A promising speech by Iowa State President Martin Jischke headlined the monthly Faculty Senate meeting on Tuesday night.

Jischke reviewed the much-discussed promotion and tenure issue that had caused a mildly heated debate at last month’s meeting on Sept. 9.

The undergraduate education task force was outlined, mentioning specific ways to help ISU students. These included advising and mentoring programs, helping with the transition to ISU, teaching techniques, providing for needs of special students and the faculty reward structure.

The bulk of Jischke’s speech was spent answering questions from the senate about diversity on campus and Veishea.

Jischke has four plans to improve ISU’s standing on diversity issues, including affirming ISU’s commitment to diversity, weaving diversity into the curriculum, focusing on the retention and recruitment of various races and making the climate on campus suitable to all students.

Jischke also discussed the students’ pledge for a dry Veishea and negated the myth of an economic boom in Ames during the celebration.

“I have a deep respect for the students and, given time and the opportunities for discussion, we can resolve these issues surrounding Veishea,” Jischke said.

“It would be very easy for me to simply end Veishea,” he said. “But I decided to take a different route and involve the students in this decision.”

Jischke also was questioned about the tenure and academic freedom issue by members of the senate.

“I will refrain from this debate because it is essential that the faculty has an open debate about this before I put my own opinion in with the discussion.” Jischke said.

In other news, president-elect William Woodman, professor of sociology, commented about the promotional and tenure survey and foreshadowed some questions about the voting process.

“There seems to be a fear about a document no one has even seen yet,” Woodman said.

Suzanne Hendrich, professor of food science, covered the Faculty Development Administration Relations Council report and mentioned additional weight may be given to the faculty in the role of budget and planning at the university.

Provost John Kozak also discussed the tenure issue, asking the senate what constitutes faculty and how to define tenure.

Denise Vrchota, professor of journalism and mass communication, and Jack Griton, professor of zoology, reviewed the misconduct policy, which has been renamed the conduct policy.

The action items included a report by Richard Seagrave, professor of chemical engineering, from the committee to evaluate the office of the president. The report took 13 months to finalize, and the public can view the report on the Internet soon.

“Changes have already been made in response to this activity, and I think we will continue to see changes in the office of the president,” Seagrave said.

Thomas Polito, assistant professor of agronomy, spoke of special grade-point requirements and the progress that has been made on the debate.

Vrchota attempted to bring about a change to the meeting time of the faculty senate from the current 7:30 p.m. to 4 p.m.

Her main points in favor of the change were to have the senate meet on university time versus the senators’ personal time, having a strict time limit since the senate would need to adjourn by 6 p.m. and making meetings more open and convenient for the public.

Rebuttal arose to the fact that a majority of the public would still be at work at 4 p.m. and the senators would need to reschedule classes to work around the new time.

The time change proposal was voted down with a vote of 22 in favor and 32 opposed.

Vrchota also discussed the spring retreat topics for the Faculty Senate. The majority of the senators voted for the topic concerning the quality evaluation and control of teaching and teachers.

Veronica Dark, assistant professor of psychology, headed up the debate about the voting of the tenure issue. Voting would be done by the senators themselves or by each member of the faculty.

After some debate and questions, the resolution was tabled; however, an amendment to have the general faculty vote by a mail ballot was approved with a vote of 36-22.