Senators Present: Karin Barnes, Cheryl Burns, Glen Forister, Terry LeGrand, Brent Lin, Barry Norling, Kyumin Whang, Ellen Kraig, Judy Teale, Keith Krolick, Walter Ward, Christopher Bracken, Scott Johnson, Melanie Richards, Tod Sloan, Sally Taylor, Carol Reineck, Suzanne Yarbrough.

Karin Barnes, chair, opened the meeting at 4:06 PM.

1. Cheryl Burns - Karin Barnes introduced Cheryl Burns to discuss the status of the University ad hoc library committee's strategic plan. Cheryl described the history of the formation of the committee from three previous library committees and the committee's charge. She went on to detail the resulting strategic plan for the library (included as an appendix to these minutes).

Dr. Kraig noted that in several places in the strategic plan calling for decisions and implementations that it would be appropriate to include "with consultation with faculty." Cheryl indicated that the changes would be easy to make as that was the original intent anyway. As the suggested changes and additions from individual senators were becoming extensive, Kr. Krolick suggested that individuals e-mail their comments directly to Cheryl Burns after a thorough review of the draft. There was general agreement.

It was noted that this ad hoc library committee was formed as a result of the Senate's concern for the library integrity for faculty and student use.

2. Dr. Kyumin Whang - Dr. Kyumin Whang, chair of the senate committee on faculty status and welfare passed out a draft of proposed faculty exit interview form and briefly outlined its contents. He suggested that Human Resources would add the form to the list of items on the exit clearance process. Dr. Yarbrough inquired as to the office or organization which would house and interpret the results. Dr. Whang suggested that HR would provide a distilled summary to the senate for interpretation. Ellen Kraig suggested that the process had devolved from experience at Houston where they have an upper administrator devoted to faculty development who is responsible for interpreting the survey results. A general discussion followed on the extent of detail and distribution of any resultant data which might be consistent with confidentiality.

3. Dr. Barry Norling - Dr. Barry Norling presented a report on the outcome of a presentation by Chancellor Yudof at the recent FAC meeting in Austin. At the completion of the Chancellor's formal presentation, he was asked about the possibility of meeting the current budget shortall cutback requirements by making substantial reductions to the salaries of tenured faculty. Dr. Norling detailed the Chancellor's comments in an e-mail to President Cigarroa and Jack Park, Senior Legal Officer. He provided handouts of the contents of that e-mail, Jack Park's response, and his response to Mr. Park's response.

In summary, Chancellor Yudof said that making substantial reductions to the salaries of tenured faculty would constitute substantive discharge and consequently would not be permitted under the regent's rules and would, in fact, subject the university to substantial legal and financial liability. These comments were viewed as highly significant both because they came from the system chancellor and because they ran counter to comments made by other university administrators in recent rears who had maintained that there was no connection between tenure and compensation.

4. Karin Barnes -Karin Barnes asked for a discussion of and, if possible, a consensus on the best meeting time for next year. Following a general discussion, it was agreed to poll all senators by e-mail to determine if a new meeting time needed to be established.

Following a general discussion, there was agreement that the budget needed to include not just a dollar amount to support certain basic activities like updating the senate web site and bringing in speakers for faculty development, but also secretarial time for minutes taking and other record keeping and updating activities.

Dr. Martin Meltz proposed that the senate find ways to raise funds to underwrite a faculty newsletter. A general discussion followed at the conclusion of which Drs. Ellen Kraig and Alice Gong agreed to determine if it were feasible to have similar content added to the Health Science Center News.

4. Committee Reports - Because of the lateness of the hour, the committee reports were postponed and the meeting was adjourned at 6:26 PM.

05 May 2003.
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