SENATE
* * * * * * *
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Regular
Session
W. T.
Young Library
First Floor
Auditorium
Dr. Jeffrey
Dembo, Chair
An/Dor Reporting & Video Technologies, Inc.
(859)
254-0568
* * * *
* * * * *
JEFFREY
DEMBO, CHAIR
GIFFORD BLYTON,
PARLIAMENTARIAN
REBECCA SCOTT, SECRETARY TO SENATE COUNCIL
MARLA FRYE,
COURT REPORTER
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* * * * *
The chair called the meeting to order at
CHAIR DEMBO: Good
afternoon. Welcome to the
February Senate
Council meeting. Today's
game plan is, as
you received, there's
been two changes
to it. One is that
Dr. Nash's
presentation on IRIS, the
Integrated
Resource Information Systems,
will be
postponed to the next meeting of
the Senate. But she did want me to alert
you to the fact
that the Website is up
and running for
IRIS, and one of the most
important aspects
of this is the
software - the vendor demonstration will
be on
campus. And the two vendors that
will be
demonstrating are SAP and
PeopleSoft at
the dates listed. On the
Website for IRIS
is a detailed calendar
of events as to
what these vendors will
be doing each of
those days. So, keep
this in mind and
as a - there's actually
two
committees. There's a smaller, I
guess, executive
committee for IRIS and a
larger oversight
committee that's
following the
process along. It's going
to be a
complicated process, but one that
will no doubt
help the - the University.
The other change
that we'll have will
take the - will be by way of
announcements
regarding current events
related to
but we're going
to progress with the
action items at
present, and the first
will be the presentation
of honorary
degree
candidates. I'd like to ask Dean
Blackwell to
come on up.
BLACKWELL: Thank
you. The nominating
committee for the honorary
degrees - the
committee on
honorary degrees is listed
here, and I'd
like to thank the committee
for their
service: Tom Robinson as chair
of this
committee, Judy Lesnaw, Sue
Roberts, Bob
Shay, Denise Jones, Mary Ann
Simms, the
trustee member, and ex officio
members, the
usual suspects, Lee Todd,
Mike Nietzel,
Wendy Baldwin, Terry Mobley
and me. And many of the ex officios
actually participated
in the nomination
process actively
this year, and so we
have some
interesting candidates to put
forward. These candidates include: Dr.
John D. Baxter who is
professor of
Medicine in
Biochemistry and Biophysics
at the
Francisco. He is a
native, has a BA
in chemistry from 1962
here at the
some highlights
from his career: An MD
from
active in
endocrine studies and a whole
range of genetic
studies. Including, in
1979, cloning
the gene for the human
growth
hormone. He is a member of
Hall of
Distinguished Alumni, that, in
1980. He is the founder and editor in
chief of the Journal
DNA. He has been
elected into
both the
Science and the
And he was
president of the International
Endocrine
Society from 2001 to 2003. He
is also the
director of the Metabolic
Research Unit at
UC, San Francisco, and
was
- served a long term as the Chief of
the Division of
Endocrinology there.
He's won
many - many national awards for
his
research. And for his contribution
to science,
industry, and public health,
Dr. Baxter is
recommended for an Honorary
Degree of
Science -- Honorary Doctor of
Science
Degree.
Our
second proposed nominee is
James W.
Stuckert whom many of you may
know. He is the chairman and chief
executive
officer of Hilliard Lyons and
is a 19 - a
native. Mr. Stuckert graduated from
in 1960 with a BS
in Mechanical
Engineering and
went on to earn his MBA
from
into - went to work with
W.L. Lyons &
Company and has served the
capacities. He is a past president of
the UK Alumni
Association, the past chair
of the
Association's
Distinguished Service Award
is one of the many awards
that he counts
as his own, and
he, too, is a member of
the
He's in the
Alumni Hall of Fame of both
business and
economics and engineering
and something
for which we can be very
grateful sitting
in this room right now,
he chaired the
Corporate and Foundation
Committee for
the campaign for the
W.T. Young
Library. And he is currently
the chair of
The
third nominee is George W.
Wright - George C. Wright, excuse me.
George Carlton
Wright is currently the
president of
And this is the
apex of a long and
distinguished
career as a professor and
college
administrator. He is a
his BA in
history here at the University
of
served here as
an assistant professor of
history from
1977 to 1980. But after
1980, he
continued on in his
award-winning
research in Post Civil War
Black History,
particularly black history
in
documentaries,
"Don't Let the Sun Go Down"
and "Upon This Rock, The
director of
African-American Studies at
both
University of
vice provost at
voted into the
Best Professor Hall of
Fame at the
and served as
executive vice president
and provost at
the
part of the
College of Arts and Sciences,
the nominations
approved by Graduate
Faculty for your
consideration are Dr.
John D. Baxter,
the Honorary Doctor of
Science; James
W. Stuckert, Honorary
Doctor of
Letters; and Dr. George C.
Wright, Honorary
Doctor of Letters.
Thank you.
CHAIR DEMBO: Thank you,
Jeannine. Stay up
here in case any
questions.
BLACKWELL:
Okay.
CHAIR DEMBO: The item is
on the agenda
because the
Senate Council voted to send
it forward
without a recommendation
either way. State law prevents us from
closing the
meeting. So I'd like to
impose on your
good honor to not divulge
the names of any
of these candidates
because it's not
official until the Board
of Trustees
formally approves them. Are
there any questions
about any of the
candidates? Professor Tagavi.
TAGAVI: Could you
mention why we did
not
give a recommendation?
CHAIR DEMBO: I'm sorry?
TAGAVI: Could you
mention why the
Senate Council
did not give a
recommendation
either way?
CHAIR DEMBO: The Senate
Council did not give
a recommendation
because the names were
not available to
the Senate Council.
TAGAVI: Thank
you. (AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
BLACKWELL:
This is very hush-hush.
CHAIR DEMBO: Professor
Jones.
JONES: Just a question. Dr. Stuckert
is currently the
chair of the Capital
Campaign, the UK
Capital Campaign; is
that - is -
is that a reason to be -
to give him this
honorary degree? Is
that one of the
listings of merit?
BLACKWELL: It
was just one of the
highlights that
I pulled out of, you
know, more than
25 years of service to
the
president and so
forth. So, it wasn't
one that
particularly singled him out.
CHAIR DEMBO: Any other
questions for Dean
Blackwell? Okay, yes.
KERN: It seems
obvious but why - why
are there no
women nominated this year?
SCOTT: I'm sorry,
name, please.
KERN: Oh, Kathy
Kern, Arts and
Sciences.
SCOTT: Thank you.
BLACKWELL: We
actually approached several
candidates who
either did not respond or
were not
available on commencement day,
because now under the rules,
they have to
be present at
commencement, and that very
often is their
own commencement day, and
so it makes for
a conflict of times in
many cases.
CHAIR DEMBO: Other
questions? Okay. So all
in favor of
these three nominees, please
signify by
saying aye.
AUDIENCE:
Aye.
CHAIR DEMBO: Any
opposed? Any abstentions?
Thank you. The -
the next agenda item
also relates to
the graduate school.
This is a
proposal to change the Senate
Rule that
relates to the graduate record
examination. This is the current Senate
Rule as it - as it reads. The GRE is
required. The rule may be waived in
individual cases
upon the recommendation
of the DGS. However, the GRE scores must
be submitted
before the end of the first
semester in case
they are waived. Dean
Kalika, during
his time at the graduate
school, had put
together a subcommittee
of the Graduate
Council to look at
recommending a
change to this Senate
Rule. The proposal was approved by the
Graduate Council
in March of '03. There
was an open
forum held of the Graduate
Faculty of the
followed by a
Web balloting, and this was
the - the result of that vote. In
December, this
was approved by the
Senate's Committee on Admissions
and
Academic
Standards, and on January 26th,
approved by the
Senate Council with some
modifications
that I'll point out to you.
So, it's on the
floor now as an agenda
item for
discussion. The - the writing
that's in pink
are the words that were
added by the
Senate Council, and the one
word in yellow
was the one that was
recommended for
deletion by the Senate
Council. So, before we
- we go any
further,
Jeannine, are there any other
comments from
the graduate school
regarding this
proposed change?
BLACKWELL:
None.
CHAIR DEMBO: Okay. And Professor Ferrier,
from your
committee that also reviewed
this, any
comments?
FERRIER: No.
CHAIR DEMBO: Okay. Any comments from the
Senate Council,
then?
SPEAKER: I'm
speechless.
CHAIR DEMBO: How about
questions from
attendees?
GROSSMAN:
Bob Grossman, Chemistry. I was
on the original
Graduate Council
Committee that
came up with this. I was
just curious why
the Senate Council
decided to
remove the dean's level of
approval of a
program before it goes to
the Graduate
Council. Because by this
wording, the
dean of the college in which
the program
resides may approve or
disapprove, but either
way, just sends
the proposal on
up.
CHAIR DEMBO: So, any
Senate Council members
who would like
to respond? Professor
Jones.
JONES: Yeah. This -
this is a matter
of educational
policy not management.
It's the faculty
bodies that approve
this. The dean is the chair of the
group, and
they're - they're
transmitting
interface to the next higher
level in this
context.
GROSSMAN:
Okay. Good enough.
CHAIR DEMBO: So, then it
must go to the dean
because the dean
is chair of the Graduate
Council but it's
in that capacity that
it's transmitted
to the dean. Other
questions or
comments about this proposed
change to the
Senate Rule? Yes.
DEEM: Jody Deem,
Sciences. I'm just presuming that the -
the period after
the first sentence: The
graduate program
faculty may petition for
another exam,
MCAT, LSAT or so forth.
That - then the period. The next
sentence means then: A graduate program
faculty may also
petition the Graduate
Council to
exempt its applicants from the
GRE. It also then means from every other
standardized
test; is that correct?
BLACKWELL:
Yes.
CHAIR DEMBO: Dean
Blackwell.
BLACKWELL:
Yes, that's what that means. A
program - this
- we're calling this
the Opt Out or
Opt Out Mode, and that is
a graduate program faculty
can petition.
And the way that
we envision this
happening is
that it comes as a petition
to Graduate
Council that that program
will either not
require any standardized
test whatsoever,
or require a replacement
test, or an
option of tests. For
example, a program
could say: Our
program will
accept the GRE and the MCAT,
for
example. Or they can say: We will
require the
MCAT, period. Or they can
have no
standardized test requirement.
But that has to
be a program decision.
It's not a
case-by-case student decision.
It goes into the
bulletin, and it's your
official
admission's policy. We'll
enforce it, the
graduate school.
CHAIR DEMBO: Jody, did
that help?
DEEM: Yes. Thank you very much.
CHAIR DEMBO: Other
questions. Okay. So, if
this were to
result in a positive - yes.
Oh, I'm sorry.
ALBISETTI: Could you give - Jim
Albisetti, Arts
and Sciences. Could you
give us a little
background as to what
programs were
interested in doing this?
I - I have no reason to vote for it
because I - my program certainly wants
GREs and will
keep them.
BLACKWELL: I
think several in - in the
Advanced
Sciences and Engineering - is
that right? Yeah.
- were interested in
mechanical engineering, for
example, for
those programs.
GROSSMAN:
Oh, I - I can also address
that a little
bit. There - there
were - most programs felt that the GRE,
while not a be
all and end all of
admissions, was
a useful measure. But
there were some
programs they felt very
strongly that
the GRE was - was not
useful for their
program. For example,
there was an
architecture program, I
believe, that
felt that many of its
applicants were
professionals who had
been practicing
many years already, and
it was sort of insulting
to ask them to
take the GRE
before they enrolled in a
program. And another example was, there
was one program
that had a lot of people
from overseas, and - and it was both a
financial burden
on their applicants to
take it, and
they tended to do worse
than - than their later performance
would indicate
they should have done
because they
weren't used to these
typical
tests. So, it just wasn't a good
predictor of
their performance in
graduate
school. And these were the
types of
programs where we said, you
know, they felt
strongly that they had
other measures
that would predict the
success of
students, and the GRE wasn't
useful for
them. At the same time, we
didn't want to just have a
free-for-all
where everyone
could just get rid of -
where everyone
had the option to have the
GRE or not. So, we decided to have this
opt-out
mechanism.
