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
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* * * * *
JEFFREY
DEMBO, CHAIR
GIFFORD BLYTON,
PARLIAMENTARIAN
REBECCA SCOTT, SECRETARY TO SENATE COUNCIL
MARLA FRYE,
COURT REPORTER
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CHAIR DEMBO: Welcome to
the March 2004
Senate
Meeting. Let's go over the agenda
briefly for today. We have some items
that we had not
completed from our last
Senate Meeting,
that includes the report
from the
Provost, and also a report from
Dr. Nash on behalf of the
IRIS project.
Following that,
we have another action
item. Don't pay any attention to the
date up
there. It's still back in
February. Following that, we have
another action
item we didn't get to last
time, that is
the proposal to change the
definition of a
family, a very timely
topic I'd
say. And after that, we're
going to have
discussion about the
undergraduate
writing requirement and
I'll talk a
little more about that in
just a
second. And the other thing -
and forgive me,
this is my fault, I
forgot last time to ask us to
approve the
minutes from the
December meeting. So
I'd like to
bundle those together and see
if there are any
recommendations for
changes in the
December and in the
February minutes
for the University
Senate. Without objections, I can
consider that
those are approved as - as
they stand. I'd like to introduce one
person to
you. She's outside. Kim, are
you there? Kim Judd is our honorary
Sergeant-of-Arms
for today. I wonder if
you could poke
your head out and see if
Kim Judd could
come in for a second.
Kim, raise your hand,
please. Kim is the
treasurer of the
Staff Senate and agreed
to act as
Sergeant-of-Arms. She
understands full
well that if anybody is
disruptive, that
she will resolve that
issue
quickly. She also, by the way,
helped to
co-author the - the editorial
piece you may
have seen in the
Herald-Leader
that was assigned by Sheila
Brothers
regarding the budget. I thought
it was very well
written. It was on
target, and, I
guess, the Legislature
can't hear that
enough times as to - as
to how this all
affects the quality of
our educational admission. Other
announcements? I want to see if
anybody
can bring us up
to date, perhaps,
somebody from
LCC on where we are with
the legislative
issues regarding LCC.
Becky, what have
you got to report?
WOMACK: Becky
Womack, LCC, just talked
to Dr. Kerley
about half an hour ago. As
of midweek last
week, there was 4 or 5
bills that had
been left with - filed
with the Legislature. We liked all but
one. One of them, in essence, would have
delayed any
decision for another year and
left us with the
legislation
legislative process would
have taken
place next year,
and we would have been
on probation for
another year and at risk
of losing our
accreditation. So we -- we
definitely
didn't like that one and -
and made sure
that we let our legislator
know. There's a lot of shaping going on
right now, a lot
of revising of language.
It's in the
Education Committee, so
following it or
at least Dr. Kerley's
following it
every day, so we're hoping
to know
something in two weeks or so.
CHAIR DEMBO: On other
fronts, Richard
Grossman is
continuing to spearhead the
graduation contract pilot
proposal. He
and I have had a
number of conversations
about the
progress that's being made
there. I think it's well on target with
what was
intended. And, Richard, is
there anything
new to report in that
regard?
GROSSMAN: --
talk about it today.
CHAIR DEMBO: Excellent.
GROSSMAN:
And then we have a Senate
Council soiree
for the Monday after
spring
break. So -- meet with Senate
Council, as I
promised you.
CHAIR DEMBO: Excellent.
GROSSMAN: Thanks for asking.
CHAIR DEMBO: The Board of
Trustees' election
for the faculty
trustee, you probably
have all gotten
the announcement that
nominations are open
until March 19th.
That's a week
from this Friday. You need
the name along
with ten signatures. The
space being
vacated is Davy Jones who has
filled in for
Claire Pomeroy. And the
Rule states that
the person substituting
will fill in for
the remaining part of
that term. So, that's why he had less
than a full
three-year term. The next
person will
start with a full three-year
term. At the last moment, Kaveh Tagavi,
who's the chair
of the Rules Committee,
pointed out,
what looks like, a quirk in
the rules regarding
the election that
under a very
specific circumstance, it
could be unclear
as to who would - who
would
prevail. So we're going to
work
- work on that and run it through
the Senate
Council to see if we need to
change that in
the very near future. I
think that's it
for announcements. And
without further
ado, I think, Mike, this
is a good time
to come up and - and talk
to us. Do you want the lavalier or
the...
NIETZEL: That's fine.
CHAIR DEMBO: Okay.
NIETZEL: Thank you,
Jeff. I appreciate
the opportunity
to talk to the Senate
today. This is a chance to review the
accomplishments
of this year, and there
are many, I think,
as you will see. It
really is
because of some excellent work
by all members
of the University
community that
we can talk about a lot of
achievements
this year that we can be
particularly
proud of. But I would say a
special tribute
to - to the faculty for
helping bring
forward a number of
important
developments as well as on the
educational and
research front really
outstanding
progress under difficult
circumstances. And some of my
presentation
will talk about what those
difficult
circumstances are. But it --
it is an
opportunity for you, I think, to
feel very good
about what has been
accomplished
during this past year. A
chance to survey
some needs that the
institution has,
some challenges that we
are in the
middle of trying to confront,
and then, maybe,
to suggest some
prospects for future
thinking or future
opportunities
for us. This will be
available
tomorrow or the day after at
the provost site
on the Web page, all of
the slides. So, if you want to have --
download it or
take a look at it, I
think, we'll
have it up by tomorrow,
certainly by
Wednesday. Let me, first of
all, begin by
looking at the context for
the
University. It's - it's very much
like it was last
year, that we have some
remarkable needs
in this State for higher
education, and
yet we have declining
support from the
State for it. So, it's
an unhappy
coincidence between what's
needed and
what's there to -- to fuel
the - the growth by the institution. I
do want to talk
about the overall context
a little bit with respect
to what does an
institution like
the State? What is it that the State is
looking to us for? And there are five
points. These five points were there
last year, that
overall we have very
little
educational attainment in the
State of
bit about
that. The research and
development
record in
remains in the
bottom 10 of all states in
the
still continue
to be a problem for the
State. And then, we have this aspiration
that's shared within the
University, as
well as given to
us by the Legislature,
to be one of the
nation's leading public
research
universities. And we have a
particular
covenant with the Commonwealth
that land grant
universities in all
states have, and
that has some particular
implications for
how we prioritize and
how we go about
our business here.
So,
let's look at the
attainment issue
first. This is to let
you know that as
we project into the
future, eight
years from now, there are
going to be
about 5,000 more students in
there are back
in 2001. For the United
States, you see
that growth as 11.3
percent. We're a little bit ahead of
that at 14
percent. SRB stands for the
southern region,
and these are the
individual
states that make that up. So,
there are going
to be more students
coming out of
high school needing a
college
education over this next decade
that, somehow,
the Commonwealth is going
to have to find
a way to serve. This is
a particularly
troubling table, and it
basically shows
what happens to the
educational pipeline. If you look at the
average in the
off with ninth
grade students, a class of
100. Six years after they graduate from
high school in
the
those 100 have
graduated from college.
In
12 out of 100
ninth graders graduate from
college six
years after they've graduated
from high
school. So that gives them the
six-year
graduation opportunity. That's
a discouraging
figure for us to look at
and is one of
the reasons why, I think
you see, how
important higher education
and higher
education reform in Kentucky
remains. This is another troubling
statistic, it
shows the percentage of
adults in
Kentucky with a bachelor's
degree or
higher, again, almost 25
percent in the
United States. In the
Southern states,
22 percent, and you see
we're fourth from the bottom
in the
region at 17
percent of adults with a
college
education or higher. Here's the
figures for
research and development per
capita. The most recent ones I could
find were for
the year 2000. Despite the
progress that we
are making, and you will
see it is
excellent progress in terms of
the research
profile for this University,
we remain in the
bottom 10 in R&D per
capita. And, actually, of this $68 here,
the percent of
that that is federal money
is also very low
in Kentucky in
comparison to
the other states. So, you
see, it's about
two-thirds of what the
national average
is, and that has not
moved a great
deal across the decade of
the '90s. And then, finally, we come to
how this
translates overall into per
capital personal
income. You can see
that Kentucky is
in the next to the
bottom rung of
states. Basically, we're
about $2,500 per
person under the United
States' average
for personal income. So,
what should the University
like this,
which, no doubt,
in terms of the scope of
this University,
in terms of the students
that go here, in
terms of the impact,
this is the
premiere institution of
higher education
in Kentucky. And what
is it that we,
in terms of big ideas or
grand goals,
need to be accomplishing for
the state. I would suggest that there
are four big
themes. And I want to come
back and fill
these out a little bit more
as we work
through the presentation. One
is that this is
an institution that can
help democratize
society by equipping
people with a lot
more knowledge than
they have
without an institution like
this. That's true even for - for people
who don't attend
this University. We
have an
obligation for the discovery and
the
dissemination of information that
goes beyond just
the students who are at
this
campus. This is a place where we
incubate
ideas. Research and scholarship
is a defining
quality of what faculty at
this University
do across a spectrum
that's not
matched at any other
institution in
Kentucky. And by virtue
of that, we can
help Kentucky begin to
imagine a future that without an
institution like
this, it would not
imagine. I don't think there is another
institution in
this State that can be the
intellectual
heart and soul like we can.
And that is a
calling that the public --
the premiere
public research University
in a state
should be responsive to. And
then, finally,
we uniquely prepare
students here to
help create that future.
I've often
talked about the fact that
most good
colleges and universities can
educate students
to take jobs, but at UK
we're going to
be educating students not
just to take jobs but to
make them. And
that's going to
be a difference with
respect to the
products that we turn out
here or should
be a difference from the
other very good
institutions in the
Commonwealth.
So,
we have this covenant that
land grant
universities have that go back
to the Merill
Act in the 1860s. What is
the
covenant? What is the expectation?
What is the
promise that we make to the
State of
Kentucky? I would suggest it's
four
things. And, then, I'd like to go
through and look
at how we're doing,
particularly in the
first three. I'm not
going to have as
much to say just because
of time
constraints on service and
outreach, a little
bit.
First, is an excellent
undergraduate
education. And, I think,
you're going to
see some very good data
about this in
terms of what we are
achieving here
at UK. That we're the
institution that
provides important
research and
scholarship, again, across a
vast domain of
knowledge areas. That we
provide
outstanding professional and
graduate
education. I think, there's
some very good
data here to support that.
And then, that
the University is
responsible for
service and outreach that
improves lives
and society. I think,
these are the contributions that
we need
to return to
each time when we talk about
why an
investment in the University of
Kentucky is the
distinctive investment
that the State
makes in higher education.
And one way you
do that is to help
everyone in
Kentucky, particularly our
Legislature,
understand that an education
here is both a
public good as well as
conveying a
personal advantage to the
students who
attend here. It's a public
good in the
following four ways. I have
a little bit of
backup on this. The
discovery of new
knowledge, the
development of new intellectual
talent,
particularly, at
the graduate and
professional
level where we have a signal
kind of
contribution to make in the
State. This preparing students to make
jobs not just to
take them. And then the
multiplication
of external investments
that you find at
the University of
Kentucky. Basically, for every dollar of
external money
that comes in to the
research program
here, we add 80 cents to
that back into
Kentucky's economy.
That's a
significant investment. If you
think about this
year, they'll be about a
quarter of a million dollars
of research
expenditure at
the - at UK. Here's a
way to think
about both a personal
good - personal advantage and a public
good. The average lifetime earnings of a
baccalaureate
student is about a million
dollars more
over that of a high school
graduate. If you think about the
enrollment
growth that's anticipated, if
you think about
progress in retention and
graduation rates,
this translates into a
significant
impact on the Commonwealth's
economy. And I'll show you in a minute a
slide that
indicates how much more
profound this lifetime
earning effect is
if you talk
about professional and
advanced
degrees. And then the
University does
provide artistic,
cultural, and
performance opportunities
as well through
the library that we have,
access to
information that no other
institution, I
think, in this State can
begin to
match. Here is the chart that
shows in
constant '99 dollars the impact
of higher levels
of education. And
here's a
bachelor's degree. Here is a
high school
degree. If this were updated
now in '03
dollars, this would actually
be more than a million
dollars
difference. You can see what happens as
you got up to a
master's, to a
professional
degree, to a doctoral
degree. The impact is considerable with
respect to the
economic effects that are
achieved by
virtue of the education of
students that a
university like this
provides. We must remain relevant to the
State. I think, if you look at, as I'm
going to here in
a minute, the strategic
plan, the 14
areas that we have
identified for
the State, what we have
tried to do is
look at areas that there's
already excellence at or
possibility for
excellence at
this University and marry
those to
Kentucky's problems and
priorities in a
way, again, that
positions the
University in an ideal way
to be seen
as - by public policy makers
as the important
institution in the State
for progress
overall for the citizens
here. So, reminding you of what the 14
areas are in the
strategic plan, there
are five in the
medical area:
cardiovascular
sciences, cancer,
infectious
diseases, neurosciences, and
pharmaceutical
sciences and toxicology.
