Iowa State’s Faculty Senate passed a proposal for the formation of a School of Education in its second meeting of 2011-2012 on Tuesday.

The proposal will now be sent to Provost Elizabeth Hoffman to forward to the university president.

A proposal renaming the department of apparel, educational studies and hospitality management to the department of apparel, events and hospitality management was unanimously passed for approval and will be sent to the provost as well.

The Faculty Senate also saw three new proposals that may be voted on at its next meeting.

Suzanne Hendrich, university professor of food science and human nutrition, presented a proposal to discontinue the insect science undergraduate major.

Hendrich also presented a proposal for the establishment of an undergraduate major in athletic training.

“This is important for the credibility of being a stand-alone major,” said Hendrich, referring to the proposal’s statement from the Commission on Accreditation of Athletic Training Education.

In order for Iowa State to maintain its accreditation, athletic training must be a stand-alone major by 2014-2015, she said.

Faculty Senate President Steven Freeman presented the final proposal of the day for the establishment of a Morrill professorship. Freeman, professor of agricultural and biosystems engineering and associate director of the Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching, said this has been in the works for some time and has been worked on by the necessary task forces to come to fruition.

“This will be similar in stature to the university professor and distinguished professor titles,” Freeman said. “It will evaluate and recognize career achievement in learning and is not restricted to just classroom learning.”

When asked about what makes this different from the already established professorship, Freeman said that while the distinguished professorship is a research-based award and the university professorship recognizes professors as being “change agents” on campus, the Morrill professorship will recognize teaching and learning that faculty do at a similar stature.

In order to be nominated, a candidate must hold the rank of professor and must have been on faculty at Iowa State for a minimum of five years.

Both Freeman and Hoffman addressed the senate to say thank you for all the help in the recent presidential search.

“These were widely attended with standing-room-only crowds,” Freeman said.

Hoffman said Dr. Steven Leath will be “an exciting new president” who will be on campus next week to meet with the ISU community and will be attending the Homecoming football game.

Hoffman also took time to recognize recent Nobel Prize winner Dan Shechtman, professor of materials science and engineering.

“It doesn’t get much better,” Hoffman said. “This is the first time a faculty member won on his or her own while on faculty at ISU.”

Hoffman said Iowa State has had winners in the past, but they won as part of a group.

Dr. Sharron Quisenberry, vice president for research and economic development, presented recent changes to the Institutional Review Board along with the Office for Responsible Research acting president, Jerry Zamzow.

The Faculty Senate will have its next meeting Nov. 8.