CAS Senate Executive Committee Meeting Minutes

April 8, 2016

In attendance: Jean Ippolito (Chair), Kathleen Commendador, Tracy Wiegner, Yucheng Qin, Chris Lauer, Mazen Hamad, Yoshiko Fukushima, Susan Brown

Approval of minutes from 3/11/16 Executive Committee meeting

Minutes approved 6-0-0

Chair’s Report (Jean Ippolito):

-Faculty Congress Reorganization Task Force update:

The task force has proposed various models, both thematic and traditional, for reorganizing colleges. The primary consideration seems to have been making the colleges roughly equal in size rather than developing the model most likely to be accepted by all departments. Another proposed model featured four colleges: Basic Sciences, Social Sciences and Humanities, Agriculture and Applied Sciences, and Business and Allied Health. CAFNRM is resisting any change and does not support the addition of the Geography or Geology departments. The final report still has not been distributed. An operating assumption of the task force is that no departments, programs, or faculty will be eliminated in the process.

After the final draft is distributed to all faculty members, there will be a town hall meeting on the process April 22 from 3:00 to 4:30 in Wentworth 1. UHPA has clarified that once the faculty has had a chance to respond, it will develop a timeline for implementation.

-Transfer Locus of Tenure Policy Draft: The draft that is being developed is only for transfers from one college to another within UH Hilo. It will be discussed by the Faculty Congress Executive Committee today. The draft does not resolve the problem of whether the department from which the faculty member wants to leave has to approve the transfer.

-Distance Learning Criteria Task Force: The last WASC report called for a policy that ensures the rigor of distance learning courses. The ad hoc task force on distance learning advising produced a set of guidelines. A motion has been made to turn these guidelines into an official policy. -Letters have been sent to all divisions about the need to appoint new members to the Senate Executive Committee. The APC and CRC chairs should send letters to the relevant division chairs to ask for elections to replace outgoing members

APC Report (Jene Michaud):

Everyone on the APC’s term is expiring except Yoshiko Fukushima, who will likely serve as Chair in the coming year.

The committee decided that now is not the right time to think about the CAS Senate bylaws, which make all faculty members voters.

CRC Report (Chris Lauer):

All four members’ terms expire at the end of this year.

Old Business:

Officer Elections:

-Tracy Wiegner was elected Senate Executive Committee Chair for fall semester 2016 5-0-0.

-Chris Lauer was elected CAS Vice Chair 5-0-0 -Mazen Hamad was elected CAS Secretary 5-0-0

New Business:

All-Senate meeting April 29th: We will invite Vice Chancellor Platz, Susan Brown, and Misaki Takabayashi to give speeches. Part of the discussion should include the respective duties of the various administrative positions.

GWS department: GWS Program Chair Celia Bardwell-Jones has requested that Gender and Women’s Studies be designated its own department. This would make record-keeping much easier and give Amy Gregg an official university home that better matches her contributions to the University. Everyone who teaches in GWS would be an adjunct to the department. We agreed to raise the matter at the all-Senate meeting and (if a motion is raised) vote on the issue immediately afterwards in a meeting of the executive committee if there is not a quorum present at the all-Senate meeting.

Meeting adjourned at 3:15.