BLACKWELL:
And so that means if your
program does not
formally petition
Graduate
Council, you still have a GRE
requirement.
CHAIR DEMBO: Is there a
question?
PEFFER: Sean Peffer,
Business. Does
that mean that
if you're not using GRE
right now, like
some of the business
programs are not
using it, they're using
the GMAT, that
they're going to have to
go back and even
though they're doing
GMAT right now
and not doing GRE, they're
going to have to
go back and petition
before they can do what
they've already
been doing? I just don't know the rest
of the wording
of this.
BLACKWELL:
We - to -- to confirm the
status quo,
we'll probably have, you
know, a group
blessing, if that's the
will of those
programs. We'll probably
group them
together at the first Graduate
Council meeting
should this measure pass
and just fix it
all at once for those
programs that are
just maintaining status
quo.
CHAIR DEMBO: Any other
questions? So, all
in
favor of this proposed
edition to Senate
Rule 4.2.5
signify by saying aye.
AUDIENCE:
Aye.
CHAIR DEMBO: Any
opposed? Any abstentions?
Okay. This will be sent to the Rules
Committee for
codification and inclusion
in the Senate
Rules.
The
next action item on the
Agenda is an
addition to the Senate
Rules. That will be a new section
4.2.2.14. It follows a number other
subsections of
similar natures where the
individual
colleges outline what their
admission
requirements are. Let me skip
ahead here for a
second. In April, the
University Senate
came up with this
recommendation
that the Senate Rules
should be
amended to state that all
proposals to
create or change admission
requirements
must provide a detailed
rationale for
each criterion, and we
should not limit
enrollments solely by
the grade point
average. So, that sets
the stage of --
in - in the light -
the light in
which you should consider
this proposal. The rule is to create
some new
admission requirements at the
Arts
Administration Program: students at
UK, 45-semester
hours, 2.8 minimum cum,
premajor core
requirements. And the
program's
rationale was that - hang on
- the Arts
Administration Program began
in '88 with 30
students. It's now
tripled. They have two faculty, one full
time and tenured
and one full-time
adjunct and
several part-time faculty.
And with this
increasing number of
majors, it
challenges their ability to
provide the
quality of instruction. And
the average ratio of students in a
major
to faculty at UK
is 20 to 1. And in Arts
Administration,
they say it's over double
that number, and
they also have other
activities that
require supervision by
faculty. So, the Senate Council has
recommended
approval of this. It's on
the floor for
discussion. First, are
there any
members from Fine Arts
Administration
that are here or would
like to talk to
this?
BRAUN: No, I think
it speaks for
itself.
SCOTT: State your
name, please.
BRAUN: Michael
Braun.
CHAIR DEMBO: This was also reviewed by
Professor
Ferrier and the Academic - the
Admissions and
Academic Standards
Committee. Wally, what do you got to say
about it?
NOONAN: Could you
put the proposal back
on?
CHAIR DEMBO: There are
two pages to this.
This page
(INDICATING) and then this
below.
FERRIER: We were
aware of the
contentiousness
of this in past endeavors
by college
communications and other
units, and
initially tabled this until we
digested more
fully what -- that Bill
Fortune's Task
Force actually has
recommended
before finalizing this. But
we - we were unanimously in favor of it.
CHAIR DEMBO: Open for
discussion. Dean
Hoch.
HOCH: I've got a
number of questions.
First, how many
do you anticipate
accepting into
the program and - because
you said it grew
from 30 to 90, but it's
unclear sort of
what the target
enrollment
is. But I'm also very
concerned as to,
let's say
hypothetically,
they plan to take in 45
students. Where are the other 45
students
supposed to go and how are they
going to be
managed? I mean, I'm always
concerned just
out of narrow self
interest from
our college that anytime a
college slaps on
an enrollment cap,
although it may not necessarily
be in
this case, that
the students wind up in
Arts and
Sciences, and therefore it's
just an unfunded
mandate. Now, if they
want to reduce
their enrollment in the
program from 90
to 45, and we do a study
and suspect
that, well, 30 of these will
wind up in
Communications and 15 wind up
in Arts and
Sciences, that's fine, but
the resources
need to flow with that
because somebody has to
educate these
students that
they've just put the cap
on. Now, it may be they all stay in this
college. I don't know.
But I think we
need to look at
that before we approve it
because this
does have substantial
financial cost
and financial
implications.
CHAIR DEMBO: It has a
broad response.
BRAUN: Well, in
looking at the number
of students, it
probably would reduce it
by about 15 to
20 students out of the 90.
And let me say
this: I'm all for the
resources
flowing into the programs, but
I mean, I have less money in
this program
in terms of
resources, you know, to run
it than I did
when I got here nine years
ago. So, you know, some of it has to -
you know, the
issue of it is a popular
program. I've got a lot of students who
want to get into
it, and there is a
quality issue at
a certain point where
how many
students can you handle, and we
just feel like
we've reached it at this
point.
CHAIR DEMBO: A response
to that? Dean Hoch.
HOCH: I think
everybody's in the same
situation, and I
sympathize with you, and
I suspect in this case most
aren't going
to come to Arts
and Sciences, but they
will go
somewhere. And I think in cases
where we do put
caps on college fund
programs or on
colleges, we need to do
the best we can
to try to figure out
where they're
going. I mean, I'm in a
situation where,
you know, Engineering
has caps,
B&E has caps. You've got a
cap? He's got caps. We don't have any
caps. We're the repository. I mean,
every student we
admit to this
University, we
have an obligation to
educate
them. If you don't want to
educate them in your program,
they wind
up in somebody
else's. And we need to
figure out
before we make - we recruit
things like
that, the best we can, where
they're going to
go because those costs
go
somewhere. Okay. All this motion
does is
reallocate resources within the
University. That's all the motion does.
It may improve
the quality of your
program, but
also sends resources going
other directions,
in this case
liabilities,
students that are unfunded.
And I'm not - I'm very uncomfortable
with, you know,
supporting something like
this without knowing what the
broader
implications
are. I know what the
implications
will be for your program.
They'll be
beneficial. But there are
other programs
out there that may suffer,
and we have to
try to understand that.
CHAIR DEMBO: Professor
Grossman.
GROSSMAN:
Well, I - I would double what
Dean Hoch would
say. I also want to know
when this is
going to end. I mean the
college - we have -- B&E has admissions
standards higher
than the University as a
whole. We have
- Engineering does.
Now,
Communications does. I was far more
concerned about
Communications than this
particular
program because this is one
program in
a - in a larger college, and
frankly, it's a fairly small
college.
But
nevertheless, where is this going to
end? Is every college at this University
going to have
admission standards higher
than the
admission standards of the
University as a
whole? Should we force
people to drop
out if they don't meet a
certain standard
after they've been here
one or two
years? Maybe, that is an
option, but
what's going to happen is
that the default
colleges, A&S and
Agriculture, are
going to be burdened
with all the
students that the other
colleges don't
want. And this is - this
is a problem that can't be solved by
piecemeal limits
on enrollment in
different
colleges. What it does, again,
is it
places - it means that the poorer
students all get
excluded from increasing
more and more
colleges, and end up in
just a few - the few that haven't yet
imposed extra
admissions requirements.
CHAIR DEMBO: And as a
partial answer to your
question: Where will
- will it all end?
It possibly will
end with this because
from what I see
in the rest of 4.2.2,
just about every
other college has their
own admissions
requirements.
GROSSMAN: Well A&S
doesn't. Maybe, we
should. I mean, we're facing the same
problems that
every other college is
facing in terms
of increasing enrollment
and decreasing
faculty.
CHAIR DEMBO: Any other
comments? Professor
Braun.
BRAUN: Well, I
would want to point out
that this
proposal was submitted two
years ago when
the first time we went
around and took
a look - I -- I think it
was when
Communications had suspended
there, and had
to be tabled at that time
because there
was a Task Force that was
put together, that it
came up with
recommendations
in regards to selective
admissions. Okay.
And they came up with
recommendations
that said, well, we are
going to allow
selected admissions to
continue. There were some caveats put on
it saying it
couldn't just be GPA and
that sort of
thing. And so, okay, I
waited for that
Task Force to be over.
Now, it's
over. I'm resubmitting the
proposal. I share your concerns with the
allocations of
resources, but if we're
going to take a
look at that again, I
would put
forth: Look at this, this is
the second time I put it
forward. Let's
move on with
this, and then let's -
let's move on to
looking into the whole
issue that - that other people have
raised which I
also have concerns about.
CHAIR DEMBO: Professor
Gesund.
GESUND: It's Gesund,
Engineering. I
believe we have
two different problems
here. One is the allocation of
resources, and I
sympathize with you -
with both of
you, and I believe the
allocation of
resources has to be done by
the provost and
president among colleges.
They're the only
ones who can do this,
and I assume they're doing the
best they
can with very
limited resources. The
other thing - the other question of
admissions
requirement speaks to the
probability that
a given student will
successfully
complete the degree. In
Engineering, our
admissions requirements
are based on
that requirement that we
assure that the
vast majority of students
that we admit to
Engineering standing at
the end of the
first three or four
semesters in
school, that those students
will have a good
chance of finishing and
getting their
degrees. We are not so
concerned with limiting
enrollment. We
are concerned
with the ability of the
students to
complete the courses of
study, and
that's why Engineering
primarily has
this requirement. So, I
think we have
two different models or
modes here, and
the ones where the
problem is lack
of resources, I believe
that problem
must be addressed at a
higher level,
and is really not a concern
of the
Senate. The problem of ability to
graduate the
students in a reasonable
time with their
degrees, that is our
problem here in
the Senate. That's an
academic problem,
and we must address it
as best we
can. And I think in this
particular case,
I have seen nothing that
says that this
is a quality control
problem to make sure the students
you
accept will
graduate. So, I - my own
feeling is this
problem is not one that
we here can
solve. That has to be solved
at the provost
level.
CHAIR DEMBO: Professor
Albisetti.
ALBISETTI: I
was simply going to ask where
the Dean of Fine
Arts is in this in
reallocating
resources in his college if
there's a major
disgruntle, and why is
this a matter
for enrollment cap rather
than faculty
provision?
CHAIR DEMBO: I don't
think Dean Shay is here
to answer
that. Provost Nietzel, is
there any comment you wish to
make.
NIETZEL: I can make
two comments. We -
we will be
looking at a innovation in the
tuition rate for
students that would
assess an
upper-division fee on students,
and that is
designed to help address some
of this bubble
coming through - the
enrollment
growth bubble coming through
to the majors,
and would be available for
a summary
allocation to help address
shortages in the
major. The issue of
these increasing
enrollments ultimately
is one that has
to be looked at in terms
of the selective
admission requirements.
I'll show you data later
that'll indicate
we're continuing
to accept the same
percentage of
students who've applied to
the University
fairly steadily over the
past few
years. The vast majority of
those students
are admitted automatically
because they
meet the University's
selective
admissions requirements.
There's not a
choke-off at this point
that we could
apply to those except if
the Senate wanted
to consider a higher
set of scores in
terms of selective
admissions.
CHAIR DEMBO: Other
questions or comments
about this proposed
rule? Michael.
BRAUN: I'm just
going to go, you know,
send out one
more, I guess, message in
that this is
legally in keeping with what
Communications and
Businesses have done
in the
past. And if we're going to
start, you know,
paring back, you know,
these issues of
selective admission, then
fine, then let's
start doing across the
University. I followed all the rules,
all of the
procedures that are in place
in terms of
putting this proposal
forward. And, I guess, I think the
question I would
have is just, I mean, I
can frame this in terms of
students being
able to get
through my program because
they have real
difficulty getting through
the program if
they don't have the kinds
of resources
that are necessary to
oversee their
movement through the
program. And right now we're getting to
the point where
that just is not the
case. And I think it's a fair way of
dealing with the
issue. You know, we're
talking about,
as I was saying, 15 to 20
students
perhaps. It's a very small
program. I guess, I would just request
that if there
are these broader issues
that we're going to be taking a
look at,
that we frame
them so that we go forward
and look at them
in a fair way, but this
was put forward
under the rules that are
in place at that
time, and them along the
lines that many
other programs and
colleges within
the University have -
have done in the
past.