Each of these are areas
within the
medical academic
health center where we
have expertise
or where we can develop it
and have some
considerable national
prominence. Cultural studies of the
Americas, which
is in both arts and
sciences,
primarily, in arts and sciences
in a number of
departments, digital and
now
technologies, and emphasis in
engineering,
although not exclusively in
engineering, also
some in - in ag and in
arts and
sciences, environmental and
energy studies,
international studies.
I'll have
something more to say about
that with the hope that we could
develop
an undergraduate
degree in international
studies as a
platform from - from which
we could elevate
the achievements in
international
education that the
University
should be making. Plant
bioengineering,
largely an ag, public
policy, Martin
School, Patterson School,
College of
Education, other areas,
risk-related
behavioral sciences which
spans the
Medical Center and the College
of
Communications and Arts and Sciences,
teacher
preparation, and then vocal music
and
performance. You'll recognize this
as the 14 areas
in the University's
strategic
plan. A list that addresses
well the new
economy initiative as well
as some other
CPE, Council on
Post-Secondary Education,
initiatives
that have been
announced for the State of
Kentucky.
Let's talk about student
achievements
then in terms of basic areas
of
education. I want to talk about who
we're enrolling,
how well we're doing at
retaining and
graduating them, what our
students have to
say about their
experiences here
by virtue of our
participation in
the National Survey of
Student Engagement. That's, typically,
referred to as
the NSSE, the largest
database in
terms of undergraduate
evaluations that
we have in the country,
and then some
institutional recognitions.
All right. This shows enrollment.
You'll see
undergraduate enrollment here
has increased
since 2000 by about 1,300
students. That's a 7.6 percent increase.
And graduate
enrollment has increased by
about 1,000
students, over 20 percent
during that same
time frame. So, this
has been a
period of - I don't know if
there's ever
been a period where graduate
and undergraduate
have gone up at this
great a
level. This does match some
national trends
for enrollment growth at
land grant
universities as well. What's
more interesting is we
look at some of
the quality
indicators about this in a
minute. Also, a number of
African-American
students, if you see the
past three
years, we've begun a nice
trend up
from - this 211 was the high
point, I
believe, in terms of the number.
Loretta, are you
here?
BYARS: Yes.
NIETZEL: Is 211 our
high point?
BYARS: Yes.
NIETZEL: So, we're - we're coming back
up towards that,
and for next years, I
can tell you at
least, the number of
admitted
African-American students is up
over 100
from - from the same time last
year. Now, how many enroll - the yield
is the crucial
figure yet to -- to get.
Okay. This shows the first professional
enrollment for
2003, a little bit higher.
You have
constraints on the growth in
these programs,
but you'll see in every
case except
pharmacy - and I'll say
something about
that when I get there -
a little bit of
an increase. Dentistry,
law, medicine. Pharmacy, I believe, this
slight decrease
is as we phase out the
nontraditional
Pharm D, we probably had a
little decrease
in terms of the total
headcount, but that's
going to be
replaced by an
increase in the number of
students in the
traditional Pharm D
program.
This is a very interesting
slide. A number of things I want to
comment about
here. This shows the
number of students
who have applied to
the University,
the number that have been
admitted or
accepted, and then this is
the enrollment
line. Now, what you'll
see here is that during this
period of
enrollment
growth, we have been steadily
accepting just
about the same percentage
of students each
year, 81 percent,
essentially, is
the - the percent of
students we've
accepted who have applied.
What has changed
is a remarkable increase
in the yield. These years right here,
it's about 45
percent of the students who
were accepted
coming to the University.
Here, you've
gone up to 50 percent. A 6
percent increase
in yield is a very, very
big
increase. You do not, typically,
find that at
other institutions from this
short a time
frame. And what this
illustrates is
that at - the enrollment
growth has not
been - and they'll be
some other data to show
this in a
minute - has not been as a result of the
University
really deciding to accept a
higher
percentage of students. In fact,
the percentage
of students we're
accepting, the
percentage of those who
were selective
admits, has gone up
dramatically. This is now at
about 90
percent. What that means is that those
are students we
have to accept. That's
an important
thing as we think about
enrollment
growth here, that these
students are
automatically accepted into
the University
because they meet - they
meet our admission
standards. For next
year, this
number is already over 10,300,
the
application. It's up over 10
percent. This number is at 8,000. So
you can see that
we are right on track
for a class out
here of about 4,000
students. Now, the
- the enrollment
growth is an
issue that we're going to
have to deal
with either through the
resource or the
access side, but on the
access side, it
really does come down to
a faculty
decision about the criteria we
use for
selective admissions because the
vast majority of
these students are
getting in
automatically. I'm not
suggesting we
should raise those
standards. There's really only two ways
you influence
this, probably, the - the
standards or the
cost, and it's something
that is worth
discussion when you think
back about that
figure of 5,000 more kids
graduating from
high school in eight
years than what
we have now.
This - okay - let's go
ahead. This begins to look at the
student profile
in the first - among
freshmen. It shows
- this line shows
National Merit
finalists. This line
shows
valedictorians. And this shows
Governor's
scholars. You can see that
there has been a
gradual decrease in the
National Merits
as we have reallocated
money - money from funding these
students to
funding these students. The
University still
ranks, even in 2003, in
the top 25 of
public institutions with
respect to
National Merit finalists -
first-time
National Merit finalists. You
can see that the
valedictorians have
increased to an
all-time high, and, of
course, right
here when we introduce the
scholarships for
Governor's scholars, you
see the dramatic impact
on enrollment of
those
students. This represents 25
percent of all
Governor's scholars and
Governor's
School for the Arts' students.
It is more than
all the Governor's
scholars and
Governor's School for the
Arts' students
enrolling in all the rest
of the Kentucky
institutions of higher
education. This shows the middle-50
percent of ACT,
an indication, again, of
the quality being
maintained as the class
size
increases. There are two bars here.
The ACT range
for institutional research
is one that's
based on the most recent
ACT. And the registrars or the
admissions is
based on the combination of
the best scores
if they have more than
one ACT that
they've taken. And
that's - so you see this one's always a
little bit
better than the institutional
research. The important thing to notice
is that by either version
that we use in
fall 2003,
you've actually had that
mid-50 percent
coming up a little bit,
now being
charted as 22 to 28 percent,
which puts us in
good company. This
would be
comparable, Phil, I think, it's
to, probably, 5
or 6 out of the 19
benchmarks as
far as that mid-50 percent
ACT. Now, the next line addresses: Does
that matter at
all? This shows you the
ACT composite score into some
ranges.
And this shows
you the graduation rates
by those ACT
scores, four year, five year
and six
year. And you will see for
every - whether we look at four, or
five, six-year
graduation rates, there is
a linear
relationship between ACT and
graduate
rates. So, as a measure - as
one measure, not
as the - as the sole,
but as one
measure of student preparation
or capability,
this is not a meaningless
figure for us to
continue to pay
attention
to. This is not a good story.
This is our
retention rate. It has been
a sawtooth for as long as
we have looked
at it. Unfortunately, that's a low
point, and
that's a low point that
corresponds to a
big class. It's hard to
be convinced
otherwise that there's not
some unfortunate
relationship between
class size and
first to second year
retention. So, this is of concern.
There's some
things that we need and that
we can talk
about here that can matter.
A number of good
things happening: Jane
Jenson being now
the head of that
first-year Task
Force. We're making some
other changes
that in some to be
considered that, I think, can
address
this, but it is
troubling to see that
pattern.
It's good to see this pattern.
This is the six-year
graduation rate, a
steady climb
over these cohorts.
All-time high
and it now puts us into
some really
enviable kinds of comparisons
in that the
overall six-year graduation
rate in Kentucky
is 44 percent. So
that's among the
public universities. UK
is remarkably
ahead of the rest of the -
our public
institutions. If you look at
public
institutions' national average,
it's 56 percent. So we have gone ahead
of that for the
first time. We still are
very low
compared to our benchmarks, many
of whom will be
in the 70s, and there may
be a couple,
Phil, that make 80. So,
we've got a long
ways to go, but this has
been an
extremely good pattern to have
sustained. And the early data suggests
we'll make
another increase next year in
the graduation
rate. So, while - while
we suffer this
first to second year
instability,
we're doing a good job once
we - once we get through that crucial
period of
retaining to the sophomore
year.
Degrees conferred, see up a
little bit, the
last two years in terms
of baccalaureate
degrees. Here, the
associate degrees in the pale
green,
steady increase
there. Graduate degrees,
you see a
decrease from '99 through '01
which accounted
for a real slack period
in - in enrollment in the Graduate
School. And, now, this is picking back
up. This past year, I would - I would
be willing to be
almost anything that
number will
increase, Jennie, and, again,
because now we
have the beginning of that
1,000 cohorts at least
coming through the
master's
program, that increase of 1,000
graduate
students. On the first
professional,
it's been pretty stable, as
you would
expect. Quite a nice jump back
up to these
levels from '02, '03 over
'01, '02.
Let
me do this one fairly
quickly. This is the survey that
first-year
students and senior students
fill out at UK,
along with seniors and
first-year
students at about 300 other
institutions. And the items on
this load
on five
factors: How academically
challenged the
students are; how active
and
collaborative their learning
experiences are;
what kind of
interactions
they have with faculty
members; how
enriching the educational
experiences are
on the campus; and how
supportive
overall the campus environment
is. The same items for first year and
for senior
students. In the blue, you
see UK - these are UK scores right here
across - this is a scale with a number
of items on
it. And this is the
predicted score
that UK would have, based
on the academic
credentials and some
qualities that
the institution has. So
you can either exceed your
predicted,
that's a good
thing, or fall below your
predicted,
that's not a good thing. The
residual out
here shows whether you're
doing better
than the data would suggest
you should, or
that you're not doing as
well. In 2001, for the - for the
first-year students, there were three out
of the five
factors that we did a little
bit better than
was predicted.
Unfortunately,
for our senior students,
only one out of
the five, which was
interactions
with faculty members, did we
outperform the
prediction. 2003 - I
want to advance
to 2003. First of all,
you can see our
senior students on all
five
dimensions. We are now
outperforming
the predicted, and on,
again, three out of five for
first-year
students we're
outperforming. If you go
back and you
compare this score to the
2001 score and
come right down the line
and do that,
you'll see almost without
exception some
very good improvement.
So, that's very
encouraging data with
respect to what
our students are telling
us about the
educational experiences
here. Now, what to make of these? You
know, you can - you can be skeptical
about what these
mean. And yet, the fact
that there are
areas where we do better
and where we do
poorer, suggests that
there's not some sort of
halo or anchor
effect that's
disturbing these too much.
It is a
remarkable data set of over 300
institutions
that you've got some pretty
stable norms
on. Other universities have
introduced
interventions deliberately
intended to move
some of these factor
scores, and have
found that, in fact,
they do, adding
some construct validity
to the idea here
that we're measuring
something meaningful. So this is
something, I
think, we should pay
attention to as
we look at the quality of
undergraduate
experience at the
institution.
Institutional recognition, a
year ago, top 15
public universities in
terms of the
number of first-time
National Merit scholars. This year,
we'll be in the
top 25. In 2002, we were
named a Truman
Foundation Honor
Institution. There aren't very
many of
those. Actually, as it turns out, I
think, there are
only three schools in
the Southeast
Conference that have won
that. Last year, one of four
institutions to
be a Beckman scholar
institution. And then a top 50
ranking
in US News. Some of you may not be
familiar with Kiplinger's which
is the
Best 100 Values
in Public Education in
the United
States. UK ranks 44th on that.
And in terms of
costs, there are some
wonderful
comparisons about our cost of
education at UK
compared to other public
universities. I'll give you one
example:
If you take
tuition, room and board, and
say that's the
cost of education for a
year at a public
university, of the top
100 universities
in the country in
Kiplinger's
Report, UK ranks fourth. It
would put us
first among the benchmarks.
So, that's a
statistic that we're going
to be happy to share with
legislators and
others as over
these next two or three
weeks the issue
of tuition increases
comes up as it,
no doubt, will.
What are some educational
needs? I'll say something about the
graduation
agreement in a minute. That's
making really
good progress. A couple of
revisions in the
University's studies'
program that I
would urge you to give
consideration
to. One is the written
requirement that
you're going to discuss
today. A faculty committee has done a
very, very good
job, I think, of coming
up with a - a good alternative to the
writing
requirement we have, an unusual
development in
which we can do it better
and
cheaper. There is an oral com - a
change in the
oral com that USP has
recommended
that, I think, is still in
the process of
being looked at. I may
say a little bit
more about this in terms
of some
difficulties we have with SACS
and why I would
encourage the Senate to
give very, very
strong consideration to
both of these
with respect to some of the
problems we're
having with those two
parts of
USP.
I do think we need to expand
our honors
program. Since 2000, there's
been a report on
the honors program
recommending an
expansion, perhaps, with
a social science
component to it. And, I
think, we could,
probably, reasonably,
add, maybe, 40
students to the 300
students that we
bring in in the honors
program in the
first year. And we're
going to need to
do that. We're going to
need to find a
way to have honors be a
little bit - have a little bit more
impact on
the - on the first-year class
than we have
these last couple of years.
