[Approved 08-14-06]

Minutes of the Executive Committee of the Academic Senate

December 6, 2005

St. Mary’s 113 B; 1:30 PM

Present: D. Biers, P. Eloe, S. Hileman, J. O’Gorman, R. Penno, J. Rapp,

T. Thompson

Old Business

The Committee discussed how best to carry out the request of Dan Sadlier, President of the Board of Trustees, to provide the Board with feedback for the evaluation of Dan Curran’s service as President of the University. The Committee agreed that input should be solicited from the faculty and had a lengthy discussion as to how best to gather this input. The Committee decided that, if D. Sadlier and F. Pestello are in concord with the approach, a discussion will be held at the beginning of the January meeting of the Academic Senate, before the election of new ECAS members and new officers. This discussion will include both old and new members of the Academic Senate. The Committee reviewed a document distributed to them by Sadlier and identified specific parts of that document to be distributed prior to that meeting.

New Business

1. D. Biers reported that the Provost had invited him to make a budget request on behalf of the Academic Senate. After some discussion, ECAS determined that, rather than make an additional request, they prefer to lend support to requests for additional tenure-track faculty lines and for improving faculty salaries. The Committee notes that faculty are the heart of the institution. They briefly considered making a specific request about graduate education, but decided not to focus on any specific unit of the University.
2. D. Biers reported that the committee working on the North Central Self-Study has asked for information regarding the effectiveness of the Academic Senate and concerning how the AS and Faculty Board do or do not co-operate. This will be deferred for the next ECAS.

Committee Reports

S. Hileman reported for Student Academic Policies Committee. They will meet next week for discussion of the Honor Statement.

D. Biers announced that there will be pizza at the December 13 meeting. The meeting adjourned at 2:19 PM.

Minutes prepared from an audio tape by Patricia Johnson, July 2006