Minutes of the Academic Council Meeting
January 20, 2005

XXXX, 13 The meeting was called to order at 1:30 p.m. by President Michael Hilgers. Roll call was taken, and absentees noted were: Pericles Stravropolous, Jennifer Leopold, V.A. Smaranayake, Massimo Bertino, Robert Stone, Neil Book, Levent Acar, Hal Nystrom, S.N. Balakrishnan, H.S. Tsai, Bih-Ru Lea, Duo Zhang, and Gary Thomas.

There was a motion and second to approve the minutes of the November 11, 2004 Academic Council meeting. The Academic Council body voted to accept the minutes. There was also a motion and second to approve the special meeting minutes of December 1, 2004 . The Academic Council body voted to accept the minutes.  

1 REPORTS AND RESPONSES

A. PRESIDENT'S REPORT - Michael Hilgers

a Board of Curators will be here on April 8, 2005 and there will be a breakfast at the Havener Center as a meet and greet. All academic council members are invited and encouraged to attend.

b Faculty Accomplishment System – No paper based faculty activity report this year, and a memo with web link for the URL will be sent out soon so that you can start entering information.

c IFC – next meeting is coming up shortly. Couple of items of concern that the committee has been discussing. Curator’s Professorships and distinguished teaching professorships, and general policies regarding those. A topic is IFC as far linking all four campuses as common calendars.

d Strategic Planning is ongoing. Monday is strategic planning meeting day at 117 Fulton Hall at 11:00 , and is open to the faculty and meetings are pretty regular on Mondays.

e Provost Shah and Vice-Provost Harvest Collier have asked that we participate in the next NCA Accreditation cycle.

f Working on processes, when there is a motion that affects the Provost, we will send a letter to the Provost that informs him of the motions.

g Another part of our processes in order to create a paper trail, we are requesting that if you know that you will have a motion, then we ask that these motions be made in writing, particularly committee motions so we can refer back to them.

C. CHANCELLOR'S REPORT - Provost Y. T. Shah

a Chancellor Thomas is presenting a proposal to alumni on raising $5 million for the new Mechanical Engineering Building (Toomey Hall). If successful, we are hoping that we can start construction in this calendar year.

b Appropriations for next year will be flat, but we are working for an increase. We will be lucky if we don’t get a cut.

c International Students groups have been working with other organizations in Rolla to help with the Tsunami relief.

D. PROVOST'S REPORT - Y. T. Shah

a You already have my report according to the new rule of sending out information via e-mail to everyone. Research is looking good, and numbers are up. With all of the problems the government is having, we are hopeful that we will get the same amount of money. Undergraduate and graduate studies have in their reports a number of things going on. I have received the two motions from the president of AC council regarding tenure and tenure track faculty. I am in support of the motions; we just need to work out the details on how we are going to proceed with this.

3 REPORTS OF STANDING AND SPECIAL COMMITTEES

a Budgetary Affairs – This report was presented by Don Myers. Met and reviewed the proposals for a Master of Business Administration and Bachelor of Science in Bioengineering for budgetary considerations. Motion: It is recommended to Academic Council that before acting on these proposals that it requests the campus administration to provide a plan on how the campus can fiscally implement all three projects in FY2006.

Moved into discussion. A motion was made and passed to remove the clause "…before acting on these proposals". A clarification was made, and accepted; to remove the wording It is recommended: Academic Council requests the campus administration to provide a plan on how the campus can fiscally implement all three projects (Bioengineering, MBA, and Toomey Hall) in FY2006 for the next Academic Council meeting. The motion passed on a voice vote.

b Curricula Committee– This report was made by Charles Chusuei. Report was sent out electronically to the faculty. DC 149 was forwarded to Budgetary Affairs for their approval. A motion was made from the floor to go ahead and approve this. Academic Council approves DC 149 with the stipulation that budgetary considerations may delay implementation. There was discussion on motion, and then the motion was voted on and passed with a voice vote. DC 145 was also forwarded to Budgetary Affairs for their approval. Another motion was made from the floor: Academic Council approves DC 145 with the stipulation that budgetary and graduate faculty considerations may delay implementation. There was discussion on the motion, and then a voice vote was taken with the vote not being distinguishable, so a hand vote was taken with 8 in favor and 8 opposed. The tie was broken with the academic council president voting in favor of the motion.
Recommends the following DC forms 137, 139, 141, 142, 144, and 147 be approved. Motion was made to approve, and a voice vote was taken and approved. The committee recommended 36 course changes be made, with a voice vote taken and approved.

c Student Affairs – there is no report this time, but will be one at the next meeting.

d Public Occasions – was presented and two proposed calendars that needed approval. Voice vote was taken on calendars and passed.

 

4 NEW BUSINESS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS

a Strategic Planning Steering Committee – Motion by Mike Hilgers: I move that Academic Council respectively request the Strategic Planning Steering Committee hold a series of open forums to inform and engage the campus community. In particular the open forums should summarize key discussion items that have occurred in the prior months and address major concerns in the plan as it develops. The forums should be regularly scheduled and announced through email and eConnection. Academic Council also welcomes participation by students and staff in these forums. There was no discussion and motion was voted on and passed unanimously on a voice vote.

b Staff Council: No report

c Student Council: No report

d Council of Graduate Students: No report

e Council of Graduate Students - no report.

f Referrals - Two referrals. First one from November from how various IT funds had been spent over the last few years. Referred to Budgetary Affairs – Don Myers. Unified calendar referred to public occasion’s committee.

Mike Hilgers adjourned the meeting at 3:00 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,
(electronically submitted, 02/09/2005 )
Kurt Kosbar, Secretary

*Minutes of the Academic Council are considered official notification and documentation of actions approved.