International
studies, we could
with one new
course and a cap - a
capstone
introduce a baccalaureate degree
in international
studies. And we're one
of the few
universities who - we -- we
may be the only
university among the
benchmarks that
does not have an
undergraduate
program in international
studies.
And
then the winter term pilot
is moving
forward nicely, and, I think,
we can do some
good things with that next
December. We already have eight courses
nominated and
several more on the way, I
think, for - for us to consider. And
they involve a
nice range of different
kinds of
courses.
The
graduation agreement,
Richard Grossman has been chairing
this.
Here is the
group that has served on that
committee. It cuts across a number of
offices and
colleges, all parts of the
campus, and it
has consulted extensively
with students,
with deans, with advisors,
with Senate
Council, and then a special
Task Force that
was appointed to look
into this pilot
project. Here are the
programs
currently. I'm not sure if this
is all of them. This is nine programs.
Again, you'll
see a nice array across the
colleges of
programs that will
participate in
the graduation agreement.
Ag Econ, three
programs in Arts and
Sciences, one in
B&E, Telecom, Mechanical
and Civil
Engineering, Communications
Disorders, Art History and
Art Studio,
Nursing, and
Social Work. Richard, are
there any other
ones? Is that the --
GROSSMAN:
No, that's the -- that's it,
Mike.
NIETZEL: Okay.
GROSSMAN:
For the first year.
NIETZEL: Okay. Briefly, and Janet
Eldred will talk
about this, I suspect,
much more. But let me put my appeal in
on this
recommendation for changing the
university
writing requirement. We have
a writing
requirement that's - that's
pretty
expensive. And if you look at in
comparison to other
universities,
probably not
moving toward a different
emphasis on
writing in the curriculum
that many of
them are - are achieving.
We tend to have
a writing requirement
that emphasizes
learning to write, as
opposed to what
you're seeing at many
other
institutions which is using writing
as a way to
learn. I think this proposal
is - is a very good one. Right now,
there are 6 credit hours in
the first
year, or if you
take 101, 102, or 3 if
you take 105, to
satisfy the University's
writing
requirement. After that, there
is no writing
requirement for the
University. Now, that puts us a bit out
of step, as you
will see, with what other
institutions are
doing. Eleven of our
benchmarks
require seven or more hours.
The average is
eight and a half.
Minnesota requires
somewhere between 16
to 18 hours of
writing. And of the
benchmarks, only
North Carolina, in
addition, of
course, to us, lacks a
second-tier writing
requirement which
means something
after the first year.
Right now,
writing is something that
first-year
students do in the first year,
and then they
can forget about it in
terms of
developing that craft or using
that tool to
intensify their learning
within their
major field of study. Three
benchmarks,
Purdue, North Carolina State,
and Michigan,
have requirements that are
going to be very
similar to the one, I
think, that
Janet will be talking about.
Six of the
seven, who require only six
hours, require
work beyond the sophomore
level. So, you see, if you look at the
benchmarks, both
they tend to require
more, and almost
all of them require
something beyond
that freshman experience
so that writing
is seen as an
intellectual
activity integrated into the
overall
educational fabric of an
undergraduate
education. And 12 of the
benchmarks have
writing courses in the
disciplines. The proposed change
is that
we would have a
four-year first year
writing course,
one of those, and there
would be no
entrance requirements for
that
course. I'll let Janet talk more
about the details. And then sometime
after the first
year, students would
satisfy a second
course, a 3-credit
course, by
completing one of the writing
intensive,
reading intensive, 200-level
courses already
offered in the English
Department. These aren't new courses.
These are
there. These are staffed with
instructors that
we, probably, have not
been taking
maximum advantage of in terms
of their impact
on - on the - the
writing
opportunities in the curriculum.
This provides a
way that other
departments
would not have to come up
with writing new courses -- new
writing
courses, but if
they wanted to, they
could. So, it achieves a number of
important
things. It will reduce
expenses, as
Janet, I think, can talk a
little bit
about. Janet, where are you?
ELDRED: I'm right
here.
NIETZEL: Okay. And it begins to move
writing into --
more fully into the
student's
education rather than something
they simply kick
out of the way after the
first year.
Moving to research and
scholarship,
real quickly. Total
research, here
you see a 50-percent
increase from 2000 in
terms of total
grants and
contracts. This was a record.
And for this
year, we are 14 percent
ahead by the
same time last year in terms
of grants and
contracts. So the
University will
cross, in all likelihood,
will cross the
quarter of a billion
dollar mark for
the first time in its
history. This shows just federal grants
which accounts
for almost 60 percent of
that amount. You can
- you can see that
NIH and National
Science Foundation
account for the
lion's share of that.
I'm going to
come to the NIH data in just
a minute where UK is doing
extremely well
in terms of
public universities. Okay.
Here's our NIH rankings. The
College of Medicine
is 32nd among all
public medical
schools. And there are
nine departments
in the University that
rank in the top
20. The combination of
Psychology and Behavioral
Science, a
non-degree
department - non-degree
granting
department in the College of
Medicine is
first. Aging, third;
Pharmacology is
twelfth. Physiology,
Anatomy and
Neurobiology, Surgery, Public
Health, Preventive
Medicine, Family
Practice, and
Microimmunology. That's
really a very,
very good record in terms
of NIH. That's significant because of
the growth opportunities that we
think
are still going
to be there as the NIH
budget,
hopefully, increases. There's
now some
question about how much
discretionary
increase there - there
will be. Because of this, Lexington is
actually 53rd
among all cities in terms of
NIH grants and
contracts in terms of
fiscal-year
appropriations. There has
been - this shows you the increase due
to RCTF. A four-fold increase in chairs
and about a
five-fold increase in endowed
professorships
at the University across
these past five
years.
What are some
research and
scholarship
needs? I'm going to go a
little more
quickly on this. We - we
need to increase
proposals. This is a
program that I
started where if colleges
exceeded certain
goals for writing
proposals, they
got operating expenses.
We had a
baseline in the year 2000 of 541
proposals. We set that as a goal in '02.
That's,
actually, what we achieved in
'03. That's what we achieved. These
colleges, Arts
and Sciences,
Communication,
Design, Engineering,
Graduate School,
and Social Work have had
two consecutive years of increasing
the
proposals out of
the door. Ag did not
set a goal of
increasing proposals but
increasing the
total dollar amount. They
went up by 64
percent. After we set this
goal, they
declined a little bit the year
after, but to be
up by 62 percent in two
years, still, we
counted that as a
victory. Okay.
Space is critical for this
research program
to continue to grow.
This gives you
an idea of about 700,000
gross square
feet under construction or
planned or
open. This is BBSRB, 190,000
square
feet. That building should be
occupied in
January. Health Sciences, of
course, is
occupied. Plant Science is
occupied. Mechanical Engineering. Gill
Hart, probably,
shouldn't include this as
a research
facility. It's more of a
clinical
facility, although they'll be
clinical
research going on in it. And
then the Biology
and Pharmacy addition
which in the
Governor's bill has - we
have authorization
for 21 million of
State debt
support - debt-service
support, 21
million from the University.
Unfortunately,
in the current budget,
that's been put back a year. So, while
we still have
authority, there'd be no
debt service
provided until a year from
now. So, that's not the best news, not
the worst
either. The authorization is
still
there.
The
futures initiative, this
was a plan
whereby I made available about
half of the
salary for strategic hires in
those areas that
had been identified as
part of the
strategic plan. The idea was
the provost
would put up about half the
salary. The unit would put up about half
the salary for
three years. And then it
would roll to
the - finally to the
units. There are 22 positions associated
with this. Thirteen on the old North
Campus goes down
to right here, and then
nine in the
medical center. And you can
see a pretty
good array of programs
represented
there.
I wanted to update you on where
we stand in the
top 20. Most people
think that the
University's - the
University of
Florida's center provides
the best data on
this. I'll show you
over the last
four years. There are nine
measures that we
are evaluated on by the
center. This -
the cohort we're looking
at here are just
public institutions.
And here are the
four years for which we
have data. Total research, federal, how
much we have in our
endowment, and how
much is our
annual giving. You can see a
pretty stable
pattern here. Federal
research, nice improvement. Obviously,
the endowment
and the impact of RCTF has
helped. Annual giving, we've had a
couple of - of rough years here the past
couple. We have not kept up on that one,
as one might
have expected we would. So,
that's four
measures. Then the next
table shows the
other five. How many of
our faculty are
in one of the three
national
academies: Science, Engineering
or Institute of
Medicine? We don't do
well here. How many of our faculty have
won 1 of 15
national awards? A broader
category than
this. We have slipped
there. How many doctorates do we award?
Some
progress. How many post-doctoral
appointments? Do quite well there
and
nice
progress. And this is our average
SAT score. And we're fairly low there
still when you
look at the - the really
premiere public
research universities.
UK is on 9 of
these measures in the top
50 on 7 of them
in 2003. And we're in
the top 40 on 4
of them. So that can
give you
some - you can regard that as
progress, as encouraging,
as
discouraging, as
a stall. One could look
at this in a
variety of ways and make
different
interpretations about what's
happened over
the four years we've been
tracking
this.
Budget, now, okay, let's do
State
appropriations, tuition, real
quickly, and
then - this is a very grim
slide. This shows since 2001 the
cumulative
decrease in funding from the
State. It's $74 million. This shows the
recurring cuts
that began in 2002,
6 million. The recurring cut that began
in '03, 8.6. The recurring cut that
begins this year
and carries forward
next, 5.5. A nonrecurring cut in
2001-2002, and
then this real nasty one
here which is
the one that came from the
attack on the
restricted funds of about
$41 million,
statewide. So across these
four years,
assuming that the budget
holds that we
have right now for next
year, the
University will have lost a
cumulative $74 million
in state support.
Until you look
at the impact of this as
you go out over
the years for a recurring
cut, you don't
realize what's been taken
out of us. Okay.
This gives you an idea
about that state
funding that we're
receiving per
student, and this is
equally ugly
because what you see here is
as the State
appropriation has been going
down, the number
of full-time students
has been going
up as we have this
enrollment
growth, so that the state
funding per
student - here's your high
point, 14,275
back in fiscal year '01, is
now down to this
13,000. That's a
9-percent
decrease per student in state
funding. The juxtaposition of declining
appropriation
and increasing enrollment.
Now, these state
appropriation numbers
when you look
more carefully at the - at
the presentation
on the Web, these
numbers aren't
going to be the same as
some other ones
you see because they are
net of debt
service and - and they
include mandated
programs. So, you see
always the
budget figures. Sometimes
they have debt
service in; sometimes they
have mandated
programs in. Just notice
the asterisk
here to describe what's
included in
this - in this figure.
What about tuition then? What
has the
University done in terms of
tuition increases, and what are
we
thinking
about? This is a comparison of
the dollar
increases that the benchmark
have had in the
past four years in their
undergraduate
resident tuition. If I
were to show you
nonresident tuition, UK
would be the
second lowest. What we show
here is the
resident tuition. UK is the
fourth lowest in
terms of the dollar
increase across
the period of time.
Students don't
pay percentages. They pay
dollars. And so we're particularly
interested in
what that has meant in
comparison,
again, with the peer and
aspiration group that we're
contending
with. What are we thinking about for
next year? It's -
it's premature to
say, but last
year we had 20 million --
$22 million
worth of obligations, and we
had a 15 percent
tuition increase. Next
year we have
about $33 million worth of
obligations if
you look at the total
budget, and
we're trying to keep that
tuition increase
under 15 percent. But
what you're
likely to see, in addition to
a tuition
increase, is a further
differentiation
in terms of program fees,
some
differential tuition even at the
undergraduate level. We started at the
graduate level,
at the professional
level, but we're
going to have to begin
to look at
allocating tuition in a way
that tracks what the cost of
education is
in different
programs. Some programs it
costs four times
more to offer a credit
hour than it
does in others. So, we are
going to begin
in some programs,
engineering,
B&E, some other graduate
programs, to
look at differential tuition
or program fees
to begin to address some
of the real
costs of education associated
with whatever
program it is that a
student is enrolled
in.
This shows where our resident
tuition fees is
with respect to the
benchmarks. We remain ninth - no,
actually, we - wait, I'm sorry, ninth is
another
figure. We remain, I think,
14th - 14th out -- out of the array.
This amount here
is actually a little
less than the
median of all of the land
grant
universities. So, that's another
good figure to
keep in mind when you look
at undergraduate
tuition at UK. We have
remained below
the land grant median.
This shows our - the need for
us to address
faculty salaries. It's -
it's not a good
picture. This is LCC.
You can see that
the gap to the - to the
national average
for them has increased
this past
year. Next slide. And here is
for UK, and you
can see that we've gone
in the wrong
direction for the most
recent year we
have data on salaries.
That's why
salaries are at the very top
of the strategic
plan in terms of a
priority,
somehow addressing what is
clearly
compensation going in the wrong
direction,
vis-a-vis, the institutions
with which we
are competing. Okay.
