FACULTY COUNCIL MINUTES

250 Student Union
September 9, 1997




President Halligan called the meeting to order with the following members present: Ackerson, Arquitt, Bertholf, Bice, Buchanan, Cole, Dawson, Edgley, Farr, Finn, Gedra, Horn, Hsu, Kimbrell, Krenzer, Lawry, Locy, Martin, Miller, Moder, Montgomery, Richards, Schwarz, Scott, Sisson, Smith, Warde, and Wilkinson. Also present: Albert, Barnes, Beer, Collins, Hunter, Keener, Knottnerus, Lingelbach, McAbee, Mitchell, Najd, Sanders, Vuong, Watkins, and Weaver. Absent: Robinson.

HIGHLIGHTS

  1. Leadership Legacy Program
  2. Update on Computer Services Report
  3. Report of Status of Faculty Council Recommendations
  4. Reports of Standing Committees
    1. Academic Standards and Policies
    2. Budget
    3. Campus Facilities, Safety, and Security
    4. Faculty
    5. Policy and Procedure Letter on Reappointment, Promotion and Tenure Recommendation
    6. Research
  5. Reports of Liaison Representatives
    1. Athletic Council
    2. Research Council
    3. Emeriti Association
    4. Graduate Student Association

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Dr. Halligan called on Natalea Watkins to talk about the Leadership Legacy Program. Ms. Watkins said that it was a program that was motivated by the fact that OSU had more generals and admirals than any other university except the military academies and Texas A&M. More than half of our congressional delegation has roots at OSU and Mary Fallin the Lieutenant Governor is one of our graduates. If you visit any community in the state you will find at least one of the community leaders that is an OSU graduate. It was decided that the leadership legacy is something that OSU should celebrate. The first Leader recognized was Jennifer Hoffman who was Chair of the Speaker's Bureau and is currently the SGA President. This weeks leader is Dave Buchanan, Faculty Council Chair, and his picture will be displayed this week in the Student Union and in eight frames at various locations around campus. There will also be a Hall of Leadership where all the pictures of the weekly leaders will hang for the year. At the end of the year each leader will be awarded their picture. The leaders will be chosen from students, faculty, alums and donors. Dr. Halligan added that the university likes to give special donors something when they are visiting campus. Designating them as leader of the week is a nice recognition and a way of showing our appreciation.

Dr. Warde moved acceptance of the June 10, 1997, Minutes. Dr. Bice seconded the motion. The Minutes were approved. Dr. Warde moved acceptance of the, September 9, 1997, Agenda. Dr. Horn seconded. The Agenda was approved.

