Inside Iowa State

May 6, 2009

Senate closes books on 2008-09

by Erin Rosacker

The Faculty Senate approved a new Ph.D. program in the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication May 5 en route to closing out its 2008-09 business.

As proposed, the doctoral program in communicating science, technology and risk is meant for researchers, educators and communication practitioners and would be the first such specialization in the nation. It would be a research-based (rather than writing) degree, with interdisciplinary cooperation from many campus departments and units.

P&T report

Executive vice president and provost Elizabeth Hoffman gave an annual report on promotion and tenure. Seventy-one faculty members were promoted or granted tenure, three were denied and one faculty candidate was given a two-year extension on his tenure clock. All three denials were applications for promotion to associate professor with tenure; Hoffman said they also were rejected at the departmental and college levels.

The tenure and promotion approvals include:

• 20 promoted to professor (already tenured)
• 1 promoted to professor (with tenure)
• 47 promoted to associate professor (with tenure)
• 3 awarded tenure as associate professor

The full list of promotion and tenure awards is on the provost's web site.

Seven faculty members withdrew from consideration. Hoffman reported that two of three candidates who were granted tenure clock extensions 2007 earned tenure. The third faculty member left ISU for another institution.

A breakdown by gender and ethnicity shows that:

• All 22 female applicants were approved
• None of the applicants were classified as African American or Native American
• Both Hispanic American (1 male, 1 female) applicants were approved
• 13 Asian American (10 male, 3 female) applicants were approved

Other business

In other action, the senators approved:

• A by-laws change allowing electronic voting at senate meetings
• Faculty Handbook clarifications for developing or changing courses and curricula
• The 2009 spring graduation list

The senate will begin its 2009-10 meetings Sept. 8. Arnold van der Valk (ecology, evolution and organismal biology) and Mike Owen (agronomy) will serve as president and president-elect, respectively.