Let
me go through a few efforts
and show you
cumulative recurring saving
of about $21
million in terms of
restructuring
and reorganization. The
initial reorganization in terms
of the
administration,
1.5, the next year about
7 million in
reallocations from various
one source to
another, for a total of
about 8-1/2
million. This, basically,
involves some
changes with respect to how
we took cuts in
the second year when we
had - the second year of recurring cuts
that began in
2001-2002. When we went to
the full provost
model, there was a lot
of reorganization
in terms of the Medical
Center and the
integration of offices
there. That was a $2 million pickup.
We
implemented a miscellaneous
fringe benefits
model that charged the
fringe benefits
to self-supporting units
and to federal
grants and contracts
rather than paying
those out of the
general
fund. That picked up 3.9. We
allocated costs
of certain central
services,
purchasing, payroll, police, to
self-supporting
units. Prior to that,
that had been
picked up on the general
fund. It was moved off. That was
another
3.1. A management program
developed for
pharmaceutical purchases
and hospital
purchases, a sharing
agreement, saved
about a million dollars.
And then general funds were
removed from
several units,
requiring them over a
period of two or
three years to become
self-sufficient. Robotics, I
believe,
that was
500,000. Development office
parking,
Environmental, Health and
Safety, that
picked up almost 3 million.
The total there
is - is over 21 million.
What should we be looking at in
terms of the
combination of goals and
savings, because
it's clear for this
biennium,
there's not going to, I think,
be new state
money? Here's what I would
suggest we have
a discussion about across
campus: What are the corps missions and
areas of
greatest promise? That's where
we're going to
continue to need to put
our focus. Are there some areas that we
could focus on
that would leverage
resources? I'll suggest one in a minute
for you to think
about. Are there ways
to have new
mixtures of current resources
that will make
us more efficient and
still maintain
educational quality? The
writing program
is an example. There are
some other
examples in terms of
undergraduate
students that, I think, we
could look
at. And then, are there some
areas that we should look at
where we
pull back a
little bit in terms of
investments
because they're, frankly,
ones that,
perhaps, don't either, in
terms of
centrality or promise, justify
the investment
that has traditionally
been there.
There have been some
significant
organizational administrative
issues. Let me talk about each of these
briefly. Let's go to the administrative.
In the past
three years, the amount of
change at this
institution
organizationally
has been unprecedented.
And I made a
list of things that have
happened in
these three years for us to
look back on in
terms of structural
changes. The provost model was a
significant
one. The creation of the
College of
Design and final resolution of
Human
Environmental Sciences. We
centralized
institutional research and
institutional
effectiveness under Vice
President Connie
Ray. The Medical Center
and North Campus
budget offices have now
been completely
integrated. We have
been, for the
most part, through a
successful SACS
reaccreditation. There
are still four
important issues. I'm not
talking about LCC. I'm talking about UK.
There are four
important issues out there
that I'm going
to mention at least one
about in a
minute because we have to be
attentive to
this and find a solution.
We've had a new
Master Plan by Air Saint
Gross
(PHONETICALLY). And then you have
had a complete change in terms
of the
administrative
central leadership with
the appointment
of a Provost, an
Executive Vice
President for Financial
Affairs --
that's Dick Siemer, of
course --
Executive Vice President for
Health Affairs, Mike
Carr; Executive Vice
President for
Research, Wendy Baldwin;
and Pat Terrell,
Vice President for
Student
Affairs. Seven new deans have
been hired in the past two years,
and for
the first time,
we have a full complement
now of deans,
full-time deans at the head
of all the
colleges with the appointment
just at the last
Board meeting of Jay
Perman for the
College of Medicine.
Let
me go back here to SACS.
We are under
quite a bit of scrutiny from
SACS, for what
they believe is an
over-reliance,
on part-time instructors
and TAs. As an example, we hire 187 -
Janet, is that
right - part-time
instructors --
ELDRED: That was --
NIETZEL: - 187
part-time instructors
for the writing
program?
ELDRED: That's how
many slots are
filled.
NIETZEL: That's how
many slots are
filled, okay.
ELDRED: And
it's - that was two years
ago, so it's up
closer to 200 going and
over that.
NIETZEL: In oral com,
I don't know how
many it is,
Enid, but it's a huge number
of TAs and
part-time instructors. Have
any idea what
that number would be?
WALDHART: --
sorry.
NIETZEL: Okay. But we have to find a
way to address
this because we are about
8 percent higher in the use
of part-time
instructors and
TAs than our peer
institutions. In a sense, SACS is
correct about
the fact that we've made
some progress
the last two years by
hiring some
full-time lecturers, but that
is a figure that
we are going to have to
put a dent in,
one way or the other.
And, so, we're
going to need to look at
courses in which
they're heavy consumers
of PTIs and TAs
and see is there a better
way for us to do
it. I think Janet's
writing one is
going to be a wonderful
illustration of
how we can put a dent in
it. There are others that we need to
take a very
serious look at or we're
going to have
problems with this
particular
issue. The oral com, is one
that I would
suggest we need to look at
equally closely
on
that - on that point.
Let
me go back, though, just a
minute. One more back, Mark. Okay.
LCC, I think,
we're pretty much - there
was an update on
LCC that, I believe,
will come out of
the committee on
Wednesday. I think, they have settled
on - there are five different bills or
resolutions. I think, they've settled on
the one they're
going to go forward with.
If they do a
resolution, as soon as that
resolution is passed,
the - it becomes
effective
immediately. And every
indication we
have from SACS is that that
will resolve the
governance issues, and I
would hope,
would get LCC off probation
at that
point. That would be a very,
very good thing
for them and for their
students if we
could get that resolved.
College of Public Health,
that's one
that's going to be coming
forward before
the Senate. I want to
talk about that real, real
quickly
because it's an
example of one of those
areas where, I
think, it can leverage
resources. I was going to present to you
the budget
figures for the College of
Public Health,
but we don't have time to
do that. I'll be happy to come back at
the time it's
considered at the Senate
and do it so
that you can see what,
frankly, I
think, has always been a
significant
concern and a very legitimate
one is: Is the money there for a College
of Public
Health? Do we have, in place,
the lines, the
staff, the operating
expenses for the five units that
would be
part of a
College of Public Health? And,
so, that's one
that we - I don't want to
rush
through. I want to go ahead and be
able to present
that and, hopefully,
answer questions
the Senate would have to
show, in fact,
that it's there. Many of
these units
already exist, and what we're
looking at is a
reorganization to bring
them into a
college structure. Let me
suggest there
are five reasons why -
substantive
reasons why you want to
think - why a College of Public Health
would be a good
idea for the University,
even in the financial
situation where we
find ourselves
now. One is that, in
terms of health
indicators, Kentucky is
doing
miserably. This state is, on a
variety of
measures, at the bottom with
respect to
public health. If you look at
overall health
outcomes, we're 39th out of
the 50
states. And then if you look at
the individual
indices that make up that
overall health
outcome, like obesity and
smoking rates,
on many of those we're in
the bottom ten
or five states. So, there
is a profound
need that has dramatic
economic impact
on this state to - to
improve the overall
health of Kentucky.
Second, it is a
clear state priority. I
think that the
CPE has now indicated that
they will be
supportive of a public
health
initiative with UK taking the lead
in terms of
having a college other
universities
having program. And the
state has made
it clear, with some
legislation
currently being considered,
that it will be
a priority for them.
It's a national priority. Of our
benchmarks, nine
have accredited Colleges
of Public Health
and two more are looking
at
introducing. And they're doing that
because they're also in context
in which
public health is
a significant quality of
life but also
economic factor for those
states to cope
with. And also, that
there's a lot of
money out there to be
invested in
public health initiatives.
fourth, there
are some resources, federal
resources, that only
accredited colleges
of public health
can compete. And those
are significant
resources. We are
handicapped at
this University by having
many of the
public health programs, but
not having the
opportunity because we
lack the accreditation
standard - status
to go after
money that is earmarked only
for accredited
colleges of public health.
So we're leaving
money on the federal
table that could come
to UK if we had
the - the organizational structure here
that would - would legitimize us in
public health
eyes. Finally, we've got
about 120
students in these programs who,
at one time or
the other, regardless of
whether we think
this might have been a
good or bad
message to send, we're led to
believe they
were going to graduate from
an accredited
unit. And that's something
that we -- we
may want to do differently
in the future in
terms of how things are
started. This was started a long time
ago, but we now
have students in that
standing or in that
limbo that, I think,
we have an
obligation to address. Those
are both
master's students and doctor of
public health
students. That's a
significant, I
think some students would
say, contractual
expectation that they
have with the
University. So, I hope, we
can come back
and talk about public
health. But I do, at least, want to
begin the
conversation by saying there
are very good
reasons for us to consider
it and then,
hopefully, be able to answer
what, I know,
would be skepticism,
hopefully never,
cynicism about whether
the money is there to actually
support
this unit. Okay.
Now, let's go forward,
and I'll get
done in five minutes.
You
think about a University
like this - as I put this together, I
thought how we
manage some real
interesting
paradoxes helps define how
good we can be
and how, in terms of
faculty, staff,
students and
administration,
you come together to make
the institution
be better, or you let it
languish and
kind of drift. These
paradoxes are
really present, I think,
for all
significant major public research
universities. And here are some of them:
The first one is
obvious from things that
you have
seen. More and more demand for
our education
with declining state
support. How do you manage that? Do you
become
essentially an elite public
institution? I doubt whether we
can do
that in the
State of Kentucky. That's
not been part of
the covenant that we
have had with
the state. We're expected
to be constantly
entangled with real
world issues,
and, yet, why many of us
are here is that
we're devoted to
thinking about
the abstract, the
experimental - experimental, and even
the whimsical
part of life and the world.
And how you
marry those is important.
How you, on the
one hand, address
practical issues
and the same time
protect the
freedom of the University to
think about what
it wants to think about
in many, many
areas is an important
paradox to
resolve. We don't have an
impact unless we
have the scale that we
have here. And, yet, our success, I
think, depends
on still two people and
having a
particularly good relationship
between a
student and a faculty member.
So, how, in an institution like
this, can
we keep that
intimacy of the learner and
the - and the
- and the teacher
protected, and
at the same time, maintain
the scope that
makes us quite special and
that allows us
to have the impact in this
state that we
need to have. How do we
take student's and
faculty's private
curiosities
which, I think if you
encourage them,
makes for the best kind
of learning
environment here, how do we
do - how do we indulge those and help
society
understand that they're going to
get huge social
benefits from that at the
same time? That when a student really
begins to sink
his or her teeth into a
major or into a
profession, because
that's the
interest that's captivated
them, just like it's
captivated the
faculty member
that's inspired them to be
in that program,
that's how you get the
ultimate social
benefits from the
University. How do we expand access
without
lessening excellence? Honors is
the way. Many universities try to cope
with that. There are other ways to cope
with that, but
it's something that,
particularly, UK
is going to have to
contend with because
if you look at the
outstanding
students in the State of
Kentucky, they
generally are choosing
whether to go
here or some institution
out of state. That's where we lose most
of our really
good students is to some
institution out
of State. How do we have
the global reach
that we need but enjoy
the local
embrace and support that we
have to
have? Issues of how the - the
community
accepts our students, accepts
campus life,
accepts the kinds of
activities and
priorities that we
establish on
this campus, how they feed
into those and
support those at the same
time, we're sure
that we're educating
people for the
modern world that extends
far, far beyond
Lexington. And then,
finally, how do we stay obsessed with
quality and the
process; it's very
important to a
faculty, in particular,
but still be
expected to become more
efficient and
accountable as we do that?
That's a tough
struggle. You'll see some
of those
struggles coming forward as we
talk about a
joint program in engineering
with Western
Kentucky and UK where there
are some
practical issues, very
unpleasant ones,
quite frankly, that we
have had to
contend with at the same time
we've wanted to
marshal this obsession
with quality and
process. How you make
those two work together so
that the
University can
be proud of what it is
doing and, yet,
fulfill these
expectations
that people external to the
University often
have, or - or believe
they have,
stronger than -- than we do,
is a significant
challenge for us to
accept. I think that's it. I don't
know, Jeff, if
you want - if we have
time for any
questions. I - I know it's
been a while - gone on for a while, but
I could take a
couple if - if we do have
time.
CHAIR DEMBO: We do have
time for one or two
questions.
GROSSMAN:
Bob Grossman, Chemistry. You
know, I think, I asked you this last time
too. I'll ask it again: One of the
things that we, as faculty, find very
frustrating is the budgets, is that as
our
operating budgets are cut, the
service units at the University also have
their operating budgets cut, but they
just increase their charges to
compensate. And we don't have any way to
increase charges, and we have no control
over that price-setting process.
So, I
was
wondering if any progress has been
made in addressing some of those
problems?
NIETZEL: Well,
there - there have been,
Bob, some - I mean, the
- the budget
cutting has not
been - it -- it has been
more dramatic on
the nonacademic side
than on the academic
side. Every time we
have taken
recurring cuts in the
University, it
is begun, first of all,
with the
principle that the academic unit
cut will be
smaller than the nonacdemic
unit cut. So, that has
- there are
recurring general
fund dollars in -- in
those units that
you're talking about.
