On Monday night, Faculty Senate will present first readings of two resolutions: a Sense of the Senate on the presidential search and a proposal to change the terminology of failing grades.
The Sense-of-the-Senate resolution will commend the board of trustees for an inclusive and open presidential search, because Faculty Senate feels that is something Ohio universities and colleges have been struggling with.
“Our Trustees ran a search that was exceptionally open and inclusive of feedback from the University community, especially in the context of reports we hear about how these searches are conducted at other institutions,” Faculty Senate Chair Joe McLaughlin said in an email.
The second resolution works to document when a student stopped attending classes if they failed or if they never attended the class.
Through the resolution, the failure or withdrawal of a course will be defined by grades on transcripts. That will allow for specification of when the student “unofficially withdrew” from the course and will allow for instructors to enter the date when that student stopped attending classes.
That addresses the clarity of when a student fails or withdraws from a class.
Ohio University interim President David Descutner and Executive Vice President and Provost Pam Benoit will begin the meeting by discussing the student arrests in Baker Center in February and by presenting an update on the budget, “especially Gov. Kasich’s proposal on textbooks,” McLaughlin said in an email.
Kasich’s budget proposal could put a cap on the cost of textbooks at $300.
Greg Fialko, senior human resources director, and Colleen Bendl, the chief human resource officer, will give a presentation on changes to the prescription plan in the 2018 fiscal year.
Benefits Advisory Council representatives will propose their recommendations to meet the goal of not exceeding 5 percent of annual increases to OU’s contributions to health care costs.
The council is going beyond the original three-year plan and looking to fiscal year 2020 because additional ways to save money in the next few years are necessary to minimize annual increases in the budget.
Some changes include updated projections of annual health care costs and an 11 to 12 percent increase in prescription drug costs due to increases of speciality drug costs and usage.