CHAIR DEMBO: Okay. Comment.
Professor
Debski.
DEBSKI: I just - it's a question, I
just - I think a lot of people would
like to know
whether specifically the
people who have
the grade point average
under 2.8 are less
likely to do well
in - in this program than others who
have above that
grade point average.
BRAUN: Well,
certainly grade point
average is an indicator as to
whether
they're going to
do well in the program.
But on the other
hand, there are five
introductory
courses that they have to go
through and get
a 3.0. Those are a much
better indicator
because then we have,
you know, at
least in two of them, direct
contact with the
students, and we can
measure their
abilities at that time.
So, it's a
combination of overall 2.8 --
DEBSKI: I mean, do you actually have
numbers
associated with that - any of
that quality of
assessment?
BRAUN: Okay. In - in
terms of which
part?
DEBSKI: In - just in terms of how -
how good a
predictor this GPA is for the
overall success
in graduating in this
major?
BRAUN: I can't - I would have to say
it would be, you
know, my experience in
dealing with the
students.
CHAIR DEMBO: Okay. So, another comment.
Dean Hoch.
HOCH: Yes. Could you just go back
to what the Senate
Rules are? I mean,
the arguments
that I've heard here seem
to suggest that
we're doing this simply
for budgetary
purposes. We haven't heard
an argument that
the students who get a
2.8, 2.9, are
far less likely to succeed,
that
they're - that they're not
obtaining their
degree in a timely
manner. It seems to me they're simply
trying to limit
it for resource purposes,
and if we really
want to go down that
road, I mean,
you know, and I'm sorry the
fact that, you
know, other programs have
done it. Were I here at the time, I
would not have been
sympathetic to those
either. But I think these are resources
who I was very
surprised to hear the
comment that the
Senate doesn't deal with
issues of
resource allocation since the
person who spoke
spoke so eloquently in
times about the
resource allocation
involving changes in
retirements and
benefit. So, we do speak quite directly
to resource
issues here, all the time.
This is a small
one, but it's not an
insignificant
one when you keep adding
them up time
after time after time.
CHAIR DEMBO: Wally, as
chair of the Senate
Commission - Committee on Admissions and
Academic
Standards, was this one of the
issues that you
looked at whether their
request was in compliance
with the
Senate's
recommendation?
FERRIER: It was one
of the things we
looked very
closely at, and academic
integrity up
there in the Senate Rule can
mean a lot of
different things. There's
quite of bit of
definitional conceptual
wiggle room
there. Enrollment ratios,
resources
are - are certainly all
drivers of
academic integrity and
quality.
CHAIR DEMBO: Okay.
Without any other
comments, we'll
bring this to a vote.
We'll do it by a
hand vote, and this is a
vote to
implement the new Rule 4.2.2.14
from the College
of Fine Arts. All in
favor, please
raise your hand. Okay.
All opposed,
please raise your hand.
Ms. Sohner.
SOHNER: I have to
count them again.
I'm sorry.
CHAIR DEMBO: Okay.
SOHNER: 12.
CHAIR DEMBO: Okay. All in favor again,
please raise
your hand so we can document
it for the
record.
SOHNER: 44.
CHAIR DEMBO: Okay.
So, the vote was 44
to --
SOHNER: 12.
CHAIR DEMBO: Okay. So, the motion passes.
GROSSMAN:
Jeff, I would like to propose a
new motion after
that one passed. May I
do so?
CHAIR DEMBO: Is it a new
agenda item or new
action item?
GROSSMAN:
It's related - it's related to
much of the
discussion that we've just
had. It's a proposal that the
committee - that a committee revisit an
issue. So, it's not something for us to
vote on,
but - but I - I would like
the committee, Wally's
committee, to
revisit this
issue of selected admissions
for all the
colleges and to look at -
specifically at
the effect that some -
the restricting
admission some colleges
have on other
colleges, so that we can
look at this
overall resource issue in
relation to
enrollment and, maybe, come
up with some
sort of formula that will
address these
issues as a whole to the
satisfaction or
lack of satisfaction of
everyone, reduce
the - the imbalances
inherited,
addressing these things in a
piecemeal
fashion.
CHAIR DEMBO: Okay. So, I think since the
Senate Council
was present to hear the
discussion both
pro and con, why don't we
discuss it at
our next Senate Council
meeting to see
what the specific charge
might be to the
committee. Is that
acceptable, Bob?
GROSSMAN:
Yes.
CHAIR DEMBO: Okay.
TAGAVI: May I make a
parliamentary
inquiry?
CHAIR DEMBO: Yes.
TAGAVI: This is somewhat related to
Professor Blyton
last time saying if an
action item
is - if an item is not on
the Agenda, we
cannot vote. I'd just
like to know according to
what rule? Is
it Robert's
Rules of Order or Senate
Rule? How was that ruling made by
Professor
Blyton? May I inquire?
CHAIR DEMBO: For this --
BLYTON: I would say
Robert's.
TAGAVI: Robert's
Rules of Order?
BLYTON: Yes.
TAGAVI: Okay.
GROSSMAN:
It's not a motion. I would
just like --
BLYTON: He hasn't
made - he hasn't
presented the
motion.
CHAIR DEMBO: I think the
Senate Council has
heard the sense
of -- of what you are
asking about.
What I'd like to
do at this
point is to go
to the section about
announcements. I received an
e-mail as
chair of the
Senate Council from Steve
Reed, chair of
the Board of Trustees who
was specifically
asking whether or not
the Senate
Council has weighed in on the
matter regarding
LCC. He writes that:
Often the
correct answer to a difficult
question may be
unclear, thus, we cannot
guarantee we'll
make the right choice
here. However, it must not be said that
we didn't follow
their correct process in
our efforts to
reach that decision.
Along these lines, has the
Senate Council
voiced an
opinion? If so, what is it?
If not, I'm
concerned because in no way
would I want to
create the perception
that your
opinion does not matter because
it does. Perhaps more important is that
you have been
given the opportunity to
voice an opinion
regardless of what it
is.
Before we get into some
discussion here,
and again, this is not a
formal agenda item,
it's a discussion,
accept my
apologies for not sending out
an advance
e-mail to all members of the
Senate. It went to select members of the
Senate and not
to everybody, and that's
an oversight on
my part. In response to
Steve's inquiry,
the Senate Council, in
fact, considered the matter
but didn't
weigh in with a
specific opinion. And if
there are
opposing viewpoints, I'm happy
to entertain
those. At the request of
Provost Nietzel
and Executive Vice
President Dick
Siemer, we met and
discussed
LCC. And out of that meeting
came, among
other things, a concern about
a resolution
that KCTCS had put forward
that would, in
essence, cause the
transfer of - of everything from LCC and
UK to
KCTCS. And there was a lot of
concern on the
part of Senate Council
members and of
staff Senate members as
well. And that resulted in a letter
being drafted
and sent from both the
Staff Senate and
the University Senate
expressing
concern about that KCTCS
resolution. Another piece of background
is that the way
the timing was originally
presented to us
was that there would not
be an adequate
opportunity for the Senate
to weigh in, and
that's because the Task
Force
recommendations came out in
December. The first meeting of the
Senate was due
to be February 9th. And
from everything
we have been told, it was
likely that the
Board of Trustees would
consider making
their final decision at a
January
meeting. At least that seemed to
be the most
likely alternative. Since
that time, much
has happened, I think.
Probably
the - the most immediately
significant item
is that the Academic
Affairs Committee
of the Board this
morning voted on
a resolution that would
transfer LCC to
KCTCS. There were a
number of
amendments that were made to
that resolution, and I can call on
our
trustee
Professor Kennedy in just a
second. He's on the Academic Affairs
Committee. Also, since that time, the
Senate Council
last week had an open
meeting - all of our meetings are
open --
regarding LCC. And in attendance
were chair of
the Academic Affairs
Committee Alice
Sparks, as well as
Barbara Young,
as well as Professor
Kennedy and
other trustee, Davy Jones.
Where there were
some - it was much
discussion about
all sides of the issue.
That's just my
perception. Some very
passionate perspectives were
presented,
and so at this
stage, I believe, that
Chair Reed knows
that the Senate, per se,
has not weighed
in on this issue. So,
what I'd like to
do is to open the floor
to
discussion. I'd like to limit this to
no more than
half an hour, because,
again, likely
there will be many
different
viewpoints brought up. But to
get a sense of
the Senate as to how we
should respond to
Chair Reed's statement
and
request. Professor Gesund.
GESUND: All
right. I'll start the --
I'll start the
discussion. My own
feeling is that as a
faculty member for
many years is
that the faculty of LCC
should be the
ones who decide their own
fate. And I would say we should go along
with whatever
the faculty at LCC wants.
And I think that
is the correct way for a
university or a
college to be governed.
And so I - I believe that the faculty of
LCC should
decide what is best for LCC
for its students
and faculty and staff,
and then we
should push very hard to have
whatever they
decide done.
CHAIR DEMBO: Michael
Kennedy, can I call on
you for a second
just to report what
amendments were
added to the resolution
at the Academic
Affairs Committee this
morning?
KENNEDY: Well, I
hesitate to read -
read all
this. The primary amendment -
well, there were
three or four. There
were a number of
whereases added to the
preamble of the
resolution. And as I
say, I sort of
hesitate to read through
all that.
CHAIR DEMBO: Would you
give us a sense of
the nature of
them.
KENNEDY: We wanted
to - we wanted to
reassure LCC
folk that the - that their
ties with the
University of Kentucky
would be
strongly maintained, and that
even though they
became a separate
autonomous
organization, institution,
that once that
happened, numerous
contracts
and - and - numerous
contracts could
be executed between LCC
and UK to allow
their students to use our
dormitories, athletic
facilities, the
transfer of
courses is already taken care
of, and so on
and so forth. There was an
amendment that
said that LCC adjuncts and
part-time
faculty would be paid at the
same rate they
had been paid. There was
some concern
because some community
college adjuncts
are paid at less than
the rate in
Lexington. There was an
amendment about
buildings guaranteeing
that at a minimum LCC would
retain use of
the buildings
for five years and also
that until and
unless another campus was
developed and
there was somewhere else
for them to go,
they would stay in their
present
quarters. Do you remember any
other
amendments?
SPEAKER: Those - those are the main
thrusts.
KENNEDY: Well, for
the next six years,
was it, LCC
students will - will get UK
diplomas.
CHAIR DEMBO: Yes.
STATEN: Ruth Staten,
College of
Nursing. I had read probably in the
newspaper, actually, some concern
about
what happened to
LCC faculty that was
different than
what happened to other
community
college faculty when this
transfer was
made before. Has there been
any resolution
of those concerns?
KENNEDY: I'm not sure
what the concerns
are, but my
understanding is that when
the transfer was
made in 1998, Community
College
faculty - UK - who were UK
employees at
that time, could stay under
the UK personnel
system or switch over to
the KCTCS
personnel system. And
apparently, some
still are under the UK
system. A large number have migrated to
the KCTCS
system. In terms of people
with tenure
retaining their tenure,
people on a
10-year track are to be
evaluated in the
same manner as when they
were employed.
STATEN: So, they
would have that
option, LCC
faculty will have that
option?
KENNEDY: LCC faculty
will have that
option. Well, one thing to understand is
that, where we are
now is the Academic
Affairs
Committee has made a
recommendation
to the Board which meets
tomorrow. The Board is actually making a
recommendation
to the legislature because
this requires an
amendment to House
Bill 1 which
established the move of the
community colleges except for
LCC. I
think that just
looking at the amendments
is sort of not
addressing the main issue,
and I could - I could read you something
about why I
believe the Academic Affairs
Committee voted
this morning to move LCC
to KCTCS, if you
want me to. That would
take about five
minutes.
