February 27, 2019 Minutes

Faculty Senate Minutes

February 27th, 2019

SUB Ballroom C

3:10- 4:30 pm

I. Call to Order

a.   The meeting was called to order at 3:10pm

II. Approval of the February 13th meeting minutes

a. Kara Hurt-Avila moves to approved. Julia Haggerty seconds. None opposed. Approved.

III. Informational Items

a.  Library Open Access Educational Resources (OER): Funded by OCHE, led by MSU Library and TRAILS–Kenning Arlitsch

i.  The average student should budget $1,240 -$1,440 for textbooks and course materials in 2018-19. https://trends.collegeboard.org/college-pricing/figures-tables/average-estimated-undergraduate-budgets-2018-19

ii. Books/Supplies at MUS institutions average $1,250/student/year

A.    MSU Billings, $1,550

B.     MSU Bozeman, $1,450

C.     MSU Great Falls, $1,400

D.    MSU Northern, $1,200

E.     Helena College, $1,350

F.      UM Missoula, $1,100

G.    UM MT Tech, $1,100

H.    UM Western, $850

iii.  Montana University System: 40,000 students x $1,250=$50,000,000/year

iv. Effect on Students

A.    65% opt out of buying textbooks

B.     94% concerned grades would suffer due to not purchasing a course textbook

C.     82% said free online access to textbooks would help them do “significantly better” in a course

D.    https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/01/28/textbook-prices-still-crippling-students-report-says

v.  Open Educational Resources (OER)

A.    Teaching and learning resources that are in the public domain or have been released with an open license

1.   Often https://creativecommons.org/licenses/

B.     Free use, copy, adapt, and re-share

C.     But still peer reviewed

vi. Creative Commons License Types-Extension of copyright law

A.    Attribution (by): Requires that others who use your work in any way must give you credit the way you request

B.     ShareAlike(sa): Others can copy, distribute, display, perform, and modify your work as long as they distribute modified work on the same terms

C.     NonCommercial(nc): Others can copy, distribute, display, perform, modify, and use work for any purpose other than commercially unless they get permission first

D.    NoDerivatives(nd): No modifications of the work are allowed unless permission is granted first

vii. Examples of OER Repositories

A.    MERLOT: “A curated collection of free and open online teaching, learning, and faculty development services.” Links to online learning materials are collected, along with assignments and comments to enhance the teaching experience of an exercise

B.     Open Stax College: Offers students free textbooks that meet scope and sequence requirements for most courses. They are peer-reviewed texts written by professional content developers.

C.     Open Textbook Library: A collection of free, peer-reviewed and openly-licensed textbooks for university students developed by the University of Minnesota

viii.  Montana OER Initiative

A.    Intent is to incentivize faculty to adopt, adapt, review, or create OER

B.     Funded by OCHE

C.     MOU with MSU signed January 8, 2019

D.    TRAILS OER Committee, with direction from MSU Library will execute MOU

ix. OER Funding (up to $805,000 over 3 years)

A.    Incentive grants for faculty -$500,000

B.     OER Coordinator position -$195,000

C.     Open Textbook Network membership -$30,000

D.    TRAILS sponsorship -$30,000

E.     Travel -$30,000

F.      Operations -$15,000

G.    Survey -$5,000

 x. Deliverables

A.    Quantify: Cost savings for students

B.     Assess: Change in knowledge and support of OER

C.     Efficacy: Determine whether incentivized reviews of OER content help educate faculty about OER

xi. Lowering Student Textbook Costs: A How-to Workshop

A.    March 4: 11:30-12:30: Innovative Learning Studio

B.     March 5: 4:00-5:00: Innovative Learning Studio

C.     Description: Higher education affordability presents a barrier to success and persistence for many of today's college students. This interactive session for faculty will help you begin to investigate low or no-cost resources for teaching in your subject area. Learn about the MSU Library's incentive program to support faculty in adopting Open Educational Resources (OERs)

xii.  Questions?

A.    You are incentivizing faculty to write licensed textbooks or review, adapt or modify existing text books? Yes.

B.     Can we get a summary of this to share with our faculty? Yes, Leila Sterman will send something to everyone after the meeting today.

