Minutes

UMES Senate

14 March 2006

11:07 am called to order

Nov 2005 Senate meeting minutes approved

Feb 2006 Senate meeting minutes approved

Kaye Pinney added to Ad Hoc Registration Committee

Chair Announcements:

AAUP sent letter encouraging senators to be active as poll workers in upcoming elections

Fac Handbook is on UMES website. Send suggestions to Chair to forward to Dr. Aquah.

Promotion and Tenure document to be considered at next Faculty Assembly meeting

Committee Reports

Curriculum Committee: Carole Champagne:

2006 proposals approved

Social Sciences:

Curriculum Change: EDHE 111: Personalized Health Fitness, 3 credits

Chair suggests all department should review this curriculum area

Credit Change: SOCI 498: Independent Study in Sociology from 3 credits to 1-12 credits

New Course: HIST 405: Seminar- The Presidencies of the United States, 3 credits

Still pending: Curriculum Change: New Curriculum for African-American Studies Major Clarification and revised course requirements requested

Still pending: Organizational Leadership Graduate Course HSOL 622: Comparative Health and Human Services Policy, 3 credits

Ad Hoc Registration Committee Report: Mark Williams:

Our committee has representatives from across campus including faculty, a PeopleSoft person, the Associate registrar and someone from the Academic VP’s office. We decided to take a broad look at the registration process including but not limited to: PeopleSoft, forms for Drop/Add, prerequisites, adherence to dates and rules, use of the proper email for communication, and communication in general.

The Add/Drop period is now done solely on-line. There is no need for the current Add or the Drop form. However, there are always emergency persons who wish to add after the end of the add period. Therefore, the committee recommends that we eliminate the current Add/Drop forms and that we design an emergency add form, to be kept only in the Registrar’s office having space for 6 required signatures – student, advisor, instructor, chair, academic VP office, registrar.
Modify the current withdrawal form. Two signatures - student and instructor. Replace social security number with student id number.
In the revamping of the UMES web site, remove all mention of redlining.
Students may change their majors anytime during a semester. However, the changes will not take effect until the start of the Fall or the Spring semester. Also, students may not change their majors within the last 30 credit hours of degree completion.
We need to publish the rule regarding which catalog governs a student’s degree requirements.
We recommend that an Advisor’s workshop be conducted during the week prior to the start of the Fall 2006 semester.
It was reported that the artificial break in printing class schedules was being eliminated.
Peoplesoft requires a date of last attendance when posting a grade of “F”. What date should be used when the student never attended class? Ms. Palmer suggested that it should be the first day of class. This policy should be clarified.
Should online registration be a privilege rather than a right? The policy already exists in which probation advisors select the schedule for students on academic probation (<2.0). We recommend that this policy be extended to changes in the schedule as well. Students can change their schedule only through their probation advisor.
The withdrawal period should end the Friday of the week following the week of the publication of mid-term grades.

Check on the minutes of the meetings located on the Senate website. Send comments, etc. to Ms Demanche, chair of senate.

Student Concerns:

Donnell Nance, Freshman class senator, SGA:

Issue: not enough group study rooms on campus

Chair suggest chair send this concern to Dr. White to look into places to study

This motion is approved.

Issue: on weekends students have few options on campus for eating

Chair suggests he pursue this first with Student Activities

Old Business:

Update on Dr. Vaughe-Cooke: she is at home recuperating and doing well.

New Business and Announcements:

Chair: Senate elections coming up, need recommendations for nominations by April meeting:

Bill Chapin

The Faculty Assembly meeting this month, at which we will be considering the tenure and promotion document, will be on Tuesday, March 28, 2006 at 11:00 IN THE Carver Auditorium (rather than the week before which is holiday).
If you discover typos (not things that you would prefer were different, but real typos) in the current catalogue as posted on the web, let Clarice know so that the changes can be made.
There seems to be a problem with the wording of the current Board of Regents policy that covers the tuition benefits for our spouses and children. An attempt is being made to adjust this in such a way that the current procedures used on the various campuses do not need to be changed (so that no faculty nor staff member loses any benefits). This is a little difficult to do.
The legislature seems determined to roll back the tuition increases already approved for the coming fall and replace the money on a one-time basis with money that is left over from our medical benefits (since, with the higher costs for us, some people are no longer using all the benefits). This looks good (for the legislators) in an election year. The year after, when the one-time money is not available – actuaries are not dumb about re-estimating costs – the campuses would need to come up with that four-and-a-half percent and probably another similar four-and-a-half percent (to keep up with inflation in energy, etc), so that we could end up looking like the bad guys that next year by needing a nine or ten percent increase in tuition.
There is a suit going through the courts concerning the Maryland rules for in-state vs. out-of-state. If this should result in more folks being declared in-state, it could mean that we would have to increase the in-state tuition to keep the budget balanced.

12:03 Adjourned

Submitted by: Kathryn Barrett-Gaines