President Gregory Geoffroy told the Faculty Senate Tuesday night he plans to use extra revenue in the current fiscal year to increase the number and quality of Iowa State’s faculty.

“It is important to restore our faculty numbers to a level consistent with our aspirations,” Geoffroy said.

Every time there are available resources, Geoffroy said, he plans on allocating it toward faculty retention and replacement.

Geoffroy also wants to increase the excellence of the faculty.

“With every faculty member we hire, we need to believe they have the potential to be a leader in their field,” he said.

Michael Mendelson, professor of English, reported on the progress made by the ISUComm Steering Group. ISUComm is a faculty-based initiative for improving students’ communication skills.

Mendelson said the group is in the piloting and implementation process. The ISUComm curricular plan includes six credits of foundation courses to replace current English 104 and 105 classes. Also included are upper-level curricula to develop a student’s communication skills in their major department.

“This is a major initiative. There isn’t one person here that won’t be affected,” said Max Wortman, Faculty Senate president.

The senate also passed a motion recommending the replacement of the current Academic Information Technologies spam-detection software with a more effective system.

Jean Opsomer, associate professor of statistics, said AIT will change its current software on Oct. 28 so any e-mail detected as spam will not show so in the subject header.

Kevin Schilling, associate professor of music, said he worried about AIT’s ability to manipulate e-mail.

The senate also passed a motion recommending to the administration that all steps be taken to reduce or eliminate the use of social security numbers in identifying university employees to groups outside Iowa State. The motions will be sent to the president for consideration.

The Faculty Senate will meet again at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 12 at the Gateway Center.

WEB FEATURE

See highlights of President Geoffroy’s speech in digital video