Meeting Minutes #190

Members Present: R. Boikess, D. Britton, M. Cotter, J. DeFilippis, M. Gliserman, T. Glynn, A. Gould (for H. Janes), S. Gully, M. Joo, M. Killingsworth, J. Kim, J. Langsam, X. Liu, K. McKeever, D. O’Connor (Chairperson), H. Sackrowitz, L. Schein, M. Schwander, J. Shapiro, T. Szatrowski, K. Thompson, E. Williams 
  
Non-Members Present: R. Edwards, K. Swalagin (Recording Secretary) 

1.         Call to Order and Chairperson’s Report – Daniel O’Connor, NBFC Chairperson 
  
Council Chairperson Daniel O’Connor called the 190th meeting of the New Brunswick Faculty Council (NBFC) to order at 1:17 p.m. on Friday, Marchh 8, 2013 in Room A/B of Brower Commons, College Avenue Campus. He said that copies of the Strategic Planning Retreat materials were available at the meeting, and asked everyone to review them, and to take a copy back to their department as well.
   
2.         Approval of Agenda 
  
The agenda for this meeting was approved by the Council.

3.        Approval of Minutes

Minutes of the February 1, 2013 NBFC meeting were adopted. 
  
4.         Administrative Report – Richard Edwards, Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs, and Interim New Brunswick Chancellor

Richard Edwards, Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs, and Interim New Brunswick Chancellor, presented an administrative report which included comments on:

• strategic planning events and processes;
• the state budget and Rutgers funding;
• ongoing administrative and staff searches;
• UMDNJ/Rutgers integration progress, and related addition of new Board of Governors members;
• higher education reorganization legislation, and related issues of new campus advisory boards at Rutgers, and the NBFC's opportunity to elect one person to the New Brunswick campus advisory board; and
• the as-yet unresolved issue of University Hospital in Newark.

  Edwards then responded to questions or heard comments on the above, as well as: 

• collaborative research at, and clinical relationships and debt related to, University Hospital;
• athletics subsidies and Big Ten funding;
• definitions of teaching assistants and graduate assistants at UMDNJ;
• tuition and staff transfers related to integration;
• cost of integration, and sources of funding thereof;
• how and where law schools will be combined;
• training in arts therapies;
• performance-based funding, and State of New Jersey Assembly Bill 3856 (copies of which were distributed at the meeting);
• international education and Rutgers' collaborative programs in China, Brazil, and elsewhere;
• student advising; and
• the need for a mechanism by which warning grades can be entered automatically by the registrar.

5.         Chairperson’s Report – Daniel O’Connor, New Brunswick Faculty Council Chairperson 
  
Dan O’Connor, NBFC Chairperson, presented a chairperson’s report which included comments on: 

• List of all New Brunswick/Piscataway tenured and tenure-track faculty received from Karen Stubaus: O'Connor wants to change the bylaws regarding membership. He said he may ask a Council committee to work with him on this before the next meeting. [Discussed further later in the meeting. See Item #7 below.]
• Reviving Council committees: O'Connor asked for suggestions for how the Council's committees can be made more effective.

6.        Pending Issues, Resolutions, and Actions - The following issues, resolutions and actions were discussed and acted upon as indicated:

7.        Proposed Bylaws Change

Current NBFC Bylaws specify one NBFC representative for departments with 15 or more tenure-track or tenured faculty. Smaller departments are aggregated to reach at least 15 total faculty. O'Connor proposed a bylaws change that would allow for one representative for each department regardless of the number of faculty. The proposed bylaws change was discussed by the Council. The agenda stated that, relative to this docketed item, "Today's objective is to initiate a discussion on this to get a 'sense of the body' on changing our Bylaws. If a majority agrees that each department should be entitled to one NBFC representative, then formal Bylaws changes will be initiated." The Council also discussed the pending request to have the NBFC recognized and authorized as the official spokesbody for the New Brunswick faculty, on which O'Connor said that Edwards has responded that he is not willing to do that this year while UMDNJ integration is pending. O'Connor's motion to amend the bylaws was seconded, and adopted by a show-of-hands vote. O'Connor will draft the language to change the bylaws to provide for one NBFC representative from each department, regardless of size. 

8.        Old Business

There was no old business.

9.        New Business

The Council discussed and accepted Harvey Waterman's request to allow a UMDNJ faculty member who is also a Rutgers faculty member by virtue of membership in a joint Rutgers/UMDNJ program to run for Graduate School-New Brunswick representative to the NBFC.

10:        Adjournment

The meeting adjourned at 3:38 p.m.

Minutes written and submitted by,
Ken Swalagin
Recording Secretary of the New Brunswick Faculty Council