Faculty Senate President Janet Whitley called the meeting to order at 3:30 P.M. Twenty-one
Senators were in attendance.

I. Minutes of the February 10, 2004, meeting were approved.

II. Secretary-Treasurer Malcolm L. Cross reported a balance of $874.66, reflecting the payment of $229.95 to defray travel expenses incurred by Faculty Senators on official business.

III. Proposed Recreational Sports Facility—Wanda Mercer and Ronnie Giles: Wanda Mercer, Vice President for Student Services, and Ronnie Giles, Assistant Professor in the Department of Recreational Sports, attended the Faculty Senate meeting to discuss the need for, and financing of, the proposed Recreational Sports Facility.
Wanda Mercer noted that Tarleton is the only school of its size in Texas without a true recreational sports facility, and that the proposed facility would be 76,000 to 80,000 square feet in area, cost $14,000,000, and be “fairly modest.”
At issue is the funding. The administration is proposing that between 75% and 80% of the Facility’s costs be paid by a $100.00/semester fee to be assessed each student when the Facility is complete and open for use, to be ended in twenty years when the Facility is paid for, and a $100.00/semester fee for faculty members wanting to use the Facility. Since some physical education classes may be conducted in the Facility, the remaining 20% to 25% of the Facility’s costs would be financed by tuition designated for physical education. The students will vote on the issue between 4/5/04 and 4/7/04.

IV. Announcements.

A. Arthur Award: Kelli Styron reported that she had received Arthur Award applications and supporting materials for Elizabeth Riggs, an instructor in the
Department of Mathematics and Physics; and Dr. Pam Lindsey, an associate
professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction. The Faculty Senate
unanimously voted to nominate them for the Arthur Award and forward their
materials to the appropriate authorities.
Janet Whitley expressed concern that the Arthur Award had elicited so few
applicants and solicited suggestions to increase the number of applicants in the
future. Suggestions offered in the ensuing discussion included reducing the
paperwork potential nominees had to complete and increasing the time in which
to complete it.

B. Spring Luncheon: David Weissenburger announced that Spring Faculty Luncheon would be on Tuesday, 4/13/04, at noon, featuring Craig Clifford,
Professor of Philosophy, discussing "Good Food, the Great Equalizer:
Reflections on TV Chefs.”

C. Bookstore Issues: David Weindorf announced he had received one long, detailed
complaint about bookstore operations but that the author of the complaint had not
followed up with a fuller report. Janet Whitley said an official from the Campus
Store should be invited to attend the next meeting and that problems with the
Campus Store needed to be resolved.

D. Travel Committee: David Weindorf announced that a survey of
departmental secretaries had elicited about six positive responses to the effect
that the administration addressed complaints about procedures for applying for compensation for faculty travel expenses and that the administration was
"extremely efficient" in processing requests, but that several respondents also said
that because requests are processed in accordance with state-mandated rules, their
thoughts on the matter were irrelevant. Janet Whitley said that the process should
be streamlined, that the faculty should be better informed of the policies, and that
an open-ended survey of the faculty should be conducted to learn of their thoughts
on the matter. David Weindorf said he would develop a survey for the Faculty
Senate.

E. Budget Hearings: Janet Whitley announced she had requested an increase of
$1450.00 in next year's allocation the Faculty Senate.

F. Faculty Salary Enhancement: Summarizing remarks made by Gary Peer in email
correspondence and at the 3/9/04 luncheon with the Faculty Senate Executive
Committee, Janet Whitley said that he:
· Recognizes that salaries paid by Tarleton to faculty with the rank of Professor, Associate Professor, and Assistant Professor are the lowest for System faculty;
· Is studying the possibility of personal adjustments of between $1000 and $3000, merit increases, and other options consistent with recommendations of the Senate's Salary and Benefits Committee to raise salaries for faculty in these ranks;
· Wants to have salaries for faculty in these ranks to be average for system faculty within 2 to 3 years;
· is also considering the recruitment of new faculty to fill 15 positions created before the implementation of the budget cuts and to meet the demand for additional new faculty.

G. Report of Texas Faculty Senate Meeting: Kelli Styron reported on the Texas Council of Faculty Senate’s meeting held 2/20-2/21 in Austin, distributing a written summary of topics discussed and noting that the issues discussed included:
· The absence of privacy afforded faculty using university-owned computers;
· The need for faculty to protect the privacy of students when informing them of grades; and
· The financing of teaching, service, and research awards with amounts of up to $5,000 per award in several Texas public universities.
David Weissenburger announced that he and Janet Whitley had been selected
by the Texas Council of Faculty Senates to supply its perspective to the State
House of Representatives’ Committee on Higher Education which is currently
developing accountability standards for public universities. Janet Whitley noted
that Dr. McCabe approves of the concept of accountability and believes that
Tarleton will meet the accountability standards likely to be developed.

