Clarification appended.
Ohio University’s Faculty Senate met Monday to hear updates from OU President Hugh Sherman and Executive Vice President and Provost Elizabeth Sayrs on employment vacancies, specifically in Culinary Services, and the amount of money the university has saved due to vacancies in university positions.
“We’re very confident that we can start, immediately, reinstating faculty and staff raises (in the) planning of next year’s budget and going forward,” Sherman said.
As part of the Teaching, Learning and Assessment Committee, Andrew Pueschel, a professor of management, and Katie Hartman, associate provost for faculty development, presented a plan of conceptualizing and operationalizing teaching excellence by developing a clear definition of teaching excellence.
Hartman said the language surrounding teaching evaluations in the faculty handbook is vague. It only specifies that student evaluations of teachers are required and instructors are expected to cooperate in those assessments. Suggested concepts in the proposal included the evaluations of preparation of course material, attention to students’ needs, instructor expertise and improvement in course curriculum if needed.
Char Miller, chair of the Professional Relations Committee presented three resolutions for first reading to the senate. The first resolution would clarify which deans at OU would receive annual evaluations. It specified that deans in academic units with at least five full-time faculty, with tenure or promotion homes in the unit, would receive annual evaluations and regional campus deans will no longer be evaluated annually.
The second resolution clarified the process in which faculty request leave. The third resolution addressed instructional faculty contract renewals; the proposed resolution states that clearly articulated sets of decision-making criteria be in place for the offering of multi-year contracts as well as the nonrenewal of instructional faculty.
Douglas Clowe presented the projected benefits budget for OU faculty’s health insurance on behalf of the Finance and Facilities Committee and the Benefits Advisory Council. Clowe said health care costs are projected to increase in cost to the university over 5% in the next year. Due to the increases, the Finance and Facilities Committee has been asked by the university to reduce the cost of benefits.
Options to decrease the costs were as follows: increase the percent of the cost for health care plans paid for by employees, increase deductibles and out-of-pocket costs and change the coinsurance policy.
A decision will need to be made by January, and Faculty Senate members were encouraged to send Clowe the preferences of other faculty members in their schools.
John O’Keefe, a senator for the Chillicothe campus, presented for the third time a faculty-initiated proposal for the elimination of administrative bonuses. The Sense of Senate resolution on the inclusion of bonuses was passed despite six dissenting votes. The resolution reflects the position of Faculty Senate, but it will not directly impact university policy on its own.
Clarification: A previous headline and version of this article said O’Keefe’s proposal was a resolution, not a Sense of Senate resolution. This article and headline have been updated to reflect the most accurate information.
