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Kentucky State University

Faculty Senate Meeting Minutes

April 8, 2022

Submitted by Danny Collum, Senate Secretary

Call to Order

Meeting called to order with a quorum at 9:01 a.m.

Approval of Agenda

The agenda was approved as submitted without opposition.

Approval of Minutes

Joy Cole should be added to the guest attendance. With that amendment, the minutes were approved unanimously.

Faculty Senate President Report – Phillip Clay

President Clay reminded faculty of the contact points for COVID-19 information: 855-598-2246 and COVID19@kysu.edu.

In a meeting with the provost, they discussed the honors convocation and the college update meetings. There was no executive committee meeting last week. In a session with Acting President Stamps, she and President Clay discussed plans for meeting the requirements of HB 250. There was no news reported from the SGA president.

Student evaluations of faculty are open April 4 to May 6. Advising and preregistration began April 1. Baccalaureate ceremony will May 12 and graduation May 13.

Faculty Regent Update – Herman Walston

There has still been no meeting of the Board of Regents. Regent Walston encouraged all faculty to carefully read the final text of HB 250 setting conditions for KSU's continued funding.

General Education – Bruce Griffiths

Everyone teaching general education courses should be collecting assessment data. Contact Bruce Griffiths if you need help with this.

Administrative Updates

Distance Learning and Technology – Michael Dailey

The digital badges have been approved for the online teaching certification. This certification will satisfy the Faculty Handbook requirement for online teaching qualifications. Distance

Learning will continue to work on training faculty through resources offered by ACUE (Association of College and University Educators). A carousel model is being considered for online graduate programs. More to come soon regarding graduate programs.

Health and Safety – Samantha Todd

Franklin County is now in the Green category for COVID-19 spread, as are our surrounding counties. Masks are optional, but still required in classrooms. An influenza case was just diagnosed in a student. More COVID-19 variants are evolving, so the pandemic is not over. A fourth booster for people over 50 years old or with certain chronic health conditions has been approved. However, in one study the effectiveness of the additional booster was found to only last four weeks.

Next Thursday there will be a Stress Management event. April 27 is Denim Day for Sexual Assault Awareness. Free STD testing will be offered.

Nurse Todd is retiring May 19, 2022. The notice for her replacement is already posted.

Senate President Clay noted that this was a sad day for KSU.

Career Services – Tonika East

Farm Bureau was on campus for last week's Recruitment Wednesday. Next week will be Amazon, followed by Havas, a Chicago ad agency. The Thurgood Marshall Leadership Institute will also be recruiting KSU students this month. All these events are held in the Handshake app.

Dual Credit – Kristopher Grimes

A policy document will soon go out to everyone involved with Dual Credit. It will also be brought to the Faculty Senate at the last meeting this semester. He is working on stronger pathways to KSU enrollment for Dual Credit students, including the possibility of having Dual Credit students in regular KSU classes, not only in designated “Dual Credit” sections.

Academic Affairs – Berkeley King

Micah Glenn, who had been overseeing grants and sponsored programs, has left KSU. The position is being advertised. Noel Novelo will be the contact person for grants matters in the interim.

Faculty Senate Committee Reports

Academic Policy Committee – Kristopher Grimes

APC brought two action items. The first is a minor revision of the “Incomplete” policy. The changes would make it clear that the instructor has the right to approve or disapprove an Incomplete request and that the student must “bear the costs” for any additional materials or lab fees associated with completing the course work.

This passed with 17 voting yes and no opposition or abstentions.

Next came a change to Internship Guidelines that lowered the required GPA for an internship from 3.0 to 2.5. This passed with 15 votes for it and no opposition or abstention.

Curriculum Committee – Changzheng Wang

The Curriculum Committee brought an action item making a substantial program change for the English major. This change reduces the number of possible concentrations in English from four to three and incorporates the new courses and course changes passed at the last Senate meeting. The English major program change was approved with 15 votes in favor and no opposition or abstentions.

Professional Concerns Committee – Gary Stratton

Thanks to Peter Smith for his work on the Ad Hoc Budget Committee. The Ad Hoc Committee has now dissolved, and BASC will continue to represent the faculty in the budget process.

The committee drafted a letter to Aaron Thompson at CPE and to Acting President Stamps expressing concern about the suspension of the tenure and promotion process this year and asking them to reconsider that decision. This letter from the Professional Concerns Committee has now been sent.

The committee also sent a letter to Facilities about trash on campus, which, in some cases, is drawing pests.

PCC presented an action item adding to the Faculty Handbook a requirement for mentoring program for new faculty to operate at either the school or division level. Mentoring of new faculty will not be compensated, but will count as “service” in faculty evaluations.

This item passed with 15 voting yes, and no opposition or abstention.

Budget and Academic Support Committee – Jennifer Ballard-Kang

At its last meeting, BASC was joined by Penny Peavler, a consultant for the Frankfort city government. She shared the city’s strategic plan and asked us to look at it and think of ways the university could work with the city. She will be setting up networking opportunities for KSU faculty and Frankfort city representatives.

The grant workshop previously scheduled for April 8 has been postponed due to Micah Glenn’s resignation from the university.

BASC has made some progress on the issue of course fees being turned over to academic units. The VP of Finance, Gerald Shields, says that for this year chairs should calculate anticipated course fees and put those in their budget request.

This is a temporary fix and needs to be written into the Business Manual. We will follow up on that next year.

In response to a question from the floor, Senator Ballard-Kang reported that VP Shields said fee estimates should not be based only on past enrollments. Chairs should check with admissions about anticipated enrollment.

Other Business

Regent Walston was asked when he expected that the new Board of Regents would meet. He said he didn't know yet, possibly within two weeks.

The full Senate will meet again April 22, 2022.

Adjournment

The Senate adjourned at 10:35 a.m.

Attendance

Senators

Excused: Keith McCutchen, Jens Hannemann

Guests

Herman WalstonLisa Turner

Yun Jiang Thomas Webster