Inside Iowa State

Jan. 27, 2006

Crase is next president-elect of Faculty Senate

by Dan Kuester

After three ballots, Sedahlia Crase was chosen the next president-elect of the Faculty Senate during its Jan. 17 meeting.

Crase, professor in the department of human development and family studies, outlasted three other candidates: Max Porter, Connie Post and Caroline Heising.

According to senate bylaws, a candidate must have a majority of the votes to win. After the first vote (on all candidates), none won a majority. The candidate with the fewest votes was removed from consideration and senators voted again on the three remaining candidates. Again, no majority was reached and the process was repeated. On the third ballot, Crase won her majority and the position of president-elect.

In other business, Bill Robinson of the Council on Judiciary and Appeals presented proposed amendments to the Faculty Handbook regarding appeals of administrative or other work-related decisions.

Currently, rules allow a case to be appealed to the Board of Regents, State of Iowa, twice -- once through the administrative appeals channel and once through the Faculty Senate Committee on Appeals. The changes recommended by the council would allow only one appeal to go to the board of regents, in an attempt to reduce repetition in the process.

A vote on the proposed changes is scheduled at the February meeting. Other items scheduled for a vote next month are:

• Proposed changes to the Faculty Handbook presented by Crase and related to the Position Responsibility Statement (PRS). The changes include a new procedure to handle disagreements when either the faculty member or department chair disagrees with a proposed change to the faculty member's PRS. Currently, no procedure exists.
• A proposal to offer an under-graduate certificate at ISU, presented by Ken Kruempel, chair of the Curriculum Committee. He described the undergraduate certificate as "more than a minor, but less than a major" area of study. The certificate would be awarded concurrently with or after the ISU bachelor's degree and when other criteria are met.
• Proposed changes to student academic probation, presented by Tom Polito, chair of the Task Force on Academic Probation. The recommendations keep the cumulative grade-point average as the base for making decisions, but advise that a new "warning" probationary status be issued for students who earn between 1.00 and 1.99 GPA in a single semester. Also, as proposed, students who earn less than a 1.00 for any semester or between 1.00 and 1.99 for any two consecutive semesters would be placed on academic probation.

The Faculty Senate elected Sedahlia Crase, professor of human development and family studies, as its next president-elect Jan. 17. She will serve as president of the senate during the 2007-08 year.