C.     Interesting!

D.    Cool!

E.     What are the implications of faculty who already have textbooks with royalties, etc.? We want you to think about the students and their possible inability to buy books. Big publishers have a strangle hold on us and are charging large amounts for textbooks. Those costs are going to continue to go up.

F.      Some faculty have written textbooks that have been adopted in all freshmen courses and is probably a portion of their income. What do we tell them? We are not suggesting that people need to walk away from something that helps their income. We are just asking that as a professor you look at all options and don’t make students spend $150 for a book you may not even like.

G.    The leverage will come over time. If this gets popular it will be reflected in the course evaluations. Students will tell you.

H.    Some contracts include language that state you can only “give away” so much on your textbooks. There will be contracts that you can’t get out of. We are not suggesting you do that.

I.        In math we have been talking about this and working on this. We try to go with the cheaper book, if the content is what we need.

b. University Health Partners – Medical excuses – Jim Mitchell/Sam Mitchell/Matt Caires

i. We see a lot of students coming in for medical notes.

ii. Almost everyone has an attendance piece in their syllabus

A.    The only time an instructor wants a note is when it’s medical. If they get stuck in the snow, or someone’s kids are sick, they don’t ask for a note.

B.     The reality is that these young adults will be navigating a world where they will have a relationship with their employer and a good work ethic. That probably will not be asked for a doctor’s note when they are ill.

C.     Deans seem to be on board

D.    Most notes don’t have any details anyway. They are vague and usually just states that they were seen. Might not want to share with your professor why you were at the doctor. We have a responsibility to protect the student’s privacy.

E.     Concern as medical providers, we have to trust the patient. Do not want to be in the position of being the “judge”.

F.      Do not want to preform unnecessary medical test on a student because they need a note for a missed exam.

G.    There is no excused absence policy at MSU.

H.    We are a faculty-centric university. The professors have power over their classrooms. Dean of Students does NOT have the ability to override a professor’s classroom policies. They might send you a message with information, but they will not ask you to “make a deal”.

I.        The student needs to speak with the professor and try to work something out. Dean of Student’s can help facilitate those conversations.

J.       Public health component to this: Do not want student’s to come to campus, or to the health service, if they have the flu or something similar that you cannot treat. It just takes time. They need to stay home.

K.    Jim Mitchell handed out some examples of the syllabus language. He will work with Marilyn Lockhart with the Center for Faculty Excellence to find some language to help with this.

L.     Question:

1. So you want us to NOT put language regarding medical notes on syllabus? Yes. GREAT! Thought we had to. Glad to not do that anymore. We want students to have that relationship with their faculty where they can go talk to them. Dean of Students may reach out to you to address some extraordinary circumstances regarding a student.

2. If it is clear that the student doesn’t want to talk to me about what happened, where do I turn to help with that decision? Matt Caires is happy to help with that. Counseling and Psych services would want you to reach out them regarding any sort of mental health issue or assault issue.

3. Nursing: minimal clinical hours that cannot be made up. If you have that one out of 100 students that is fabricating excuses to get out of class, we cannot pass them. What do you do? You are a better judge of a student’s medical situation than anyone else. The ultimate decision to pass the student or not is ultimately up to the faculty member.

4. In LRES, if you miss a certain lab, you cannot complete the class. In that situation, you may need to talk about retro university withdrawal if you will not let them continue.

5. Feel free to reach out to Jim Mitchell if you have any more questions/issues.

IV. Old Business

a.  FYI –Courses Approved in Faculty Senate Steering on Feb 19.

i. EENV 341: Physical & Chemical Treatment Processes

ii. HTR 475: Integrative Hospitality Simulation

iii. IDSN 232: Advanced Digital Graphics

iv. KIN 330: Motor Control and Learning

v. LS 402: From the Closet to the Courts: Contraception Through the Ages

vi. NASX 265: World Indigenous Humanities

vii. PHSX 497: Conceptual Physics for Teachers

viii. PSPP 521: Plant Science for Teachers: It Grows on You

ix. PSYX 352: Comparative Psychology

x. PSYX 692: Independent Study

b.  Program Changes

i. AGBU-Minor- Agricultural Business

A. Would like to propose a new process for program changes

1. These changes do not need Regents approval.

2. Administrative/housekeeping type of changes.

3. Would like to treat these in the same way we do course proposal. We will do a first reading in Senate, let you take it back to your home departments to look at the details with your colleagues. If you have any questions or concerns let us know and we can hold them. If not, we’d like to move them to Steering for approval.