CHAIR DEMBO: Well, why
don't we hang on a
second so we can
see what the Senate
feels it may need to get the sense
of the
Senate. I have a question to ask:
There's been
some discussion as to
whether or not
we truly understood what
SACS was
expecting us to do and in what
time frame. Most recently, there was a
telephone
conversation between President
Todd, President
Kerley, Provost Nietzel
and Michael
Kennedy, as a member of the
Academic Affairs
Committee with SACS.
And there have
been other ongoing
discussions that
have occurred. And at
today's Academic
Affairs Committee, Jim,
I thought I
heard the fact that SACS will
effect - will effect
- accept either
of those
options. It will accept any
option as long
as we're not doing what
we're doing now;
is that correct?
KERLEY: That is
correct. They are -
well, they - SACS doesn't really care
which way we
go. They
- they say stay
with UK,
separate accredited or go to
KCTCS. So, there's not a preference on
SACS. They have
- we are put on
probation for
one year, and the key issue
is the autonomy
with the University of
Kentucky. So, we must solve that dilemma
and be able to
answer back to SACS with
that. They -
we - we have been led to
believe from
SACS that - that there
really was a
very strict time line.
There is a time
line we need to report
back to
them. I'm in contact with them
on a daily,
weekly basis almost, telling
them, updating
them. But in our last
conversation
with them which was last
Friday with Dr.
Todd and Nietzel and
myself and - and Michael, the SACS
people said they
would give us time to
work it out if
we stayed with UK. So,
we're not - we're not totally boxed in.
We felt like we
were boxed in with that,
but I - I do believe that is - and I
respect Dr. Todd
that it's his wish for
LCC to - to not have that full autonomy
that's necessary
that's required by SACS.
So, that is - that is an issue, and we,
you know, we
have - we - we appreciate
the concessions
that were made this
morning by the Academic
Affairs
Committee, but I
still have concern on
the five-year
guarantee. That, to me, is
not sufficient,
that what happens after
five years with
8,700 students? Could be
10-12,000
students in a couple of years.
Those buildings
were built for LCC
specifically by
the legislature, so those
are a couple of
comments I would share
with you.
CHAIR DEMBO: Let me talk - Peggy, could I
call on you for
a second? The University
Senate had two
representatives on the
Task Force that
was to look at this issue
and, Peggy, you
were our Senate Council
member and a
senator. When the Task
Force came up
with this recommendation,
the wording was
something along the lines
of that while
the majority would have
preferred Option
One, that is LCC staying
with UK but
being autonomous, that
Option Three was
chosen. Can you go into
some more detail
about what the Task
Force sentiment
was?
SAUNIER: Peggy
Saunier from LCC. I
think it says in
the Task Force that we
looked at the
deadline that we thought
that the changes
had to be made by the
middle of
February in order to prepare
for a March
visit. We looked at the
complexity of
the kinds of changes that
would have to be
made for us to be
autonomous, and
these would be a number
of changes. It's not one or two things
to change. It's a lot of things to
change. And also, we looked at the risk
of not being
accredited. If - we've
been working on
this since November of
2000, and since our visit, we have
submitted
reports, and they've said, no,
that's not
enough. And then we submitted
another
report. They said, no, that's
not enough. And there was the question
of, if we do
something but not enough,
then we submit
another one, and they say,
no, that's not
enough and we're not
accredited. So, part of it was dealing
with the idea
that our strong preference
was we need to
maintain separate
accreditation. To maintain our
position
as a community
college, we need separate
accreditation. So...
SPEAKER: Can I --
CHIEF DEMBO: Becky.
WOMACK: Becky
Womack, LCC, UK Senator,
Undergraduate
Council, member of the SWAT
team that
generated the information which
then fed into
the Task Force process, and
I was also a
member of the Task Force.
So, I've
got - I also am not a person
who normally
stands up to speak. I
prefer write
it. I did co-write the
report that went
to Dr. Todd and the
Provost and to
the Council on
Postsecondary
Education two years ago
which detailed
all of the benefits of our
wonderful
symbiotic relationship in
working
together. So, I have several
perspectives
from which I speak, but I
just wanted to
support Peggy in what
she's saying
that at the time the Task
Force was appointed,
and I want to say
this with all
due respect in the best
possible way,
and I'm not likely to do
that, but at the
time that Task Force was
appointed, in a
sense it seemed that
because the Task
Force was appointed to
gradually deliberate
a decision on three
options, one of
which was very time
dependent, we
thought, it seemed almost
that the
appointing of a long - you
know, a longer process to
deliver a
decision on
December 31st narrowed the
options which
could legitimately be
considered. Is that fairly clear? So,
we heard the
clock ticking in the Task
Force
process. We - we -
and you
know, I -- I
sort of heard one of the
options, the one
of remaining separately
accredited and
affiliated with UK, kind
of gasping for
breath because that one
required the
greatest amount of work.
From our
understanding that SACS wanted a
report in
February for their
consideration by
the - an April visit to
our campus. That seemed to be the - the
option that was
losing its life, and yet
that was the
preferred option. So, I -
I can't speak
for everyone on the Task
Force. I wouldn't presume to do that,
but I know that
I heard a clock ticking
on one of those
options. And because
separate
accreditation is absolutely
necessary for a
community college to
fulfill its
mission, I think, you know,
that influenced
my thinking process as a
member of that
Task Force. And any other
member of the
Task Force from LCC
could - could comment individually on
that. Thank you.
CHAIR DEMBO: Other
questions regarding that
point?
KENNEDY: I think --
CHAIR DEMBO: Michael.
KENNEDY: - the
comment was made that
SACS doesn't
care what we do, and I think
that that's not
correct. SACS cares very
much what we
do. They've cared for three
years. We wouldn't be in this position
if SACS didn't
care. SACS has some
very, very
specific requirements for LCC
to stay a part
of UK but be autonomous.
And I've come to
the conclusion, and as
I've say, I've
got three or four
paragraphs that I can read
which would
tell you why I
came to the conclusion
that the option
that we've chosen, namely
to recommend LCC
become part of KCTSC,
and then forge
other alliances with UK,
is the only
viable one. It's not just
the timing
thing. It's a - it's a
matter of trying
to do two things which
do not seem to
be doable at the same
time: be autonomous and not be
autonomous. So, I would be glad to - to
go through this
logic if you want. But
so SACS does
very much care if - if we
choose one
course of action going to
KCTCS, they send one kind of
committee
called a
substantive change committee.
If we
attempt - continue to attempt to
satisfy them
that LCC is autonomous but
part of UK, they
send another kind of
committee called
a special committee, and
that committee
decides whether or not
LCC's
accreditation ends on June 30th.
So, there --
there's something good -
there's a big
risk here.
CHAIR DEMBO: Provost
Nietzel.
NIETZEL: I just
wanted to add one thing
about the
timing. I think what I heard
in the SACS'
phone call was that we would
have - they would give us extra time to
work through
whatever decision we made,
but they were
not interested in giving us
more time in
making a decision and
expected that to be
forthcoming. So,
there's - there's really a difference
here in terms of
either one of those
options will
take, as it did with KCTCS,
years to
implement. It's not a matter of
one or two, I
think, it's actually more
than that. But what I did hear very
clearly in that
phone call was that they
did need a
decision from us about which
direction we
were going, and that that,
in fact, was
probably past time. They
asked for it six
weeks prior to their
visit in the
spring.
CHAIR DEMBO: First of
all, is there anybody
else we haven't hear from
who has
questions about
what is presented up to
now?
YATES: I guess I'm
still confused.
Steve Yates,
Chemistry. I'm still
confused about
the real issues involved
here because I
realize there's great
unrest at LCC,
particulary among the
faculty, and I
certainly agree we need to
make sure that
the faculty are treated
well, whatever
the changes. But the
things that Mike
Kennedy keeps referring
to, I'd like to
hear those arguments
because at the
time LCC was not made a
part of KCTCS,
there was a lot of
suspicion as to why that was
true. Some
thought it was
an olive branch to a
former
president, a payoff, or whatever
you might call
it. And many people
wondered why
that wasn't the situation.
It made sense at
the time that all of the
community
colleges might be grouped
together. I'd like to hear the reasons
that Mike keeps
talking about because I
feel like we're
trying to discuss
something without
knowing what's really
the full story.
CHAIR DEMBO: And
that - that may be one of
the critical
points, Steve, because it
would take,
honestly speaking, at least a
two-hour Senate
meeting to present
everything the
Task Force had available
to it in terms
of appendixes, pros, and
cons of each of the
options, the nuances
of each. I -- I don't know if we have
the time at this
Senate meeting as a
discussion to do
that. But I hear what
you're saying
that that would be
something
important you'd need to know.
GROSSMAN: But we do have the five minutes
it would take
for Mike to read - Michael
to read that?
CHAIR DEMBO: Would that
be helpful then?
KENNEDY: This is an
e-mail that I sent
to the Senate
Council and the Academic
Affairs
Committee meeting, and I'll
excerpt it and
make this as short as
possible. I -
it's sort of like trying
to start off and
explain chemistry, you
know, I mean,
you really have no
background for
this, and so I hope this
will - this will enlighten you somewhat.
This related
to - I was reporting on the
phone call. The most
- the most
important
specific thing I learned was
that if the
decision was to move LCC to
KCTCS, that
would be a, quote, "major
change," quote, and LCC
would be visited
by a substantive
change committee, call
it Committee
X. Issues related to
autonomy would
go away, as would the
30 June
expiration of LCC accreditation.
That would be a
new ball game. However,
if we make
changes - if we make changes
to UK's
administrative structure to make
LCC autonomous
but still part of UK but
still separately
accredited -- you see
the problem --
then we would be visited
by the special
committee, call it
Committee Y, and
that was detailed in a
letter, 3 July
2003, from SACS that would
recommend to the 77-member
SACS
Commission on
Colleges whether sufficient
autonomy would
have been gained to
prevent ending
LCC accreditation. The
commission would
vote. There is a risk
there. The -
the Academic Affairs
Committee of the
Board of Trustees is
quite
disinclined to take that risk. I
did ask the
question: Suppose the LCC
president and
the UK president both
reported to the
current Board of
Trustees? The answer was in that case,
assuming all the
other SACS'
requirements,
which means separate this,
separate that, separate the
other,
separate legal
offices, separate
purchasing
offices, and so on and so
forth, that that
would constitute
autonomy. But then, of course, LCC
wouldn't be part
of UK. It would be -
it would be
competing with UK for
attention from
the same Board of
Trustees. It would fall to the Board of
Trustees to make
decisions about
buildings,
revenue allocations, fund
raising, and so
on. A long story short,
no matter how
much we try to finagle, if
UK and LCC are
part of the same
institution in
any significant sense SACS
will not be satisfied enough to
accredit
with
institutions separately. And if we
try and - decides
- LCC loses its
accreditation. So, I came away from
the
phone call
convinced A, that SACs was
somewhat
shortsighted and bound by
higher - I think the current situation
works quite well
and ought to be allowed.
And B, that the
only reasonable course of
action was to
recommend that LCC be
administratively
managed by KCTCS but
with strong ties
to UK where it mattered.
Physical
proximity, dorms,
transferability
of courses, dual
enrollments, access to
facilities, and so
on. I plan to propose amendments to the
February 10,
AACR 1 that will emphasis
this. And you have a copy of that. I
really do think
the issue has been looked
at in
detail. It wasn't just a time line
manner. Alice Sparks, Chair of ACC, has
twice come
before the Senate Council to
get input and
answer questions. If her
views and that
of the administration seem
bias, I think
it's because they have done
a fairly close
examination of the
situation and
come to the same conclusion
that I
have. That any other course of
action is not - is not just not feasible
for reasons of
time but not feasible,
period. The Senate Council did weigh in
on this
matter. I think they did a good
job in
enunciating concerns about the
transfer of
KCTCS. Its language was
incorporated
into AACR 1. I want to
include
additional language to recommend
that the UK
administration to coordinate
and cooperate
with LCC. Actions that may
well result in
even closer ties between
the two
institutions in important areas
than now
exist. So, that is basically my
thinking on the
matter. Yes.
CHAIR DEMBO: Mike.
CIBULL: Will LCC be
autonomous from
KCTCS? Will they have - I mean --
KENNEDY: Okay, right,
again, it's
Physics 101. What SACS wants to see in
an autonomous
institution is that it's
either a
freestanding institution or it's
part of a system. KCTCS is a system. It
has a board of
trustees. It has a
president.
