University Senate - March 11, 2024 Minutes

UNIVERSITY SENATE

Meeting Minutes

March 11, 2024

The University Senate was called to order at 3:30 p.m., in 111 Harrison Hall on Monday, March 11, 2024. Members absent: Cheryl Chafin, Rodney Coates, John Forren, Evan Gallagher, Michael Gowins, Chip Hahn, Venus Harvey, Frank Huang, Patrick Houlihan, Yong Lin, August Ogunnowo, Nyah Smith, Peng Wang

1. Call to Order and Announcements and Remarks – Tracy Haynes, Chair of University Senate Executive Committee

Senate Survey has been sent out and we encourage you to fill that out all with all your constituents
�� Fund Policy has been revised and they will be here on April 1st

2. Approval of University Senate Minutes

University Senate Full Meeting Minutes_02.26.2024 (Results: 49-Yes, 00-No, 00-Abstains)
1. With revision to Leighton’s remarks under 7.a.4. Needs edited to say the LEC will be bringing the advanced writing policy to senate for consideration so that it can double count
2. Update the Howe title to reflect full name

3. Consent Calendar: The following items were received and accepted on the Consent Calendar: Curricular Items _03.06.2024

Curricular Items _03.06.2024
Graduate Council Minutes_08.31.2024
LEC Meeting Minutes_02.13.2024
LEC Meeting Minutes_02.20.2024
LEC Meeting Minutes_02.27.2024

