PRESENT
Julie Buck, Patti Cost, Shelly Costley, Colleen Garside, Ed Hahn, Colin Inglefield, Michelle More, Brian Rague, Michael Vaughan, Kay Brown, Secretary

EXCUSED
Stephen Hill, Ann Millner

GUESTS
Travis Hampshire, David Ferro, Barry Gomberg

MINUTES
Ed Hahn: Moved to approve the minutes from the September 8, 2011 Executive Committee meeting.
Second: Brian Rague
Outcome: The minutes were approved.

PPM 3-29a PPM 3-29a - Family and Medical Leave – Travis Hampshire and Barry Gomberg reporting

Changes to FMLA

• Military caregiver leave.

• Leave for families of National Guard and Reserve members.

• Revised definition of a "serious condition."

• Employers can directly contact an employee’s health care provider to seek clarification about information on an employee’s FMLA certification form.

• Employer notice obligations - In addition to conspicuously posting a notice about your FMLA and complaint-filing procedures, you must provide the same notice in your employee handbooks. Employers now have five business days to send out FMLA eligibility and designation notices to employees.

• Settlement of past FMLA claims allowed.

• Light duty doesn’t count as FMLA leave.

• Perfect-attendance awards can be denied.

Discussion

• FMLA leave is unpaid leave. However, PPM 3-21a states: "All salaried faculty will be compensated at full pay and benefits for a period of up to 12 weeks annually from the inception of leave. The annual period will be calculated in the same manner as PPM 3-29a."

• The FMLA policy now states: "An employee may be able to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave during a 12-month period." This has changed from 12-weeks each year to 12-weeks in a 12-month period. This change will help reduce possible abuse.

• Item XIII - A faculty position would be held for one year.

• Item XII - "If an employee and his/her spouse both work for the University, they are both eligible for leave. The amount of leave allowed for the employee and the employee’s spouse may be limited to a combined total of 12 weeks of FMLA leave in a 12-month period . . ." What does "may be limited . . " mean? This allows the institution to be kinder than the law.

The policy can be viewed online at:

MOTION
Michelle More: Moved to send the above FMLA information to the Faculty Senate as an information item.
Second: Shelly Costley
Outcome: The motion passed unanimously.

POST-TENURE
Regent’s Proposed Post Tenure Review Policy

Discussion

• WSU policy states that all faculty should be reviewed on a three-year cycle. Our accrediting body has changed to a five-year cycle.
• The proposed policy is meant to clarify.
• New policy is called Academic Freedom, Professional Responsibility, Tenure, Termination and Post Tenure Review. The old policy was called: Academic Freedom, Professional Responsibility, and Tenure.
• Last year the Legislature discussed abolishing tenure.
• Proposed policy section 3.6 - Reasons for Dismissing Faculty For Cause. 3.6.5 - "Inability or unwillingness to meet institutional expectations." This gives institutions flexibility. Institutional expectations needs to be clearly defined.
• A charge could be given to APAFT to look at post tenure review (PPM 8-11). The words "Post tenure" are not used in the policy.

MOTION
Shelly Costley: Moved to charge APAFT to look at changing the faculty reviews from a 3-year cycle to a 5-year cycle and including the words "post tenure."
Second: Brian Rague
Outcome: The motion passed unanimously.

PROGRAM REVIEW – Mike Vaughan reporting.

Every program on campus undergoes a program review every five years. It is approximately a 14-month cycle. It extends across two academic years. It starts in the fall, it is initiated with a self study, involves an external review committee that looks at the program and makes recommendations. The recommendations go back to the program for them to respond to the recommendations and indicate what they are going to do. It then goes to the Dean, and then it goes to a Program Review Committee. The Program Review Committee has faculty representation from every academic college. The Program Review Committee looks at the review, the department’s response to the review, and come to a finding of whether or not it is sufficient. If they find the department was responsive to the recommendations they say that they accept the program review. If they feel the department was not responsive, they send it back and tell the department they were not responsive to the recommendations and have them look again at the recommendations and respond.

The Program Review guidelines do not specify how faculty are picked to serve on the committee. The Provost’s Office is getting ready to convene the committee. Executive Committee members will serve as the Program Review Committee. The Program Review Committee will meet October 27, 2011 at 2:00 in the Provost’s Office.

ACADEMIC CALENDAR – David Ferro reporting.

History of the Process

The calendar was changed academic calendar four years ago. At the time focus groups were created. The Chair of the Faculty Senate at that time attended the focus groups. The focus groups discussed what the calendar should look like. A calendar was presented to the Faculty Senate and approved by a slim margin. Since then, there have been many complaints about the calendar. More focus groups were held. Three surveys have been sent to faculty to determine what are faculty concerns, what to they need, and what possible solutions are there.

The survey was reviewed by Cliff Nowell, Marjukka Ollilainen, Azenett Garza and Therese Grijalva. A likert scale was used. 232 faculty responded to the survey out of about 500 faculty. There was a fair representation of faculty across colleges.

The calendar most faculty are in favor of includes spring break, same length semesters, same number of teaching days in each semester (14 plus 1 week), two weeks between semesters (except there would be a week and a half between Spring and Summer), and 55 minute class periods. We would lose the Fall Break.

MOTION
Brian Rague: Moved to forward to the Faculty Senate the recommendation of adopting calendar C.
Second: Michelle More
Outcome: The motion passed unanimously.

ADJOURN
The meeting adjourned at 3:30 p.m.