Running Head: Faculty Senate

Field Observation: Faculty Senate

Jacinta Luster
Georgia Southern University
EDLD 7431
April 20, 2015

Field Observation

Faculty Senate

The faculty senate is a primary vehicle through which members of the professorate
exercise the shared governance that characterizes higher education (Pope & Miller, 2005). The
faculty Senate began in the early 1900s by the American Association of University Professors.
The AAUP purpose is to promote the idea of academic freedom and shared governance in the
world of academia. While academia has changed over the years, freedom to teach students
curriculum without questions has always been a goal for professor and the AAUP want to
continue to make this a reality for professor throughout higher education (AAUP, 2015).
In the 2005 academic year, Kennesaw State University American Association of
University Professors chapter was approved. The primary faculty senate, keeping in line with
AAUP guidelines, is to support the policies and goals of the Association, facilitate the
cooperation of teachers and research scholars, and defend the academic freedom at Kennesaw
State University. Kennesaw has several committees that are under this program association
(KSU, 2005).
Observation
My field observation took place at Kennesaw State University on February 9, 2015 at
3:04pm. On this day, there were around thirty voting faculty members and thirteen guests,
including myself. This was my first encounter experiencing what occurs during a faculty senate
and it was extremely fascinating. Upon arrival, I recognized Professors and Deans that I see in
passing and the feeling was surreal; this was an opportunity to sit and observe what it requires to
make curriculum run, especially when you are dealing with the consolidation of two separate
Universities. Kennesaw State University and Southern Polytechnic University will be one
institution in the suburban area of Cobb County Georgia. This announcement came in the spring

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of 2014 by the Board of Regents and will officially consolidate in the fall 2015. While the
consolidation is beneficial for both institutions, it is not without controversy and challenges.
This particular meeting was the third meeting of the 2015 year. The meeting was called to order
by Cindy Bowens and the first order of business was to approve the meetings for January. The
agenda is as followed:
Old Business
After the approval of the January minutes Ken White, past president of the faculty senate asked
several questions in regards to faculty textbook policy. Represented was Nwakaego Nkumeh
from Legal Affairs and she went over the policy and procedure and answered his main question,
Does a professor have to get department approval and does it violate faculty rights. The
resolution from Nwakaego was department review is required for self-textbooks if students are
charged to pay for the book. Books will not be reviewed by faculty if the professor does not
make a profit from writing nor has a section in the material. Ken White and other faculty asked
does the textbook meet the goals of the course? The solution presented was Professor Ken
White would write the policy to make sure that professors are not making a profit from the sale
of their book to students.
The second part of the old business was to review additional recommendation to OWG
22 from the January 26th meeting. The OWG or open working group determine the proposed
Faculty Promotion and Tenure policy and approved recommendations from the CIC (faculty
Senate, 2015). This OWG 22 has several components that address the promotion for professors
on the tenure track at both SPSU and KSU campuses. From the review of the meeting notes
there were several categories spoken about, but the one area that caused the most controversy
were the content handling of the portfolio and addition of the materials and the external letters.

Faculty Senate

The external letters conversations was from the January meeting and they voted 24 to 2 to move
the introduction of the requirement for external letters from 2016 to 2018, as this would allow
people who had gone through third year review not to do external letters (faculty Senate,2015).
Unfortunately, the meeting didnt really cover much new business during the hour in a half due
to majority of the time spent on the OWG-22 ideas presented by the faculty. From the questions,
concerns and recommendation, SPSU faculty senate has a tight rein on how their portfolio
requirements than the faculty at Kennesaw regarding the issues surrounding portfolio submission
and review.
The senate decided once a portfolio has been submitted, no material can be added. There was the
opportunity to add updating your information and passed the motion 16 to 6 to omit the wording
going from submitted The policy will read as so,
However, updating information (e.g., a paper going from submitted to accept or a grant
going from submitted to funded) may be included in a response letter and considered by
subsequent levels of review. This is a simple status change of something already submitted;
it is not considered a submission of new information. Previous levels of review will not
reconsider their decision based on this status change.
There was one main issue surrounding the portfolios. The question was how do inches
translate to electronic portfolios? Page number limits? Size of portfolios at all levels? Should
there be a restriction on the number of pages or the number of documents? The saying of the
afternoon was from Professor Ken White, More is better than less as long as it is not B.S.
There was additional talk about a second binder and if there should be a restriction on that as
well and there was a resounding no with 23 to 3 vote opposing.
At 4.45 pm the meeting was adjourned with no time for other business
Analysis

Faculty Senate

During the meeting I felt overwhelmed. There was a lot going on, professor interrupting each
other to get their ideas and opinions across; I almost felt like I shouldnt have been there to hear
their discussion. Stated previously, the institution is going through a consolidation and I believe
that emotions are heighted than they would normally be in these meetings. After sitting through
this gathering, I had a better understanding and didnt realize the amount of work demanded of a
professor, specifically a tenure track professor. There are many guidelines, policy, procedures
and fund raising to be approved for this type of position. At Kennesaw, there is five to six year
probation before a professor can be reviewed for Tenure track.
Although we didnt get to the rest of the agenda, I hoped that they would have addressed traffic
around the campus, and eCore research proposal. eCore, created by the USG, is an online
electronic core curriculum that offers on an array of online core classes at Georgia college
campuses. It not your traditional online program, eCore has a set of teachers that teach across
the USG. Students that participate in eCore have the opportunity to take all their core classes
online instead of going to the classroom. To me, eCore is a great concept, offering core classes
online gives the University the benefit to alleviate overcrowding in the classroom and
opportunities for non-traditional students to work at their own pace. For incoming freshman
completing all core classes online could be dismal. They may not understand how to handle
completing classes online and the time management that goes along with online classes. They
would also not receive the face to face contact that theyve been accustomed to in their k-12
years.
Elke Leeds, Assistant Vice President of Technology Enhanced Learning, at the Coles School of
Business stated that she had USG approval to get someone to analyze the USG data on e-core.

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DLC has looked at SPSU data but it was difficult to trace students progress to determine student
success (faculty senate,2015).
Conclusion
After attending the faculty meeting in February I believe our campus would not run smoothly
without the faculties input on how departments should run and behave. With a consolidation
complete, the campus will be able to work as one force. There are still items that will need to be
addressed and my hope is the freedom the professors and deans have to make sure students are
getting the best education is the number one factor when making decision in these meetings. If
isnt, then administration and faculty will need to rework their ideas to make sure that it is a
priority.

References:

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American Association of University Professors. (n.d). Retrieved from http://www.aaup.org/

American Association of University at Kennesaw State University.(2005). Academic Freedom
and Tenure. Retrieved from http://www.kennesaw.edu/aaup/AcademicFreedom.html
faculty Senate (2015,February). Draft minutes of Kennesaw State faculty meeting. Symposium
conducted at the Faculty Senate meeting of Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw, GA
Pope,M.L &Miller, M.T.(2005). Leading from the inside out: Learned respect for academic
culture through shared governance. Community College journal of Research and Practice,
29,745-757

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