to be more like ASU’s “One University in Many Places.” UAS needs to be utilized to maximum productivity and it could be politically powerful in promoting our Mission and Outreach. Senator Cuello asked about the legal aspects of enrollment management; what is the legal number that the UA can reject?  Dr. Kohn answered that the state has standards; we have an obligation to accept a certain number, but there is no limit of the number we can turn away. Senator D. Davis suggested that the question of resources should be a part of this discussion. Senator Conway asked whether 30% of the new class will still be unprepared in mathematics. Senator Howell acknowledged that while math preparedness is certainly important, students can have a relatively high AI and yet still not be ready to take college algebra. Senator DeSorda asked why students stay here and what do our peer institutions do? Senator Howell said we have some, but probably not enough, data from the student satisfaction survey and exit surveys from both students who leave early and those who graduate. Getting information that is relevant is important.

Senator Cusanovich suggested that a task force is needed to look at the issue and report back with a strategy. The White Paper can be a starting point, but that there are other ways to achieve our goals. The fact is, our graduation rates are not good and we have to increase them to be politically and academically accepted. We also need to be certain we are spending our resources as wisely and efficiently as possible to achieve a higher graduation rate. Senator Cusanovich moved [Motion 2007/08-8] to establish a Senate Task Force on Student Retention and Advancement for the purpose of restructuring the undergraduate experience to increase student retention and graduation rates of all students irrespective of their preparation.

 ∙              Utilize the report submitted to the Senate, May of 2007, by the Committee of Eleven as a data base to determine academic success and retention based on the Academic Index and other relevant factors.

∙               Analyze the Committee of Eleven proposal and any other approaches that will improve retention and graduation rates for all students, but with a particular emphasis on the cohorts with the lowest and highest Academic Indices.

∙               Recommend actions to restructure the undergraduate experience to optimize graduation rates and retention, consistent with available resources. 

Task Force Composition:

∙               All Colleges with undergraduate enrollment will be represented by faculty representatives(s) (12-15 members).

∙               One-fourth of the total membership will be from the Faculty Senate.

∙               At least one member will be the Department of Higher Education (College of Education) and one from the Committee

of Eleven.

∙               The Chair of the Task Force will be a faculty senator and appointed by the Presiding Officer of the Faculty Senate.

Activity Timeline:

 ∙              First orientation meeting will be convened by end of September, 2007.

∙               2-hour meetings (every other week during the remainder of the fall semester) and the first part of the spring semester.

∙               Report to Faculty Senate, March, 2008.

Motion was seconded. Senators questioned how this task force will differ from the Senate’s Task Force on General Education that was created last May. Senator Cusanovich explained that the first task force is only considering the general education curriculum. It is anticipated that these two committees may share information as some things overlap, but this is a much broader issue of retention and graduation rates. Senator Howell is paying attention to this overlap. Student senators questioned whether students will be represented on this task force. Senator Foley questioned why two task forces will be at work at roughly the same time, with a considerable amount of overlap, not unlike the situation of multiple committees reviewing intercollegiate athletics. Senator Howell assured the Senate that she is paying attention to that and there won’t be conflicting recommendations. The motion to create the Gen Ed task force calls for its report in December, although Gen Ed Task Force Chair and Senator Dahlgran indicated that he may be requesting an extension. Senator Davis noted that the motion calls for restructuring undergraduate education and offered a friendly amendment to change the first sentence of the motion to read “. . . to establish a Senate Task Force on Student Retention and Advancement for the purpose of studying restructuring the undergraduate experience . . .” Parliamentarian Sankey indicated that an extensive approval process would be required for any actual restructuring to occur. Friendly amendment was not accepted. Senator Dahlgran called for the question [Motion 2007/08-9]. Motion to end debate on Motion 2007/08-8 passed unanimously. Motion 2007/08-8 passed unanimously.

                There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 5:10 p.m.

Motion 2007/08-7 Seconded motion that the Senate adopt the COIA recommendations in principle and ask that the appropriate group, whatever we decide that is, review the recommendations to see which we are currently complying with and for those that we are not complying with advise the Senate about which we might move to adopt and report back to the Senate at an appropriate time. A friendly amendment to ask Senator Silverman to work with President Shelton on identifying the appropriate knowledgeable persons or group to report back to the Senate was accepted and seconded. Another friendly amendment to add that Senator Silverman should be an advisor to whatever that appropriate group is was also accepted and seconded. President Shelton clarified the motion to mean that he and Senator Silverman gather an appropriate group of individuals to review these recommendations and report back to the Senate about their status and how we might proceed. Motion carried.

Motion 2007/08-8 Seconded motion to establish a Senate Task Force on Student Retention and Advancement for the purpose of restructuring the undergraduate experience to increase student retention and graduation rates of all students irrespective of their preparation.
∙               Utilize the report submitted to the Senate, May of 2007, by the Committee of Eleven as a data base to determine academic success and retention based on the Academic Index and other relevant factors.
∙               Analyze the Committee of Eleven proposal and any other approaches that will improve retention and graduation rates for all students, but with a particular emphasis on the cohorts with the lowest and highest Academic Indices.
∙               Recommend actions to restructure the undergraduate experience to optimize graduation rates and retention, consistent with available resources. 
Task Force Composition:
∙               All Colleges with undergraduate enrollment will be represented by faculty representatives(s) (12-15 members).
∙               One-fourth of the total membership will be from the Faculty Senate.
∙               At least one member will be the Department of Higher Education (College of Education) and one from the Committee of Eleven.
∙               The Chair of the Task Force will be a faculty senator and appointed by the Presiding Officer of the Faculty Senate.
Activity Timeline:
 ∙              First orientation meeting will be convened by end of September, 2007.
∙               2-hour meetings (every other week during the remainder of the fall semester) and the first part of the spring semester.
∙               Report to Faculty Senate, March, 2008.
Motion carried.

Motion 2007/08-9 Motion to end debate on Motion 2007/08-8. Motion carried.