The ninth meeting of the AY 2015-16 Faculty Senate was called to order at 3:13 pm on Monday, February 1, 2016, Hathaway Hall Room 123. Agenda was approved and Faculty Senate minutes of December 14, 2015 were approved with no amendments.

The Senate held a moment of silence for Dr. Sam Olekka, longtime colleague and Chair of Arts and Sciences.

Professional Concerns Committee Report:

Committee Chair Kumar presented the history and rationale for a PCC letter submitted for approval to the full Senate regarding letters of reprimand placed in faculty member's personnel folders about failure to submit final grades. It was agreed that some faculty members submitted all grades late. However, the concern of Senators is that no distinction was made in the letter between those particular cases and cases when, for a variety of reasons, one or two grades were not entered, or when a whole class' roster was rejected due to no entry of last attendance date for those who failed the class, and those faculty who caught the problem and informed the registrar's office but could not then enter grades because the system was closed. After lengthy discussion between Senators and VPAA Brown/Wright an agreement was not reached to reconsider the reprimands. Some Senators expressed concern that the letters are inaccurate in many cases and yet they will be permanent components of their personnel file. Dr. Brown/Wright suggested that faculty may, per policy, appeal the reprimand by submitting a letter to her office. She pointed out that submission of grades past the deadline, sometimes weeks late, has been a perennial problem at KSU and this is an attempt on the part of administration to address such. She, and a Senator and a faculty member, pointed out that it is the responsibility of faculty members to know how to use the system, even if it is not intuitive and has problems. The reporting of non-attends is necessary for compliance with Federal Financial Aid regulations.

Other points made by various Senators and guests were:

• No notification sent out of the glitch that if one grade of F did not have a 'last date attended' noted (even if the student attended all semester) grades for all students in that class would be kicked out.
• If grades for various students are entered at differing times for one class they will not be kicked out due to no entry of last attend until the last grade is entered and all grades submitted.
• Assumption by administration of faculty negligence without consideration of banner issues.
• Once Final grades are shut down in Banner they cannot be reviewed and seen by the faculty to assure compliance for about two weeks.

The following letter was approved by the Senate by unanimous voice vote.