4. Old Business

Elimination of Majors from Consent Calendar, French and German Education, Martha Castaneda, Professor in the Department of Teaching, Curriculum, and Educational Inquiry - (Results to Table: 49-Yes, 00-No, 00-Abstain)
1. Foreign Language Program at ��
  1. Nationally accredited
  2. Interdisciplinary Program
    1. Adds enrollment to CAS content courses and TCE/EDL/EDP courses
    2. Methods courses are cross-listed with MAT
  3. Encompases Chinese, French, German, Latin, and Spanish Education
    1. Sometimes represented collectively and sometimes reported separately
  4. Typical size program when compared nationally
  5. Cross-listed with Talawanda After School Foreign Language
    1. Longest Miami-Talawanda Partnership
  6. Key component of the$2.5 million PELEA DOE Grant
2. Questions
  1. Vision
    1. Value of languages at a Liberal Education university
  2. Metrics
    1. How programs are counted
  3. Communication
    1. Elimination of the majors in French and German Education
      1. (Senate email inviting Language Education program to speak at Senate)
    2. “Streamlining the Portfolio: Low-Enrolled Majors”
      1. “B.S Chinese Education, B.S. French Education, B.S. German Education, B.S. Latin Education, B.S. Spanish Education” (February 26, 2024 Senate Slides)
3. Sample program: French Education (81 credit hours) - Graph provided in slides with this information
  1. Content Courses from CAS (33)
  2. Student Teaching (15)
  3. TCE/AYA (24)
  4. Methods 1 (3)
  5. Methods 2 (3)
  6. Reading (3)
4. Impact of eliminating of some/all Language Education majors
  1. Reduced enrollment
    1. AYA, programs
    2. TCE, EDL, EDP courses
    3. Student Teaching (15 credit hours)
    4. CAS language courses (~33 hours per ��)
    5. Elective courses including Miami Plan (~44 hours per ��)
  2. If French and German are eliminated - Spanish, Chinese, and Latin Education majors will be impacted
  3. Not meeting the demand for teachers in K-12 schools and potential elimination of high school language programs
  4. Benefits
5. Future Plans
  1. World Language Education
    1. Option1:
      1. Merge four majors (Chinese, French, German, Latin Education) into one World Language Education major
      2. Spanish Education as independent major
    2. Option 2:
      1. Merge five majors into one World Language Education major
    3. For all options, there are minimal changes to curricula*
  2. Reading course will be an AYA course starting 2024-2025
    1. Resulting in only 2 Foreign Language Education methods unique courses
  3. Leave as-is
6. Senator Question and Comments
  1. Senator: What does AYA mean?(A) Adolescent young adult
  2. Senator: I have education ��s in my classes, not necessarily foreign language ��s because they are actually English education ��s, but let's say that program would be cut; what you are saying is that those ��s would not be in my classes anymore. Is that correct? A) That’s right.
  3. Senator: If that is the case, then where would those ��s go to study? (A) Those ��s would no longer be here as they wouldn’t come to Miami.
  4. Senator: I don’t think we are eliminating. We are actually talking about consolidating these courses and I believe Martha has been working with Carolyn on consolidating all these courses together. (A) I did meet with Carolyn about that and it should be considered a consolidation.
  5. Senator: How much is this elimination/consolidation going to be saving us? (A) We are not talking about elimination. This would be a consolidation, so we would not be saving anything.
  6. Senator: What is the University saving by doing this? Office space? By doing this would they still need you here to teach these courses? (A) They would have to keep me because of my degree or they would have to have someone like me in order to have these method courses taught.
  7. Senator: Under the assumption budgets are getting tight, in the event of consolidation or elimination, is there any cost savings here? Is there an administrative assistant that would be cut or savings on a heating bill for an office that would save us any money?(A) I think if it is consolidated it would just be going by a different name.
  8. Senator: The downside of being consolidated would be uncertainty for the future or these things would no longer be available to our ��s? (A) The downside to consolidation could be that it would be more difficult to find us for high school ��s, because they wouldn’t know to look for a world education major. I am hoping it won’t be too problematic and that for admitting ��s we won’t be harder to find.
  9. Senator: Is this the correct presentation?Are we seeing an elimination presentation or consolidation presentation? (A) It is because that is how it was listed on the consent calendar, under Elimination of Majors. However, when you go in and look at them it does say in the description that it is for a consolidation to a World Education program. Since those were pulled from the consent calendar we asked them to come in and talk about what is happening.
