Faculty Senate
Senate approves Faculty Handbook amendment at November meeting
(Editor's note: For more detailed information, including meeting minutes, visit the Faculty Senate website.)
8:40 a.m., Nov. 7, 2013--An amendment to the Faculty Handbook concerning academic rank, promotion and tenure was approved by members of the University of Delaware Faculty Senate during its regular meeting, held Monday, Nov. 4, in Gore Hall.
The senators approved a resolution to amend the Faculty Handbook’s Section 4.1.1 on faculty appointment policy to provide that departmental faculty shall vote on the rank of an external candidate and, where relevant, whether tenure shall be granted.
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Where relevant, granting tenure to external appointments will follow the same procedures used for voting on internal candidates as set forth in a department’s bylaws and promotion and tenure document. Additionally, departments must state in their promotion and tenure documents those materials that will be reviewed for consideration of a candidate at a rank higher than the rank in his or her current academic position and for any faculty appointment that includes the granting of tenure.
Senators referred back to the Undergraduate Studies Committee for further consideration a recommendation to approve the online education policy for the course catalog and the Professional and Continuing Studies website.
There were no consent agenda announcements for challenge on the senate’s regular agenda.
Provost’s remarks
University Provost Domenico Grasso discussed initial planning for revisiting the University’s Path to Prominence strategic plan.
“We are going to roll that out to various constituencies,” Grasso said. “The Faculty Senate is going to be heavily involved, as well as the faculty as a whole, as we go through the next version of our strategic planning.”
The responsibility based budgeting (RBB) review process has recently launched, Grasso said. “We are going to look at the Faculty Senate report very closely as we think about recommendations on how better to implement RBB to achieve excellence and success for the campus.”
Grasso also that noted that the proposed partnership between UD and J.P. Morgan Chase received a 54-6 vote of approval, with one abstention, by faculty members in the Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics.
“There is a report, ‘Research Universities and the Future of America,’ which came out last year and noted that it is very clear that the federal government is not going to continue funding research at levels that we have enjoyed in the past,” Grasso said. “The report encourages corporate partnerships, and that is exactly what we are doing. We pioneered this 70 years ago when Allan Colburn came here from DuPont to start a program that led to the development of our highly ranked chemical engineering department.”
Grasso also commented on recent successes by Blue Hen varsity sports teams, noting the football team's recent triumph over Towson University and field hockey's 6-0 record in Colonial Athletic Association play while maintaing a collective 3.23 GPA.
Police chief’s remarks
Patrick Ogden, UD chief of police, briefed senators on events of Sept. 9, 2013, which began when 1,000 people attended a party in the 400 block of South College Avenue.
“People began complaining about the noise and called the UD Police and the Newark Police departments,” Ogden said. “Newark Police responded and eventually the students attending the party walked up South College Avenue, some going onto The Green and others going to Main Street.”
While Newark Police have made additional arrests, University Police are working to get persons who have been arrested into the University’s student conduct education process as soon as possible, Ogden said.
“The court system is a mainly punitive process, and cases can take as long as six months or more to be officially resolved,” Ogden said. “Rather than wait for such a long period of time, we want students who are involved to get into the student conduct education process. We don’t want our students involved in criminal activities.”
Ogden said that University Police continue to make the campus as safe as possible through preventive measures.
“During the last four years, the University has made it possible to install some 200 cameras in strategically identified locations across campus,” Ogden said. “We also are doing things like putting out more UD alerts in an effort to become more transparent.”
Faculty Senate actions
Faculty Senate President Deni Galileo, associate professor of biological sciences, noted that there was an open meeting on The Data Centers project.
“The meeting was video recorded and is on the UD Podcast website,” Galileo said. “Slide presentations from the meeting should be posted shortly on the Faculty Senate web page under Reports.”
Galileo also said that an audio recording of the RBB open meeting held Oct. 28 in Sharp Laboratory will be posted on the UD Podcast website.
Senators were encouraged by Galileo to attend one of the two town hall meetings, which will feature a discussion of a plan to enhance the University’s online/global initiatives.
The first was held Wednesday, Nov. 6, and the second will be held 4:30-5:30 p.m., Wednesday, Nov. 13, in the Trabant University Center Theatre.
The next regularly scheduled meeting of the Faculty Senate is 4 p.m., Monday, Dec. 6, in 104 Gore Hall.
Article by Jerry Rhodes