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2000-2001
FACULTY COUNCIL MINUTES
2000-2001
Meeting #15
Tuesday,
December 12, 2000
Present:
McKeever (chair), Smelser (vice-chair), Brunsfeld,
Chun, Coonts, Finnie, Fritz, Haggart (w/o vote), Hong, Kraut, McCaffrey,
McClure, Meier, Nelson, Nielsen, Olson, Thomas (w/o vote) Absent:
Bitterwolf, Foltz, Glen, Goble, Goodwin, Guilfoyle, Thompson, Trivedi
Observers: 8
Call
to Order. A quorum being present, Faculty Council
Chair, Professor Kerry McKeever, called the meeting to order at 3:35 p.m. in
the Idaho Commons.
Minutes.
The council, by voice vote, accepted the minutes of the December 5, 2000,
meeting as distributed.
Chair’s
Report. Chair McKeever made the following
announcements:
The
American Association for Higher Education will hold its ninth
annual forum on "Faculty Roles and Rewards" from
February 1st through the 4th in Tampa, Florida.
The conference will focus on new digital technologies and also the
generational shift now taking place in the faculty ranks. The Office of
the Provost will provide travel funds for a couple of U of Idaho faculty
members, who are in or will be assuming faculty leadership roles, to
attend the conference. McKeever asked those who were interested to
contact her (providing a statement of reasons for and benefits from
attending the forum) by December 22nd.
A
petition from the Faculty Senate at the University of New Mexico,
concerning an Austrian professor who was censured and arrested for
expressing views that were critical of Austrian politics, was distributed
for the council to read. A similar petition will be presented to the
council for action at the January 16, 2000, council meeting.
Education
week at the legislature will be the third week of January. However,
Chair McKeever plans to be in Boise from January 9th through
the 11th in an effort to meet with as many members of the
legislature as possible to explain the salary issues facing higher
education. She invited other faculty members to join her at that time and
help her make those important legislative contacts. Please contact her if
you are able to help.
A
sample letter to send to members of the legislature, regarding
salary issues and needs for general support for the university, will be
available for viewing and downloading at the Faculty Council web site.
Please take advantage of that sample wording to compose your own letter to
a member of the legislature or a legislative committee chair. McKeever
hopes that this will be a university-wide effort that includes not only
the faculty, but staff and students as well.
The
University Register will no longer publish the minutes of the Staff
Affairs Committee. McKeever noted that the Faculty Council minutes
received wide distribution through print via the Faculty Secretary’s
Report, and electronically via the Faculty Council web site. Staff
Affairs Committee minutes, because of the audience they are trying to
reach, rely heavily on print publishing through the University Register.
McKeever asked Vice Provost Dene Thomas to look into the situation and see
if University Communications might reconsider that decision. There was
also a suggestion that the minutes could be distributed via e-mail using a
distribution list. However, it was pointed out to the council that many
staff members do not have access to e-mail or a computer. Thomas agreed
to contact the director of University Communication and Marketing.
Vice
Provost’s Report. Vice
Provost Dene Thomas, sitting in for the provost, provided the council with
the following information:
Nominations
for Teaching Excellence awards are due December 15th.
Nominations may be made via e-mail to Thomas. Nominees will then be
notified and will be asked to submit the necessary documentation if they
choose to pursue the award process to its conclusion. Tenured or
tenure-track faculty members can be nominated by other faculty members
or administrators. If students wish to see a faculty member nominated,
they should seek out a faculty member or administrator to make the
nomination for them.
Special
course fee requests are due in the vice provost’s office by January
5th.
Thomas
announced that Professor Ginna Babcock has been named the Coordinator of Academic
Service Learning. Professor Babcock is looking for faculty members to
work with in presenting a series of workshops in the Spring that will lead
to the implementation of Academic Service Learning in courses next fall.
This is a three year project that has received both grant and university
funding. These service learning efforts will also be coordinated with the
Moscow community work in volunteer service.
The
university will begin exploring opportunities in "dual enrollment
learning" with the Moscow school district. These kinds of
learning opportunities might be appropriate to offer during the interim
between semesters. Thomas asked the council (and other interested parties)
to think about short-course topic development that would fit into that
time period that could be aimed at high school students.
Committee
Reports. The following items were brought
before the Faculty Council as seconded motions from university-level bodies:
FC-01-018
– Proposal for a Joint Doctoral Program. The Graduate
Council, via its curriculum committee, brought to the Faculty Council a
request to establish a new joint doctoral program. The program would result
from a partnership between the U of Idaho and Centro Agronómico Tropical
de Investigación y Enseñanza (CATIE). This partnership and its
academic program agreement establishes jointly offered doctoral programs in
disciplines currently offered through the U of Idaho’s College of Natural
Resources and College of Agriculture. The proposal requires no new degrees
and no new courses. Charles Hatch, the interim Vice President for Research
and Graduate Studies and Roger Wallins, the Associate Dean of Graduate
Studies, provided the council with background information on the
partnership.
