December 2019 Faculty Senate Meeting

Frostburg State’s Faculty Senate convened for their monthly meeting on Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2019, at 4:00 p.m. 

First on the agenda was the announcement of Senate meetings for the Spring 2020 semester.  The Senate meets on the first Wednesday of the month in the Lane Atkinson Room. The dates for the Spring semester are as follows:  February 5, March 4, April 1, and May 6 of 2020.  The Faculty Assembly will convene on January 29 and April 29 of 2020 at 4 p.m, location to be determined. 

Reports from the Chair of the Faculty Senate Dr. Ben Norris, the Academic Affairs Committee, Faculty Concerns Committee, Graduate Council, Institutional Priorities & Resources Committee, and the Council of University System Faculty were distributed to members of the Senate electronically. These reports can be found in the December 4, 2019 agenda here. 

Dr. Liz Throop, Frostburg State’s Provost, gave an oral report to the Senate, in which she spoke of a potential implementation of course cancellation policy, the visits of candidates for the new Dean of the College of Education, and the development of a formal process for students to report general academic complaints. Currently, FSU does not have a formal process, yet it is required by the Department of Education.

Leon Wyden, Vice President of Administration and Finance, also reported to the Senate about what goes into planning a budget and how FSU’s budget panned out this fiscal year. He also presented a comparison of undergraduate enrollment over the past five years, which has decreased slightly since 2014. In addition, he displayed a comparison of the 2019 Fiscal Year and the 2020 Fiscal Year, in which the FY2020 budget currently has a 3.3 million dollar shortfall. He also spoke of the University’s plans to do facility renovations across campus, beginning with the Chesapeake Teaching Kitchen, new student collaborative areas on campus, as well as HVAC and other facility upgrades in several of our academic buildings. Wyden also showed a prototype of the new Education and Health Sciences building, which will have its groundbreaking in Spring of 2020.

The Faculty Senate considered and subsequently approved several agenda items at the Wednesday meeting, the most important of which being granting emeritus to two excellent faculty members, Professor Randall Bandura of the Department of Accounting and Dr. William Childs of the Department of Educational Professions, as well as several requests from various departments and committees. The Senate first approved a motion to adopt a consent agenda for their spring semester meetings. Second, the Senate tabled a request from the Institutional Priorities and Resources Committee to approve a new process to “increase faculty, department, and governance participation in the review of low-productivity programs and the gathering and providing of evidence to sustain such programs.”  This request will be revisited at a subsequent Faculty Senate meeting next semester. 

An important outcome from the meeting was the Senate’s approval of a request from the Department of Educational Professions to add a new concentration to the already existing Elementary Education major. This concentration, containing 30 credit hours, will create new classes including Special Education 205, 305, 390, 405, and 407, as well as the approval of changes within the Psychology Department to “better align [the] Emphasis in Addictions Counseling with the requirements of the Maryland State Board of Professional Counselors and Therapists.” 

The Faculty Senate also approved a request from the Faculty Concerns Committee to “amend the date by which the Provost must issue the call for Tenure/Permanent Status and/or Promotion applications.” The request amended the date to be Sept. 1, as opposed to the then-current date of Oct. 15 with applications due just two weeks later. Also approved was the request by the College of Business to create a Post-Baccalaureate Certificate in Business Analytics, Health Care Management, and Management, as well as the deletion of old or outdated courses within the College of Education. 

Finally, the Faculty Senate approved an amended version of the Academic Advising Mission and Goals, which now reads:

“Frostburg State University:

• Fosters a campus culture where advising is a shared responsibility essential to the education experience and student success;
• Empowers students, faculty, and staff to utilize university and professional resources to promote students’ ability to navigate college and achieve their goals;
• Offers a college experience where holistic engagement prepares students to meet the challenges of a diverse, complex, and changing global society.”

The Faculty Senate will convene again in 2020.