June 17, 2016
Highlights from the June 14 Faculty Senate meeting
Guests: Provost and Senior Vice President April Mason spoke to senators regarding K-State 2025's status, the current political climate and the budget. The university remains committed to K-State 2025. This marks the fifth year for the university plans, but only the fourth year for college plans and the third year for many department plans. One department head noted that his unit had been successful at the goals that depended on the faculty — increasing research funding, etc., but not at goals requiring resources — improving salaries, etc. Mason concurred. The political and budget situation are unclear with the special session about to begin. All faculty are encouraged to vote in the upcoming elections.
Consent agenda:
- President-Elect Brian Lindshield presented the consent agenda, which was approved. It included course and curriculum changes from the Colleges of Agriculture, Arts & Sciences, Education and Veterinary Medicine.
Standing committee and Student Senate reports:
- Academic Affairs: Sen. Teresa Hartman reported on the final meeting of Academic Affairs where posthumous degrees were discussed. In the fall they will review the interdisciplinary program approval process. Also, the Curriculog implementation team is in full swing. Four colleges have been identified to be a part of the pilot and the hope is that all colleges might be online in spring 2017.
- Faculty Affairs: Sens. David Lehman and Charlie Barden reported on the final meeting of FAC. Charlie Barden was elected as co-chair.
- Professional Staff Affairs, PSA: Sen. Loleta Sump reported that they met last on May 17 and elected her as co-chair.
- FSCOT: Sen. Michael Raine, co-chair of FSCOT, updated senators on a few technology related items. MediaSite migration is occurring. MediaSite is the online platform to store videos for programs like Canvas. Those videos have been stored off campus in the past, but a migration is now underway and the videos will be stored on campus. Updates can be found on the MediaSite website. Raine reported that Adobe Professional licenses were underutilized this year and if this pattern continues the cost may go up in the future. Finally, you should have received an email regarding completing the IT Security Awareness Training. It takes about 10-30 minutes to complete.
- FSCOUP: No report.
- Student Senate: Sen. Jack Ayres reported that three of the four leaders of the legislative and executive branch will be in Manhattan throughout the summer so he encourages faculty to feel free to reach out to him, Jessica, or Trenton with anything they'd like to discuss this summer.
Announcements
- President Andrew Bennett reported on the May 18 Kansas Board of Regents meeting. All of the Regent schools are roughly at the same point we are with regard to the weapons policy. Legislation was passed pertaining to Credit for Prior Learning and CLEP exams.
Discussion period for senators
- Discussion occurred regarding the status of the presidential search.
Minutes become available on the Faculty Senate website as they are approved.
Andrew Bennett
Faculty Senate President
Professor and Department Head
Mathematics
Kansas State University
138 Cardwell Hall
Manhattan, KS 66506