And they have
had to absorb that at a
higher level
than we have had. You're
right about the problem of
turning around
and increasing,
essentially, the fees to
you that have to
be paid. It's not
unlike, of
course, what students say
we're doing to
them with - with tuition.
So this is - this can get - it's ugly,
depending on who
the - who - who the
doer is, but
it's kind of what we're
forced to do
with students, frankly. I
- I agree with
your frustration on it.
I do think there - that Dick Siemer is
attempting to
make sure that those costs
and the services
that you're given are
responsive to
academic needs. I hope we
see improvement in that,
and I think we
need to continue
to have the policy of
having budget
cuts on those units be
heavier than
they are on - on the
academic
ones. I can't give you, I
think, a
completely sanguine response to
it, but I do
think Dick is very concerned
about it, and
you should continue to, as
I know you will,
let us hear about those
problems.
CHAIR DEMBO: We'll take
one more question.
NIETZEL: Yeah, Kaveh.
TAGAVI: Yeah, I
notice you didn't use
the term
"contract" in connection with
graduation contract. I'm just hoping
that it wasn't a
type of sensor. I was
always not in
favor of the word
"contract." You are
using contract
agreement. Is that a change in that?
NIETZEL: That's a
change. We liked the
word - would you like the word
"agreement" better?
TAGAVI: Thank you,
yes.
NIETZEL: Yes, we do
too.
TAGAVI: It was
problem contract --
NIETZEL: I think
agreement is now the
language
everywhere in which that's
referred, and it
is -- it is better.
TAGAVI: I agree.
NIETZEL: Yeah.
CHAIR DEMBO: Thank you, Mike, very much.
NIETZEL: Okay, thank
you.
(AUDIENCE
APPLAUDS)
CHAIR DEMBO: This - this will be the plan
for the - the remainder of the meeting.
We do need to
get a discussion about the
writing
proposal. Thereafter, we're
going to try to
get the action item of
the definition
of a family and with
patience, Dr.
Nash, if we can reserve the
last 10 minutes
for you. So my goal here
is to spend no
more than 25 minutes
talking about
this. Let me describe to
you what's
happened. Back in December of
2002, Vice Provost Kraemer
came before
the Senate to
discuss what was then
discussed, I
think, among USP and the
writing program
where proposed changes
that would be
coming down the line. From
my recollection
in reviewing the
transcript,
there were a number of good
questions that
came up at that Senate
meeting. It's been since discussed,
modified, very
thoroughly presented at
many different levels: Undergraduate
Council, the
Advising Network, USP
Committee, the
Senate Council. So, my
goal is for - to do several things here.
First, is to have Janet and
colleagues
very briefly
describe the essence of what
this is. Secondly, is to have members of
the various
councils and committees that
it's gone
through, give input along the
way. The next step would be for the
Senate to
ascertain if it wishes to waive
the ten-day
rule. As a reminder, this
did not get
formalized on the agenda
within 10 days
time. That's what the
Senate Rules currently
are. And as an
aside, that was
a rule that was carried
over from the
time that mailings went out
to
everybody. Now that we do it
electronically, we've charged the
Rules
Committee with
looking at, maybe, a more
moderate view of
how long in advance of a
Senate meeting
something actually has to
get on the
agenda. Once you've heard
enough, you can
decide by your vote
whether to waive
the ten-day rule to
actually make
this actionable item for
which a motion
could be brought to the
floor and voted
on, but I want all the
information to
be brought up right up
front. So, Janet, this would be a good
time for you to
present the essence of
the
proposal. Up here with her is Ellen
Rosenman, the current acting
Chair of
English, soon to
be permanent Chair of
English.
ELDRED: Permanent
chair.
CHAIR DEMBO: Yeah.
ELDRED: I don't have
one of those
pointers. I'm not really good at power
point. So, I still use the templates,
and, you know,
it will go through. Okay.
So, we'll just
have to do it like this.
Okay. I just want to say, first of all,
that I don't
have a problem with
something being
expensive if it's
effective. The problem that we have with
the writing
program is that it is, both,
expensive and not
particularly effective.
It's a model
from 1970s. Such models
were very
popular. Throw as much as you
could into the
first year. When
assessment came
along, and programs had
to start
assessing how well these
programs did,
they didn't do particularly
well, and most
universities have moved to
something like a
writing across a
curriculum or a
two-tiered model of some
sort. So, ours is not particularly
effective for
several reasons. It's a
first-year-only
requirement. So writing
skills atrophy,
and we - we know that.
That writing skills that
aren't used, if
skills aren't
used, that they decline
over time. We know from the assessment
with students
that they view something
as - they'll
- they'll say, well,
careful writing
in drafts and editing and
revision are
something you do for English
classes, but you
don't have to do it for
anyone else
because they don't care. So,
when you get
those papers that look like
nobody has read
them but you, you know,
the pages are
out of order and the fonts
go - messed up, and, you know,
they're - you just think how - did
anybody read this? The answer is, no,
you're the first
person who's read it.
You know, they
kind of took it out and,
likely, didn't
even read it on the
screen. It is inefficient. Part of 102
repeats 101, in
part, because we have so
many sections
taught by nonfaculty that
we can't count
on the instruction being
given in 105,
and so we repeat part of
that in
102. These are older figures
that 187-plus
sections two years ago with
the smaller
first-year class were staffed
by part-time
instructors. I'm not going
to go through a
lot of this because Mike
did it, but - on his -- his slides. But
I do want to
say, the students in the
Honors Program
already satisfied the
writing
requirement through the
curriculum, and,
in fact, do more
writing, and
that right now, we don't
have any
exemptions except through
transfer
credit. You saw the benchmarks.
Some of the
goals we have, to encourage
students to
write throughout their
college career
so that writing skills
grow rather than
atrophy, and this is a
proposal that
moves us down that path.
But it - it doesn't get us to the end
point, I think,
we want to be at. But
it - it's at least moving us in the
right direction
to encourage students to
learn through
writing throughout their
college careers. And then the last two
is we want to
move toward writing across
the curriculum,
and we hope that this is
the first
step.
Proposed change, most UK
students would
take a four-unit
first-year
writing course to satisfy the
first-year
writing requirement. And
there would no
entrance requirement for
that
course. Most students would place
into that. Sometime after achieving
sophomore status
but before graduation,
students would
satisfy the second
condition by
successfully completing one
of the writing-intensive
reading-intensive 200-level courses
offered through
the English Department.
When we brought
the proposal up last
year, it was for a
full-blown
writing-across-the-curriculum program.
And this body,
rightly, said there's not
funding to
support that at this time.
And with the
budget cuts coming through,
there is less
funding to support a kind
of full-blown
whack. This particular
proposal says,
we will continue to
deliver
instruction through English; we
will reallocate
the resources we have; we
will continue to offer the
instruction
through English;
and then as resources
become
available, USP will work on
creating
mechanisms so that other
colleges and
programs can be on board.
We hope this is
an interim proposal, but
it needs to
stand solid as - as it is.
We really would
like this proposal to
pave the way for
future courses outside
of the English
Department at that upper
division level.
For
now in this interim
proposal,
courses satisfying the 200-plus
requirement
include the following: 230,
231, 232, 233,
and 234, are new courses
that went
through just last year. For
the first time,
we have proposed that we
have some
first-year exemptions. We have
kept them high,
and so, it's not going to
be easy for
students to exempt, but we
can, at least,
make an offer if we're
trying to
recruit good students and bring
them in. 15 of the 19 benchmarks offer
exemption. We have not in the past. And
there will be no
exemption from the
200-level or
above requirement, and this
is fairly
consistent, again, with our
benchmarks who
say, if the purpose of
doing this is to encourage
students to
write across the
careers, you really
don't want to
exempt them from the - the
second
tier. And so, that is pretty much
the end of - of all the slides I had.
And then I - I wanted Ellen to talk a
little bit about
the English Department
support of the
proposal.
ROSENMAN:
Okay. I'm so primitive, I
don't even have
power point. I'm just
going talk. The English Department was
strongly in
favor of this proposal when
it was voted on
in the fall. I think,
the vote was 13
to 1. And it was clear
that it was both a better
program
pedagogically
than we have now, a much
better use of
our resources. We know
that students
learn to write best if they
continue to
practice, and also if they're
writing about a
rich content area. And
this proposal
addresses both of those.
It also solves
one of the main concerns
that we've had
for a long time about the
freshman
composition program as it now
exists; we
said - which is that it is
staffed almost,
almost entirely by
part-time
instructors and teaching
assistants. We have -- you've heard the
statistic now three times, but
next year
there will be
over 200 sections taught by
PTIs. And all
- almost all of the rest
of them taught
by TAs. One faculty
member every
other year teaches one
section of
freshmen comp. And having
seen the
retention statistics from the
Provost, I
think, it's pretty clear that
this is not a
student's best introduction
into college
life. With the new
proposal, probably,
about 25 percent of
the courses
would be taught by full-time
faculty
members. And if you take out
Business
Writing, which is something that
English professors don't
really know how
to do. It's really a separate field.
Those English
literature courses,
probably, about
60 percent of those will
be taught by
faculty members. So, in
that respect,
it's just a much better
writing
experience for students at UK
then - then dealing so much with
part-time
instructors and with TAs. And
it also will be
very helpful for us in
fulfilling the
SACS' requirements for TAs
because it will
make it easier for us to
take first-year
MAs out of the classroom
from teaching
their own courses and allow
them to be
supervised and trained before
they actually
teach. So, it seems to be
a better
educational experience for
students. It helps us meet our problem
of proliferating
adjunct instructors
which is a
problem nationwide and very
hard to make any
inroads on. It's a
better use of
resources, and it does, as
Janet says, pave
the way for a more
full-blown
writing-across-the-curriculum
program which
seems to be the direction
that writing is
going. Okay. Any
questions?
CHAIR DEMBO: Well, what
I'd like to do is to
hold off on
questions for us because I
want to put this
in a couple of
perspectives. First is that
there's no
effort to
prevent a thorough and
thoughtful
discussion about this, but
there is a time
concern of which you need
to be aware
of. Cindy Iten or Joanne
Davis, active in
the Advising Network,
maybe, you could - Joanne is chair of
the Advising
Network. Could you put this
in the
perspective of how a decision, or
the timing of a
Senate decision, could
impact what your
job is?
DAVIS:
Certainly. On March 19, 20 and
26 and 27, the
University will hold Merit
Weekend
registrations. These are for
incoming
freshmen who have ACT composites
of 27 or higher
and SAT scores of 1240 or
higher. This is the top of our pool.
They will be
registering -- if there's no
decision made,
they will be registering
before - with
- with a major part of
their component
unresolved. There are
going to be,
probably, close to 800
students. When I left my office at 2:40,
there were 726
already confirmed to
attend at one of
those two conferences.
And so, not
having this resolved at the
time that we
meet with them creates a big
unknown. For them, it puts the advisors
in a position of
not giving the best that
we can give them
in terms of planning and
advising
scheduling. It will mean if the
proposal is,
indeed, approved, then back
to those
students and another means of
getting them
registered, it just creates
a lot of
questions for students who come
expecting
answers, first of all, and the
exemptions will
be of considerable
concern to them
because that is a big
change that the
exemptions provided for
in the proposal
are quite different from
what this group
of students, in
particular, is
used to with the AP credit
that they've
been awarded in the past and
all know
about. And so, our Advising
Network has asked that it be
brought to
the Senate for
consideration prior to the
vote - prior to the first Merit Weekend
on the 19th and
20th.
CHAIR DEMBO: Hence,
knowing a decision,
either way
earlier rather than later,
helps everybody.
DAVIS: Right.
CHAIR DEMBO: Also, to
that end, the writing
program and the
Registrar's Office have
worked out a, I
guess, a deal whereby
both possible
options have already been
scheduled in
terms of room allocation.
Jacquie, do you
want to make a comment
about that?
HAGER: Sure.
We worked with the
English
Department early on when we heard
this was coming
up. And, basically, what
Janet and I have
done is talked about the
various
scenarios that would need to be
built into the
scheduling. We're
prepared to
implement either one,
depending on
what this body does.
SPEAKER: That
was - that was kind of a
royalty --
DAVIS: Jacquie did
most of that work.
And I said, wow,
that's really good.
CHAIR DEMBO: That's how
Jacquie tends to
work. So, rather than reinvent the
wheel, I'd like
for, first, somebody from
Undergraduate
Council if you have any
comments to make
about the deliberation
that went on in
that body, followed by
USP, and then the
Senate Council. Is
there anybody
from Undergraduate Council
who would like
to - to make any comments
or, Phil, if you
want to summarize what
you heard.
KRAEMER: I'll speak
to both. I don't
want to preclude
anyone else from having
the
opportunity. But the course change
that we're
talking about here going from
the two 3-credit
hour courses to one
4-credit course,
was evaluated by the
Undergraduate
Council, and it was
approved. The USP Committee, this is a
proposal that
goes back more than one
year. This has been under development
for quite some
time. The USP Committee
thoroughly
looked at the proposal
submitted last
year. We brought that to
the Senate for
discussion, and we took
very seriously
all the comments. And,
again, the royal
we was Janet who
redrafted to
incorporate those
suggestions. And the USP
Committee has
looked at this
new proposal very
thoroughly
and - and is highly
supportive of
it. But, again, I don't
want to preclude
if anyone else in the
Council or USP
-- Steve.
