Faculty Council Meeting Minutes
DASR 118 3:30 PM
April 28, 2015
Officers, Representatives, Alternates and/or guests Present: Sue Williams (President),
Steve Ludington (President elect), Michelle Guzman-Armijo (Secretary), John Carter (Treasurer),
Tammy Chaffee (Employee Council), Robert Hastings (Temp. Fac.), Layle Chambers (GS), David
Burleson (Past President), Don Dutton (ABE), Lamaia Vaughn (T&I), Lynn Lewis (HPS), Laura
De La Cruz (B&I), Gus Pina (B&I), Jeff Barnet (GS), Tracy Lopez (HPS), Eugene Hernandez
(T&I), Gus Pina (B&I), Hiranya Roychowdhury (member), Tarlochan Dhillon (member), Glenn
Schwaiger (member), Krista MacDonald (member), Tammy Powers (member), Olga Viramontes
(member), Jose Aranda (member), Leilani Benoit (member), Dr. Renay Scott (President), and
Dr. Monica Torres (VPAA)
Call to order: President Sue Williams called the meeting to order at 3:33 pm.
Review and approval of minutes: Michelle distributed March minutes which were approved
as submitted.
NMSU Faculty Senate Chair (Dr. Stuart Munson-McGee):
Dr. McGee discussed two pieces of legislation that are before Faculty Senate: 1) increase
representatives for community colleges (DACC will move from having 1 rep to 5 if this passes)
and 2) revision of Promotion and Tenure policy and procedures. The next Faculty Senate
meeting is 5/7, but most policy work happens in the summer. He wanted to introduce himself
and make sure that we understood that Faculty Senate does want input from us. He felt it was
important to make sure that we felt included.
VLIT (Krista MacDonald):
Krista distributed flyers of information about VLIT's summer activities, including Canvas training
for students and faculty; Quality Matters professional development; and the New Mexico
Distance Learning Association Conference on 5/20.
Funding Request
Glenn Schwaiger requested $1,300 in funds, as well as any funds left over from Faculty Council
for this fiscal year. In Fall 2015 he will be on sabbatical where he will participate in University of
West Virginia's China Ceramics Fall Study Abroad program. He needs $15,000 for tuition, travel
and lodging. John Carter mentioned that there is $8,000 of unreported/unclaimed monies (no
receipts) for Faculty Council. The first motion was made by Layle, who moved to approve the
request for $1300; Deb seconds and the motion passes. The second motion, made by Lamaia,
is to allocate the remaining funds in Faculty Council's budget, if there are still unclaimed funds
by June 15, to Glenn's sabbatical project. Deb seconded the motion and it passed.
Reports of Officers, Boards and Standing Committees
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Treasurer’s Report (John): John presented information on Faculty Council budget
requests and divided it into the following categories: by semester, purpose, department,
and location (out of state or in state). The report will be posted on Sharepoint.
Past President’s update (Dave): Overall, standing committees (there are 15) have
been more responsive in terms of submitting reports and meeting on a regular basis.
Dave recommended that chairs of those committees provide letters for committee
members. P&T chairs for each division will be chosen soon. Terry Mount will soon send a
message about changes to the NMSU policy manual.
President’s update (Sue):
-Sue thanked all who served on Faculty Council and will get letters out by 5/5.
-Results of Faculty Council faculty survey were distributed. Next year there will be
faculty focus groups. The FC Canvas page is also being updated.
Employee Council update: (Tammy): See report on Outlook (4/10/15)
Faculty Handbook Committee (Olga): Dr. Viramontes reported on the work that has
been done by the Faculty Handbook Committee. Since a lot of this will be online in the
future, it has been difficult to finalize this project.
Unfinished Business and General Orders
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Assessment of Student Learning Name Change (Amy Garcia): As chair of ASL,
Amy proposed the name change to Assessment Committee so that it encompasses all
assessment, not just student learning. This was sent out to divisions by the
representatives and the divisions voted on this change to the bylaws. Every division
approved the change. Steve made the motion to change the name and Leilani seconded
the motion; it was unanimously approved.
New Business
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Student Evaluation issues: There were several sections of classes who either had the
student evaluations released early or did not have the evaluations released when all the
other classes did. It was suggested that Sue ask Dr. Walker to issue a memo mentioning
the issues and providing documentation should the affected parties need it for their
notebooks. Sue agreed and will report back before the end of the semester.
Temperature issues in buildings: Sue shared an email from Kathy Reddington in
which she explained inconsistencies with temperature in rooms and why those
inconsistencies occur. Because of the way the heating/cooling systems are set up, some
of this may be unavoidable. Kathy asked that anyone who had problems contact her
every time there was a problem. This way they could monitor the situation.
Meeting adjourned: 5:02 pm
Next Faculty Council meeting will be held Fall 2015