Minutes of the Steering Committee Meeting
12 April 2010
3:30 PM, 206 Samford Hall
(by Dennis DeVries, Secretary)

In Attendance:  Kathryn Flynn, Claire Crutchley, Mary Ellen Mazey, David Shannon, Emmett Winn, Bill Hames, Russ Muntifering, Bob Locy, Dennis DeVries

Absent:  Jim Wright, Larry Crowley

--The meeting was called to order at 3:31 PM

--The minutes of the 22 March 2010 Steering Committee meeting was approved without change. 

--There will be one more Steering Committee meeting before the May Senate meeting, so there is some time to plan for that meeting. 

--We discussed whether the proposed changes in the Promotion and Tenure policy can be brought to the Board of Trustees at their June meeting.  If so, they need to go to the Senate prior to that.  We discussed the process for bringing them to the Senate, possibly going to the Senate meeting in May in concept, then to the Faculty Handbook Review Committee, and then back to the Senate in June which would be prior to the Board of Trustees meeting the 3rd week of June. 

--The Conflict of Interest Policy will need to go to the Senate; Kathryn will need to get in touch with the Vice President for Research office about this. 

--We discussed bring the changes to the final exam policy to the Senate.  It would be good to have a policy in place by the start of fall semester. 

--The May agenda may be limited to these action items with no information items.  This will require some additional discussion. 

--Some items to consider for the June Senate meeting include: academic honesty policy, Teaching Effectiveness Committee report, athletics report, Honors College report, GAP policy report. 

--We also need to get to work on the Ombudsperson’s position. 

--We then discussed several policies from the Graduate School and concluded that George Flowers likely should come to the next Steering Committee meeting. 

--We need a name for a committee that Bliss Bailey is putting together concerning the university email program.  Dennis DeVries will serve on this committee. 

--The meeting was adjourned at 4:45 PM.