Site
Index




(The following Statement of Objectives was adopted by the Faculty Senate on September 18, 2000.)

Faculty Senate
Executive Committee


Monday, September 11, 2000


MEMORANDUM

To: Faculty Senate
Subject: Statement of Objectives

The work of the Faculty Senate is done mainly through its standing and ad hoc committees. Duties of the standing committees are described in the Senate Bylaws (http://web.utk.edu/~senate/Bylaws.html#23). Specific charges to the committees for the 2000-01 academic year are given below; in addition, most committees will:
  1. Present brief reports at meetings of the Executive Committee and the Senate concerning committee meetings and activities.
  2. Send a machine-readable copy of all committee reports and resolutions, as well as minutes (if any) of committee meetings, to the manager of the Senate Web site.
  3. Send notices of the time and place of committee meetings to the manager of the Senate Web site for publication on the calendar page.
  4. Prepare brief summaries of committee activity for publication in the Senate Newsletters in November and May.
  5. Write at least once to the faculty representative on the Board of Trustees or to a relevant Board committee about the work of the committee and its key findings. Offer to send a committee member to the Board to answer questions or to speak to issues the Board is considering.
  6. With approval of the Executive Committee, write at least once to the appropriate committees of the Tennessee House and Senate about the work of the committee and its key findings. Offer to send a committee member to the General Assembly to answer questions or to speak to issues the legislature is considering.
  7. Present to the Senate by May 7 a written report describing the activities of the committee during the 2000-01 academic year and recommendations for committee activities during the coming year.
  8. Present to the President-Elect by May 7 a draft of a charge to the committee for the 2001-02 academic year.

Athletics Committee
Specific duties of the Athletics Committee are to
  1. Complete the study requested by the Senate on May 1, 2000, of Athletics Department advising and specific allegations of misconduct.
  2. Repeat the survey, last done in 1998-99, of academic performance of student athletes, looking also at other measures of "academic performance" in addition to GPAs and at the special academic challenges of students in Fall sports.
  3. Assist in the NCAA accreditation process as needed.
  4. Finalize physical fitness options for faculty and staff report.

Budget Committee
Specific duties of the Budget Committee are to
  1. Evaluate faculty salaries as directed by the Senate on April 3, 2000 (http://web.utk.edu/~senate/BudgetRpt4-00.html). Our effort to assess Faculty Salaries organized by College and Department/Unit relative to merit/market averages provided by the Southern University Group averages will only be useful if this process is repeated for several years. In addition to salary means for UTK and SUG, we may also look at salary medians for UTK.
  2. Study the effect of contingent employment on salaries and overall cost of credit-hour production. This effort will be coordinated with a task force involving other Senate committees.

Bylaws Committee
Specific duties of the Bylaws Committee are to
  1. Establish a process for gathering information from all interested parties about specific needs for restructuring the Faculty Senate. This process will be ongoing throughout steps two through four. It will include several formats yet to be determined, such as surveys, list serve solicitation of ideas, forums.
  2. Establish principles for effective functioning of the UT Faculty Senate. These principles will be based upon the information gathered from UT faculty and others. It will also include a survey of other Faculty Senate websites and their principles and approaches.
  3. Create a draft document of revised Senate Bylaws based upon established principles.
  4. Gather further information as faculty and others react to the draft document.

Educational Policy Committee
Specific duties of the Educational Policy Committee are to
  1. Review the minutes of the Graduate and Undergraduate Councils and work with the Graduate and Undergraduate Council chairpersons to prepare the presentation of their minutes for Senate consideration, highlighting items of special importance and policy issues.
  2. Investigate the restructuring of the Educational Policy Committee to better coordinate the work of the committee with other Faculty Senate committees in the area of educational policy.
  3. Study the following policies, curricular, and instructional issues and make recommendations to the Senate regarding these items:
    • The university's new policy on faculty and staff access to student records.
    • Nationalization of classrooms on the campus.
    • Work with other Faculty Senate committees on distance education issues, including "New College," to ensure that university policies are in agreement with recommendations on distance education.
  4. Study the effect of contingent employment on the curricular and instructional goals of the University. This effort will be coordinated with a task force involving other Senate committees.

Faculty Affairs Committee
Specific duties of the Faculty Affairs Committee are to
  1. Examine the draft from the Task Force on Faculty Titles. The Senate President has asked the Faculty Affairs Committee "to study the proposed changes and offer comments and recommendations to the task force." Committee responses will be sent to the Senate President by October 1. During October the Committee will study any revisions made by the Task Force and submit "comments and recommendations to the Senate Executive Committee."
  2. Monitor the implementation of the policies stated in the UTK Manual for Faculty Evaluation.
  3. Clarify faculty responsibility in maintaining confidentiality of student records and consider implications of the severity of punishment for violation of the policy.
  4. Study the effect of contingent employment on tenure, academic freedom, and governance. This effort will be coordinated with a task force involving other Senate committees.

