• Yates replied, yes, students' books will be purchased by the university. The deadline for book orders is April 15th.
• A Senator asked, how do we order books with Follett?

-Yates replied that he is not sure yet, but faculty does have a wider array of choices. They don't have to use Pearson texts. He added that many students don't have laptops, so every freshman this fall will get a new Chromebook.

• Moffett added that Follett will fix up the bookstore, making it a space where students can get not only textbooks but also snacks and whatever they need.
• A Senator asked, what about dual credit students?
• Moffett replied that he wasn't sure, and Yates said he didn't yet know, either.
• Moffett asked Senators to email him their questions about these issues to share with the Provost.
• 9. Professional Concerns Committee: Chair Caroline Gibson was absent. The committee did not meet last week due to lack of quorum. A committee member noted that many Faculty-Handbook questions for the General Counsel remain unanswered.

10. Faculty Ombudsman Report: Ombudsman Wilfred Reilly reported on the following issues:

• He had a meeting with President Brown and Swagata Banerjee and Abdul Turay of the School of Business and Technology to discuss KSU's Memorandum of Agreement with China's South Central University for Nationalities (SCUN) to develop a student exchange program. This agreement seems to be completed. The legal department made a few changes to the proposed MOU. KSU Faculty members will be traveling to China to complete the agreement.
• He has received several questions about the delay in Tenure and Promotion notifications, and he asked the President. SACS notified KSU that faculty teaching specific courses have to have a certain number of graduate hours in the field. The issue seems to be that some of the current faculty going up for Tenure and Promotion lack those credentials in their field. There will be meetings to discuss this issue, which will be resolved. This apparently is an issue with SACS. The President told Reilly that he’d be very happy to come to Senate and discuss these issues.
• Moffett replied that President Brown is always welcome to come talk with Faculty Senate.
• A Senator asked if the faculty who are waiting know why.
• Reilly replied that he has explained to those faculty who asked him about the delay.
• A Senator said that he is concerned that these new SACS standards are affecting people who went up for Tenure and Promotion before the standards were implemented. That doesn’t seem fair.
• Moffett added that he can imagine that some faculty may be surprised to learn that they might not now be qualified to teach their courses.
• Guest Scott Wicker, Chair of Natural Sciences, replied that these SACS standards have been on the books for a while; it’s just that they have not been applied regularly.
• A Senator asked, will this requirement keep faculty from completing the process of Tenure and Promotion this year?
• Deputy Provost Sipes responded that the SACS standard has always been there, but now they are enforcing it. In terms of Tenure and Promotion, if we have a situation where someone is not credentialled to teach in the division they were hired in, how can we promote them in that division? In most cases, the issue is about one class: the person currently teaching the class will be moved to another class.
• Provost Yates pointed out that only the Board of Regents can grant tenure. The letters were ready to go at the last Board meeting, but we had a faculty member appeal, so then we had a new schedule. Rather