University of South Alabama
Faculty Senate
2003-2004

July 16, 2003

University Library, Rm 110
3:00 p.m.

Approved

MINUTES

 

  1. Call to Order:
  2. Present: Aronson, Barik, Brown, Bru, Cohen, Coleman, Dickens, Donovan, Dupree, Foster, Gamble, Giles, Gray, Hanks, Harris, Haywick, Icenogle, Kovaleski, Lauderdale, Longenecker, Millner, Nowlin, Olsen, Pardue, Parker, Perez Pineda, Peters, Powell, Pruitt, Roberston, Ryan, Sachs, Sanders, Sauer, Smith, Spake, and Tate.

    Absent (Excused): Aldes, Figarola, Godfrey, Moreau-Johnson, Morris, Payne, Rodning, Rubin, Temple, and Teplick.

    Absent (Unexcused): Davis, Jefferson, Luterman, Manci, Pillen, and Quinn.

     

  3. Approval of Minutes of the April 16th meeting:
  4. One change was requested: Section 5, "Evaluation" to read, "Senate decided to wait until the members of the Senate had a chance to respond to the content of the survey."

     

  5. Chair’s Report:
  6. The Chair’s report of the meetings between the Executive Committee and the USA Foundation, and between the Executive Committee and the University Administration was available as a handout. It will also be put on the Faculty Senate web page.

     

  7. Standing Committees Assignments/Reports:
  8. A list of the committee’s assignments for 2003/2004 was handed out. A couple of corrections were noted: Lauderdale is not the chair of Academic Development and Sachs should be on Planning and Development. Both the Academic Development/Mentoring and the Environmental Quality will need to elect new chairs.

     

     

  9. Old Business:
  10. Update on the Survey: Longenecker reported that the consensus of the responses that he received requested the survey stay as it was. There was a motion from the floor that the survey be made available from now until Sept. Motion passed.

    Briefing on Tax Reform Issue: Keith Ayers reported on the status of this issue. He conceded that the swiftness of the passing of a new comprehensive tax revenue reform in the legislature was unexpected by most political observers. Now it is up to the public to pass the tax reform package. The University Administration will be heavily involved with seeing that it gets passed. Mr. Ayers passed out an outline on how to get involved in the "Vote Yes for Tax Reform" campaign.

     

  11. New Business:
  12. Discussion of USA Foundation Matters–After a brief review of the new controversy surrounding the Foundation, Chairman Brown opened the discussion to the members.

    Allan Tucker (Faculty representative to the Foundation) addressed the Senate and talked about some of the issues. For example, the Foundation should change its methods of distributing funds by first determining the amount available, and then let the University decide which programs should be funded first. Calvin Jones (former Chair of Faculty Senate) expressed the frustration of many that after all of these years there are still problems. The request from him is that all involved should follow "standard operating procedures" and start communicating and working together. There was concern about the COM quasi-endowment funds, the accountability of the Foundation, keeping the disagreement out of media, and how to evaluate the amount of financial contribution the Foundation has made to the university. It was suggested that maybe the Senate should concentrate on issues that they can do something about, rather than pursuing issues, such as the Foundation, that we cannot solve. It was not clear how the Senate can help the situation when both sides are still showing signs of being entrenched in their positions and distrusting of each other. Bob Shearer emphasized that Pres. Moulton was quite ready to talk to the Foundation, but that the good faith efforts have not been reciprocated.

     

  13. Caucus Leaders Reports:
  14. There were no caucus reports.

     

  15. Adjournment:

The meeting was adjourned at 4:25 pm