H. Tenure and Promotion Committee: Janet Whitley announced that the Tenure and Promotion Committee had been meeting every Wednesday for about five weeks, that whatever changes are developed will not affect current assistant professors seeking tenure and promotion to associate professor but may affect associate professors seeking promotion to full professor in the future, and that the issues it had been discussing included:
· The promise of continued productivity as a criterion to determine promotion;
· The necessity to remain current in one’s field;
· The importance of professionalism and collegiality;
· Making the simultaneous application for, and granting of, tenure and promotion mandatory rather than optional;
· Making the tenure and promotion process more clear to faculty candidates; and
· The possible development of both general criteria and college-specific criteria for tenure and promotion.

I. Other Announcements:
David Weissenburger announced that faculty would soon be invited to request committee assignments for next academic year online.
Janet Whitley solicited suggestions for questions to be included on the latest faculty survey, to be completed online.
Janet Whitley also invited Faculty Senators to send her questions via email to give to Angie Brown, Human Resources Director, who will attend the next
Faculty Senate meeting to discuss personnel issues, and who can use the questions
to help prepare her presentation.
Janice Petronis announced that TACT will hold is Spring Lunchon at noon on
4/6 in the Travis Room. The speaker will be Dr. Stanton Calvert, Vice Chancellor
of the Texas A&M University System, who will review the amounts, ways, and
means for financing state-supported colleges and universities in Texas. Cost of
the luncheon will be $7.00 a person.

V. University Committees.

A. Committee Reports:
1. Academic Council: Janet Whitley announced that at its last meeting the
Academic Council adopted policies to:
· Raise admission standards for first-time freshmen applying for admission in the fall of 2005;
· Specify that “Transferred developmental and similar non-college credit are not used in determining the gpa needed to be eligible for transfer admission;” and
· Specify that “Students with 11 or fewer hours of college level credit and a cumulative gpa of 2.00 or higher and who meet one of the regular admission standards for first-time freshman applicants will be admitted.”
2. Curriculum Committee: No report.
3. Enrollment Management Advisory Council: No report.
4. Employee Benefits: No report.
5. Distance/Distributed Education: No report.
6. TLTR: Jeanelle Barrett, on behalf of a committee consisting of herself, Kelli
Styron, and Steve Field, whom Janet Whitley had appointed at the 2/10
Faculty Senate meeting to help the TLTR develop its mission statement,
distributed written suggestions for a broader vision statement which would:
· Encompass all possibilities for the use of technology in the classroom without mandating its use by edict;
· Offer a clear definition of the type of technology envision by the TLTR;
· Establish a bottom-up approach to determining the kinds of technology needed in the classroom, to be determined by the faculty who would actually be using the technology, rather than by administrators without classroom responsibilities;
· Change the proposed process for evaluating faculty by recognizing their academic freedom to determine the appropriate technology they need rather than by evaluating them simply on whether they use mandated technology regardless of its relevance; and
· Recognize the need to provide undergraduates with the most modern tools, equipment, and research resources available to help them perform the tasks necessary to succeed in their classes.
Janet Whitley recommended that Faculty Senators read the committee’s comments and forward their ideas to the committee members and George Mollick, who said the TLTR would meet near the end of March for a substantive discussion of the proposed vision statement.

7. EEO/AA Committee: Janice Petronis announced that the EEO/AA Committee
had begun meeting to review personnel policies with information
presented by Human Resources Director Angie Brown.
8. Other Committee Reports: There were no other committee reports.

VI. Old Business.
A. Writing Proficiency Task Force: Janet Whitley reported that Gary Peer wants a
writing policy under which students would be required to write themes to exhibit
their writing proficiency, and appointed Jeanelle Barrett to solicit feedback from
Faculty Senators on the report of the Writing Proficiency Task Force.

B. Killeen Representation: David Weissenburger reported that a survey of faculty
members at Tarleton’s Killeen campus showed that they favored representation of
the Killeen Campus as a whole on the Faculty Senate rather than representation
through departments based on Tarleton’s Stephenville Campus. Kelli Styron
reported that the administration of the Killeen campus supported the concept of its
representation on the Faculty Senate. The Faculty Senate unanimously voted to
add to its by-laws the statement that “Each System Center shall elect one at-large
Senator to serve as the System Representative.”

VII. New Business:
A. Faculty Survey: Janet Whitley said that the next Faculty Survey may be
conducted online and invited the Faculty Senate to suggest changes in the
questions asked in the 2002 Faculty Survey. No material changes were suggested.

VIII. Adjournment: The Senate adjourned at 5:05P.M. The next meeting is scheduled for April 13, at 3:30 P.M. in the Library Multi-Purpose Room