CHAIR DEMBO: Steve.
YATES: Steve Yates,
Chemistry
Department. I've seen this proposal from
three
perspectives, from the Arts and
Sciences
Council, from the University
Studies
Committee, and here in the
Senate. And, quite frankly, I've tried
to be skeptical,
as Mike as suggested,
but not cynical
in -- in looking at it.
And, I think,
that it has merged as a
very progressive
proposal. I think the
overwhelming thing that sways me
is that
this leads to an
increase in the quality
of education
because, while it wasn't
emphasized by
either - either of the
young ladies, in
fact, you're going to
have a better
pool of instructors to
choose
from. And, I think, this is -
this, by all
means, is going to lead to
better
instruction. I very strongly
support this
proposal.
CHAIR DEMBO: Thank you,
Steve. Is there
anybody else
from the USP Committee, Arts
and Sciences
Faculty Council, or the
Undergraduate
Council that wants to
comment? Okay.
At the Senate Council
level, there was
also a lively
discussion, and
while the Senate Council
ultimately voted
to send it forward to
the Senate with a
positive
recommendation,
the vote was not a
unanimous
one. And, I think, that you
should hear
both - both perspectives.
So who from the
Senate Council would like
to present their
perspective? Professor
Tagavi.
TAGAVI: Yes. Actually, there was not
enough time on
the Senate Council, so to
be fair to - to my colleagues, I did
bring this up
because we were entangled
on a D, which is
possible or not I'll
take -- talk
about that later. But this
technical
writing, it seems to me that if
you want to become
top 20, you have to
have a technical
writing. Now, we have
Business
Writing, and I think we should
have Business
Writing. And I ask you,
Janet, how many
you have. I'm not going
to say the
number yet. You told me a
number, and then
I asked my colleagues,
how many
Business Writing do you think we
have? And I asked them, they said, well,
I don't
know. It's like, make a guess.
I was told 5,
10, 15. And I told them
it's 50. I have no problem with having
Business Writing
50 courses of classes,
but I think in
Engineering College,
sciences, they also
deserve to have
technical
writing, and it's very
important.
CHAIR DEMBO: Other
members from the Senate
Council that
want to present their
perspectives. Well, I'll
summarize by
saying that
there were some who felt that
this was not a
step in the right
direction, that
it represented
diminishing
the - the education that was
to occur. There's one more point. You
were asked about how many
sections --
ELDRED: Yes,
the - the humanities,
USP.
CHAIR DEMBO: Right. I don't know if that's
relevant information, but one
of the
specific
questions that came up with
Janet - why don't you describe the
information?
ELDRED: The question
asked was how many
students in
other departments take the
200-level lit
courses, and I didn't bring
those. I did circulate those numbers
with the Senate
Council. They're not -
it's, you know,
five from Biology,
five - it's a long, long list. The
biggest number is either
English - I
think, it's 60
percent - does that sound
right, Jeff - English or secondary ed.
So - and the secondary ed people - is
that right,
Kaveh? You might --
TAGAVI: Yes.
ELDRED: -- remember
those numbers
better. The secondary ed people do
this - the English major but with a more
writing-intensive focus. So,
that's not
unusual. And then the rest of them,
really just go
across a very, very long
list. I think, journalism was up there
with more than
seven students. But -
but it's, actually, a few
from here, a
few from there,
a few from here.
CHAIR DEMBO: Professor
Debski.
DEBSKI: Yeah. I guess, the concern was
that,
specifically, this 200-level course
could also count
for USP in their
humanities. And so, basically, the idea
was that you
were getting double credit
for this
course. And - and, I'm
wondering, that
was from the - that
recommendation
was from the USP Committee
rather than - rather than the English
Department.
ELDRED: No. I think --
DEBSKI: Is that
right?
ELDRED: - I think from both. I think,
the English
Department had a real problem
with turning the
200-level courses into
another writing
course. The English
Department was
very happy to have those
courses as USP
courses. The content is
protected
somewhat that way, and they had
a problem with
saying, why is the same
course
different? You know, why - okay,
the student
takes it this time, it counts
for USP; the
student takes it again, it
counts for
writing. Nothing's changed.
It's the same
course. And so, I think,
there were two
ideas there that, one,
that the USP
requirement protected the
humanities
content of those courses so
that we just
didn't end up with a
two-tiered
writing requirement where
content somehow
disappears from that
second tier.
DEBSKI: But in terms
of diminishing, I
guess, that
would be one of the points
that, I know
myself, I felt that that
might certainly
lessen the requirements,
and put together
with the oral
communication
and - and the possibility
that that might
be dropped, and the cross
disciplinary - it was - it seemed, to
me, that there
was a pattern, and that we
were sort of
chipping away at the USP
requirements.
CHAIR DEMBO: Dean Hoch.
HOCH: I just want
to - Jeff, could
you just inform
the Senate what was the
vote at the
Senate Council meeting?
Seven?
CHAIR DEMBO: Let's see if
I have it.
SCOTT: Eight.
CHAIR DEMBO: It was,
what, eight to --
SCOTT: Eight to
two, to the best of my
recollection.
CHAIR DEMBO: Are there
any other questions
that need to be
answered for the Senate
to decide if it
has enough information to
consider waiving
the ten-day rule?
Additional
information is needed?
GESUND: HANS GESUND,
Civil Engineering.
Two questions, really. The first one
concerns
engineering. We have to have
the technical
writing as part of this
revamping. We simply cannot go with
business or any
of these other things.
If you have ever
bought a VCR, DVD
player, TV, any
of these things, and have
tried to read
the instructions for
activating these
things, you will
understand how
very, very, very important
good technical
writing is. We need to
have that
included, the technical writing
course. So, that
- there is no way
Engineering can
go without that. Number
two, what does this do for
transfer - to
transfer
students? How will you handle
transfer
students who have had 101, 102,
all over the
country, let alone all over
the
Commonwealth?
ELDRED: First of
all, I'd like to say
that Business
Writing is staffed entirely
by adjuncts who
get - who are paid
$2,625 a
course. We have been working on
that
course. It's very difficult to -
to find people
to teach it. Our - the
CP has
designated -- this campus has a
Ph.D. and a
graduate program in
literature. The Ph.D. and the graduate
program in writing is at the
University
of
Louisville. What this means is that
we have, right
now, two faculty members
in writing,
Brandon Roorda, who is
director of the
writing program now, and
I am in
writing. That's it for faculty
members in
writing. The other thing
is - is -
is that it's - this money
for Business
Writing comes directly out
of the English
Department and the Arts
and Sciences
budget. And there is no
additional money
in there to build 204.
And so, part of
the thing is is that we
don't have - first of all, we don't have
the expertise. We don't have the staff.
And already with
the adjunct situation,
it is very
difficult, as Professor Yates
alluded to, for
us to find people who are
qualified to
teach in those courses and
the - the problem is directly a problem
of
compensation. When you are paying
people $2,625 to
teach a course, it's,
you know, it's
rather --
GESUND: Well, this
is all very well.
But you
have - you're going to have to
teach the
Engineering students in - in
the Business
Writing then. They've got
to go
somewhere. They'll probably all
want to go into the Business Writing
as
the nearest
thing to their hearts. So
why not take
some of the money that
you're going to
have to spend for the
Engineering
students anyway, and put that
into English
204, the technical writing
course?
ELDRED: It's very
simple --
GESUND: It just
doesn't make sense.
ELDRED: - don't
have the faculty to
teach it. Don't have the expertise --
GESUND: Well, if you can buy it - you
can hire some
people to do that.
ELDRED: This is a
Dean question.
GESUND: You're
offering the course
right now. It's in the
- it's in the
schedule
book. It's in the catalog. If
you can offer it
with, I don't know,
three or four
sections, I presume you can
offer it with
ten or twelve. It
shouldn't be
that difficult if you want
to do it. And what I'm detecting is a
great reluctance
on the part of the
people who
should be doing this, to do
it, and I resent
that. I resent it
deeply.
ELDRED: I would -- I would just
respectfully say
that, I think, the
Engineering
College would be a good place
to house
technical writing.
GESUND: We haven't
got the budget,
either.
(AUDIENCE
LAUGHS)
GESUND: I'll make
you a deal, you
transfer 10 or 15 or 20 sections
worth of
funding to
College of Engineering, and
we'll do
it. All you've got to do is
give us the
funds.
ELDRED: They're
not - they're not a
whole lot. 10 times, you know, $2,625 --
GESUND: We can hire
graduate students
just like you
can. And then you haven't
answered the
other question.
ELDRED: The transfer
agreement is laid
out. What we're doing is if a student
has - it's
- it's partly - and,
Cindy, actually,
I'm going to ask you to
help me with
this. But it's partly
already outlined
in articulation
agreements that
are beyond us. So, if a
student
completes 101 and 102, they have
satisfied the
first-year writing
requirement, and
would take the second
tier. If a student completes only 101,
they have the
option of either taking a
102 or going
into the four-unit 105. If
a student earns
an AP of three on the
language exam,
they will receive credit
for English 101,
and can take either 102
or 105 - 104 is the -- the number now.
But if we have
students transferring with
writing-across-the-curriculum courses
at - at an upper division, we'll -
we'll evaluate
those now on a - on a
case-by-case
basis. They don't have to,
necessarily, be
literature. We want them
to be
writing-intensive. Literature
courses that
transfer will not
automatically be
counted as the second
tier because
they might not have been
writing
intensive.
CHAIR DEMBO: Professor
Hahn.
HAHN: You have
mentioned it's in the
proposal.
ELDRED: Yes.
HAHN: And I would
like to know what's
planned for the
future because when the
Undergraduate
Studies Committee of this
University
looked at it many years ago,
we had intended
for TAs from English to
be in our
writing-intensive courses. We
need them very
badly. I follow what Hans
is saying. I dig through about 100 pages
per student per
semester of writing, and
I think that's
more intensive than any of
the other
courses. And what I would like
to see is help
in that particular area.
ELDRED: And you've
got the Provost
here.
HAHN: I would
really like to know
when this is an
interim proposal, and I
would like to
have it labeled that, that
everybody knows
we're going to do
something in the
future.
ELDRED: I like that
idea very much.
CHIEF DEMBO: Professor
Yanarella.
YANARELLA: I
was one of those who
supported the
proposal in the Senate
Council, and, I
think, some of the
comments that
have been made may give a
somewhat
distorted view on the eight
people who
supported the particular
proposal in the Senate Council. I
thought - it was my impression that this
was a - an indication of strong support
by those eight
people who voted, and -
and, clearly,
the strong questioning by
those who voted
against this. We had a
very lively
follow-up discussion on our
list serve, and
I thought that there was
a very thorough
airing of many of the
issues that took
place within the debate
itself. Those who came to the Senate
Council to
explain the proposal, came in
full force, the
Dean of my college, as
well as Janet,
several members, Randall
Roorda, who's also
involved in putting
this together,
John - John Pica to talk
about the - the issue of - that would
follow in terms
of going one way or
another. And I thought that - I thought
that those
people had generally ready
answers and
certainly responded quite
well to a number
of the issues and
concerns that
were raised. I also had
the distinct
impression that - that some
of those individuals
who were skeptical
of this or
raised serious question,
were - were treating this as a kind of
surrogate for a
very important issue that
we - we need to come to grips with, both
on the faculty
side and the
administrative
side. And that is to say,
what do we do
and to what extent should
budget cuts and
rising enrollments drive
our conception
of - of liberal
education? That's an issue that, I
think, all of us
should be part of, but I
don't think that
this particular proposal
should be held
hostage to it. As - as
I've - I've been involved on the
periphery on
this for a number of years,
and I know that
this has gone through,
and there have
been very thoughtful
engagements of this, not only
within
those standard
representative bodies, but
also on other
committees. And it seems
to be me that
the - the case has been
made strongly
and powerfully for this as
an interim - as an interim effort
working towards
writing-across-the-curriculum input.
I
certainly
support that. I think that
those of us who
are involved in modern
studies and had
the opportunity to deploy
the kinds
of - of methods that are going
to become an
integral aspect of this -
of this
alternative to the present
system, feel very
comfortable in -
in - in seeing this being integrated,
and certainly,
when - if you ask the
bottom-line
question, and that is, will
the quality of
the experience of -
of - of the writing requirement be
enhanced, I
think, that the eight people
who voted in
support of this on the
Senate Council,
concluded that it would.
CHAIR DEMBO: One of the
other problems with
the time issue
is that if the Senate does
not want to
consider it today by waiving
the ten-day
rule, it still needs to be
considered
sometime before the next
meeting of the Senate,
meaning, that we
would call a
special meeting of the
Senate,
specifically, for that issue.
So, you've at
least heard enough about
this proposal to
know whether you want to
put it on the
floor or not.
SPEAKER: Why - why is that?
