A discussion on the new role of Veishea and a disagreement over a proposed amendment added spice to the usual Faculty Senate debate over promotion and tenure Tuesday night.

Thomas Hill, vice president of student affairs, said his work with the task force studies the quality of life of students living off campus, in the residence halls and in the greek system.

Hill also invited a student Veishea co-chair to the senate for discussion with the members over the new role of Veishea.

“This is going to be a change from recent years … this will be a 1998 version of Veishea,” Hill said.

Promotion and tenure issues were also elaborated and questioned.

Senator Bryan Cain, professor of mathematics, adamantly promoted his new amendment that will virtually erase the idea of post tenure review from the revised promotion and tenure document. The amendment was tabled with the trust that discussion over the changes will come in the January senate meeting.

In other news:

President William Woodman, professor of sociology, mentioned his concern over gold sheets of responsibility signed by professors, the university and contributors to research.

“If they [contributors] stop paying for the research, it will be the researcher’s problem,” Woodman said.

“This policy should be changed because if the university signs the sheet as a third party, then the university should be willing to collect the funds,” he added.

Both Woodman and Denise Vrchota, adjunct assistant professor of journalism and mass communication, urged the senate members to consider changing the time of the meetings to earlier in the day.

Vrchota discussed the Dec. 5 meeting with the Iowa State Faculty Women’s Network, which highlighted a gendered view of promotion and tenure.

“I would like to thank the committee for providing an additional opportunity to discuss this issue on campus,” Vrchota said.

Twenty-one women attended the meeting, and the group plans to hold similar discussions every month.

Vrchota announced the topic for the future faculty conference as “ISU, An Education One Institution?” and plans to have speaker Bill Bondeson from the University of Missouri at Columbia, as a guest.

Suzanne Hendrich, professor of food science and human nutrition, reminded the members to read over the midterm reports in the senate flyers that have been submitted by various committees.

The academic affairs committee invited Charles Schwab, assistant professor of agriculture and biosystems engineering, to explain his role at the office for disabled students and the process by which students are declared disabled.

Provost Jack Kozac mentioned the searches being done for new deans at the Women’s Center, computer center, college of liberal arts and sciences, college of education and the library.

Also, Kozac was questioned by senators interested in rumors about the status of affirmative action hiring at ISU.

“Affirmative Action is still the law of the land,” Kozac said.

“Iowa is still subject to civil rights legislation and we are in a very delicate stage in respect to the evolution of that law.”

Olivia Madison, interim dean of library services, went over the revised promotion and tenure document by focusing on the responsibility statements which would become a necessity with approval of the document.

“This asks us what we have done in the last five years of our lives … our souls are on the line,” said Joseph Hraba, professor of sociology. “Our peers will do a review on our work that takes days to finish and perfect and then, after all that, nothing may happen.”

Nominees for Faculty Senate President-elect include Dean Ulrichsen, professor of chemical engineering; Jack Girton, associate professor of zoology, and Hendrich.

More nominations will be taken in January.

In addition, the Department of Professional Studies moved to change their name to “the Department of Education and Leadership Policy Studies.”

The next faculty senate meeting will be held on Jan. 20 at 7:30 p.m. in the Scheman Building.