4. Would not do this if it would be something that needed to go to BOR or NWCCU, just the ones with minor changes.

5. We will move forward.

B. Eliminating econ courses that required calculus that were part of the minor

ii. BS-Biological Sciences – Fish and Wildlife Ecology and Management

A. Focused on giving students that have aquatic interest more of the information on the Fish side of things.

V. New Business

a. Committee: Faculty Assessment of Course Content and Student Outcomes (4x4/2x6/1x15)

i. Charge discussed at FS Steering with David Parker

ii. Currently being refined

iii. Want membership from each college-think about volunteering or suggesting a colleague

iv. If you want to serve, or nominate someone to serve, please let Abbie or Eric know.

v. Hope is to get committee up and running just after Spring Break

vi. What is the time demand of someone who would serve on this group? We do not know yet. Do not want folks working over the summer, so we’d like to get as much done as we can by the end of the semester and then pick up again in the Fall.

vii. Do we go back to our colleges to seek volunteers, or just from this group? It could be either. You can just give them the info on what’s going on, or you could have them reach out to Abbie or Eric if they are interested in serving on the committee.

viii. Are there are TT vs. NTT requirements? No. We would like this to be a diverse group. Ideally we’d like to have a couple folks with summer 4x4 experience and know how it compares to 2x6 and 1x15 format.

ix. Send names or refer folks to Abbie or Eric.

x. Provost Mokwa: The group that has already looked at this assessment was an ad hoc group, more of a task force. It’s really the faculty in the departments that will really be able to assess the learning outcomes. There will be some overlap in what this group and that group are doing.

xi. If we could identify people who teach the same course during the regular semester and also in the 4x4, they would really understand the depths of the difference between the two. They would be good additions to this committee. We could bring the names of those types of people to the committee for discussion.

b. New Courses

i. Undergraduate:

A.    ACT 161 : Wilderness Survival

B.     ANTY 375 : Anthropology of Humans and the Environment

C.     BIOE 435/BIOE 536: A Study of Local Ecosystems for Teachers-Was taught as a 591 for quite a while. The graduate level is a request for a hard number, but the 435 is a new proposal.

D.    BIOO 418: Ecological Physiology of Aquatic Organisms

E.     ECNS 310 : Health Economics

F.      FILM 373 : Experimental Film Production

G.    GRMN 453 : German Literature Since Unification

H.    ITS 271 : Securing Desktop/Mobile Devices

ii. Graduate:

A.    ARCH 561 : Design Critique for Master’s Studio Project

B.     ARCH 576 :Reader Critique for Professional Paper

C.     BIOH 586 : A Big Ideas Approach for AP Biology Teachers

D.    CHTH 548 : Program Planning and Evaluation

E.     ECIV 504 : Construction Productivity

F.      ECIV 505 : Quality Assure/Risk Management

G.    ECIV 506 : Ad Construction Management

H.    EDCI 521 : Content Literacy

I.        MEDS 591 : Farm to Clinician: A Culinary Medicine Approach to Healthcare

J.       NRSG 674 : DNP Scholarly Project Seminar (credit change)

K.    NUTR 520 : Advanced Diet and Disease Systems

iii. FYI Course Deactivation: ARNR 529 : Yellowstone Wildlife Habitat Ecology

c.  New programs-None

d.  Program Changes

i. ANRS-MS : Master of Science in Animal and Range Sciences

ii. ANRS-PHD : Doctor of Philosophy in Animal and Range Sciences

iii. ECCD-BS : Bachelor of Science in Early Childhood Education and Child Services -Child Development option

