NEW MEXICO INSTITUTE OF MINING AND TECHNOLOGY
Jones Annex 101 4:00 p.m.
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Call to order – President Richard Sonnenfeld called the meeting to order at 4:05 p.m. Lyndsey was welcomed as the new AA Administrative Assistant. Faculty Senate members were asked to announce themselves as they spoke.
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Approval of the minutes of April 1st, 2014 – John Wilson made a motion to approve the minutes, B. Borchers seconded the motion. The minutes were unanimously approved. There were corrections to be made to the previous minutes. Under 10. New Business Section d - Instead of “NMT has more 4 year graduates than in previous times” it should say “NMT has a high number or students who graduated in 4 years during 2012-2013”. Also, add “According to the Payscale College Salary Report of 2013-2014” in front of students who graduate with a BS from Tech…
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Please review Langmuir Nominees (vote on May 9) – R. Sonnenfeld -There are 3 nominees and 3 papers.
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Farewells – Gary Axen – Announced retirement of Kent Condie and John Wilson. Both are long term faculty members at NMT. Both won Distinguished Teaching Faculty Award. Sorry to see them leaving but happy to see them as Emeritus. Will be having events for both. K. Condie's will be at MSEC 203 at 3:00 on Wednesday the 13
. J. Wilson's has not yet been scheduled. Faculty who are also leaving include Mike Pullin, Barbara Bonnekessen, Steve Shaffer, and Andrew Sung. They were thanked for their service at NMT.
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Dr. Samuels – Needs people to serve on their committee. Add one person to Academic Standards and Admission Committee. Motion made by Dr. Winn, seconded by B. Harrison. Motion passed unanimously. Can also talk to Dr. Mojtabai or Snezna R. to get on the committee.
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Academic Freedom and Tenure – Recommendation for Emeritus status – K. Condie – This was presented last time and was included in the packet for today's meeting. There was a concern that there were multiple routes to emeritus status. Currently Faculty Senate has to vote to nominate and then it goes to Academic Affairs. The proposed policy has now gone to the committee to propose a change.
Recommendation for the Faculty Senate to vote to nominate.
Motion was made by K. Condie to pass the new procedure. Motion passed by Committee.
M. Dezember stated that this has to go to the VPAA and then they take it to the President. The President decides if there needs to be a committee. After Faculty Senate votes on it, M. Dezember will then take to the President. B. Winn asked is there anything that the Faculty Senate can approve without having to receive approval from the President. It was stated that there has been some misunderstanding on what the Faculty Senate can approve. M. Dezember stated that curricular changes can be approved as they are not policy unless they have institutional impact, such as a major General Education requirement. Staff members in the past have gotten Emeritus Status. M. Dezember is trying to get as much input from others as she can. Dr. Engler asked what other members think of the policy from a member of the committee. No one on the Committee was present. R. Sonnenfeld summarized the policy. Faculty Senate concurred on the policy. It was asked what happens if an emeritus faculty overspends, who pays for it? The policy needs to have something that prevents a department from going too far on how soon a person can receive this. B. Stone stated that the Board of Regents approves it. Also, the retirement plan is not addressed on the procedure.
Voting was held by clicker vote:
40 In favor, 3 Not in favor. Motion carries.
B. Borchers stated that Adjunct Faculty are possibly paid to teach a course and only part time faculty are able to vote. Actively teaching a course is not stated on the procedure. T. Engler stated a concern that more part time faculty than full time faculty would be able to make the decision.
Motion to refer to the committee for the number of people who can vote on an academic decision was motioned by B. Stone, seconded by B. Borchers.
Voting was held by clicker vote:
Refer back to committee 33 in favor, 10 not in favor. Motion passed.
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Computing on Campus – Faculty to vote on Google/Microsoft mail switch – R. Sonnenfeld – A month ago the Computing Committee recommended going to Google. B. Borchers was at the meeting and provided a brief overview. Committee discussed the following options: Outsourcing email services to Google. Google has web apps for spreadsheets and word processing and Google hangouts for telecounseling. The cost is $20,000 a year for services doing this. Microsoft offers a similar service. It is reasonably close in terms of features. More people are familiar with Google. However, there is no guarantee that your information will be serviced in the U.S. with Google. Stored data with Microsoft can be serviced in the U.S. if we pay them for that service. Alan Rose from the committee thought that the Department of Defense would like the information to be stored in U.S. for EMERTC data. We would not replace all data information that we have on campus. You can use Google docs to submit assignments to English professors and CANVAS. It was stated that this is an unofficial report from having attended the meeting.
There was a discussion regarding FERPA compliance. It was decided that it would be the Registrar's responsibility to tell what can and cannot be entered onto Google or Microsoft. Sara G. stated if you store something in either of the clouds we would have to defend to the Department of Defense why we did this and then they would decide if we were negligent or not. Registrar needs to set policies on these services as it does not currently have a clause on it.