CHAIR DEMBO: The Senate Council has the
power to call a
special meeting of the
Senate when it's
necessary. If we wait
until the April
6th meeting of the
University
Senate, it will be too late
for the Advising
Network to properly get
the word out as
to which way the Senate
has voted. So, that would probably
require having a
Senate meeting on or
about March
22nd. So, this would be the
time if a motion
is to come forward.
Professor Waldhart.
WALDHART: I
move that we waive the
ten-day rule in
this case. I think,
we've had enough
advance notice, and I
would like for
us to vote on it today.
CHAIR DEMBO: Is there a
second for that?
GROSSMAN:
Second.
CHAIR DEMBO: Okay.
SCOTT: Name?
GROSSMAN:
Bob Grossman.
CHAIR DEMBO: Okay. So, the discussion now
is merely whether we're
going to vote on
waiving the
ten-day rule to make this an
actionable item
at this meeting. Is
there any
discussion about that? Anybody
want to speak
against the motion?
Professor
Tagavi.
TAGAVI: We have been
doing this - I've
been here 20
years, maybe, we have been
101, 102 for
even more than that. What
is the
rush? This came out to senators
Thursday
night. I'd like to ask, maybe,
show of hands
who read every one of
these? Is it
- is it good practice
to - to vote on this when there was a
two-day notice,
two of them Saturday and
Sunday, or three
days notice, two of them
Saturday and
Sunday? Is there any rush?
I'd like to
know. Does - does it have
to be this year other
than the fact that
we are going to
save - we are going to
save one extra
year? I acknowledge that,
but other than that,
is SACS breathing on
our necks that
we have to do it this year
rather than next
year?
CHAIR DEMBO: Professor
Eldred.
ELDRED: Not so much
SACS, although SACS
would like us to
get the number down,
obviously. The budget is breathing down
our necks, and
we will have to make cuts.
One of the
things that's very nice about
the proposal is
that it drops the number
of students in a
class to 22, and it
means that we hire
fewer part-time
instructors
which means, as Professor
Yates pointed
out, that we have a better
quality pool.
TAGAVI: From what? Drop to 22 from
what?
ELDRED: 25, but with
the budget next
year, that
number will go up to 27. Now,
the - the recommended number is 15. The
national average
is 18. So, even at 22,
we're above that
but we're moving in the
right
direction. Now, in order to cap
those numbers at
27, we are increasing
the Business
Writing to 112. That's how
the budget
numbers would work out. 112
students in a
section of Business
Writing. Alternately, we would have to
go to 30, 31, 32
in all the first-year
writing courses
which definitely moves us
in a
direction - and we also have to
locate - we are now well over the 200
section, so we
have to find more people
who have an MA
in English and 18 hours to
be SACS
qualified to - so that we don't
have issues with
our accrediting
agencies. And it's harder. It's hard to
get in that
pool.
ROORDA: I'm Randall
Roorda. I'm the
present director
of the writing program,
and I wanted to amplify one
other aspect
of that
change. If the enrollment in the
101 and the 102
courses goes from 25 to
27 or 28 because
our teachers are
contractually
supposed to be spending 10
hours a week
teaching this class, I'm
going to have to
reduce the amount of
writing that
students do in that class.
That's going to
be further dilution of
the care and
experience in this.
ELDRED: And, again,
that has to do with
the graduate
students that they're not
supposed to be
contracted for any more
than 20 hours a
week. We already have a
problem in English that the
students are
doing more work
than that. As a result
of that, even
though three classes is
considered full
time for graduate
students, ours
have a special arrangement
whereby two
courses counts because of
that. And -
and, you know, our graduate
students now are
talking about
unionizing, as
have many graduate
students across
the nation. And so, we
have to,
particularly, for student -- for
classes led by
graduate students be very
concerned about
how much time they're
spending grading
papers. And when you
add more students to the
class --
TAGAVI: Can I follow
up on that,
please? There is fingerprints of rushing
this. For example, I don't want to pick
on this. The -
the application is
changing, of
course. But it's my
understanding
this is a new course. The
application says
105, but it's my
understanding
that this is actually 104.
It is not a
technicality. This is not a
technicality in
a sense that if this is
called 105, we
are going to be ending up
with one
course. If it's 104, we are
going to end up
with two courses. It's
called accidental
writing. I don't think
this is
accidental writing. This is just
writing.
CHAIR DEMBO: Enid, is
there a point about
the ten-day rule?
WALDHART:
Yes, this is. And I - I
believe that
this issue is not something
that is
rushed. I think it has finally
come to
fulfillment for a time that has
been - I mean, it has been talked about
and talked about
and talked about. I
believe we have
had enough time, and I
believe that the
proposal that we got by
e-mail did
include the -- the revision.
So, I think, that all of
the --
TAGAVI: No, it did
not.
WALDHART:
Okay, I'm sorry about that. I
think that
what's here is ready to be
voted on.
CHAIR DEMBO: Okay. Other --
BLACKWELL:
Call the question.
CHAIR DEMBO: Call the
question means to -
we need to vote
on stopping debate. We
needs two-thirds
vote. So, all --
TAGAVI: Debate for extension --
CHAIR DEMBO: Debate for
waiving the ten-day
rule. Okay.
I have to rely on the
honesty of
eligible senators to vote.
All those in favor of stopping
debate,
please raise
your hands? Okay. All
opposed. I believe the motion carries,
so it comes to a
vote. All in favor of
waiving the
ten-day rule to permit an
actionable
motion to come to the floor
regarding the
Writing Proposal, please
raise your
hands. Okay. All opposed.
Eleven
opposed. Any abstentions? Okay.
So, I'll now
entertain a motion regarding
the Writing
Proposal.
SPEAKER: Senate
Council brings it to the
floor --
CHAIR DEMBO: Well, the
Senate Council
couldn't bring
it to the floor because it
wasn't within 10
days. Professor Durant.
DURANT: Dick
Durant. I propose that we
approve the
proposal.
YATES: Second.
CHAIR DEMBO: Second,
Professor Yates. Okay,
now, discussion
about the proposal
itself. Professor Gesund.
GESUND: I move an
amendment that
English 204,
Technical Writing, be added
to the classes
that are approved for
whatever this
does.
TAGAVI: Second tier.
GESUND: - for the
second tier as -
as fulfilling
the Writing Requirement.
TAGAVI: Second.
CHAIR DEMBO: Is there a
second to that?
Second,
Professor Tagavi.
CHAIR DEMBO: Discussion
about the amendment.
Professor
Waldhart.
WALDHART: I
would like to have us vote
very strongly
against this amendment. I
think the
proposal, the way it's
included,
indicates that there will be a
chance for a
large number of courses
that - that may be existing on the
University that
fulfill that, and that, I
think, that's
where the discussion about
the English 204
belongs. I don't think
it belongs as
part of this proposal. It
would seem like a very
reasonable kind of
thing but it
isn't part of the proposal
now, and
probably would require some kind
of adjustment about
the curriculum which
English already
has a list of courses
that meet that
now. Now, that doesn't
mean that's the
only courses that are
going to be
there. And I think, Hans,
that this is one
of those courses that
think about
later, but it should not
effect what we're
talking about right
now.
CHAIR DEMBO: Professor
Edgerton, was your
hand up?
EDGERTON:
Well, it was - it was just
emotionally
up. I
- I don't --
(AUDIENCE
LAUGHS)
EDGERTON: My
comment is not - is not
pertinent to
this amendment.
CHAIR DEMBO: Okay. Any other comments about
the
amendment? Professor Debski.
DEBSKI: Well, am I
correct in assuming
that for next
year if this passes, you
just need the
104 and 105, right, because
it will
start - it will start with that
class.
ELDRED: There's a
year gap.
WALDHART:
There's a year gap.
DEBSKI: We have
another year to add the
200-level
courses?
ELDRED: Right. Yes.
Right. And USP
is talking about
those 200 levels as we
speak, yes.
CHAIR DEMBO: Professor
Hoch.
HOCH: Yes. It's my understanding
last year, I
wasn't here, but when it
came before the
Senate, we were told that
the course list
that was being proposed
would result in
unfunded mandate, and
therefore we
should not include any
courses
like - like what you're
proposing
because there are currently
no - no resources to do it with. So, we
went back. We took all the advice the
Senate gave us, and we came up with a
proposal that
had no unfunded mandate in
it. Now, the advice we're getting is,
no, we need to
put these courses back in,
and then have an
unfunded mandate. The
reason I'm
concerned --
(AUDIENCE
LAUGHS)
HOCH: The reason I'm concerned
is, one, when we
started Business
Writing, we had four
sections of
Business Writing. We now
have 48 or 49
sections of Business
Writing. So, if we're going to do it,
that's fine, but
that's -- you know,
that's cost us
$125,000 a year to run.
So, I don't want another unfunded
mandate
being passed by
the Senate and being
posed on the
college. So, I can assure
you that even if
we include the, you
know, Technical
Writing course, the
College of Arts
and Sciences is under no
obligation to
fund any sections, and we
won't. So we won't solve your problem.
GESUND: That's not
true because you
have to educate
the engineering students.
You're going to
have to accommodate them
in some of the
second tier - in the
second-tier
sections. So, all you're
really having to
do is to move some of
the second-tier sections
into 204. Some
of the funding
of other sections because
the engineering
students are going to be
with you, and the
worst of it is, they're
going to be in
courses that they don't
want to be
taking. And so, they are not
going to do
well. One of the things you
proposed here
that was a justification
for this was
that the students would be
more
interested. That was one of the
things the Provost
brought up, that the
students would
be more interested. The
engineering
students are not going to be
interested in
literature, in Shakespeare,
or anything else. They will take
Business
Writing, and you could move some
of the funds
from Business Writing into
Technical
Writing. And I - I no
numbers, believe
me, I'm an engineer. I
know numbers.
CHAIR DEMBO: Ellen. Then Roberta.
ROSEMAN: I'd like to respond
to that
because, in
principle, I certainly agree
it would be a
good idea to have engineer
Technical
Writing courses. But you can't
just change the
title of the course and
have it be a
legitimate writing course in
another
discipline. To create a
Technical Writing
course requires
expertise in
Technical Writing, which
nobody in the
English Department has,
requires
developing a curriculum; it
requires getting somebody
who's really
competent to
teach it, and it requires
assessment. And all of this is time and
money that can't
just be transferred from
Business Writing
because it's a totally
different
course. It's like saying, get
somebody who's
teaching Shakespeare to
teach Technical
Writing. It just won't
be the kind of
rich content-based writing
course that
really justifies a
second-tier requirement.
CHAIR DEMBO: Dr.
Dwyer. Then Dr. DeSimone.
DWYER: I would like
to call the
question on the
discussion of this
amendment.
CHAIR DEMBO: Okay.
DeSIMONE:
Second.
CHAIR DEMBO: No
discussion on this. This is
to bring to a
close the - the vote is
now to bring to
the close of discussion
of the amendment
proposed by Dr. Gesund.
Okay. All in favor of closing discussion
on that, please
raise your hand. Okay.
All
opposed. Okay. Five opposed.
Any
abstentions - six.
Okay. So, now, the
vote is to
accept or not accept the
amendment
offered by Professor Gesund.
All in favor of
the amendment, as
offered, please
raise your hands. 1, 2,
3, 4, 5. Okay.
All opposed to the
amendment. Okay.
The amendment fails.
We're back to
the original motion now.
Professor
Durant.
DURANT: I'd like to
propose an
amendment to the
exemption. As it now
stands all
freshmen who enter the
University of
Kentucky either take a
writing course
or exempt it because they
have taken a
bypass examination which
shows that they
are - that they're far
enough along to only take
one course.
This new
proposal suggests that we use
three criteria
by which students could be
exempted from
the first four course if
this passes, for
credit. They could have
a standard score
of 32 on the English
section of the
ACT, 700 SAT, or 405 in
the English
Language Exam. That third
section is - is quite reasonable.
That - that's a test that tests how good
people are at
writing. The first - the
first two tests
show how good students
are with writing
tasks, but it doesn't
test their
writing skills. The reason
this seems, to
me, important is that I've
had some
experience with students, good
students, who
have come in with good
scores on these
tests because, of course,
some of them come to the
Honors Program
and some of them
come to the English
105 --. My experience is that those
students very
much need writing
instruction, and
that they need the kind
of writing
instruction they get in
English 104 as
well as the -- course.
One of the
arguments against this is this
will put us at a
disadvantage in
comparison to
other schools who allow
students exemptions. I - I
think that
there is a rich
medley of that kind of
exceptions at
various schools, but in
general, we
won't --, and if we ask
students whether or not they - they need
such courses,
they will tell us uniformly
they do
not. This is not an informed
opinion. The other unstated and real
problem with my
suggestion is that there
are some
300 - or were some 300 students
who entered
the - last fall who were
exempted from
this. This is - this
is - Is
this not pertinent to speak?
CHAIR DEMBO: This is all
an introduction?
DURANT: Yeah.
CHAIR DEMBO: Okay.
DURANT: It's a long
introduction.
(AUDIENCE
LAUGHS)
GROSSMAN: He
wants you to propose your
amendment.
DURANT: So, my
amendment is that we
drop the - we say that students who have
an AP English
Language Exam of 405
receive
exemption from English 104 and
drop the
exemptions from the ACT and the
SAT.
