Inside Iowa State

March 9, 2007

Faculty Senate approves new degrees

by Erin Rosacker

A pair of degrees under consideration received unanimous support in voting at the Faculty Senate's March 6 meeting, but revisions to the policy that determines University and Distinguished Professorships will have to wait.

The College of Business hopes to offer its first-ever Ph.D. in the fall of 2008. The degree in business and technology will feature three areas of specialization -- customer relationship management, management of information technology and supply chain management. The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences hopes to offer its interdisciplinary bachelor's degree in bioinformatics and computational biology this summer.

The proposed degrees still need approval from the president, provost and Board of Regents, State of Iowa.

Decision delayed

A vote on revisions to the policy outlining University and Distinguished Professorships was postponed until the March 27 meeting by a motion from senator Ted Bailey (statistics).

The first change -- which sends recommendations for Distinguished Professor directly from the nomination review committee to the provost, eliminating a stop with the senate's executive board -- was not questioned. It was the revised definition of University Professor -- which emphasizes a candidate's contributions to institutional change, rather than measuring the individual's institutional service -- that Bailey challenged.

"I don't know what it means to focus on institutional change," Bailey said. "I think people can focus on their work and their contributions, and then if changes occur, why not let those people be rewarded."

Bailey encouraged senators to take a look at the 2001 version of the policy and compare the language and length of the definition in both documents.

"I think it could be written a little more carefully, a little shorter," Bailey said. "What's wrong with putting it off and having a chance to look at it?"

Although members of the conference committee that developed the revisions urged senators to reconsider the motion, no action was taken and the vote was postponed.

Task force report available

Senate president Gregory Palermo announced that the task force studying non-tenure eligible research faculty has posted its report online. The task force recommended the development of a policy to govern the appointment and review of non-tenure eligible research (NTER) faculty, as well as implementation of an NTER faculty track.

Palermo said the executive board has asked the governance council and the faculty development and administrative relations council to work on an NTER policy statement. Task force recommendations for the development of this policy include guidelines for: governance, appointment policies and procedures, renewals, and evaluation and review.

Holy days and disabilities?

Palermo also announced that the academic affairs council is considering guidelines for observation of religious holy days. He said the council, which is working with the provost office and the Government of the Student Body, discovered that religious observances were already included in the policy that deals with accommodating learning disabilities.

"It is not the policy of the university that religion and disability be together," said Elizabeth Hoffman, executive vice president and provost. "We can't quite figure out how they ended up together in the same policy, but we really are going to work to make sure that there is separate recognition of religious observances."

In other business, the committee to review the office of the president and the president is preparing reports -- both public and private -- for completion this academic year. The group plans to present president Gregory Geoffroy and board of regents president Michael Gartner with a draft of the report in early April. The report will then be finalized, sent to Palermo and presented to the senate.

Proposed degrees from the College of Business (Ph.D. in business and technology) and College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (B.S. in bioinformatics and computational biology) were given unanimous approval by the Faculty Senate.