The February Faculty Senate meeting addressed the topics covered at the Board of Trustees meeting in addition to smaller faculty resolutions.
Ohio University President Roderick McDavis began the meeting with a recap of Gov. John Kasich’s budget proposal, emphasizing the growth potential that it could give OU. McDavis said that almost all OU campuses would see an increase in state share of instruction and the Athens campus was projected to see a 2.4 percent increase.
McDavis projected that this could move $100 million towards higher education investment to OU in the next few years, but both McDavis and Executive Vice President and Provost Pam Benoit said that OU is only on the first step toward achieving this increased budget.
“We’re not going to the bank yet to cash the check, because we’ve still got a way to go,” McDavis said.
Benoit then addressed that the Board of Trustees was assessing a guaranteed tuition rate.
In order to offset the initial increase, trustees initiated a student scholarship task force to reevaluate use of scholarship money in order to more effectively use scholarship money target different student populations. The new scholarship model will be released by June 30, Benoit said.
The Educational Policy and Students Affairs Committee of Faculty Senate edited the Faculty Handbook to emphasize that faculty must include the textbooks that students need for the courses they sign up for. The textbook titles should appear at preregistration.
“The idea is that students will know how much the course costs,” said Faculty Senate Chair Elizabeth Sayrs.
Senate also considered a resolution on guidelines for Bilateral Articulation Agreements, stating that the transfer credits for post-secondary education experiences should be reevaluated, if given credit at all. The Senate decided that the current written statement was “too complicated,” and the policy needs to be clarified.
Other discussed resolutions include the renaming of OU’s Office of Disability Services, which will be renamed to the Office of Student Accessibility Services.
The meeting concluded with a discussion of the title for Group II faculty members, which are instructors at a level of assistant or associate professors. The Professional Relations Committee suggested changing the name to Career Teaching Faculty, but that suggestion quickly dissolved into a discussion of semantics and the names of other OU employee groups.
The Faculty Senate will meet again on March 11 at 235 Walter Hall.
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