CIBULL: We're not a
system?
KENNEDY: What?
CIBULL: This isn't a
system?
KENNEDY: UK is not a
system. It's -
it's an
institution, and it has in it
LCC, and that's
the problem. We - the
possibility - there would be the
possibility of
making a UK system which
would be
composed of the major, what we
now think of as, UK except for LCC,
the
research
institution, and LCC, each of
which would have
a president or a
chancellor, and
they would report to a
president, and
that president would
report to the
Board of Trustees. That's
a possibility,
but that puts a very large
institution and
a - and a fairly small
institution
together as a single system,
and it adds
another level of hierarchy.
SACS would go for
that.
CHAIR DEMBO: Professor
Durant.
DURANT: David
Durant. President
Kerley, could
you speak to - to - much
of the
discussion has been about the time
line and - and professions. Could you
speak to the
issue in terms of what when
we refer -- now
that the time line seems
relaxed,
what - what your sense is that
LCC prefers.
KERLEY: Very
clearly, our faculty,
staff,
students - we have an Advisory
Board at the
college, all of them have
passed
resolutions to strongly emphasize
to stay with UK,
simply put. It's a very
strong, strong
preference across the
board. We've done polls. I think 86, 87
percent of all
of the faculty staff that
responded to the poll,
and about 75
percent
responded, strongly preferred the
number one
option, stay with UK, simply
put. So again, I - I echo that a lot
because I have
to speak for our faculty,
staff, and
students, and I will continue
doing that. Clarification if I could,
Jeff, it was
mentioned that SACS doesn't
care. They really
- I'm - I'm talking
to them on a
regular basis, they don't
care which
option, but Mike and Mike are
both right that
they -- they want
specifics, and
it has to be - we have to
give them some
kind of answer. They --
this is a quote from
SACS: They must
have a
convincing course of action. We
must give them a
convincing course of
action, meaning,
specific time lines what
we want to do,
what - when we want to
accomplish
it. Things have changed a
little bit since
the Task Force. I think
Dr. Todd
mentioned that today at the
Academic Affairs
Committee meeting, and
it has changed a
little bit that SACS is
willing to give
us a - they didn't say
that
before. Now, they're saying they
are willing to
give us a little more time
if we give them
a convincing argument
that we want to stay with
the University
of Kentucky,
simply put. So, Dr. Todd
did mention
that. I have mentioned that.
There are things
that have changed a
little bit since
the Task Force made
their
recommendation.
KENNEDY: So, Cibull,
it would be fair to
say that LCC
is - is not in support of
the action that
was by the committee
today?
KERLEY: No. As a whole, we are not
across the
board. All of our different
groups at the
college, again, that I've
just mentioned
are - are fully against
it. Our students -- have 3,500 students
right now that
they've signed against
that
resolution. We are opposed to the
idea of just
having five years as far as
the use of land. Again, those buildings
were designed
for Lexington Community
College, and I
take issue with that. But
I think the
Academic Affairs Committee
has done a great
job trying to -
honestly trying
to dissect the
information, to
understand it. They've
also made
concessions to give our
students more
options, you know, when
we - if we were going to leave UK. So,
I do thank them for that. It's not an
easy decision,
Mike. And this is a
difficult
decision and should not be
easily made, in
my opinion.
CHAIR DEMBO: Professor Grossman.
GROSSMAN: I
have one question and one
comment. The -- the question is about
the KCTCS
resolution in terms of moving
and if LCC
decides to become part of
KCTCS,
everything and immediately is
under their system. Has there been any
change in their
position as this
discussion has
proceeded?
KERLEY: I think
other people have
talked to that.
SIEMER: Do you want
to answer, Mike, or
do you want to?
KENNEDY: Well, go
ahead and then I'll
see --
(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
SIEMER: We've
had - we've had lengthy
conversations
with Michael Cole, Ken
Walker, the
people over there. If you
read the
resolution, it says that's their
preference, not
their requirement, and -
and they've
agreed to - to actually make
the transfer
exactly as it was made
before with no
difference, and - and --
we don't see
that as an impediment at
all.
GROSSMAN:
The - the comment I had was
that it seems
like deja vu all over
again, in that a
lot of what you say is
exactly what was
said several years ago
when - when the community colleges were
separated from
UK, when the 14 out of the
15 community
colleges were separated from
UK and made part
of KCTCS. It's fear of
a change, fear
of the unknown. It
doesn't mean
it's going to be worse. In
most of the
community colleges, I think,
today are quite
happy being part of
KCTCS, even
though at the time, a lot of
them were very hesitant to
be separated
from UK. So, I wonder if - I -
I know
that you've said
they prefer the status
quo, but how
much of that do you, in your
opinion, maybe,
you're not just unwilling
to say or don't
have much of a sense, but
how much of that
is looking at KCTCS and
deciding: no, we don't want to be part
of them, or just
saying, well, we like it
the way we are?
KERLEY: You know --
if I can answer
that, I don't
think there's a fear with
our faculty
staff. They're pretty
outspoken, very
independent individuals.
They're not - they're not afraid of
anything, in my
opinion. I would not
hesitate to go
to battle or whatever with
them. They're
- they're not afraid.
They feel like, and
they - and I agree
with them that
there's high academics
since 1997. The fall of '97, we had
5,500
students. Now, we have 8,700
students. We have
- we've gone from
minority faculty
up, upward. Our - our
students, African-American
students have
gone from
300-and-some-odd students to
about 1,000
students distance learning
from almost 0 to
over 1,000. I could go
on and tell you all the - all the
-
the reasons we
should stay with UK.
Funding has not
done as well. That's a
negative
sign. We have not gotten a
building,
although we are in the
Governor's
budget now. We're excited
about that. So, there are a lot of
things that
haven't gone as well, but I
don't see any
fear on our part. I think
we could develop
a creative model with UK
and LCC. Again, there's no certain model
anywhere in the
country. There are a lot
of different
models and a lot of
different shapes
and colleges, and no one
says it has to
be with a university or a
community
college system or independent.
All those work
successfully in other
states across
the country.
CHAIR DEMBO: Gesund, and
then I'll say
something.
GESUND: I want to
call for a motion
that I hope will
gain the acceptance that
we back the
faculty, students, and staff
of KTC in
whatever they want - LCC.
Sorry. LCC, in whatever they have
decided they want,
their course of
action. They are the ones who are going
to have to live
with it. And I - I
think we ought
to be backing them.
CHAIR DEMBO: The best we
can do since it's
not an action
item on the Agenda, is to
get a sense of
the Senate. We could take
a straw
poll. The Senate may come up
with other
recommendations. One of the
governing
regulations says that the Board
of Trustees
relies on the President as
well as the University Senate for
recommendations
regarding changes in -
in academic
organizational structure, and
that's what this
represents. So, getting
back to Chair
Reed's question: How would
the Senate like
to weigh in on this?
SPEAKER: We just
heard - we just heard
a proposal.
CHAIR DEMBO: Okay. Steve.
YATES: I guess what
you're saying is
we should back
the preference of the
faculty and students
at LCC. The other
side of the coin
is to back the Board of
Trustees and the
President and the
faculty. That's the choice that's being
asked to make by
your resolution.
CHAIR DEMBO: Yes.
SPEAKER: Well, there
is no resolution.
CHAIR DEMBO: You can - we can take a straw
poll. You can instruct me.
BERGER: I have a
question.
CHAIR DEMBO: Uh-huh
(AFFIRMATIVE).
BERGER: From Mike Kennedy. I'm trying
to get a better
understanding of the
problem, and
maybe I'm a bit slow today.
Rolando Berger,
Medicine. But you said
it is not feasible, it is not
doable, and
I keep hearing
it through all the
postings and
e-mails that it cannot be
done to keep at
UK. Can you summarize in
three sentences
what is the unfeasible
obstacle? I can't
- there are part.
What -- what is
the thing that cannot be
done that makes
it impossible to keep LCC
at UK but
autonomous? I mean, there may
be an obstacle,
but I'm just not seeing
it. What is -- what is unfeasible?
KENNEDY: What is not
feasible is to
keep LCC as part
of UK as things are now.
LCC would have
to change - LCC would
have to change so much,
and UK would have
to change so
much to accommodate this --
BERGER: But Mike --
KENNEDY: -- that it's
not feasible.
BERGER: -- what
things need to be
changed?
KENNEDY: I could give
you - so...
CHAIR DEMBO: Jim, I
wonder --
KERLEY: I'm sorry.
CHAIR DEMBO: -- to make
it fair since we
talked
about - are there any LCC
senators who
would like to respond to
Professor Berger's
question.
HARDWICK:
Don Hardwick from LCC. Talk
about how hard
all this is, we have two
models. President Kerley has talked
about both
college in Arkansas and LSU,
if I'm not
mistaken. And would you
tell - would you mind, Dr. Kerley,
explaining the
model that we try to
follow, that it
doesn't seem to be so
hard from - of course, I'm sitting here
saying that, but
it's possible.
CHAIR DEMBO: Rolando,
would that answer your
question?
BERGER: I don't
know. I haven't heard
the answer.
(AUDIENCE
LAUGHS)
NOONAN: Let him tell
about that.
CHAIR DEMBO: Go ahead.
KERLEY: I - I can give you an example.
The University
of Arkansas and Hope, I've
talked to them
several times. James
Taylor, not the
famous James Taylor, but
he's the
Chancellor of the Hope Community
College. And I said, James, tell me -
tell me how it's
going at your college
and what is your
relationship with the
University
President? He said very open,
very supportive,
the President's very
supportive to
the community college
mission. He lets me go to the
legislature to
lobby for buildings.
He - we have our own Faculty Senate.
That's the
difference. We have our own
private
foundation to raise money. We -
we are able to
do our own contracts.
Sometimes with
the University, sometimes
outside of the
University. Those are a
couple of key
things. Our budget is -
we - we answer to the Board of Trustees.
The - the head of the community college
is on the
Cabinet of the University
President. They answer to the Board of
Trustees on all
curriculum items and any
agenda items in front
of the Board of
Trustees. It's the head of the community
college
answering, but the relationship
with the head of
the community college
and the
Chancellor is very open, very
supportive. New buildings would not be
in competition
with University buildings.
It's - it's presented separately to the
Arkansas
Legislature. So, the answers -
the answer is it
can be done. It is
complicated, but
it can be done. SACS is
willing to work
with us on that. There
are some risks,
as other individuals have
mentioned. There are some risks with
that. They might not accept the whole
thing, but - but I think if we had,
again, a firm
commitment from the Board
and the
Administration, I think it can be
done. That's the answer. And that's
recent
information, even since the Task
Force that has
sort of changed a little
bit - even my opinion somewhat. Does
that help?
BERGER: Yeah. You told me it can be
done. Could I hear from somebody who
says it can't be
done?
KERLEY: I - I personally don't like
the word
"can't." I mean, can't is not
the - I think
- I think it can be done
if there's a
will - if there's a will
for it to be
done.
BERGER: Well, I know
you think it can
be done.
KERLEY: Yes.
BERGER: Anybody who
thinks it cannot be
done, we would
be nice to hear why they
think it cannot
be done.
KENNEDY: Well, that
is not just a
community
college and a major university.
There is a state
system in Arkansas that
is comprised of
seven or eight
institutions,
one of which is community
college, and
they all report to a
president of
that system, who reports to
the board, as I understand it.
KERLEY: Well, we
have the University of
Arkansas
system. They have an Arkansas
State. There's several different ones.
The University
of Arkansas has the
community
college as well as some
regional
four-year colleges, but there -
it's not just
one system in Arkansas.
CHAIR DEMBO: Tagavi and
then Ernie.
TAGAVI: Chancellor
Kerley, I'm sorry,
President Kerley,
I - did I hear you
correctly that
the Chancellor of Hope
reports to the
President of whatever
university?
KERLEY: Oh, the
University of Arkansas,
right.
TAGAVI: Is that
acceptable to you or to
LCC if you --
KERLEY: Yes.