  10. Senator: How is language education a part of the language programs? Why does it matter if it is a major or a minor? Is that part of how you get to the education program? Is that what makes the difference? How does that work? (A) They take the content courses. If French would become a minor, they’d do the minor in French and they’d have to do additional hours to make up for those missed hours by taking additional hours in a french-related culture course, for example.
  11. Senator: Those classes are still available at Miami. It would just be a minor now? (A) Correct- just a minor. They can also get some credits they need by studying abroad.
  12. Senator: This doesn’t sound like they have an enrollment issue. So, why would we need to do this? They are all still taking methods courses, so they are still in the same class. (A) The little education majors are a few majors here and there. If they’re consolidated the way we do science and math, it creates critical mass. It integrates it and it is similar to what we’ve done in a few other education majors in the past.
  13. Senator: Is there another pathway for the �� to use to get an education certificate? How many programs are there across the state? If every University in Ohio is offering this and only onesies and twosies of ��s are in certain programs, are we using resources to compete with ourselves across all the public universities? (A) There are some universities where you get a masters in education only (first). At Miami we don’t have that because we try to double-dip in some ways to meet the state requirements. We don’t have the possibility here for doing a double major. For your other question, there are only a few of us. Bowling Green is about as small as we are. OSU has a program. There are only 5-6 in Ohio- not that many.
  14. Senator: If the idea here is to create a paper change to keep this protected, we could do this. How would you feel about us making sure that it is advertised so that ��s can find these programs? (A) I’m comfortable with that. I started this consolidation process in the fall. It got sent back because I had the DAR pulling the major. We can no longer pull the French or German major, so we’re back at square one.
  15. Senator: Senate’s job here is to make sure policy is being followed. Did your department get a vote to support this? A processes coordinator can be appointed to you and make sure that the process is being followed and advocate for you? (A) My department will support me as an expert. I have quite a few layers of support and don’t like to make decisions in isolation.
  16. Senator: As a person within this department, we really don’t see the issues here because we know that this is all about how things are counted. There are a lot of moving pieces to this, but we don’t want to lose the world language program and have it go away because we would lose ��s. For us, consolidating our department doesn't worry us. We want to make sure we understand how this is being counted so that once it has been consolidated we aren’t flagged in a way that is not really accurate. Also, this is a lot of work that is falling back onto faculty to try and fix it. (A) I’ll add, selfishly, I’d just have to deal with one DAR versus 5 DAR’s if it is consolidated.
  17. Senator: Why do it if nothing is going to change? Is this just for data benefit or is there another benefit that I am missing? (A) There’s pros and cons. The benefits are that we could count all the majors as one and the DAR would be more manageable. The cons would be that the high school �� might not be able to find us easily.
  18. Senator: In CIM the language is in the deactivation of the two in order to consolidate. That language has not made it through CIM yet. So, I think that is where some of the confusion has come in. (A) I started the process with 5 and I hit the CIM button for 4, but only 2 have come through and I don’t know why.
  19. I feel like this has not cleared this up and it has done the exact opposite of that. I don’t understand the consolidation and this could actually cause an issue with your other enrollments. I don’t understand how this is going to help. I understand eliminating low-enrolled majors, but that is not the case here. We should be explaining to our stakeholders why this would be a special case, instead of changing a curriculum that might impact our ability to offer it.
  20. Is there an invisible 3rd party that is out there counting these numbers that we can discuss this with? (A): Yes. We’ve been asked to look at all low-enrolled majors. In general, we are going to save money on temporary faculty in the short term. In the long-term, lines will have to shift where we see a ton of �� growth.
  21. Move to Table (Results: 49-Yes, 00-No, 00-Abstain)