SPECIAL REPORT: Update on Computer Services -- J. L. Albert

J. L. Albert, Director, Computing and Information Services (CIS), said the Student Technology Fee Committee had requested that OSU enter into a contract to provide internet service. CIS had 64 modems, 32 for students and 32 for faculty and staff, capable of providing dial-up graphic user interface services. The use of this modem pool started at 100% saturation. Last spring the Student Technology Fee Committee and CIS developed an RFP for such a service and this summer a contract was awarded to ioNET. The RFP is on line on the CIS homepage. Faculty and staff can participate through payroll deduction and can sign-up on IDS or from the CIS homepage. You will be provided 2mb of space for your own homepage, 24 hour technical support, and e:mail service. You can get more information at http://home.okstate.edu or at www.ionet.net. The cost is $12.50 per month plus a $15 one time fee. More than 800 people have currently signed up for the service and the number is increasing by about 100 per day. Natalea Watkins commented that the OSU homepage had 84 million "hits" last year and that the site now contains 46,000 pages. Mr. Albert stated that CIS is processing three million e:mail messages per month from off campus. Approximately three years ago a task force of about 60 members made a study of the OSU financial system. The task force created specification for a new financial system. There were no acceptable bidders at that time. The task force continued to review possible systems and SCT has come to the front as a company that can solve OSU's financial system problems. The task force will recommend to the Board of Regents that OSU purchase the remaining modules of the SCT system which are Student Information Systems, Financial Aid Management, Financial Resource System, their Web enable product and a graphic user interface for all their products. This package should be implemented in March of 1999. Mr. Albert also gave an update on the Lotus Notes project. CIS is currently training faculty and staff to use Lotus Notes. Faculty and staff can sign-up for training on the Web at http://home.okstate.edu/NotesReq.nsf/request or on the CIS home page. The first objective is to get people trained in the use of the product because such training drastically reduces the support costs. The mid-level objective is to put Lotus Notes in the classroom. There are some pilot projects under way now. There is an internet web-delivered course developed using Learning Space that will go on line this fall. One of the reasons for purchasing Lotus Notes was to develop electronic forms and CIS is currently working on a very complicated system to handle purchase requisitions. This process is more than just developing the forms since it also involves authentication, work flow, data editing and the ability to pull up information from the data base and put it into the form. CIS hopes to start piloting this system in three months. The long-range objective involves evaluating Lotus Calendar, scheduling, and e:mail for possible adoption. There have been no decisions made in terms of use of this product. By the end of the year it should be possible for people who want to change to Lotus Mail to do so. CIS will try to give the faculty six months notification of any change in the mail system. Mr. Albert said that CIS now has central server resources available to faculty. As part of the automation of computer services users ID's are generated for everyone. To activate your account you can call the help desk and they will go through the procedure. Everyone has a user ID, 25mb of on line disk storage. Each department is also given 100mb of disk space. There is a very large temporary storage area available to use to pass files to anyone on campus. Additional disk space can be purchased for $1 per mb per year. Mr. Albert said that we are also looking at a new "Pete" to run in the library. They are considering a system that would work for all the A&M libraries. Dr. Mitchell asked about the having the search domain limited by going through ioNet. Mr. Albert replied that it should not be a problem since the ioNet domain name of an OSU user is made equivalent to okstate.edu. If this does not work please let Mr. Albert know. Dr. Buchanan asked how employees, who are not on the campus backbone who have to access the system through dial up, will pay for the service. Mr. Albert said that the intent is not to maintain a modem pool on campus so such employees will have to acquire a private provider. They could use ioNet and pay through university channels. Mr. Locy asked if the new SCT system would replace the IDS system. Mr. Albert replied that we will get all new advisement, scheduling and degree auditing modules and it will all be accessible from the Web. Our current system also has the year 2000 problem and the new system will solve all of these problems. All faculty should be aware that many of the older software packages on PC's may also have this problem. There is information on the year 2000 problem on the CIS home page. Mr. Albert added that the use of Social Security numbers is becoming a big privacy issue so CIS is considering introducing an ISO numbering system for students, faculty and staff. Dr. Buchanan said that mandatory six hour training is not one that goes over well with some faculty. Mr. Albert said that either we have to have the training or put many more people on the help desk. You eliminate about 70% of the support issues by giving the people the basic training. Drs. Buchanan and Lawry asked if some alternate training methods were being considered. Mr. Albert replied that computer-based training and video on demand has been considered.

REPORT OF STATUS OF FACULTY COUNCIL RECOMMENDATIONS:
 President Halligan, Executive Vice President and Vice Presidents

Dr. Halligan handed out a summary prepared by Dr. Keener's office of all the recommendations that were either acted on during the last year or were pending and their current status. This summary is available in the Faculty Council Office.

94-12-01-SALR Composition of Future Information Technology Committee: Some input regarding committee charge and membership has been received from the Deans, and Drs. Moretti and Buchanan. Final draft is being prepared for final reviews.

96-12-04-FAC Changes in Appendix D: Legal Counsel has reviewed. Dr. Keener will work with Legal Counsel to draft wording changes to more clearly delineate the role of Ombuds and provide additional specifics regarding membership to the Informal Review Committee. Requires Board approval.

97-02-02-ADHOC Patent Policy 1-0202: Dr. Collins is coordinating review by Research Council, Dean's Council, and Legal Counsel. Draft including incorporated changes from initial reviews will require another round of reviews. Final revisions require Board approval. This should go back to the committee next week.

97-03-02-FAC Faculty Appointment Periods: Faculty hired after 7/90 hold 9 or 11-month appointments. Faculty in the system at the time could choose the appointment period desired, with a one-time opportunity to reverse the decision. Dr. Halligan is not favorably disposed toward the resolution. Please send your feelings on this to Dr. Halligan.

97-04-03-ASP Guidelines for Scheduling Common Evening and Final Exams:
Dr. Vitek is coordinating this review with the Registrar and is interacting with the FC Academic Standards and Policies Committee.

97-04-04-ASP Guidelines for Requesting Common Evening and Final Exams:
 Dr. Vitek is coordinating this review with the Registrar and is interacting with the FC Academic Standards and Policies Committee.

97-09-01-FAC Policy and Procedure Letter on Reappointment, Promotion and Tenure: To President Halligan.

97-09-02-FAC Return of Policy and Procedure Letter on Reappointment, Promotion and Tenure to Faculty Council Before Action by the President:
To President Halligan.

Dr.  Halligan also said that he had not made a decision on declaring Martin Luther King Day a university holiday. It is very difficult to see how to take the day off and maintain academic integrity. The administration is considering the option that the Monday of finals week becomes the Monday taken off for MLK and finals week be pushed back to Tuesday through Saturday with graduation on Sunday. Please give your thoughts on this issue to President Halligan.

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