TAGAVI: - become autonomous but report
to President
Todd?
KERLEY: That could
work according to
SACS. They said we could - I could
report directly
to the President or I
could report to
the Board of Trustees.
TAGAVI: Okay. I didn't know that.
Thank you.
CHAIR DEMBO: I think,
Ernie, did you have
your hand up, or
--
YANERALLA:
I'm - I'm not clear on that,
and, perhaps,
what Mike's about to say,
maybe.
CHAIR DEMBO: Provost
Nietzel.
NIETZEL: The
University of Arkansas has
a President over
the system. And then
each institution
has a Chancellor that
reports to that
President. The
University of
Arkansas Research
University is at
Fayetteville. It has a
Chancellor. That Chancellor has a
relationship to
the University of
Arkansas at
Fayetteville, like Lee Todd
does to this
campus. It's called a
Chancellor there
rather than a President,
because there's a President
over the
system. And the system in the University
of Arkansas
consists of multiple
institutions. It consists of a
research
university, several
four-year colleges
and several
community colleges. So, it's
really very
different than what we're
talking about
here. I am not aware of
anywhere in the
United States in which
you have a
system composed of a
research-extensive university and a
community
college. And what I heard, and
again, Michael
or - or Jim can comment
on this, we were
given two options in the
phone call in terms of the
governance.
Both Presidents,
Kerley and Todd, could
report to the
Board of Trustees. I
suspect there's
not a great deal of
appetite for
that kind of arrangement
with the
Board. Or you could have a
system created
in which you would have a
President over
it and two Chancellors,
one of UK and
the other LCC reporting to
that President.
KERLEY: Mike, that
isn't --
CHAIR DEMBO: Is there
something factually
incorrect here?
KERLEY: Some
factual, basically, I
think what SACS
said is that you would
not have to
create a system. That -
that you could
do it within the
University of
Kentucky, Mike, that you
would not have
to create a University of
Kentucky
system. But it could be done
under the
current structure if you - if
you committed to
the autonomy that's
needed for the
institution.
NIETZEL: No, I didn't
hear it that way,
because what you
would then have is the
LCC reporting to
the President of this
institution, and
that would not be
autonomous. The only way you're going to
have autonomy is
to create a situation in
which the heads of institutions
report to
the same level,
and that level can be
someone that is
atop the system, as a
president is, or
to a board.
CHAIR DEMBO: Let's take a
time out for a
second. So, once
- and getting back to
the issue, thus
far the Senate has not
been given the
opportunity to weigh in on
the issue, and
most of that was probably
because of the
perceived timing. It so
happens now that
the timing is tomorrow
is the Board
meeting at which our faculty
and staff
trustees, as well as the
remainder of the
Board, will be voting on
this issue. And the Chair wants to know
how the Senate
would like to weigh in.
Now, I interpret
that very broadly.
Whether the Senate
wants to give an
opinion one way
or the other, or the
Senate can say
it does not have an
opinion at this
time, but I'd like to
give the Chair
something to take back to
that meeting.
GESUND: Well, you
have a suggested
motion.
CIBULL: I'd like to
speak against that.
I don't - I think that it's sort of
silly to say
we'll - we'll go along with
whatever they
say. I mean, that's not -
that's not what
we've been asked to do.
We've been asked
to give our - our
opinion. Now, if we can't give an
opinion because
we don't have
satisfactory
information, that's our
opinion. I guess, I would really like to
know which one
of these two gentlemen is
correct because
if LCC - if LCC can
report to the
President of the
University, Dr.
Todd, then I would be all
in favor of
going full ahead with having
LCC stay with
the University because it
could be worked
out, I would think, if
LCC would - could report to the - to
Dr. Todd or the President of the
University. If, however, Dr. Nietzel is
correct, and it
would require essentially
equal standing
between LCC and the
University of
Kentucky, I really don't
see how that's
going to work. So, I
think it would
be an important question
to answer before
we make a judgment.
CHAIR DEMBO: Professor
Yanarella.
YANARELLA:
I've been - I've been thinking
about this very
hard over the last two
months. It's really been an incredible
education over
the last week or so, at
least since we
had our last Senate
Council meeting. An enormous amount of
information has
come to light in that -
in that
time. And I - Hans, I'm -- I'm
not particularly
supportive of your
resolution
because I think it - it
misses the basic
issue, and that is that
this debate has
come up a day late and a
dollar short or some academic
equivalent
of this in the
sense that - that all of
a sudden in the
last couple of weeks,
we're getting an
extraordinary amount of
information that
suggests there was -
there seems to
be a lot more maneuvering
in the decision,
but the whole process
itself has been
very heavily influenced
by a perception
that SACS has been the
overriding
problem, and that the time
line has been such that
we - we
didn't - we couldn't really consider
those
options. It was only last week
that some of us
asked Alice Sparks as
chair of the
Academic Affairs Committee
to call SACS and
find out where they
stood in terms
of the - of the -- the
different
options. It would seem to me
that the
original Task Force should have
been in
continual consultation with
the - with the key members of SACS
asking for very
clear information about
their
receptivity to one option - to the
range of options
that were being
considered. I mean, I only learned in
the last week or
so that - that indeed
the Task Force
preferred Option One, but
believing that
indeed SACS was - was -
it's position
was a key obstacle, then
turn to - to the other - the other
option. I think if
- I think we have to
say - if we're going to say anything, I
think we need to
say something about the
process, that
the process in some way was
an adequate or
flawed or biased in such a
way as to create
a perception of a
smaller range of
options than others. As
a member of the
Senate Council, as a
member of the Senate, I
would have liked
to have had the
opportunity to - to
examine the full
range of options. I
would have liked
to have had the
opportunity to
look at the -- the pluses
and the minuses
of each one of them so
that we could
make our own autonomous
decision. What we're being asked to do
right now, the
day before a - before a
decision is
probably going to be made by
the Board of
Trustees, on the very day
that the
Academic Affairs Committee
working from a
whole set of assumptions
that we had been
working from as well in
trying to put together a
humane
resolution,
we're being - we're being
asked in this
situation to become
incredibly
educated when in fact we -
over the
last - the last year or so,
there has been a
perception that has, I
think,
constrained our ability to secure
the kind of
information that we could -
that we would
need in order to make a -
a reasonable
decision.
SPEAKER: So, what do
you propose?
YARNARELLA: What I
would - what I would
propose would be
something akin to an
alternate sense
of the Senate that we
believe that the - the process by which
this - this resolution has come forth to
the Board
was - was unduly constrained
by certain
assumptions that operated, and
that had we, and
perhaps other
constituencies,
been - been aware of
that - of that greater range of - of
maneuver, we
would have been able to
provide a more
independent decision. And
don't ask me to
repeat that.
(AUDIENCE
LAUGHS)
CHAIR DEMBO: That's okay. Rebecca has it
all taken down
for you. Wally.
FERRIER: Wally
Ferrier, B&E. In
extending
Professor Yarnarella's logic,
is it possible
that the sense of the
Senate could be
that the Board of
Trustees kind of
tables discussion and
decision on this at tomorrow's
meeting?
CHAIR DEMBO: The Board of
Trustees relies on
the advice of
the Senate. So, the Senate
can advise them
in any way it sees - it
sees fit. Jim.
ALBISETTI: I would echo
a couple of things
said before
Steve Yates comments about
how unusual the
situation created in 1998
was with one of
the community colleges
staying which
is - seemed odd. That
when this was
first discussed last fall,
the big concern
was about the status of
UK rules versus
KCTCS rules for faculty
primarily. It seems from what Dick
Siemer says that it's been
resolved from
the amendments
brought forward by Michael
Kennedy. It seems that the resolution
from the
Academic Affairs Committee has
added additional
protections. The
geographic
proximity of the library, of
the sports
facilities, the culture will
be there for LCC
students even if they're
part of
KCTS. I think that the draft
resolution is a
proper response to the
situation that
will correct an anomaly
left in 1998.
CHAIR DEMBO: Professor
Abel.
ABEL: I'm Eileen Abel. I'm Chair of Community
and Business Technology
at LCC and I'm
also a
Senator. I think that that's a
little bit of a
misperception that the
only issue for
us was how we were going
to fall under in terms of
personnel.
What we have in
the resolution is
language that
we'd lose our buildings in
five years. And who knows, given the
state of the
legislature now, granted we
have been given
a little bit of money,
where do we put
this 28.8 million dollar
building? We can't put it on our campus
because suddenly
UK can say it belongs to
them. And I think that the proximity
can't be overvalued for
a couple of
reasons. I do think that one of the
things that I
have certainly seen since
1997 when we
were put under the
jurisdiction of
UK, not jurisdiction,
since we had a
different relationship
with UK than the
other community
colleges, is
that we have a different
level of
programs than KCTCS, and I think
that that's one
of the things that we see
being threatened
right now is that our
technical
programs are different in terms
of requirements
than what KCTCS has. And
I think that the
faculty and the students
perceive that as
being a very real
threat. So, I think that not just the
programs and not
just the loss of the
buildings, but
for students who come
here,
particularly first general college
students who
come to LCC, they go home,
and they see
themselves as UK students,
and I think that
loss of proximity and
loss of UK name
will affect our student
body in ways
that we can't or haven't
even begun to
think of. So, you know,
for those of you
who say, well, you know,
it's just a
change or it really just
doesn't matter,
I think that those fears
are not that easily
dismissible.
CHAIR DEMBO: We have no
more than two
minutes that we
can spend on this because
we have other
agenda items.
KENNEDY: There's a
misperception there
about the
buildings, though. The
amendment to the
AACR 1 was that LCC's
building and
grounds would be guaranteed
for five years,
that's Part A. Part B is
that LCC would
not - that UK would not
ask for those
buildings until LCC had
another campus
to move to, if ever.
ABEL: But in fact,
that does damage
our
proximity. I mean, if we guarantee
the students that,
well, for six years
you can have
this, that or the other
thing. I mean, they're still not going
to have access
to the library either way.
I mean, they're
not likely to drive over
here and use the
library. They're not
likely to drive
over here and use the
writing
center. I mean, that's -- in
fact, that will
change.
KENNEDY: My guess is
that there will
always be
LCC - a part of LCC on - in
the area where
you are now.
CHAIR DEMBO: Daryl.
JENNINGS:
I'm just asking for an
additional point
of factual information.
If - if the option to try and work out
an arrangement
staying within UK were
tried, it's my
understanding that one
risk is that might not be acceptable
to
SACS, and
then - and the accreditation
could lost. I'm assuming the fall-back
position at that
point would have to be
to then to make
LCC a college within the
University in
order to preserve
accreditation at
that point. Is that -
is your sense is
that an acceptable risk,
or is that an
acceptable fall-back
position to - to that direction to the
faculty and students at LCC?
KERLEY: If I could
answer that, I would
say that's
not - that's not acceptable.
We would not
want to lose our separate
accreditation,
or to me that - we would
be losing our
face and jeopardize our
mission of open
access.
CHAIR DEMBO: Okay. Can you help me out now
with what I
should be telling Chair Reed?
SPEAKER: Jeff.
CHAIR DEMBO: Professor
Noonan.
NOONAN: I'm still
con - I think we'd
all like to have
things stay like they
are, but we - we don't have that choice.
And I'm still
not sure - you mention the
system in
Arkansas which doesn't seem to
fit with UK,
and - and I haven't heard
anybody come up
with any kind of a plan
that would make
the other one work. Is
there such a
plan possible, Mike?
NIETZEL: To make what
work?
NOONAN: To make it
so that we can stay
like we are,
that they would be - that
they would have
autonomy within the UK
system. It doesn't seem to me we've -
anybody's come
up of a way that we could
really do
this.
NIETZEL: Well, I
think for two years we
did try to
satisfy through adjustments.
Would that be a
proper word, you think,
Jim?
ALBISETTI:
Yeah. We've got to make some
adjustments.
NIETZEL: To make adjustments to keep it
the way it was
where they would be
separately
accredited as part of the
University of Kentucky. And the
consultant
actually that LCC brought in
said we
were - we were far away from
what - what was required. As a matter
of fact, having
looked at the tape of
that
consultant's comments to the LCC
faculty, the
first thing that she said
was, in fact, I
look up here, and it says
UK-LCC. That doesn't sound like an
autonomous
institution to me. So, many
of the things
actually that define how
well this relationship has
worked over
the years can be
found to be
objectionable
from the point of view of
autonomy between
the two institutions.