5. New Business

Recording Two Minute Speeches Before Senate, Nathan French, Associate Professor, Department of Comparative Religion, and Rosemary Pennington, Associate Professor and Journalism Area Coordinator - Media, Journalism, and Film - Presentation only; Discussion and Anticipated Vote on April 01, 2024
1. University Senate Standing Rule for Recording Addresses & Remarks - Questions under Consideration
  1. Will the University Senate consider any two-minute remarks presented before Senate’s official business with the official minutes that are circulated after our meetings?
  2. The question emerged following remarks by Senators on September 11, 2023. Senate Executive Committee took up the matter, developed a revision to the Senate’s standing rules, and submitted the revision for review.
  3. Per Senate’s Enabling Act, Article 2, Sec. 6, Senate has the authority to consider this revision to its standing rules
2. Current Standing Rule
  1. Under the Standing Rules, “Meeting Procedures of University Senate,” sec. 3 (SR89-38, April 17, 1989):
    1. “Any member of the University community should be permitted to address Senate for a maximum of two minutes before the formal business of the Senate meeting begins - up to a maximum of five (5) two-minute addresses per meeting. Speakers who wish to address Senate must inform the Chair and Secretary of University Senate prior to the beginning of the announced meeting.”
3. Proposed Standing Rule Revision
  1. Any member of the University community should be permitted to address Senate for a maximum of two minutes before the formal business of the Senate meeting begins - up to a maximum of five (5) two-minute addresses per meeting. Speakers who wish to address Senate must inform the Chair and Secretary of University Senate prior to the beginning of the announced meeting. The addresses will be given prior to the opening of the Senate meeting and are therefore not considered official business of the Senate. However, the Chair will open the meeting by informing the Senate of the individual(s) that addressed the Senate so their names will appear in the minutes. Transcripts of their remarks, if provided by the speaker, will be made available to the Senate as an appendix to the meeting minutes. If an appendix is desired, a copy of the transcript of the statement must be provided at least one hour before the start of the Senate. The transcript will be checked during the address by the Chair and any modifications noted for the record. If Senate Executive Committee deems an address is unrelated to the University, neither the presenters name or the appendix will be included in the minutes.
4. Senator Questions and Comments
  1. Senator: Why the last sentence? Why would the Senate Executive Committee be the overruler on if a presenters 2 minute speech before senate would be added or not to the minutes if the presenter wants it included?(A): I can’t imagine we’d have a lot of statements that don’t relate. There could be some political comments, for example, that might not represent the business of the Senate or the University. We want to make sure that things that aren’t useful aren’t captured in our minutes.
  2. Senator: Would FAM stuff be included as some say it is University related, but the University has said it is not? The university has told us it’s not related to University business. (A) The union would be university related.
  3. Presenter:This went back and forth between us and general counsel and there was a lot of discussion about whether this should be proposed. I see the value of including these statements in our minutes. To have something like this is valuable. It does create a check on the types of statements that are included in the minutes. This was not the position I started from, but it’s a position I feel comfortable sitting in.
  4. Senator: There are matters that occasionally come to SEC that we do have to decide if it is relevant to the business of the University, so this is something that SEC already does to a certain degree. This is a part of the SEC charge already if that helps.
  5. Senator:The first line has been there since 1989- that “Any member of the University Committee should be permitted to address Senate”. There is no qualification there for pre-topics, correct? Therefore, you have a right for your 2 minutes, but someone could come in and talk about something like watershed uses that isn’t senate related business. (A) Yes, exactly. That is the reason. It is about what is in the jurisdiction of the University. Again, this is for all of us to define. This gets wordsmithed and defined and can be edited before we vote on this. We have given our best efforts as the SEC and now we are giving it to the body.
  6. Senator: What were OGC’s concerns about this?(A) Their concerns were that we wanted to include the transcripts, but we needed to be protected from including comments that don’t relate. We had several conversations with the General Counsel and they were concerned that we may get some inappropriate things that we would need to be protected from, even though we have never gotten anything in the past. They thought it would be best to put this in place so that we are protected from that. They also wanted to make sure everything was verbatim, so that is why someone has to read it.
  7. Senator: Thank you. I appreciate this and it is going to be extremely helpful. I do agree with screening too. (A) Yes, if someone came up here and made a harmful two minute speech, it would be like the Senate approved of what was said.
  8. Senator: If a 2 minute speech was not included in the minutes and senators didn’t approve of that, when we go to approve the minutes could we discuss in that meeting about adding it into the minutes? (A) Not during the meeting. There’s nothing stopping a senator from circulating something.
  9. Senator: Do we have anything else that is an exact transcript recording? Could a summary be sufficient enough like other things? (A) I don’t know. It’s the only thing typically scripted when we come in. I don’t know if it’s privileged, but it has to be ready to go. This preparation makes transcription possible. Also, we discussed summaries. But if it’s included in the minutes, it becomes part of university business. These statements are made before the meeting is called to order.
  10. Senator: Sorry, what I am asking is does it have to be an exact transcript or could it be a summary? (A) The debate we had in the moment during SEC was: who creates the transcript and we didn’t want anyone to feel that they had been censored when the speech was supposed to be opened for the 2 minutes before the Senate business begins. So we would either request a summary or an entire transcript would need to be included. We resolved toward this, based on consultation, as I understand it, with General Counsel.
  11. Senator: What if members of the senate disagree with what is senate business? Is there an appeal process to that? (A) That’s what another senator raised. We haven’t talked about an appeal process, but we can take it back. Also, if you don’t like what we are doing I can be pulled/withdrawn along with several of us on SEC.
  12. Senator: We trust our SEC, but looking towards the future things may change. (A) Good question. We had lots of conversation- include them all or make sure they’re included in university business. This is why it has taken so long to get here. Another thing to remember is we wouldn’t be able to have a vote on the floor about this because then it would become a part of the University Business. I can say that I have never heard a two minute speech that wouldn’t make it into the appendix. We can talk about it further.
  13. Senator: Do we need to amend something else to say that SEC has this power? (A) We’ll look into that.
  14. Senator: Is there some motivated reason besides people being able to have an avenue to circulate information? (A) I think it is two-fold. It allows us to have a way to circulate, but also it creates a record. We have lots of examples of two minute speeches that are important and without this record, we lose some of the history related to what is happening.
  15. Senator: Point of history: they were always included in the minutes until sometime around 2021. Regarding the last sentence, can we always change the procedure? (A) Yes.

