NEW MEXICO INSTITUTE OF MINING AND
Tuesday, October 06, 2015
Call to order and approval of minutes
Chair Dave Raymond called the meeting to order at 4 06 pm with a call for approval of the September 1, 2015 minutes.
Dr. Brian Borchers moved to approve the minutes, seconded by Dr. Hamdy Soliman. Motion passed unanimously
Title V/OSL transition – Lisa Majkowski
Lisa Majkowski explained that the Title V Student engagement and success program ended on September 30. She thanked all who helped and were supportive of her efforts. Lisa and her team, Rebecca Clemens and Drea Killingsworth are still at NMT in the Office for Student Learning (OSL). Handouts were provided with information on all three and their area of work. Lisa announced that there will be an open house on Thursday October 29 from 1:00 – 5:00 in the OSL.
Guidelines for sabbatical leave application – Jaime Kimberly
Dr. Jaime Kimberly noted that he has seen a number of sabbatical leave applications that have not been conformant with the policies. He stated that the application must be submitted one semester prior to the request. Also, when submitting the leave policy, the department chair needs to explain how their department will cover the classes.
Dr. Peter Mozley announced that we are seeing an increase in violation of the Honesty Policy. A chart was presented that showed 20 academic honesty cases so far for this semester. Dr. Mozley noted that all 20 cases are related to the same issue. Students are getting the answers on the website Chegg. This website may be misleading for students. It states on the website “Over 90% of Chegg study users report better grades.” Dr. Mozley stated that we need to notify the students that it is easy to catch them cheating. Academic Affairs will be opening a Chegg account. Faculty who have concerns can email problems to Dr. Mozley and he will check the website.
HLC visit regarding distance education programs
Dr. Mozley stated that accreditation is very important to NMT. Without it we can't receive federal funding for our programs. We are now required to have accreditation on our Distance Education programs. We put three up for accreditation: Hydrology Certificate, MS Engineering Management, MS Mechanical. As part of this, they sent two distance education experts to NMT. Dr. Mozley was told by the HLC team that they couldn't tell us how we did but they didn't see any problems.
Universities Space Research Association – Ifan Payne
Dr. Ifan Payne announced that he has been charged with compiling an application to the University Space Research Association. He needs to compile a list of all faculty who have participated in space science related search programs. Anyone who has any interest in this area can email him at <a href="mailto:ipayne@mro.nmt.edu">
ipayne@mro.nmt.edu</a>. Deadline will be in two weeks.
House for rent – Mitchell Tappen
Mitchell Tappen stated that he oversees the on campus housing at NMT. NMT recently bought the house at 905 Bullock. It is a 2 bed, 1 bath for $800 a month including facilities. Mitch is not inclined to rent out to undergraduate students based on the location. Let Mitch know of any doctoral students, visiting researchers, or other faculty that may be interested in this house.
Graduate academic honesty - Lorie Liebrock
Dr. Lorie Liebrock announced that she will cover the graduate statistics for academic honesty next month.
Introduction - Janet Ward
Janet Ward
introduced Kathryn Fleming as the new therapist in the Student Health Center.
Nominating committee (vote on Senate officers) – Mark Samuels and Snezna Rogelj
Eligible faculty senate members filled out paper ballots. The Nominating Committee counted the ballots with the results showing:
Steve Simpson, Vice-Chair
Brian Borchers, Parliamentarian
Ad hoc committee on course evaluations report – Wes Cook
Dr. Wes Cook announced that the Ad Hoc Committee took a look at the existing course evaluations. The committee's findings were to maintain the current paper and pencil forms during instructional time in the final week of classes. The committee looked at the security to go to an electronic form and the committee feels the paper method is still the most secure. Also, changes to the existing survey are: Rewording of the second prompt from “appropriateness of course content (coverage, breadth, depth) to “Course content reflects course description (coverage, breadth, depth)”. Delete eighth prompt “Quality of the textbook”. Add prompt in the eighth position “The instructor displayed interest in student learning. The Ad-Hoc committee disbands.
Dr. Sally Pias noted that the paper format requires the administrative secretary to spend many hours typing the comments. If the privacy is somewhat compromised by going to an electronic system, we might have a much higher degree of usefulness. Dr. Cook noted that the response rate significantly decreases and results are also polarized if the evaluation is given outside of class. Dr. Lorie Liebrock noted that NMT does not require students to have a laptop for class and therefore cannot ask for evaluations to be administrated online while in class.
Dr. Michelle Creech-Eakman noted the idea that students cannot get their final grades until they completed the survey. Dr. Cook explained that the committee discussed this and was against the idea.
Dr. Cook motioned that the procedure for the course evaluations be approved. Dr. Hamdy Soliman motioned to refer back to the Ad Hoc Committee. Dr. Michelle Creech–Eakman seconded. Few opposed. Motion passed.