Faculty and Staff Benefits Committee
Specific duties of the Faculty and Staff Benefits Committee are to
  1. Make recommendations to the Senate and cooperate with fringe benefits committees from other higher education campuses across the state with respect to policies on retirement, leave, faculty welfare, insurance, and other fringe benefits.
  2. Seek input from the faculty and staff at large concerning issues related to employment benefits.
  3. Communicate faculty and staff concerns to the Board of Trustees of the University, to the President of the University, and to appropriate committees of the Tennessee House and Senate.
  4. Study compensation for contingent employees. This effort will be coordinated with a task force involving other Senate committees.

International Education Committee
Specific duties of the International Education Committee are to
  1. Endeavors to place on the agenda of at least one 2000-01 faculty meeting of every UT department an item promoting active student, faculty and department participation in international education activities. Each department head will be urged to designate, in those instances where there currently is none, one faculty member to serve as an official departmental link for the exchange of information with the Center for International Education.
  2. Write a resolution for Faculty Senate adoption during 2000-01 emphasizing the importance of international education to any world-class university and urging the strengthening of institutional efforts to increase the numbers of students and faculty involved in all aspects of international education.
  3. Seek, through urging the University to institute appropriate policies and procedures, to increase the number of UT students who apply to study abroad as well as of those who apply for Fulbright, Rhodes and Marshall awards.
  4. Urge that the UT Writing Center develop files of successful applications for Fulbright, Rhodes and Marshall awards so that it might both encourage and assist students during the process.
  5. Support the creation and publication of a comprehensive master list of all UT study-abroad programs.
  6. Investigate, on a college-by-college basis, the uniformity of the University's maintaining the payment of salary, benefits, etc., to faculty members who take leave to travel outside the country for extended periods in order to conduct research or participate in exchange programs.

Legislative Committee
Specific duties of the Legislative Committee are to
  1. Present information and assessments of campus needs from a faculty viewpoint to the State Legislature, especially through communications with the Knox County Legislative Delegation.
  2. Invite legislators to campus for informal visits to discuss the needs of the University of Tennessee.
  3. Work with administration, alumni and students to improve funding for the University of Tennessee.
  4. Coordinate with the State AAUP Conference Legislative Committee regarding our legislative effort.
  5. Consider preparing and, if appropriate, propose a UT Faculty Senate Legislative Agenda, setting forth items of concern to faculty in addition to adequate financial resources.

Library Committee
Specific duties of the Library Committee are to
  1. Consider the need for a Faculty Senate Library Committee. For example, would it be more appropriate to have a Senate Committee focused on information services that would include library issues and concerns? If the Committee is retained, what is the optimum size and how might the various campus constituencies be best represented?
  2. Work with the new Dean of Libraries to identify better ways for faculty and student views to be included in decisions about collections and services. We look forward to becoming familiar with the philosophy, vision, and concerns of the new Library Dean. Developing a genuinely interactive relationship with her should be our first priority.
  3. Explore the state of funding for library services and collections in the near future and its implications for campus users. Serial publications remain a critical problem and are likely to become more problematic if periodical cancellations are needed to balance budgets.
  4. Explore the problems and opportunities involved in moving from largely print to increasingly digital services where information is often leased rather than owned. A survey of faculty attitudes and preferences in regard to hard copy and digital information sources may be helpful.
  5. Explore the problems and opportunities related to the fact that many students and some faculty will use the library collections and services only remotely rather than coming to the Hodges Library building (for example). If circulation and reference queries, for example, decline in the future, what measures of success should be used to measure the value of the library to students and faculty. Increasingly, the library will be a service and not a place.

Nominating Committee
Specific duties of the Nominating Committee are to
  1. Nominate two candidates for the office of President-Elect based on nominations from the university faculty.
  2. Prepare a ballot which includes biographical information on the candidates.

Professional Development Committee
Specific duties of the Professional Development Committee are to
  1. Develop a policy of professional leave and monitor the resulting program. The Committee will advocate inclusion of the policy in the Faculty Handbook and provide information about the policy to faculty and other universities.
  2. Study mentoring programs at UT. The Committee will collect information about existing mentoring programs, draft guidelines for departments and colleges, and monitor and evaluate the programs.
  3. If needed, collect information and recommend policies concerning interdisciplinary and team-taught courses.
  4. After consultation with the Bylaws Committee, propose revisions in the Bylaws description of the purposes of the Professional Development Committee.
  5. Study the career development of contingent employees. This effort will be coordinated with a task force involving other Senate committees.