6. Special Reports

Honors College, Zeb Baker, Executive Director of the University Honors Program
1. Miami’s Honors College mission
  1. “ The mission of the �� Honors College is to produce citizen scholars, who emerge from their honors education equipped not only with a lifelong love of learning, but also a lifelong commitment to use their talents, interests, and ambitions to advance the common good.”
2. There are 1722 full-time ��s in the Honors College in Spring 2024
3. Honors Students by Division, Spring 2024
  1. CAS: 922 (53.5%)
  2. CCA: 143 (8.3%)
  3. CEC: 243 (14.1%)
  4. CLAAS: 28 (1.6%)
  5. EHS: 176 (10.2%)
  6. FSB: 437 (25.3%)
4. Honors College Vital Statistics, AY 23-24
  1. Total number of full-time Honors ��s (202420): 1722
  2. Entering first-year cohort (Class of 2027): 455
  3. Class of 2027 average high school GPA: 4.43
  4. Class of 2027 acceptance rate: 22%
  5. Fall-to-Fall retention rate (Fall 2022 cohort): 96.22%
  6. Four-year graduation rate (May 203): 90%
  7. Since AY 21-22, 86% of all graduates finished degrees with a 3.50 or higher final cumulative GPA; 93% finished with at least a 3.25 final cumulative GPA
5. Incoming Cohort Data, Fall 2024
  1. Consolidation of high-ability programs into Honors College
  2. Initial yield target: 600-650
  3. Total number of admits through EA/ED: 5975
  4. Admission now projects incoming cohort of 690-730
  5. BIPOC admits: 1509 (25.3%)
  6. Female and female-identifying admits: 3608 (60.4%)
  7. First generation admits: 853 (14.3%)
  8. Non-residents admits: 2745 (46%)
6. Honors Admits by Division, Fall 2024
  1. CAS: 2684 (44.9%)
  2. CCA: 92 (1.5%)
  3. CEC: 1234 (20.7%)
  4. CLAAS: 232 (3.9%)
  5. EHS: 355 (5.9%)
  6. FSB: 1378 (23.1%)
7. Honors College Academic Progress
  1. HumanitiesFUTURES
  2. Identifying value of honors education for professional areas
  3. Honors Abroad
  4. National Fellowships (2 Truman finalist, 13 Fulbright semi-finalists, awaiting Goldwater and Astronaut results)
8. Senator Questions and Comments
  1. Senator: Are alumni involved and are you receiving feedback from our alumni from these professional fields? (A) That’s a good question. We’re trying to. One of the problems we have is from 1971-1982 there was not an Honors program at Miami. We have been able to get the largest gift from an alumnus for faculty development. We hope to use that to supplement the compensation we can give to faculty teaching outside of their load.
  2. Senator: Honors accepted almost twice the usual number of ��s this year. There are national "best practices" guidelines for how large an honors program should be as a percentage of the total �� population. I was concerned about the implications of having such a big class and wanted to know what happened this year and whether it was indicative of a change in our practices. (A) One of our partners on the campus miscounted. We are at a stage that, if our classes were to be this large every year, do we really have an Honors college? This was a one year mistake and we’ll return to normal processes next year.
  3. Senator: What is the impact of a large class to be able to be sustainable? (A) Surprisingly, that’s a place where I think our individual faculty partners, chairs, and deans deserve some credit. We have more than enough seats for fall and spring. It isn’t just a one year concern. There is a full four year plan. As these ��s move through, we do need the faculty support/mentoring availability. We need to deliver on what we say we’re going to do for these ��s.
Center for Global Mental Health in Sports, Amity Noltemeyer, Interim Dean of EHS, and Matt Moore, Chair and Associate Professor of Family Science and Social Work
1. Mission Statement - Our center is dedicated to fostering international and interprofessional collaboration in the realm of sports, focusing on promoting mental health and the impact mental health has on physical and social well-being. Our future priorities include advancing research, education, and outreach to enhance the holistic well-being of athletes and individuals involved in sports worldwide.
2. Center Directors
  1. Dr. Matt Moore, Associate Professor and Chair Department of Family Science and Social Work College of Education, Health, and Society ��
  2. Dr Paul Gorezynski, Senior Lecture, Faculty of Education, Health, and Human Sciences, School of Human Sciences, University of Greenwich
3. Primary Aims
  1. Through interprofessional collaboration, the center will foster a synergistic environment where diverse professionals (e.g., social workers, family scientists, sport psychologists, counselors, athletic trainers, etc.) work collectively, leveraging their unique expertise to achieve innovative solutions to enhance individual, family, and community sport-related outcomes.
  2. By cultivating a global community, through partnerships with other countries, diverse perspectives, shared knowledge, and combined efforts to enrich innovation, the center will address global mental health sport challenges for the betterment of humanity.
  3. With an emphasis on fiscal generation (external funding), sustainable growth, and responsible financial practices, the center will create value through innovative, ethical, and ��-centered approaches that drive profitability for sport-related efforts.
  4. Through education programs and training initiatives (microcredentials and study abroad) that stand as pillars of empowerment, the center will offer structured, diverse, and inventive learning experiences that will equip individuals with the knowledge, skills, and resources needed to make an impact in sport and their communities.
  5. By rigorously exploring diverse facets of sport performance, health, social capital, and economic impact, the center will generate research that drives evidenced-based decision-making and nurtures a deep understanding of sport that benefits individuals, families, communities, and leaders worldwide.
  6. Through inclusivity in sport the center advocates for welcoming, diverse, equitable, and socially just environments that embrace individuals of all backgrounds, abilities, and identities, which fosters a culture where those participating in sport are respected and empowered.
4. Center Organization
  1. Chair Department of Family Science and Social Work
  2. Co-Directors & External Advisory Board
  3. Faculty Affiliates
  4. Collaborative Partners
  5. Student Researchers/Interns
5. Student Involvement - With a primary focus on research, educational programming, and consultation, ��s will be involved via work on sponsored projects within the center. It is planned that undergraduate and graduate ��s will be invited to participate in key projects and provide critical infrastructure needs. Student support will also be written into grants, as appropriate, to support the faculty.
6. Funding Streams
7. 30 Second Pitch - In sport, mental health has emerged as a crucial aspect that significantly influences the performance and physical and social well-being of sport participants. Through interprofessional collaboration, ��-centered engagement, and sustainable revenue generation, the Center for Global Mental Health in Sport at �� aims to understand the mental health of athletes, coaches, officials, fans, and consumers and design evidence-based policies and practices that will enhance performance and the mental, physical, and social well-being of all individuals engaged in sport.
8. Senator Questions and Comments:
  1. No Questions from Senators