And so, when we
tried to work this
initially when
SACS came back, it was to
say: But look how well we function
together, and we
tended to dig the hole
deeper each time
we did that.
NOONAN: I mean, I --
I think we have -
if - if -
if you go the other way,
it's possible
that LCC will be in a much
worse shape than
they are now because the
way they're in
such a good shape is
because they're in
noncompliance.
(AUDIENCE
LAUGHS)
KERLEY: Going to be
renegades.
CHAIR DEMBO: Okay. So, let me do another
timeout here. Given what you've heard up
to now and given
that the Senate's input
would be
important, okay, how many of you
have heard
enough to know which opinion
you would take
about the route to go? In
other words, how
much - how many of you
feel you've been
given enough information
to even make a
decision? This is a straw
poll. How many feel you have not been
given the
opportunity to get enough
information to make a
decision? So, it's
kind of half and
half. Professor Tagavi.
TAGAVI: Yeah. I think you asked two or
three times: Can I make this a straw
resolution?
CHAIR DEMBO: A straw
resolution.
(AUDIENCE
LAUGHS)
TAGAVI: That -- that
the Senate
declines to make
opinion beyond what they
have already
made in the past through
Senate Council
and beyond what we have
said, that we
just don't have enough
information to
make a strong opinion on
one side or the
other side. This is just
too late to make an educated
opinion.
CHAIR DEMBO: Okay. Would anybody add to
that or
disagree?
DURANT: I --
CHAIR DEMBO: Professor
Durant.
DURANT: Dave
Durant. This is a chance
for the -- for
the Senate to have some
input on a
fairly important matter. I
think to say
that we weren't given enough
information --
is not appropriate. I
think we need to
ask the Board of
Trustees to consider
that the new time
line and see if
there's a way to work out
what the LCC
wants. So, I - I would
move - I think that - I think that it
is an abdication of our
responsibility to
say, again, here
we are at the point
where we could
have some input, but we
don't want to.
TAGAVI: What would you say? What would
you recommend?
DURANT: My comment
is that if we were
to wait long
enough to take into account
the factor of
time.
CHAIR DEMBO: Professor
Grossman.
GROSSMAN:
My - my sense about this is
that a lot of
very smart people who know
a lot about
administrations and academic
organization
have thought about this a
very long time, and have - and have come
to a far better
conclusion about this
than we could
sitting her talking about
it for a half an
hour. I mean, I - I
believe that
Mike and Mike and Jim and
Davy and
President Todd will come to some
sort of
consensus and present it to the
Board as to what
is the best course of
action, and
I'm - and they have -
they're far more
invested in this and
know far more about
it than I do. So, I
guess, I guess,
what I'm saying is I
agree with
Kaveh. I don't - I -
I
just think that
this is not the
appropriate place for these
intricate
issues to be
hashed out.
CHAIR DEMBO: So, if - if we're to take a
straw vote based
on what Kaveh has
recommended, that is to tell the
Board -
why don't you
say it again, Kaveh?
TAGAVI: We are not
going to make any
specific
position beyond what we have
said already
through Senate Council or
other committee
or task force or
whatever, and
what we have said they can
perhaps, I don't
know - read what we
said - is there a tape?
CHAIR DEMBO: There's a
tape, and we have
some expedited
minutes we can send to
them.
TAGAVI: That's - that's my verdict.
CHAIR DEMBO: So, if we
were to take a straw
poll on that
resolution - a straw
resolution right
now, how many would be
in favor of
that? Could you take a straw
vote? Just a general sense.
SPEAKER: Forty-one, I
believe.
CHAIR DEMBO: How many
would not support
Professor
Tagavi's resolution?
SPEAKER: Four.
CHAIR DEMBO: Okay.
Those who would oppose
it, do you have
anything else to put in
its place?
KENNEDY: Did you ask
for abstentions?
CHAIR DEMBO: Are
there - are there
abstentions? Okay. It's not a formal
vote. Professor Yarnarella.
YARNARELLA: I agree with
the - the general
spirit of
Kaveh's position, but I
would - I would
- I would be willing
to vote for it
if it included some of -
illusion to the
fact that - that the
process as it
was biased by a
misperception of
SACS' position had the
effect of
creating - of - of underly
constraining the
range of discussion and
the amount of
information that would have
allowed us to
reach an independent - an
independent recommendation.
TAGAVI: I can accept
that if I know.
That's no
problem.
SPEAKER: We already
voted on it.
CHAIR DEMBO: Chuck.
STABEN: Jeff - Chuck Staben, Biology.
So, this draft
that's been presented
is - is essentially the alternative to
simply say that
this draft does represent
the reasonable
opinion of the Senate,
correct? I mean, wasn't this presented
to us to say
that is the alternative, not
saying something
or saying that LCC
faculty should
say something, or a number
of the
alternatives that have been
discussed. You asked for what is the
reasonable
alternative, isn't this it?
CIBULL: You could
make a motion to
accept this,
yes.
STABEN: We could make a motion to
accept this as
the recommendation?
CIBULL: To support
it.
STABEN: To support
this recommendation?
CHAIR DEMBO: Again, it
will be a straw poll.
STABEN: A straw
poll?
CHAIR DEMBO: Yes.
STABEN: I guess, I
would like to do
that. It seems to me, and I'll just be
very briefly,
that this does make sense
as an academic
organization that the
community
colleges in Kentucky should
belong to a
community college system
which is
effectively what this does.
And - and we do have a somewhat
different
mission, and no matter that,
perhaps, the
process hasn't involved as
long a
consideration of that as we might
like, this is
actually a very reasonable
proposal to me.
CHAIR DEMBO: Any
responses to that?
WYATT: Could I say
something? Thank
you.
CHAIR DEMBO: Introduce
yourself, please.
WYATT: Yes. My name is Nelda Wyatt.
I teach history
at LCC. And I here just
as an invited
guest. There have been a
lot of things, I
don't know if I can try
and point to each one of
them. First of
all, the things
about LCC and the other
community
colleges, LCC geographically
was never like
the other community
colleges. We were never created - it
was always very
different. That's very
quickly why we
were not separated from
them in the
first place. I think we --
also I want to
make the point that as
faculty, no, I
would care less that UK is
on my
paycheck. That's not what this is
about. It doesn't matter. What matters
is the
students. We do a great job with
the
students. The way this works now is
excellent. It's not broken. It -
there
have been so
many false frames in my
opinion, so many
smokescreens about what
is going on
here. And it's really not
that difficult
for LCC to be
independently
accredited under UK's Board
of
Trustees. The idea that it's somehow
going to be
easier for us to go to KCTCS
is not the
case. That's going to be even
more
complicated, in my opinion. And
thank you, I
have to go teach a class.
CHAIR DEMBO: Mike.
CIBULL: I'd like to
speak against that
resolution. I think LCC has a special
relationship
with the University of
Kentucky. It prepares students who would
not otherwise be
able to graduate from
the University
to graduate from this
University. It transfers a lot of
students to the
University of Kentucky
and become
successful. It is - it is an
access to the
University of Kentucky for
students who
would not otherwise have
access. So, from that standpoint, I
think it's
different. I would also like
to - to just reiterate that I don't
think that I
have a full set of
information to
make a decision on. I'm
hearing
contradictory statements about
what SACS is
saying or not saying. So, I
would - I would not want to accept
this - this document as right now. What
I would like to
do is recommend to the
Board of
Trustees recognize, and I think
they do, that
special relationship and
try to resolve
those still yet
unresolvable - unresolved
questions from
SACS and then
make a decision. It
shouldn't take,
you know, months to do
that.
It should - there are specific
questions that
we've asked that they
should be able
to go back to SACS and
have answered
very - in a very
straightforward
fashion and then make
their
decision. If the answers are all,
you know: You can't do this without
having LCC being
absolutely independent
of UK, then - then I think UK - then
this - this body is going to have to
accept that,
that draft.
CHAIR DEMBO: Would it be
a fair statement
for me to say
that there are some of you
who feel
strongly that there has not been
enough information, and some of you
who
do? There's some of you who feel that of
the choices
given, that supporting the
current choice
of the Academic Affairs
Committee would
be a choice that they
could
support. Are there others of you
who would not
support that? When I -
I - okay.
Okay. Chuck. Chuck, your
resolution, to
be fair, because we've
presented copies
to support --
STABEN: We took a
straw poll to see how
many support --
CHAIR DEMBO: The Academic
Affairs Committee
recommendation
that's going before the
Board
tomorrow. Okay. Again, a straw
vote, how many
would support it?
SOHNER: Fifteen.
CHAIR DEMBO: How many
would speak against
it?
SOHNER: Thirty-four.
CHAIR DEMBO: Okay. Abstentions?
Topsy.
STATEN: Ruth,
College of Nursing.
We are really
caught between a rock and
a hard
spot. That's why we can't
deliberate on
this or offer a solution
because there's
not one, I don't think,
for us to
offer. We believe that the
people involved
in the decision have
taken a lot of
time to consider it. We
want to support our students and
our
faculty and our
staff at LCC. I don't
see how we can,
today, come up with
something
meaningful other than to say
those two
things, and I think that's
where people's
rub is. We believe that a
lot of thought
has gone into this and
probably really
good thought, but we are
very concerned
about our colleagues, our
students and
our - our staff at LCC.
CHAIR DEMBO: Okay. We have time for two
more comments,
then we have to cut it
short. Okay.
You had your hand up for
awhile.
FINNEY: I'm Greg
Finney, faculty member
and Senator at
LCC. I would just say
if - if that is the goal of - to
support, first
of all, students and then
staff and faculty
at Lexington Community
College, you've
heard that voiced. It's
been
polled. It's -- clearly as a
faculty member,
I think that the main
thing that I
want to protect, as the
gentleman up
front spoke about and
Dr. Abel spoke
about, is that this unique
situation and what
it offers our
students. The faculty see it. The staff
see it. The students recognize it. And
that is that
academically, not just from
developmental courses, although
those are
very important,
but academically,
socially, and
culturally, we do a service
to the students
at LCC and the State of
Kentucky that
will be lost if we are
moved to KCTCS,
which I respect that
organization,
but I -- what -- as I see
happening, we'll
have these buildings for
five years. I'll be amazed if we move to
KCTCS if we're
able to maintain that. If
we lose that,
that unique situation is
gone, and what
we're able to offer those
students, and I
think if we look at the
State of Kentucky
is an incredible
service that we
can offer these students.
And it's very
clear as far as where those
students,
faculty and staff are.
CHAIR DEMBO: Since we haven't heard from any
students yet.
KAALUND: I mean, I
sit on the Senate
Council, and I'm
a student here and
staff. At this point, Jeff, I think it's
probably just
best to forward to the
Board of
Trustees the expedited minutes
because it's
obvious from the various
resolution,
straw votes that we've taken,
that the Senate
is of an extremely
divided opinion,
and no consensus will
come in the
limited amount of time that
we have
left. And I don't know if
there's really
time for us to really get
all of the information that we
want. So,
I think it's
best at this point to simply
say that there
is no full opinion and
just say, you
know, here's what we've
discussed. Here's the votes. Here's
what we've
done. And just let them do it
as they please.
CHAIR DEMBO: That's - I think that's
exactly what
I'll do, Braphus. And as
fair-minded
as - a manner as possible,
I'll summarize
the nature of what we
discussed for
bullet points as well as to
have Rebecca's
minutes sent to the Board
for their
consideration. There is - I
appreciate it. I understand it's a very
difficult
position. And it's probably
the - the most contentious and thorniest
issue that the
University has dealt with
in - in a long period of time.
NOONAN: Can I just
say one - I don't
think there's
any provision - I think we
all actually
want the same thing, we just
don't know how
to get there. We want it
to be like it is
now. And they tell us
we can't keep it
this way. And so, I
mean, there
isn't - everybody wants
this. We'd like it to stay like it is,
but we can't.