Research Council
Specific duties of the Research Council are to
  1. Engage the Administration including but not limited to the President, the Vice President for Research and Information Technology, the Associate Vice President for Research, and the Provost regarding all aspects of the University's goal of moving into the top 25 publicly-funded research universities, including but not limited to:
    • Sabbatical policy
    • Management of contracts and grants (re. IRIS)
    • Definition and selection of the new Centers of Excellence
    • Review draft proposals from the Task Force on Faculty Titles
  2. Explore the possibility of collaboration with comparable bodies at Memphis and Tullahoma.
  3. Remain engaged in:
    • The functioning of the faculty workstation refresh program
    • Its historically close collaboration and supportive activities with the Office of Research.

Student Affairs Committee
Specific duties of the Student Affairs Committee are to
  1. Study the privacy of student records, and how this can be maintained while allowing access to advisers and those in the academic and administrative areas who need this information.
  2. Study the array of various tutoring programs and how these might be regulated under one academic and/or administrative office or center.
  3. Consider whether decorum and civility in the classroom are problems which require Senate attention.

Teaching Council
Specific duties of the Teaching Council are to
  1. Work through the Council's Professional Assessment subcommittee with the Committee for Student Evaluation of Teaching to implement the Student Assessment of Instruction System, following the recommendations passed at the Faculty Senate meeting of May 1, 2000. The subcommittee will also work to develop funding for implementation of student assessment during summer sessions and distance education courses.
  2. Work through the Council's Professional Development subcommittee with the CUE to coordinate and offer on-campus programs about teaching-related issues.
  3. Seek nominations and, working through the Professional Awards subcommittee, select recipients for teaching and advising awards.
  4. Study the changes proposed by the Task Force on Faculty Titles and offer comments and recommendations to the task force and to the Executive Committee.
  5. Study the effect of contingent employment on the quality of instruction offered especially to undergraduates. This effort will be coordinated with a task force involving other Senate committees.

Ad Hoc Committee on Honorary Degrees
The specific duty of the Ad Hoc Committee on Honorary Degrees is to present to the Senate a set of policies and procedures for the awarding of honorary degrees at the Knoxville campus.

Ad Hoc Committee on Technologically-Enhanced Instruction
Specific duties of the Ad Hoc Committee on Technologically-Enhanced Instruction are to
  1. Monitor any developments related to "New College" or any other entity that offers courses and degrees via on-line instruction.
  2. Work with the Educational Policy Committee (EPC) of the Faculty Senate to help EPC implement those portions of the May 1, 2000, Senate resolution which pertain to curricular matters.
  3. Continue to attend meetings of or have representation on the following groups: Teaching and Learning Technology Round Table Instructional Technology Task Force Information Technology Task Force.
  4. Review the proposed University intellectual properties statement to see if it incorporates the "Fair Sharing" principles in the April 3, 2000 report presented to the Senate.
  5. Investigate and report on faculty compensation and load, faculty release time for course development, and staffing for technologically-enhanced courses.
  6. Study the relationship of contingent employment and online education. This effort will be coordinated with a task force involving other Senate committees.

Task Force on Contingent Employment
Specific duties of the Task Force on Contingent Employment are to
  1. Survey the literature on contingent employment in higher education.
  2. Assemble any earlier studies of contingent employment in particular units (e.g., English).
  3. Identify sources of data concerning contingent employment at UT.
  4. Determine, as far as the evidence permits, what the trend concerning contingent employment is at UT over the past 30 years.
  5. Assess, from the perspectives of various committees, the effects of reliance on contingent employees:
    • Budget Committee: Effects on salaries and the overall cost of credit-hour production.
    • Educational Policy Committee: Effects on the curricular and instructional goals of the University.
    • Faculty Affairs Committee: Effects on tenure, academic freedom, and governance.
    • Faculty and Staff Benefits Committee: Effects on compensation for contingent employees.
    • Professional Development Committee: Career development of contingent employees.
    • Teaching Council: Effects on the quality of instruction offered especially to undergraduates.
    • Ad Hoc Committee on Technologically-Enhanced Instruction: The relationship of contingent employment and online education.
  6. Recommend appropriate policies concerning contingent employment to the Senate and to administrators.


Senate Directory
   Officers
   Committees
   Members
Governing Documents
   Senate Bylaws
   Faculty Handbook
   Tenure Policy
Search

Reports
Calendar

Archives
Resources

Senate Home


To offer suggestions or comments about this web site, please click here.