Voting was held by clicker vote:
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for Google, 4 for Microsoft
Budget and Research Committee – Recommendation on summer and temporary salaries. - K. Minschwaner - The committee has not had time to review changes and approve them. M. Dezember added that we need to have exceptions. Shari M. worked with the committee and M. Dezember reviewed and made some changes. It was presented as a joint effort.
It was asked if this will this have an impact on new instructors and will they take a pay decrease? T. Kieft's recommendation is that no one will take a cut in pay. A decrease depends on the class. B. Harrison stated that a course can be taught at a lower rate. It was stated that part time instructors are already under paid and there is no control over the budget. This seems to be the best way. Dr. Sessions asked if the policy takes in account for inflation. T. Kieft stated that he checked the rates of pay for other Institutions in New Mexico and this is about average.
I. Avramidi had some concern regarding summer courses. This would lead to a pay cut as the Math department does not have research salary or grants. He asked how the number determined. Also, cannot run graduate level courses, 5 is too much. M. Dezember referred to #6 on the policy regarding exceptions. K. Minschwaner stated that upper divisions are paid at a higher rate because NMT gets compensated at a higher rate for these courses. W. Stone asked why a flat rate across disciplines. We are not compensated by the state at a flat rate. M. Dezember stated that there are different rates for different disciplines formula funding. There is a smaller difference in undergraduate than graduate. It is better to have a flat across rather than discipline and interdisciplines. Majumdar asked why would we have a bonus for high enrollment. Higher enrollment means higher budget for the state. T. Keft stated that Budget is not set by the state. Academic Affairs is told you have x amount of dollars this year. Whatever is left over gets to be used for the part time budget. It is roughly $600k per year. This is the number we have to work with. Shari M. stated that Academic Affairs gets a set budget and everything for Academic Affairs comes out of that budget. Dr. Phillips stated that with the Budget Committee there is no direct feedback in the budget for what gets sent back. This is the best effort to balance several bad possibilities.
R. Sonnenfeld called for a vote on the whole motion.
14 for as it is written, 18 against, and 3 abstained
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Substantive Announcements
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Academic Affairs Report – Dr. Dezember – Final AA report for this semester. Thanked R. Sonnenfeld for sending information out for Faculty Senate along with all others who have helped. President approved 2 new hires. Biochemical Engineering and Computer Science Engineering will get a full time instructor. Anyone who left this semester will be replaced. The Council of Chairs had actual discussions with 7 or 8 meetings this semester. Chairs were there and supportive for the meetings. Allowed Chairs to decide how the 3% would be divided. Deans and Directors were not allowed to vote. Council of Chairs met all 4 candidates for the VPAA search. A presentation from each candidate was given to the chairs. Council of Chairs voted to send what the ranking was to the President. M. Dezember will let the President know what the Council of Chairs decided on Friday the 9
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Graduate Council Report – Dr. Dezember – Moved to May 9
Agenda at the beginning for voting. Five year programs will move to Friday also. Look at course changes in advance prior to meeting as these will not be discussed only voted upon.
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Facilities Committee – Dr. Arendt – January 2013 was the last report for the Space Utilization Committee. They recommended last year that Fidel be equipped with equipment before SRS as there had been some problems with overbooking with some of the classrooms. There have also been some problems with the parking situations with the construction of the new Bureau Building. The new parking lot off of Leroy Street seems to be doing its job. It never has been full and not too much of a problem. Space Allocation Committee recommended that we have a faculty member to allow input on. R. Sonnenfeld stated that this most likely was halted in a Board of Regents Meeting. Formal motion to follow. Also, trying to Increase the transparency map of rooms and all the equipment that is out there. New report in June 2014.
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EREC – Dr. Axen – Policy regarding student travel. If you are not on a grant you are not allowed to travel such as TA's. Student travel fund seemed to work for a while but J. Voyles had no money on the grant for stipend. She didn't know how to fund the student to get the research needed. Policy is being rewritten to allow students to travel if they are not on a stipend. Still working on verbiage as this is a policy and not a procedure.
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Facilities Committee – Dr. Arendt - Would like to see a copy of the new 5 year facility plan from the Board of Regents. A. Zagrai brought up safety issue with poor lighting around NMT's campus. New lighting by Torres Hall has been fixed. However, there are still 2 dark places near the library. Jim McLain will have double lighting that will give light off in both directions this summer. For lighting on the new parking lot, the City of Socorro would have to look at that. T. Keft stated that the Faculty Senate Committee does not always get information that should be public. T. Engler stated a concern with the MSEC parking. Students are saying the parking is a mess over there. G. Axen stated that our parking is one the best compared to other Institutions. Parking is free and small enough to get around easily.
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Faculty Senate - R. Sonnenfeld - Please use the Faculty Senate Wiki to look at documents for our meetings.
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By unanimous consent the Faculty Senate adjourned at 5:26 PM