The University Faculty Senate’s special committee on university governance will present a report of recommendations for the Board of Trustees’ structure at its monthly meeting today, Larry Backer said.
Backer, Faculty Senate chairman, said the 61-page report has been made public during the last few weeks, and the committee will take questions, respond to comments and discuss the findings of the report during the meeting.
The 1:30 p.m. meeting will be held in 112 Kern Graduate building and is open to the public.
Although members of the Faculty Senate do not have the authority to make changes to the structure of the board, the report’s intention is to propose changes that “hopefully” members of the board take into consideration, Peter Idowu, a senate member,said.
The governance committee was formed to look at the current structure of the board and present new, more effective ways of improving it, said Idowu, Penn State Harrisburg assistant dean of graduate studies and committee member.
Along with proposing changes to the board, the senate will present possible changes to a student-athlete absence policy, according to the Faculty Senate agenda. Senate members of the committee on intercollegiate athletics will suggest changing a 75-hour absence policy —where student-athletes are not allowed to miss more than 75 class periods during a semester for competition — to an “eight day rule.”
Student-athletes will not be allowed to exceed eight absent days for competition if the policy is changed, Backer said.
Annual reports from senate committees on faculty affairs and faculty benefits will also be presented. The faculty affairs report will share new findings and progress for faculty members on the tenure track, Victor Brunsden, a Penn State Altoona math professor,said.
It will also provide the senate with progress of a recently adopted faculty activity reporting system, Activity Insight from Digital Measure, a system implemented in 2008 to keep track of university faculty member activity, Brunsden said.
The committee on faculty benefits will share its annual report on the salaries and benefits of faculty members, Rebecca Craven , a microbiology and immunology professor at the Hershey Medical Center, said. The numbers in this report are evaluated by the committee to make sure the status of each faculty member is being monitored and that the numbers are fair compared to other Big Ten universities, Craven said.
Members of the senate will also be presented with results from a Faculty Senate self-study on ways to re-structure the group to “be more responsive to the changing structure of the university,” Backer said. The self-study was done to gather information on how to run meetings more efficiently.
The meeting will close with Vice Provost of Global Programs Michael Adewumi presenting new developments and opportunities in the international community for students and faculty, according to the agenda.
