Provost and Executive Vice President John Wiencek presented the Faculty Senate with new ideas regarding centralized advising to alleviate confusion at Tuesday’s meeting.
Wiencek said he plans to form a larger group in order to address common confusions. The group will consist of deans, associate deans, student services directors, frontline advisors from the colleges and the appropriate provost staff. Wiencek said he hopes this group will clear up some of the confusion left over from the memo sent out earlier.
In addition to discussion on centralized advising, the senate passed a revision to the Faculty Staff Handbook clarifying the application schedule to apply for a sabbatical. Miranda Anderson, vice chair of the Faculty Senate, said the revisions involved the conflict of interest policy, reviewing only complete applications and clarifying the application process.
The change to the conflict of interest policy stems from a change in how sabbaticals are handed out, Anderson said. This is because sabbaticals are not funded through the Provost’s Office and there is no benefit to members of the Sabbatical and Leave Evaluation Committee (SLEC). Anderson said SLEC believes this policy is no longer necessary. Before, members on the committee could not participate in any discussions on all of the applications because of conflict of interest. Under the change, members now recuse themselves for their own application, Anderson said.
Post-doctoral student pay also sparked debate among the senate. Faculty Senate Chair Patrick Hrdlicka said the salary for teaching assistants (TA) is discipline specific and will not be uniform across the board. TAs will be paid based on market value — how much the discipline is paying for the job they are learning, Hrdlicka said.