7. Provost Update

We are having a Academic Affairs brown bag lunch on Wednesday, March 13th, starting at noon in the Patterson building room, 1809. Everyone is invited to join us for lunch and the Provost’s Office will provide dessert.
Everyone is invited to the opening of the McVey Data Science building at 6:oo p.m. on Thursday in that lobby. It would be great to see you there.
Today at 11:16 a.m., the President sent out an email about MiamiTHRIVE and you can nominate yourself there for a committee. Please nominate yourself or someone else for these committees. Also, the senate will have a large chunk of representatives on these committees as well and Brent Shock is coming to the SEC next on Monday to talk about the selection process.
I included a couple of slides in the presentation for you to review that were discussed during tea time, but due to how late it is we won’t view or discuss today in Senate. However, you can look over them when the presentation slides are sent out. It was just to inform you that we have created an evaluation of administrators process during our status quo period for an alternative way to do a third year and fifth year review. Information provided through the slides below:
1. More information
  1. Revised Process During Status Quo: Deans
    1. Step One: Gathering Data
      1. Review Committee Dean/VP Durojaiye: Harding, Abbott, Davis, Thomas
      2. Review Committee Dean/Associate Provost Bergerson: Rech, Urayama, Lorigan, Brownell
      3. 2 two-hour listening sessions (one on zoom)
      4. Community members invited to attend these sessions, Dean’s accomplishments outlined
    2. Step two: Assessing Data
      1. Review Committee confers with Provost & drafts a written report based on all shared feedback
      2. Faculty/Staff anonymity will be preserved
      3. Provost will review and revise, working with the Review Committee
    3. Step Three: Review with the Dean
      1. Provost will review the report with the Dean along with feedback from the listening sessions
    4. Step Four: Communication to Community
  2. Questions to Consider
    1. Leadership
      1. Does the Dean create a vision for the college or area and execute on that vision
      2. Talk about the Dean’s success in motivating and supporting faculty and staff.
      3. How does the Dean support the educational mission?
      4. How does the Dean encourage, value, and support DEI efforts within their unit?
      5. Talk about communication style.
    2. General Administrative Responsibilities/Management
      1. Is the Dean a collaborative decision-maker? Do they rely on appropriate data to inform their decision making?
      2. Talk about the Deans style as a supervisor?
      3. Talk about innovation within the unit? Are new ideas consistent with university goals?
      4. Is the Dean’s evaluation of faculty and staff in their units fair? Are expectations realistic and clear?
    3. Financial Responsibilities
      1. Is the Dean transparent about budget matters? How might they improve?
      2. Is the Dean strategically allocating resources?
      3. Talk about the Dean’s fundraising work and their support and/or efforts for external grant dollars.
    4. Other Thoughts
Senator Questions and Comments
1. Senator: Are we still having class during the Eclipse?(A)Yes, we are going to have class that day.

8. Adjournment

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