Senators present: B. Atkinson, S. Chew, J. Dohoney, S. Epley, G. Frost, M. Ponder, S. Willis, J. Boockholdt, F. Hendon, B. Raabe, K. Mathews, D. Little, R. King, A. Brewer, J. Bourrand, G. McDaniel, K. Benner, B. Hutto

Committee chairs present: T. Duffey, D. Dedo

Senator absent with notification:  R. Richardson

Senators absent without notification:  P. Blanchard, D. Sandley, D. Shipley, L. Drummond, T. Berg, A. Bolla, D. Young, T. Tibbs, R. Warr, R. DeHart, R. Lander, C. Steil, E. Wells

Visitors: J. Lewis, J. Thomason, C. Waddell, D. Garza, A. Hargrave

Ginger Frost opened the meeting with prayer.

1.  Committee on University Curriculum

Ray King reported for the Maurice Persall.  The committee met on March 9 and approved new courses and course changes in Education, Nursing, History, and Sociology.  The committee also approved program revisions in Business and Nursing.  Their next meeting will be April 13 at 10:30 in OBB 338.

2. Committee on Business Affairs and Faculty Welfare

David Little reported that the committee will survey all faculty to help determine the needs of each department and professional organization.  The committee made the survey available to Senators so they could provide any additional input.  The questions are the same as were used in the last faculty survey in 1994.

3.  Committee on University Learning Resources

The committee has not met since the last Senate meeting.  Jean Thomason reported that the library is in the process of upgrading its system.  A team from the University, pharmacy, and law libraries is soliciting bids from four vendors.  The team has already investigated existing systems from each vendor and will hold two-day auditions for each vendor.

4.  Committee on Elections

Tina Duffey reported that the committee is gathering nominations for chair, vice chair, and secretary.  The committee will meet on April 10 at 7:00 a.m. in the Caf.  Tina expressed the desire for more nominations for each position.

5.  Committee on Athletics

Ralph Gold notified the chair of his absence and said that there was no report.

6.  Committee on Students Affairs, Religious Life, and University Relations

Gloria Marshall was attending a conference.  There was no report from the committee.

7.  Committee on University Writing

David Dedo reported that Samford is hosting a national peer review group on all of the writing programs on campus.  The peer reviewers will meet with the committee and with any interested faculty.

8. Committee on Academic Affairs

There was no report.  There is a subcommittee working on integration of a new mediation policy with existing policies.

            Joe Lewis reported that the faculty leave policy has been evaluated by University attorneys, by Marilyn Gavin, and by others, who revised it somewhat.  The revisions were reviewed by Betsy Dobbins to ensure that the fundamental issues were still addressed.  The revised policy is now on its way to the President and should go to the Board of Trustees on May 1.

            Joe Lewis also reported that retired faculty who teach at Samford can lose their retirement benefits.  Currently, one hour worked in a given week is counted as 45 hours toward the maximum 1000 worked.  Therefore, one semester and one Jan term is about all one can teach without exceeding the 1000 hours and losing retirement pay. In the interest of encouraging retired faculty to teach, Samford has asked the Annuity Board to redefine the value of an hour for retirement purposes such that one hour of teaching would be counted as 10 hours.  Joe expressed hope that this issue also may be considered at the May meeting of the Trustees.

1.     Faculty-administrative committee reports

Bill Raabe reported that current faculty-administrative committees have no responsibility to Senate and are not part of the faculty committee structure, even though all committees require faculty representation. One goal for the Senate next year may be to have at least one report from these committees per year.  Bill stated that this issue could be taken up by next year’s faculty handbook committee.  Current faculty-administrative committees include undergraduate admissions, communications, human subject review board, hazardous substances, radiological safety, animal care and use, and women's advisory council.

2.     Scheduling issues for Faculty Senate, 2001-2002

Hugh Floyd stated that the Senate Executive Council currently meets one week before each Senate meeting in order to set and distribute the agenda.  He suggested committees should give reports to the Executive Council before this meeting so that issues can be placed on the agenda.  He stated that one possibility for next year is to set permanent meeting times for each committee, so that prospective members will know when their meetings will be and so that committees can request Senate action on matters.

3.     Senate request for policies on web sites and print/electronic resources

Alan Hargrave reported that there has been no significant change in the policy for blocking access to web sites for the last 3-4 years.  A third party service filters what comes into Samford, and the Learning Resources committee has reviewed the service every year except this one.  The general consensus of that committee in the past has been that the service has worked well, with occasional exceptions.  There is a mechanism in place to unblock sites, which has occurred two or three dozen times over the last 3-4 years.  The provider gives Samford a categorization scheme of potentially objectionable web sites, and the scheme may have changed over the last several years resulting in newly blocked sites.  Alan reminded Senators the sites can be unblocked by having faculty send him a request including the URL.  He approves most requests; if there is a doubt, he defers to the Provost, though this situation has never arisen.  Mistakes have also been detected in the software resulting in mistaken blocks that have been fixed immediately.  A question was raised about whether the opening of web sites should be for categories or for individual web sites.  Alan replied that the Learning Resources committee only makes decisions about which categories are blocked, and the categories are continually reviewed by the committee.

Bill Raabe announced that a symposium on Dealing with Students with Disabilities will take place on April 12 at 10:00 a.m. in Brock Forum. The symposium features Timothy King of UAB and Marcia Hamby of Samford and is sponsored by Business School