CHAIR DEMBO: So your
proposal is to keep
the exemption
for the AP score and to
drop the
exemption because of
standardized
test scores.
DURANT: Yes.
CHAIR DEMBO: Okay. Is there a second to
that?
ALBISETTI:
Second. Jim Albisetti.
CHAIR DEMBO: Professor Albisetti.
Discussion on
this proposed amendment.
Reactions from
the Writing Program or the
English
Department.
ALBISETTI:
Well, benchmark institutions do
this a lot
different ways. There are
several, as
Steve mentioned, five of them
who do have exemptions
through ACT, SAT
or AP. There are several others that
have --
exemption by AP exam as - as
Davis said. There's just a lot of
different ways of
doing this. There are
a lot of other
factors involved here too.
Some of it has
to do with the presence or
absence of
remediation which we don't
have --. Some -
some of it has to do
with - with the presence of honors
sections and
whether you place into those
by one means or
other. I think that I
would like to
see the proposal go forth
in its current
state because - because,
I think, that
the argument for greater -
for being more
competitive and attracting
students into
the Honors Program falls
generally
on - is a strong argument.
CHAIR DEMBO: So, you're speaking against the
amendment then?
ALBISETTI:
Yes, I am.
CHAIR DEMBO: Okay. Is there anybody that
wants to speak
for the amendment?
ELDRED: - Motion.
CHAIR DEMBO: Okay. Motion to limit debate.
I will note that
Professor Eldred had her
hand raised and
was going to add
something, but
we've called the question.
So, all in favor
of stopping debate on
the proposed
amendment, please raise your
hand. Okay.
All opposed to limiting
debate. Okay.
So, now we call the
question on the
amendment. The amendment
is to eliminate
the - the ACT, SAT
scores and to
keep the AP scores in the
proposal,
correct?
SPEAKER: Yes.
CHAIR DEMBO: Okay. All in favor of that
amendment,
please raise your hands.
Could you help
me count?
SPEAKER: Five.
CHAIR DEMBO: Okay. All opposed to the
amendment. Keep your hands raised,
please. Unless it's an emotional vote,
in which case...
(AUDIENCE
LAUGHS)
JUDD: Thirty-two.
CHAIR DEMBO: Thank you
very much. Okay.
We're back to the original motion
now on
the floor.
Professor Ford.
FORD: I'm not
going to make an
amendment.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
FORD: I have a
question and I'm
supportive of
the proposal because I
perceive that it
will - especially if
you go to
writing across the curriculum,
will improve
things. But I'm wondering
where the
efficiencies are, and I'm -
this is clarification,
maybe, somebody
can help
me. If we go to this new
system, we'll
have 4 credits and then the
second 3
credits. Right now we have 6
credits. So, to me, that seems like
there's more
resources being needed -
needed. So, I'm trying to figure out
where the
efficiency comes in, and it
sounds like the
efficiency comes in when
the fact the
students who take the
second-tier
course can use it also for a
humanities
requirement or USP, that then
we will be able
to provide some type of
an overlap that
will reduce the overall
demand for
course unit. Is that an
appropriate
portrayal of this?
HOCH: Well, also
that a lot more
regular faculty
are involved in the
instruction.
FORD: Yes. But when you move all
those students
out of English 102, in a
sense, and move
them into the second
tier, who's going to teach all those
students --
unless you're going to have
course sizes in
the second tier that are
much higher than
what we currently allow
in 102? Is that also correct?
HOCH: No. But they'll be, you know,
break up - they'll be break up, you
know, smaller
groups, correct? It's
going to be a
much more efficient use of
the PTIs and TAs
because they'll be a
larger lecture and then a
breakup. The
numbers work out
what --
FORD: So, you're
going to have a
large section
with --
ELDRED: Not necessarily. Some of them
are
individual. It really depends on --
FORD: I know. But, I mean, there
will be more of
that that will allow the
PTIs to be used
that way rather than as
primary
instructors in the course?
ELDRED: Yes. The tiers.
CHAIR DEMBO: Dean
Blackwell. Then Professor
Albisetti.
BLACKWELL:
Just to speak to that for just
a minute. One of the things that,
unfortunately
and cynically, we can
factor into
the - the actual numbers is
the attrition
rate for - for upper-tier
freshmen into the
second year. The other
thing that's a
more positive kind of
figure,
eventually this will be the case
and directly with
English majors, is that
those courses
are in your pre-major
courses or they
fit into the curriculum
of a major, and
therefore there - it
will be, if you
will, double-dipping.
We're thinking
about this already in the
German major
about how we can use a
course that would
be a writing-intensive
course as part
of our pre-major
requirements. And so, I think,
that
that's one of
the pluses where you'll see
the savings, if you will.
CHAIR DEMBO: Professor
Albisetti, Professor
Grossman,
Professor Tagavi.
ALBISETTI:
I'm concerned whether someone
teaching the
course is still only going
to get $2,625.
ELDRED: 3,400.
(AUDIENCE
LAUGHS)
ALBISETTI: A
reasonable compensation
for --
ELDRED: It - it's the same per - per
whatever, yes.
CHAIR DEMBO: Professor Grossman.
GROSSMAN: I
also support this proposal
because I think
it will improve
education,
and - and as a chemistry
professor, I
think my chemistry - I
would also like
to see some type of
writing or like
to see it done in the
Chemistry
Department, and, I think,
nevertheless
until that happens, my
chemistry
students would very much like
to learn some
Shakespeare.
(AUDIENCE CLAPS)
GROSSMAN:
There are enough choices in
these courses
that, I think, that could
satisfy these - these curiosities, but
I - what I would like to hear is what is
going to be the
process by which courses
in other
departments are evaluated to
whether they are
reading-intensive,
writing-intensive. I - I know they need
to be
writing-intensive. Do they need to
be
reading-intensive and what counts as
reading-intensive?
CHAIR DEMBO: Is there an
answer to that
question?
ELDRED: Yes. USP will
- will be -
this proposal
that we're voting on is the
interim where
everything is delivered
through
English. USP will be doing that,
working on where
there's funding, where
there's not, and
also an assessment which
is very
important for our accreditation.
CHAIR DEMBO: Professor Tagavi. Professor
Baxter.
TAGAVI: I'd like to
open an amendment.
As a compromise
to the other amendment
for admitting
that you - reject it, it's
my understanding
that right now Business
Writing which is
closest to Technical
Writing, that's
why -- and my colleagues
are concerned,
it's only - the first
priority is
given to Business students,
and usually it
fills up. So, I'd like to
make an amendment that
we open
Business - that we open the priority to
the entire
University, not just
Engineering and
-- and Business. So, at
least,
engineering students would have a
fair competition
into getting their
second best
choice, and they don't have
to do Old
Testament or Survey of Western
Literature or
some other courses that
they would
prefer not to get, and they
would prefer to
have Technical Writing.
And by the way,
you said you don't have
Technical
Writing expert, you're already
teaching it, so
there must be some
expert. Otherwise, unless you're
teaching without
any experts.
ELDRED: That's --
TAGAVI: So, that's
what I meant.
GESUND: Second.
CHAIR DEMBO: Let me see
if I can restate it.
You - that right now priority is given
to Business
Writing for folks in the
Gatten College,
and you want to see that
priority given
equal -- equal weighting
to all
University students.
TAGAVI: Yes.
CHAIR DEMBO: And it was
seconded by
Professor
Gesund.
TAGAVI: Be fair to
everybody.
GROSSMAN: Is this a matter for the
Senate
to decide?
TAGAVI: --
meetings.
GROSSMAN: I
mean, who sets this policy?
TAGAVI: So, then, maybe, we should
discuss
that. I can't make a decision
which major is
more entitled to be in a
course. That's an academic educational
decision. I'm offering that amendment.
SPEAKER: Do you have
a question?
BURGER: Burger, Medicine. The proposal
as I read it and
as I understand it, does
not include, one
way or the other, who is
eligible for
what course or who is not.
There is nothing
in the proposal about
setting a policy
who gets admitted or
what the
priorities are. Am I correct in
understanding
that?
CHAIR DEMBO: That --
that's correct.
BURGER: So, that is
a nonseconded point
because that's
not part of the policy
we're discussing.
TAGAVI: But what --
add something which
is not already
part of the proposal. I
agree with
you. It's not part of the
proposal. But one could add it, and I'm
doing that.
CHAIR DEMBO: This is - so this is
administrative - administrative
practice
but not
educational policy right - right
now; is that
right, Mike?
ELDRED: In the --
bottleneck, to -- to
be honest with you,
just, you know, have
a bottleneck,
and it is a pre-major for
Business, and so
we have no people --
business.
CHAIR DEMBO: And I don't
think that the
Gatton College
is prepared to talk about
that item right
now either.
HORICK: My name is
Susan Horick. I'm
an advisor in
the College of Business. I
do want to say
that English 203 is
required for all
our majors as a part of
our accreditation as the College
of
Business. So, the access to that course
is the only
choice that our business
majors would
have. They're required to
take it,
anyway. And where other
majors - other students in other majors
would have other
courses to choose from
the priority has
to be given to the
students who
have to have that particular
course to
graduate.
TAGAVI: If that's
what gets priority,
we'll make that
required for our college.
That is not a
fair practice between the
two colleges.
GROSSMAN:
Kaveh, your points are good,
but we have a
larger proposal. Can I -
may I just make
a suggestion that this
discussion be
postponed to a later
meeting?
TAGAVI: No, it's
second --
GROSSMAN:
Well, if -- if -- you can
withdraw it if
your seconder agrees.
It's up to
you.
GESUND: Neither one
of us agrees.
KERN: I think, if
I remember Roberts'
Rules, I can
object to consideration of
the question,
and that will bring it to a
closure.
CHAIR DEMBO: Professor
Blyton.
BLYTON: You have to
rule on the
objection. He's objecting - why don't
they vote it
down if you object to it.
SPEAKER: I'd like to
call the question.
ELDRED: Yes.
CHAIR DEMBO: Okay.
ELDRED: Second.
CHAIR DEMBO: So, we're
calling the --
YATES: I call a
quorum. Is there a
quorum?
CHAIR DEMBO: Senate Rules
we require...
SCOTT: Forty-five.
CHAIR DEMBO: Forty-five. Who's a registered
senator? Kim, could you please? Thanks.
SPEAKER: We count ex
officio.
CHAIR DEMBO: There's voting
and nonvoting ex
officio.
SPEAKER: This is
voting?
CHAIR DEMBO: This is
voting. Uh-huh
(AFFIRMATIVE).
JUDD: Forty-eight.
CHAIR DEMBO: Okay. So we have a quorum.
SPEAKER: Lock the
door.
(AUDIENCE
LAUGHS)
CHAIR DEMBO: So we've
called the question to
stop debate on
Professor Tagavi's
amendment. Okay.
All in favor of
stopping debate,
raise your hand. All in
favor of
continuing debate, raise your
hand. Okay.
So, now we're calling the
question. All in favor of Professor's
Tagavi's amendment, please
raise your
hand. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Okay.
All opposed
to the
amendment. Okay. So the
amendment
fails. If I could add one
other thing, I
know - I appreciate your
patience, but
this is an important point
to get
through. The point was raised
that the course
name has been changed
from English 105
to 104. That was with
the advice of
the Registrar that that was
the more appropriate
moniker to put on
it. And it is true that the wrong course
form was
filed. They filed a major
course change
instead of a new course
form which, in my opinion, is
a
technicality and
doesn't affect the
merits of the
proposal itself. That's my
view as Senate
Council Chair. Professor
Kern.
KERN: Before
anyone else leaves, may
we call the
question to a vote, this
proposal, up or
down?
CHAIR DEMBO: Okay. Second?
YATES: Second.
CHAIR DEMBO: Okay. So this would stop
discussion about
the major proposal which
has not been
amended successfully; am I
correct?
SPEAKER: Correct.
CHAIR DEMBO: Okay. All in favor of stopping
debate, please raise your
hand. Okay.
All
opposed. 1, 2, 3, 4. Okay.
Any
abstentions? Okay. So -
you already
voted against
it.
TAGAVI: No. I abstain.
CHAIR DEMBO: Okay. Okay.
So, the main
motion on the
floor has not been changed
or amended. It's to change the writing
requirements as
proposed to a new course,
English
104. All in favor of the motion,
please raise
your hands. Kim, let's get
a count on this.
JUDD: Thirty-five.
CHAIR DEMBO: Okay. All opposed to the
proposal, please
raise your hands.
JUDD: Five.
CHAIR DEMBO: Okay. Any abstentions. We
have a
quorum. Should we add the votes
together?
JUDD: No.
CHAIR DEMBO: No, nobody
had left - had left
the room, right?
SPEAKER: One just
went out.
CHAIR DEMBO: Oh,
okay. So we're down to 47,
then. We have one more action item that
technically can
wait until the next
meeting. So -
and, Phyllis, thank you
for your
patience. Do you have an
announcement you
want to make, Phyllis?
Thank you very
much for - for sticking
around.
* *
* * * * *
(MEETING
CONCLUDED AT 5:20 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: August 25, 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