iv.  ECPT-BS : Bachelor of Science in Early Childhood Education and Child Services P-3 option

v. EDSC-MS : Master of Science in Science Education

vi. ELED-BS : Bachelor of Science in Elementary Education K-8 Curriculum

vii. ENTO-MINOR : Minor in Entomology -Non-Teaching

viii. ENTO-MS : Master of Science in Entomology

ix. HDFS-BS : Bachelor of Science in Human Development and Family Science -Human Development and Family Science

x. HDFT-BS : Bachelor of Science Human Development & Family Science -Family & Consumer Sciences Education Option

xi. HSPM-BS : BS in Hospitality Management

e.  Internship Policy-Chair Richards

i. Policy for supervised work-integrated learning experiences related to a student’s academic program of study:

A.    Internship(x98); Co-Op (x98)

B.     Practicum (x95); Fieldwork (x95); Clinical Experience (x95); Service Learning (x96)

ii. Unit Responsibilities:

A.    Develop a Unit Internship Guidelines and Procedures Document (UIGP)-We look at a lot of existing internship procedures. Many of you already have something you can build on.

B.     Foreach student experience develop an Internship Scope and Plan (ISP)-Similar to undergrad research credits.

iii. Section 2: University Expectations

A.    Learning outcomes established before experience

B.     Faculty Instructor-on MSU campus to oversee

C.     Internship Site Supervisor

D.    Assignment of appropriate credit

iv. Each internship has a faculty instructor

A.    Oversees creation of ISP

B.     Establishes individual learning outcomes

C.     Provide oversight to ensure learning of disciplinary knowledge

D.    Assess performance and assign grade

v. Internship Site Supervisor-usually NOT an MSU employee

A.    Monitor the internship per ISP

B.     Supervise the student on site

C.     Report problems to faculty instructor

D.    Provide reviews of intern’s performance

vi. Section 3 and 4: Unit Responsibilities

A.    Develop a Unit Internship Guidelines and Procedures Document (UIGP)

1.      Expected learning outcomes for internships (overarching) Reporting requirements during internship period

2.      Expectations of faculty instructor

3.      Procedure for handing disputes

4.      Assignment of credits, repeatability/maximum, applicability to program (elective etc.)

B.     For each student experience develop an Internship Scope and Plan (ISP)

1.      Expected learning outcomes for individual internship

2.      Student effort and credits awarded

3.      Contact information (student, faculty, supervisor, admin support)

4.      Evaluation expectations-what reporting requirements do the students have?

5.      More than 4 Four or more credits/experience requires approval of college dean

vii.  Questions/Comments:

A.    Is this intended to be an undergrad policy or just grad? Both.

B.     Student plans will need to be submitted and sign off on by all three parties, each time.

C.     Would love to get some boiler plate documents to work with. These are a lot of work.

D.    Students will register for one credit during the summer because they don’t want to pay the fees. This could be a sticky area in this policy.

E.     Would like to limit of the total of credits they can do.

F.      It is the cost per credit that is the big issue for engineering students. They want to do it in the summer and it’s too expensive. A different funding mechanism would be great.

1.      It does raise equality issues for those students who have internship credit requirements as part of their degree.

VI.  Announcements

a.  Upcoming Agenda Items

i. Title IX and Mandatory Reporter Training

ii. MAT Program Changes

iii. MS Bioengineering

iv. Next Chair Elect

A.    Nominations between 2/27 and 3/13, candidate presentations and election 3/27

v. Brock Tessman at Faculty Senate March 13

A.    Deputy Commissioner, Academic, Research & Student Affairs

B.     Discussion of academic program planning and approval

VII.  Public Comment

a.  Provost Mokwa-Invited Brock Tessman to our campus to address these questions. Will also be meeting with the Deans and Department Heads as well.

b. Dave Roberts: We had voted on changing the language in an old policy based on the outcome of JAGS. Yes. That was passed.

VIII.  Adjournment

a. Meeting was adjourned at 4:43pm

Reminder: Next Faculty Senate Meeting

March 13, 2019

3:10-4:30 PM

SUB Ballroom D

 A downloadable PDF of this information can be found here.