Benefits committee – Bruce Harrison
Dr. Bruce Harrison gave an update on Meritain who gave a presentation at NMT several weeks ago. Plan costs charts were shown. Plan costs for 2015 were better this year than the last three years for the cost per individual. The biggest item is that we paid off the two millions dollars that we owed. Wellness health evaluations are continuing. For the first time we are changing the credit that you receive whether or not you make the health goals or not. First time participation in 2015 results in $250.00 credit per person on the plan deductible for the 2015 calendar year. If you meet your health goals, this will result in $500.00 credit. If you do not meet your health goals, this will result in $100.00 credit.
Honorary degrees and awards committee seeks nominations – Snezna Rogelj
Dr. Snezna Rogelj announced that the nomination for honorary degrees is conferred by the Board of Regents for recognition of outstanding merit or achievement without reference to the fulfillment of academic course requirements. Email nominations to Dr. Rogelj, Dr. Tom Engler, or Dr. Frank Huang before November 1
.
Activity to enhance student success and accelerate graduation – Bill Stone and Kevin Wedeward
Dr. Bill Stone announced that the Governor and the State Department of Higher Education are both pushing some efforts to increase graduation rates and decrease the number of credits to graduation. The Board of Regents are being pushed to look at this and they requested input on our approach last summer. We responded with things that we are already doing such as the Living Learning Communities. The Board of Regents are supportive and concerned that we maintain the quality of our
degrees but there is continuing pressure to respond to the Department of Higher Education and the Governor.
Dr. Kevin Wedeward explained that some of the pressure that is coming down is to reduce the number of credit hours in the programs. The Board of Regents along with the President realized that just reducing the number of credit hours is not the answer. There are other and likely better ways to do this. Dr. Ostergren has formed a committee that is looking into and evaluating many of these different aspects. The committee is looking into everything such as financial aid, math placement, students taking non required classes, how well students are planning their schedules, and rates of failures in courses. It is really wide open in terms of what the committee is looking into. The committee is just getting started into looking at the data. A piece of this is that the committee is asking the Council of Chairs and at some point the Faculty Senate that campus wide we will allow a reduction to the minimum number of credit hours to be 120. No one will have to change anything but it will at least open the door for programs to review their curricula and decide whether or not 130 is still appropriate or if they could lower the number. This would be a sign of good faith effort. The Board of Regents can report that we have at least made an effort and we have opened the door for departments to review their programs. Also, Dr. Ostergren will be holding an open forum later this week to discuss the material that he has presented to the Board of Regents. It will be on Thursday and Friday from 3:00 – 4:00 in the CITL.
Report of Council of Chairs – Peter Mozley
Minutes – Dr. Peter Mozley noted that there are a couple of action items.
Biology catalog entry – Dr. Snezna Rogelj noted that one item will be discussed later on at the Graduate Council due to a typo. It converted the Master of Science in Bio Chemistry into a Master of Science in Micro Biology. Dr. Rogelj motioned to eliminate the listed courses from the catalog. Motion passed.
Math course changes – Dr. Ivan Avramidi noted that the Council of Chairs suggested adding as a prerequisite EE 251 to Math 410. Dr. Avramidi motion to accept the catalog changes. Motion passed.
Report of Graduate Council – Lorie Liebrock
Dr. Lorie Liebrock noted that the Senate already voted on the academic changes for Biology. Dr. Liebrock announced that she will do a report on what she found so far for the use of iThenticate next month. Since the Graduate Council meeting, she received approval from Academic Affairs to hire someone to help manage the accounts. All faculty will have access to iThenticate and will be able to do these at your own time with help from the new hire. Deadlines for this will be coming next month.
Report on agreements with foreign universities – Steve Simpson and Bruce Harrison
Dr. Steve Simpson explained that there is an emergent committee of faculty and staff who work closely with students coming in through our agreements, particularly our Chinese University students. As there have been more agreements made or in the works, the committee has been working together to talk through these logistical issues. Over the past year, there have been a number of discussions regarding language support. NMT has made an agreement with New Mexico State University to work on their English language program to provide more intensive English classes for their students coming in through these programs. There were other concerns with how the credits would be transferring and how information with the program requirements were being communicated to the students. Recently there has been an interest in trying to stream line the process for creating these agreements to come up with a better process that gets more people involved in these issues early on.
Dr. Bruce Harrison noted that these programs are supposed to be passed through an academic board which to the best of his knowledge does not exist. Consequently, some of the issues that come up have to do with the students expecting to come here with 2 plus 2 degrees. This is almost impossible for them to do. The weight of this is falling on Titia Barham who is the Articulation Specialist to determine what can transfer. The problem is that the transcripts from Yangtze are in Chinese and the translations are by the students. There is some doubt about the integrity of the transcripts. Dr. Warren Ostergren has offered to pay for faculty to translate these transcripts. The committee was also asked to get more information on these courses so that the faculty have a better idea of what was actually covered.
Dr. Steve Simpson noted that as an emergent committee they are working on this and would like the faculty to be aware and how the committee is progressing. There are four recent MOU's so we should expect to see more students coming in.
Dr. Lorie Liebrock made a motion to formalize the committee as the International Transfer and Articulation Committee, seconded by Dr. Gary Axen. Motion passed.
Adjournment. By unanimous decision, the meeting adjourned at 5:15 pm.