Taylor Hall 306

December 1, 2005

v Faculty Marshall, George Wynn, called the meeting to order at 3:34 p.m. Members present included:

Dona Gilliam, SMAD; Kenneth Wright, Writing & Rhetoric; Andy Kohen for Bob Jerome, Economics; Bob Lembright, History; Carmenza Kline, Foreign Languages and Literatures; Joan Frederick, English; Peter Kohn for Edgar Parker, Mathematics and Statistics; Elizabeth Cole, Accounting; Jennifer McCabe, Libraries; Joe Rudmin, Physics; Kent Zimmerman, Senate Speaker, Management; Janet Gloeckner, Health Sciences; Bryan Saville, Graduate Psychology; Laura Lewis, Sociology & Anthropology; John Derek Slavin, Military Science; Art Hamilton, Business Law; Bill Knorpp, Philosophy & Religion; Corinne Diop, Art & Art History; Jason Haney, Music; Scott Eaton, Geology; Sharon Cote for Peter Fulton, English; Margaret Williams, Political Science; Michael Norton, Computer Science; Charles Runyan, Communication Disorders; Mike Gulotta, Speech and Communication; Richard Finkelstein, Theatre and Dance; Scott Gallagher, Management; Thomas Wood, Computer Info Systems; and Solange A. Lopes-Murphy, Senate Secretary, Education.

Guest included: Doug Brown and Teresa Gonzalez, Office of the Provost, and Susan Wheeler, Academic Affairs.

v Approval of Minutes: Solange Lopes-Murphy asked for approval of the October 27, 2005 minutes. There was motion to approve minutes. Senators seconded it. Dr. Lopes-Murphy announced not been present in the first 3 meetings of spring 2006. No one volunteered to serve as the Senate secretary during that period.

v Treasurer’s Report: Dr. Lewis was not present when the treasury report was given. Dr. Zimmerman reported the total amount of $6,700 in the FS account.

v Speaker’s Report: Dr. Zimmerman reported about students who do not pass the Honor Code Assessment will be blocked from registering for classes. He also shared that the BOV meets on January 6, 2006. He will then report the developments on the Honor Code assessment to the BOV.

He also reminded the senators that meetings in the spring will be held on the last Thursday of the month in Taylor 306, except for the March meeting which will be a field trip.

v Provost’s Report: Dr. Brown provided brief reports on the following topics:

· Thanksgiving Break: Decisions regarding the period of Thanksgiving break. No changes may occur.

· New administration in Richmond: It will be positive for Higher Education and PK-12. It will also be positive for appropriations and constructions. Lobbying efforts are on the way.

· Enrollment growth at the institution: there are 400 additional students this year.

· Growth on graduate level and post-baccalaureate programs.

· Honor Code Assessment – students are able to take the test multiple times. Dr. Brown focused on when students are to take the HC testing.

· College of Arts and Letters Restructuring: still in progress. Discussions on several aspects of this restructuring process are being held.

Dr. Knorpp inquired Dr. Brown regarding the online application process that job candidates are going through. He pointed out the decrease in the number of applications. Dr. Brown clarified that there was no field testing done to examine whether the system would work. The motivation was to more accurately collect ethnic data from candidates. Dr. Brown briefly described some of the flaws of the system and brought forth a need to reexamine the system. He also stated that he is working with HR and various other campus entities to assure that this kind of problem does not occur in the future.

Dr. Zimmerman reported some of the conversations with staff members in the HR office and their overall difficulties with the online recruitment process and its implementation.

Dr. Brown mentioned that there is a task force meeting the week of Dec. 5 to discuss this specific issue.

Dr. Brown also mentioned that the next major shifts will occur on the current network system (Novell).

v Committee Reports:

A. Nominations and Elections: Memorial Service for Vida Huber will be held on December 9, 2005 from 3:00-5:00 p.m. in HHS 2301.

B. Academic Policies: No reports.

C. Faculty Concerns: Joan Frederick mentioned two items that the committee is working on and will report at a later date.

· Online applications and faculty survey (early spring semester), and

· Faculty members who are not on the state retirement system.

D. Student Concerns: No reports. Jennifer McCabe will send the Honor Code Assessment URL to Kent Zimmerman to be distributed to the senators.

E. Budget – Drs. Cole & Gallagher presented a two-part report. The first part focused on:

1. defining university characteristics,

2. declining student quality,

3. erosion of experienced faculty base,

4. continuing and new problems related to research resources,

5. strategies to address problems through the planning process.

Dr. Gallagher presented the committee’s funding mission and goals to the senators in light of the Centennial Strategic Plan.

Both written reports were distributed to the senators during the FS meeting.

This part of the minutes was recorded by Dr. Gallagher.

Bill Knorpp voiced objections about the definition of strategy and the use of the word synergy.

It was explained that how strategy was defined was in accordance with practice in the field, though philosophical objections to any field are certainly valid. Synergy can always be revisited.

Kenneth Wright objected that it was not his job to do development, rather his job was to teach, research and perform service activities.

It was explained that no one was suggesting that anyone do fundraising, only that it should be acknowledged that academic affairs is where positive views of potential future donors are formed.

Joan Frederick noted that she had received a visit from a student to thank her for meeting with him 8 times to help him become a better writer.

Zimmerman pointed out that it might be good if development asked how to help us.

A senator from Communications stated that his college had a reception during homecoming that seemed to be well attended and that it was nice to see former students.

George Wynn liked the idea of the whole university was development and said it reminded him of trying to explain in his business that everyone was involved in customer service.

Senators reacted in different ways to Dr. Wynn’s statement.

Provost Brown explained how important alternate funding sources are for JMU. Alumni do want to talk to their prior professors. He mentioned the CoB had raised about 1 million but that was a drop in the bucket compared to CISAT's 12+ million in grants and the potential $5-10 million a good continuing education program could bring in. Given that state funding was going to be declining in real per student terms we need to find a way to break out of being a "big institution with an old finance system."

v The meeting was adjourned at 5:00 PM

Respectfully submitted,

Solange A. Lopes-Murphy, Secretary