CHAIR DEMBO: Well, and on an optimistic
note, when we
were thrust together by the
House - by House Bill 1 back in the late
'90s, we made it
work. So, I have no
doubts that we can
make it work no matter
how it turns
out.
We
need to vote on this because
the registrar
will need to know whether
or not to adopt
a winter session because
part of the
Agenda today is to approve
the academic
calendars. The Provost, at
a breakfast with
us back in October, I
believe, with
us, the Senate Council, we
hashed out the
idea of the potential
benefits of the winter
intersession, that
is to offer a
brief but intense
opportunity for
students to take courses
over what would
ordinarily be the winter
break. After that, the Senate Council
and the Provost
iterated several times
what some of the
concerns were. Posted
on the Web site,
you saw the Senate
Council's letter
to the Provost, and the
Provost's
detailed response. And
initially, the
Senate Council was - was
not going to
send us forward with a
positive
recommendation, but then we had
further
discussion, and the Provost came
to the Senate Council in early
January
where we hashed
out some of the concerns
that we
had. As a result of that
discussion, the
Senate Council now
recommends - gives a positive
recommendation
to having a pilot winter
intersession. Pilot meaning - actually,
Mike, why don't
you describe what your
idea of a pilot
is?
NIETZEL: Pilot would
be -- I think we
agreed on
something around a dozen
courses that
would be offered essentially
between the time
of finals in the fall
semester
concluded and the first day of
classes in the
spring semester began.
Those would be
courses that would involve
new experimental
or innovative courses,
study
abroad. In some cases, they would
be courses that would
help students
potentially who
have fallen behind on
time toward a
degree to catch up. The
idea was that
the departments would work
on courses that
made the most sense for
them to offer
during this period of time,
recognizing that
some courses don't work
as well in - in a compressed time frame
as others. And we looked to a variety of
other
institutions that have winter
intersessions to
see the kinds of courses
that were
included there. Language
instruction is a
major one. Study abroad
is a major
one. Reading courses are
significant in terms of the
enrollment of
students in them
at - at a variety of
institutions. So, the pilot
basically, I
think you've got
the - yeah, there's
the - is this the schedule, Jeff?
CHAIR DEMBO: Yes. Yes.
This is from the
registrar's
office. So, basically, it
would - it would go from one week before
Christmas
vacation and would go for one
week afer
Christmas vacation. Classes in
session four
hours a day; is that right?
NIETZEL: Right. With assignments during
the holiday
break also possible. Of
course, if it's
an online course which
some of these
would be, the activity
could continue
during - certainly during
that week. We would require that the
syllabus for each
of these courses be
posted on the
Web in advance so students
know what the
expectations are. We would
limit students
to one course enrollment
during the
intersession. There are a
variety of other
specific mechanisms that
we agreed to try
to give students
sufficient notification
about the demands
and expectations
of this course before
they signed up
for it since the drop
period would
obviously be quite short for
them. It would really have to take
place, I think,
on the first day of
class.
CHAIR DEMBO: And the
other thing we
discussed at the Senate
Council was the
idea that this
is a pilot schedule, and
if it - if it goes well, then one of the
things we can
look at is to look at the
entire academic
calendar to see if there
was a way to
start this intersession a
little bit
sooner, and, you know, there
may be some
flexibility that we can
create. Steve.
YATES: I have two
questions in mind.
One of them is
would the usual
constraints on
number of students
required to
offer a course hold, and do
you anticipate
that this is going to be
revenue neutral? Is it going to make
money? Is it
- what - what finances
are --
NIETZEL: I think it
will make money
because I think
that it will - the -
the history at
other institutions, Steve,
has been for
this intersession to really
grow and for a
number of courses to be
added because
students have voted with
their feet with
these intersessions.
They really
like - they really like this
opportunity. So, unlike tax
modernization,
this is a policy that
would not have
to be revenue neutral, and
I would think we
would be enthusiastic
about that. What was your first
question?
YATES: The number
of students required
to offer --
NIETZEL: Well, we
have to look at that
to make sure
it's not a revenue loser.
And --
YATES: That's the
constraint?
NIETZEL: Yes.
YATES: So, it has
to --
NIETZEL: We - we need to come out at
least neutral on
it. Essentially, the
Administration - the President's
office
has taken the
position that this one's
sort of on the
Provost's back as far as
the revenue
issue. So, if we make some
money on it, it
goes back to the academic
programs. I'm going to have to backstop
it if we lose
money on it. So, we will
have to look at
the enrollments closely.
And if there's a
course, for example,
with three
students in it, we're probably
not going to be
able to offer it because
we would - unless that can be offset by
a course in
which they're very nice
enrollments that
would bring in the
tuition for it, and over the
course of
those 12
courses, get us to at least a
neutral point.
CHAIR DEMBO:
Questions? Professor Arthur.
ARTHUR: Mary Arthur, College of
Agriculture. This is, I guess,
another question
for Mike. Winter
intersessions
that I know about occur
with three
consecutive weeks not broken
up by Christmas
break. I'm wondering if
in the universities
that you looked out
whether they
also had this broke-up
schedule?
NIETZEL: Jim, I'm
going to ask Phil
Greasley. There's all different kinds of
schedules
really, Mary. And Phil has
more details
than - than I on how other
universities
have done it. I am aware of
some that bridge that
week period. Can
you answer with
some more detail on that,
Phil?
GREASLEY:
Yes. We looked and we found 32
schools offering
this schedule. That
doesn't mean
that's all of them. But we
found 32 including several
that are quite
respected. Centre College, Cornell, MIT,
Ohio University,
Oklahoma State, Rhode
Island School of
Design, Universities of
Arizona,
Connecticut, Delaware, Hartford,
Idaho, Iowa,
Maryland College Park,
Miami, Montana,
and so on and so on and
so on. There's many more, I'm just
giving you the
names you're most likely
to relate
to. Most of them are J terms,
that's accurate,
but not all of them.
There are
several that - that start in
December break
and then finish up in
January. Some have a shorter time period
than UK.
NIETZEL: One thing we
wanted to avoid,
Mary, was
pushing the end of the spring
semester back
very far, although some
institutions
have done that. So, we've
preferred to go
with an arrangement where
we bridged over
that - that week, given
that others that
have done it have been
pretty successful
with it.
CHAIR DEMBO: Professor
Grossman.
GROSSMAN:
What are the implications for
faculty
DOE's? Are you going to count
the course
taught during this time as an
overload, or are
you going to provide
extra compensation
of faculty? I'm just
wondering what
the costs of this on the
faculty side are
in terms of faculty
workload are.
NIETZEL: My assumption is that the
faculty who
wanted to offer this course
would not be
doing it in load, that there
would be a
payment made to them for the
course, Bob. Now, is it possible that in
some departments
a faculty member and a
chair might
negotiate this as an in-load
assignment,
that's possible, and that
would be
fine. But my presumption is
most people
would be doing this as a
compensated overload.
CHAIR DEMBO: Any other
questions about the
nature? Doug.
MICHAEL: Doug
Michael, College of Law.
Is that quoted
language there what you're
asking the
Senate to vote on today? I
want to be clear
what's on the floor in
front of us.
CHAIR DEMBO: There's actually two parts to
it. First, is for the Senate to endorse
the concept - actually there's three
parts. One, is to endorse the concept of
a winter
intersession. And along with
that would go a
modification in the
University
calendar for 2004-2005 to
permit
that. And then the third aspect
is, that it
would technically require us
to waive Rule
5.2.1 for this isolated
pilot. After which because of - of the
wording in it --
MICHAEL: And I have
some questions.
CHAIR DEMBO: Yes.
MICHAEL: First, I --
I don't know that
endorse concepts. I mean, you've asked
for approval of
the pilot program. I
want to be clear
that that's for one
year, and that's
why I'm asking for
language. And secondly, modification to
the University
calendar, what I saw was
correspondence
between the Senate Council
and the Provost
with a number of
suggestions. I mean, I'm
concerned about
the breadth of
what's on the table. You
suggested, well,
maybe we can start
earlier in the fall and zip
away the fall
break. Well, you're just making
astonishing
suggestions here, you know,
that's sort of
at the last minute in how
those are really
on the table. How much
of that are we
authorizing you-all to
sort of do.
CHAIR DEMBO: No. We didn't mean to do that.
The pilot that
the Senate Council and the
Provost talked
about was specifically
this calendar
year for this one year that
it would be
offered as a pilot. Is that
right, Mike.
NIETZEL: Yes.
MICHAEL: Okay. Well, that falls far
short of
endorsing a concept of a pilot.
Of course,
that's why I wanted to be
clear what you
wanted us to say. I mean,
that falls far short from
endorsing a
concept. That endorses a pilot program.
It says: Let's try this and see how it
works. That's very different.
CHAIR DEMBO: Eliminate
the word "concept".
Endorsing a - a pilot program. Does
that help? Any other questions about
this?
TAGAVI: Can I just
add that you kind of
concerned me at
the beginning and what
hits you right immediately
is the short
duration of
this. But then a couple of
things I take
into consideration. One,
is the - this is the only course the
student would have. Sometimes I would
love to teach
one course to a student
whose only
course is my course and see
what
happens. And on top of that, these
are selected
courses. I don't think
Thermal Dynamics
1 is going to be one of
these. English 101 might not be. I do
not know, but
these are going to be only
selected
courses, which is perfect for
a - this type of winter course. And he
said pilot course. It might have a big
reward, so I
think this is really - is
justified to do
it as a - as a pilot. I
just want to mention
that.
CHAIR DEMBO: Okay. Any other comments or
questions about
it?
BLACKWELL:
Something just occurred to me.
Did we check with SACS about the
thing
about the
concentration of hours.
SPEAKER: Strangely
enough, SACS did
occur to
us. Do you want to comment on
what's required?
GREASLEY:
SACS has - has no time limit
on it, no
minimum time.
BLACKWELL:
Okay.
CHAIR DEMBO: There being one more question?
STABEN: How will the
success of this
pilot, or
whatever we want to call it, be
evaluated?
CHAIR DEMBO: The Senate
Council was
deliberating
between having the Council
assess the
success of these or having
faculty provide
their own methods for
evaluating
it. We felt the latter was
better, so that
if somebody's going to be
giving this
course, they should provide
some method by
which they'll evaluate the
success of
giving a winter course. Did
that answer
that?
STABEN: Yes.
CHAIR DEMBO: Okay. There being no further
questions, all
in favor of - of
approving
this - not a concept, a pilot
winter session for 2004-2005 which
also
would include
waiving Senate Rule 5.2.1,
signify by
saying aye?
AUDIENCE:
Aye.
CHAIR DEMBO: Any
opposed? Any abstentions?
Now, there was one more action
item on the
Agenda, but if I talk very
slowly and
people happen to walk out of
the room, we
might lose a quorum. So,
it's - it concerned the definition of a
family. Is that something you'd like to
talk about now,
or are people going to
start walking
out?
(AUDIENCE
LAUGHS)
CHAIR DEMBO: Provost
Nietzel, thank you for
coming, and we're
sorry to have to put
your talk off
until next time. We look
forward to it.
* *
* * * * *
(MEETING
CONCLUDED AT 5:00 P.M.)
* *
* * * * *
STATE OF KENTUCKY )
)
COUNTY OF FAYETTE )
I, MARLA FRYE,
Certified Shorthand
Reporter, BCR, and the undersigned Notary Public, in
and for the State of Kentucky at Large, certify that
the foregoing transcript of the captioned meeting of
the University of Kentucky Senate is a true,
complete and accurate transcript of said proceedings
as taken down in stenotype by me and later reduced
to computer-aided transcription under my direction,
and the foregoing is a true record of these
proceedings.
I further
certify that I am not employed
by nor related to any member of the University of
Kentucky Senate, and I have no personal interest in
any matter before this Council.
My commission
expires: January 23, 2007.
IN TESTIMONY
WHEREOF, I have hereunder set
my hand and seal of office on this the _____ day of
___________________, 2004.
__________________________
MARLA FRYE, CSR, BCR
NOTARY PUBLIC
STATE-AT-LARGE
K E N T U C K Y