CATIE
is a non-profit international research and graduate education organization,
consisting of eleven member countries: Belize, Columbia, Costa Rica, The
Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua,
Panama, and Venezuela. Its campus is located in Turrialba, Costa Rica, and
its faculty (45 members of which hold the Ph.D. degree) and students conduct
research in several tropical disciplines: crop and germplasm improvement and
conservation, integrated pest management in agroforestry and forestry,
agroforestry systems, sustainable management of forests and their
biodiversity, and the socio-economic evaluation and analysis of management
systems for goods and services provided by tropical systems. CATIE
provides master’s degrees on its campus, and is looking to offer
doctoral degrees in cooperation with other research institutions in North
America and Europe. The U of Idaho draft agreement will enable the two
institutions to recruit students globally for doctoral research in tropical
agriculture and resources. The students will take most of their formal
course work at the U of Idaho, and will conduct their research at CATIE and
at research sites in its member countries.
Councilor
Finnie asked about the availability of travel funds for faculty
members and graduate students to get to and from the member countries. Hatch
replied that the travel funds would be built into the sponsored research
projects and that there was a program fee applied to these degrees that
would also help cover travel expenses.
Councilor
Nielsen asked how this program agreement would affect accreditation
for the colleges sponsoring the agreement? Hatch replied that this degree
program would have to meet the same standards as existing degree programs.
Since the proposed partnership falls under existing U of Idaho doctoral
degree programs, he said that there would be no difficulty in meeting
accreditation standards.
Several
council members and the vice provost spoke about the positive effects
of this new program. It would help our diversity program by having a genuine
cultural exchange of faculty members and students. The faculty of the
College of Agriculture and the College of Natural Resources are very
supportive and anxious to see the program get started. This is deemed to be
an excellent use of U of Idaho resources.
Councilor
Nielsen asked if people might ask why we were expending our energies in
research and training with these tropical countries rather than on
agricultural issues in our own state or the Northwest? Hatch responded that
the agricultural/natural resources industry leaders are moving many
operations "off-shore" and are very interested in employing people
who can work comfortably with agricultural/natural resource issues/research
in both a tropical and temperate environment/eco-system.
Hatch
told the council that this program would probably expand beyond
agriculture and natural resources to include areas like business and
economics. The future of this joint program will probably end up utilizing
the resources of many colleges.
FC-01-018
was adopted by unanimous voice vote.
FC-01-019
– Proposed Change in the Function Statement and Structure of the Teacher
Education Coordinating Committee.
The University Curriculum Committee (UCC) forwarded this recommended change
to the Faculty Council.
Professor
Christiansen, Chair of the UCC, presented the background information
on the proposed changes. She said that because the teacher education program
is undergoing changes, the committee felt that the function and structure of
this important advisory committee should also change. One of the changes in
function is from a "reactive" committee to one that is more
"proactive" in helping establish direction in teacher preparation
at the U of Idaho. The other function change is to have the committee
consider all teacher education programs, rather than just
secondary-education. The structural changes involve adding three students
and three P-12 school representatives to the committee. The only non-voting
member of the committee is the Dean of the College of Education, who serves
as the committee chair.
FC-01-019
was adopted by unanimous voice vote.
Parking
and Transit Task Force Report. The council
revisited the issues surrounding the proposed revisions in parking it had
begun discussing at its November 28th meeting. Dan Schoenberg,
Director of Auxiliary Services, was present, as well as Joanne Reece,
Assistant Vice President of Facilities, and Laura Hubbard, Director of
Capital Planning and Capital Budget. The purpose of today’s meeting was to
respond to questions and comments from the members of the council.
Schoenberg said that he would take the information gathered at this meeting
back to the task force for use in their deliberations. He reminded the
council that the proposed parking plan was still a "work in
progress" and that comments were always welcome.
