Faculty Senate conveyed their first meeting of the spring semester on Jan. 21 at the University of Idaho.
The meeting started with a moment of silence for former Interim Athletic Director Pete Isakson then led into an update on program prioritization and reaching R1 research classification.
Big-ticket items:
- Provost John Wiencek said the task force for program prioritization has been discussing how to evaluate programs.
- Guidelines on how to objectively rate each program have not been finalized Wiencek said.
- Changes were made to language about office hours in the faculty staff handbook to allow office hours to be held over email, Alexandra Teague, chair of faculty affairs, said.
- These changes were meant to include classes taught entirely online, Teague said.
- Working group announced they would investigate moving to R1 research classification and what it would take, Associate Vice President of Research Brad Ritts said.
Ritts said R1 is a classification the university can choose to pursue and is given out by Indiana University to denote research capabilities. Ritts said R1 is a top tier research university. Since 2015, UI has been labeled an R2 institution and sits on the edge of being an R1, Ritts said.
The working group is currently looking at the requirements to become an R1 and what UI would need to change to get there by 2021 when the next classification comes out. Currently, UI is an R2 university because they reach the minimum requirement of spending $5 million and produce at least 20 graduate students a year Ritts said.
Kali Nelson can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @kalinelson6