Discussion
Summary: (administrative comments/questions are in
italics)
New
Parking Fees and the Use of the Revenue Generated from Fees
Parking
Space Allocation
what
is the capacity gained by increasing the number of permits and permitted
parking areas? not known at this time
the
maps do not show the underlying allocation of parking spaces –
visitors, handicapped, metered, etc. – across the campus – our
concern is that we correctly calculate the percentage of spaces needed,
as well as having them in the right locations
we
are learning – via current construction projects and relocation of
services on the campus – how patterns of parking change – for
instance, moving all of those student services to the SUB creates a
whole new set of priorities for the parking areas around that building
– experience is a good teaching tool
Buffers
and Overflow Needs
-
all
of the gold lots need to have an overflow or buffer – adjacent lots
that are a lower parking level (red or blue) – particularly on the
east, north and south side of the campus – the lots next to the gold
lots in that part of the campus are all scheduled to be used as
residential parking – we tried to calculate
the need for residential parking and assign it in the needed areas –
the buffers only exist on the west side of the campus
-
the
new parking lot by the law school (lot #24) should be a gold lot – not
a red lot
Residential
Parking
the
residential parking areas carry different colors based on their location
– this is related to what is called "destination based
parking" for residence areas – it may get people to park
close to where they live – but it does not allow any other permit
holder to park in those areas
a
secure lot is needed away from the campus that will allow long-term car
storage on the edge of the campus – lots that serve workers and students
that commute to the campus should not be car storage areas
Street
Parking – Free Parking
6th
Street parking (Rayburn Street to Perimeter Drive) should not be
resident only parking - the same applies to the street parking on Nez
Perce Drive close to the golf course – these areas need to be open to
the general public as free parking
requiring
parking permits for street parking is an excellent idea – there should
be no free parking – paying a parking permit fee or putting coins in a
meter is part of the cost of owning and driving a car
free
parking has already dwindled over the past ten years and now – in an
instant – this plan completely eliminates all free parking near the
campus – that is wrong!
if
we are not going to provide employee parking spaces, then some of our
areas should remain free – permit only parking on all of the streets
will force parking – and its resulting congestion – into private
residential areas
where
would free parking be effective while still maintaining an overall
philosophy of equity? building a lot where the band practices might
help the residential parking problem – some areas of the sweet avenue,
Kibbie Dome and 6th Street should be free parking – providing
free parking will reduce revenue and impact the improvement budget for
parking lots and curtail the construction of new parking lots – or it
could simply result in increasing the cost of all categories of parking
permits.
Parking
Lot Improvements
why
are there very large landscaped areas (rather than more parking spaces) in
the new Sweet Avenue parking lot? those large
spaces, and even some of the new parking spaces, are designated for future
building construction
we
build very nice buildings, but we have too many parking lots near them
that are in terrible condition – can that be corrected? parking
revenue resources for lot improvements are prioritized – the improvement
of each particular parking lot has a place on that priority list –
when new buildings are built there should be a clause that speaks to
providing adequate parking for building users and visitors – private
and government funded buildings do not usually include those kinds of
provisions – nevertheless, we need to have parking included in the
planning and funding of buildings – it is difficult to mandate those
kind of costs or even control construction
costs – lot #15 (north of the Engineering/Physics building) would have
been improved, as proposed, but funding cuts caused many parts of the
project to be eliminated, including improvement of the parking lot to the
north of the new building
safe
walk-ways (with good lighting) are needed to get people from the center of
the campus to the parking areas – funding is
available for new lighting projects and they will soon go to bid
Public
Transportation System
we
need a public transit plan that will move people to their work/classroom
buildings – there are no dedicated funds to
provide for a public transit system
parking
is a long-term problem that affects not only the people who work and study
at the university, but also the community – we need a long-term
solution, like a community-based public transportation system
Destination
Parking – Parking Where You Live, Work, Learn, and Study
all
of the forums have had a lot to say about destination parking – being
able to park where you work or live – people want to do that, but you
have to zone the campus more – but doing so cuts down on the freedom
to move and park from one side of the campus to the other - the task
force will give this considerable thought
please
do not reduce the flexibility of where one might park by providing so much
destination parking – destination parking tends
to work better on campuses larger than the U of Idaho
General
Comments
changes
in the parking system need to be widely published and communicated to
all potential users
the
public has already paid for Perimeter Drive! – Perimeter
Drive (as well as most streets within the campus area) was paid for with
university funds/revenues – most people do not understand that fact
Chair
McKeever asked council members to continue this discussion by posting
their comments and questions at the parking task force web site: http://www.dfa.uidaho.edu/parkingforum/
Councilor Meier, a member of the task force, asked council members to also
address questions to him. He will bring them to the next meeting of the
Parking and Transit Task Force.
Adjournment.
It was moved and seconded (Meier, Finnie) to adjourn the meeting. Following
an unanimous voice vote, Chair McKeever adjourned the meeting at 5:08 p.m.
Respectfully
submitted,
Peter A. Haggart
Secretary of the
Faculty Council
[This
is the last Faculty Council meeting of the Fall Semester – the next
Faculty Council meeting will be on January 16, 2001.]
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